While I've spent the last 12+ years working for the leading Chemical Raw Materials Distributor in the industry the key to my companies success has always involved creating unique, value-added relationships in an industry where customers & competitors often times attempt to commoditize our products & services.

Tom Reilly's Value-Added Selling is an extremely refreshing book to read because it focuses on and responds to the real challenges that sales organizations are forced to face today regardless of the size of the company or the product being sold to the customer.

Value-Added Selling has given my sales team & myself more energy & confidence to stay focused on selling value ( & not just price ) while competing in the chemical commodities industry!!

The easy writing style of Tom Reilly and the hands-on experience he brings to the topic helps even a novice like me understand the concepts of Value Added. I think, though, that anyone in sales, new to the field or an "old dog," will find some great ideas that will help them sell Value Added in this slowly reviving economy.

This is the best book on professional selling I've read in years. Value-added Selling, like many of Tom Reilly's books, is jam-packed with practical ideas for salespeople. What I especially liked was the flow of the material--one idea builds on the previous idea. Tom makes it easy to embrace the value-added philosophy.

They will never return it. It is that good of a book. Starts with introduction on how these men started it from WWII and walks the reader through the history of how it all got started.

This book was a required read for a college course that I took on the CIA & Congress. I found this to be an excellent book - full of substance, loaded with information, and a very easy read. Thomas's book was one of the very few required reads that I've actually completed of my own accord. I highly recommend this book to those who are looking for an in-depth study on the inner workings of the CIA's beginnings.

I almost broke two fountain pens on this book, and that is close to my highest compliment. Depending on one's mood, it will move any person with a deep knowledge of intelligence to tears or laughter. This is a really superior detailed look at the men that set the tone for clandestine operations in the 20th century: "Patriotic, decent, well-meaning, and brave, they were also uniquely unsuited to the grubby, necessarily devious world of intelligence." From card file mentalities to Chiefs of Station not speaking the language, to off-the-cuff decision making and a refusal to include CIA analysts in strategic deliberations, this is an accurate and important study that has not gotten the attention it merits from the media or the oversight staffs.

Get this book!
Five of the articles included in this anthology just plain made me mad! That's why I gave it 5 stars. How many books can do that these days? There are about 85 pieces in the book, most originally printed in tEM (although there is an entire virtual issue included) with something for everyone. (And very likely at least one that will make you mad!)
The intellectual level of the discussion in the Excluded Middle is a lot higher than that found in other 'zines covering the conspiracy/UFO/weirdness communities. The anthology is definitely worth the purchase price, just as the magazine is worth seeking out. (It is unfortunately hard to get.) If you've never seen the magazine, get the book and see what you've been missing.
...and you gotta love any book edited while listening to both Captain Beefheart and The Who.
Get this book!
Now!

If you read Fortean Times or a reader of Charles Fort you'll love this book. Totally enjoyable.

Huge compilation of the great but obscure "Excluded Middle" magazine. Forget the Weekly World News, Fate, or any of the rest - this is the real thing! For once some intelligent people have gotten together to talk about conspiracies, UFOs, and the paranormal. An indispensable guide for the new millennium.

This is a great tool for triathletes. A great variety of workouts for the pool, bike and running. It's great for those who don't have a coach around to give workouts- just flip open the book and go. It holds up in the water- I, of course had to test the title and dunked the book in the water. It held up just fine & is ready for the next workout.

Here is my case, I used to swim in a team a few years ago, and it was fun but then I had to quit due to lack of time, now since sports is a very important part of my life I came back but got bored from swimming laps and doing the same thing all the time, and when I tried to mix some training drills my muscules hurt a lot. Now that I bought this book I can't wait for the swimming session every single day, it has so many programs that you just can't get bored, and most important it has 3 parts in every day that you swim - warm up, main training program, and relaxation which is very important. This book is a must have for every serious or professional swimmer who swims alone and without a trainer.

I loved this book! As a new swimmer, it was very helpful, especially the section where the author describes terms used in swimming. My swimming partner, a seasoned swimmer, loved the book so much that she immediately ordered a copy. We shared the book between two lanes and were able to flip back from the basic workout (for me) to a more advanced workout for her. During our first workout I accidentally dropped the book in the water. I dried it off and it is as good as new.

I thought that this book was great. I am not a reader of mystery, but purchased this book in its original hardcoer back in 1983. I wanted to solve the case, but never did. I have since miss placed my copy and would love to find another. If anyone can help please do. I could not put this book down, I know I read it at least 10 times, trying to solve it time after time. If I had a copy, now I'm sure that the mind of a 30 yr old is better than the mind of 14 yr old(as I was) when I first read this wonderful book. Any info on obtaining a copy, would be welcom, my e-mail is ladydraak @webtv.net.

I've just read this book for the first time. It took me all of two hours. I REALLY want to know who killed the Robins family. Anyone who can help is perfectly free to write me. PLEASE!

I read this book when it first came out. I never learned who killed the Robins Family. I did enter the contest and sent for the answer, but changed address. I heard that two women who put their heads together solved the case. kalay

I'm on the board of Christian Business Leaders (http://www.cblw.org) and we have an extensive library of Christian business-related books. Women, Faith and Work is one of the best books we have for women. It is written by the Life@Work company, which is highly respectable. The women interviwed for the book clearly have close relationships with Christ, their famlies and co-workers. They are excellent examples of what it means to have faith in Christ during hard times and giving Him credit in successful times. The women share their failures and successes leaving no stones unturned. I also recommend the companion book The Fourth Frontier. It really is a companion book for Christian men.

We rarely get the chance to get close to someone who has a significant position in business or a profession. Even if we hear that she is a Christian, we often have to watch from afar to see how she works out her faith in the workplace. Lois Flowers has bridged that gap by providing ten intimate portraits of women who have meshed faith and business practice. These are honest women who let us know where they have failed and where they have struggled, but who hold out the example that our jobs can be platforms for the glory of God--even high-stakes jobs where the cross is more apt to be an offense to non-believers.

Women, Faith and Work takes you into the lives of ten remarkable women. Each one being very different from the rest. The tie that binds these women is their unfaltering faith and service to our Creator. No matter the routine of their day, each manages to have their priorities in order: God, family, then work. This book serves as an inspiration to women who struggle to meet society's expectations of the successful businesswoman, or even the successful mom. Each woman interviewed glorifies God through her work. They prove that putting our lives into the right perspective, which is God's perspective, serves as the best tool for success. Their examples make it evident that when we submit to His will for our lives, we experience our success--the success He has destined for our earthly lives. These women show us how to give God the credit for our blessings and, in that, witness to others. This book is a must-read for any woman with a desire to find the perfect plan for her life...God's plan.

Bernhard brings you uncomfortably inside his body, as he squirms through an evening with "friends"
After the first page the book becomes repetitive, and after 20 pages you want to scream. But there is so much subversive intelligence and humor to the ravings of this self-loating old man, that you can't put this book down. Part of the success of the work undoubtedly is how closely it describes real people, the blowhards that were part of Bernhard's circle in contemporary Vienna. He is unsparing of them, and the narrative of the book is driven by Bernhard's petty and loving appreciation of the failures of artistic aspiration.

Woodcutters is definitely my favourite novel by Thomas Bernhard. It is Thomas Bernhard at his best. He got sued by former friends of his when he published the book so as in many of his books the narrator is very close to or maybe even identical with Thomas Bernhard himself.

Basically, the book consists of two parts. In the first part, the narrator sits in a chair and watches his hosts plus their other guests waiting for an actor to have dinner. The narrator had bumped into his hosts whom he hadn't seen for many years and they had invited him to join their dinner. A mutual friend of them had just committed suicide so he had felt obliged to join them - much to his regret. The second part describes the actual dinner. However, most of the book consists of what the narrator is thinking about his former friends, about friendships in general and about relationships between people. This nearly endless rant evolves around every possible aspect and like a surgeon Bernhard cuts deep into what everybody takes for granted and lays open treachery, lies, and hypocrisy (If you believe in family values and in a good world, this book might disturb you quite a bit!). As I mentioned before, old friends of Bernhard's sued him when the book was published because it was too obvious he was actually referring to them - and he was showing them in a way nobody would possibly want to be shown. This is not to say that Bernhard is necessarily a misanthrop. Quite surprisingly, when the narrator leaves the dinner table abruptly, he runs back home "through Vienna the city I loved like no other city" - quite a surprise after his Vienna-bashing. To me, Thomas Bernhard always was a deeply disturbed person who hated the world because it wasn't as nice as he wanted to believe it was.

I first read about Thomas Bernhard in a tribute to and general review of his works in believe it or not Details magazine, back in the days when it was slightly more intellectual, and less hairspray and BS. I was very intrigued by what the reviewer said about his writing style, which used little punctuation and basically no paragraph indentations. I was also turned on by the fact that he was originally trained as a musician (as I am), and apparently constructed his writing in a parallel fashion to the structures of music. The review below is excellent, but it refers to Bernhard's novel Gargoyles (and maybe should have one of those italicized Amazon messages saying this refers to a different book by the author), which in my opinion was a little harder to get into, but is still a fascinating book, as the reviewer relates very well. The plot of Woodcutters revolves around a musician who has experienced the suicide of a very close friend. The entire book takes place from the corner of a room where the musician sits at a party, and we are allowed into his mind as he relates the unfolding of what turns out to be a fairly disastrous evening among people he has learned to despise over the time since the death of his friend. The people at the party are all artists and musicians as well, and for those of you who have spent some time in the arts community you will relate to some of the observations the narrator makes about these folks (you will enjoy it even if you aren't an artist, though). The book is dark, cynical, and funny. I can't imagine there would be anyone who couldn't relate to a few things in this novel in this day and age. Highly recommended.

When I read this book in 1997, I enjoyed it. Later, as I began to digest the information and reflect on it, a whole new world began to open up for me. The result was a complete therepeutic transformation of my life and relationships. Now, three years later, I still refer to this book on a regular basis. It has captured my imagination, and I continue to read the materials referred to in Tom's sources.

Tom's book gets to the heart of whatever it is within us that blocks or prevents us from making real, substantive and sustainable progress toward our goals. It goes deeper than the countless lifeless self-help books that leave you feeling empty or that start with good ideas but end up only cheerleading the disempowered. It cuts through the lies we tell ourselves, and the excuses or defenses we often give others, and empowers us to face the real truth by causing us to ask, "What is my true motivation--and what do I have to be afraid of by making that truth known?"

Probably the most helpful thing about this book is that it helps us handle life's ironies, paradoxes, and contradictions more creatively as we explore hidden beliefs and assumptions that often lock up our creativity and quietly sabotage our relationships and personal effectiveness.

For example, for many years my wife and I were stifled by either/or thinking. We either agreed or we didn't, and each of us was either right or wrong--which seems to make all the sense in the world, right? We both wanted the best for our marriage, but despite our best intentions things only seemed to get worse with us. It seemed that if we didn't agree 100 percent, we would ultimately have to see this play out in the real world, and someone would be disappointed and possibly resentful as a natural consequence. Also, we wondered why we couldn't simply "grow up" and allow differences of opinion to exist--and why we could never both be right, but for different reasons. The result was that whoever "won" an argument by strength of logic or manipulation (pouting or complaining) had the luxury of getting his or her way. Not until much later did we realize how damaging this had been to our relationship. After all, the person that didn't get his or her way seemed to resent it for months, feeling victimized or cheated, while the other person would soon forget about the whole thing and ask months later, "What's your problem?"--creating a whole new and ugly debate about something that seemed to be "resolved."

Tom's technique of "holding the tension"--one of the many powerful ideas in this book--offers a new perspective. Neither person is "right" or "wrong," "smart" or "stupid." Instead, the ideas of both sides are valued, even if they are apparently contradictory. It requires both people to listen more carefully--not only to what the other person is saying, but also to what hidden assumptions and beliefs lie buried in your own soul that might be uncovered as you listen. It requires each side to admit that their own motivations are not always squeeky clean, either, before judging the other person. Often, these silent motivators are hidden even to ourselves, and only through our reactions and responses to others can we glimpse them in action.

Consequently, by using some of these ideas, my wife and I have slowly improved our ability to communicate--to remain in difficult dialog without storming off, to express our strong opinions without being called out, to see an accusation or complaint as a call of the soul rather than a call to arms, and to find alternatives that demand neither compromises or battles. It has given us tools that have allowed us to increase measurably in personal effectiveness and consciousness, as well as in our maturity and relationship with each other.

I found the book to be very useful in helping me understand why I do things that are destructive to myself and to others. The author gives very logical and persuasive arguments along with research by other noted experts of human psychology and spirituality. It's a definite read if you are on a journey of spiritual enlightenment and personal and professional growth.

Many of us have focused a good portion of our lives working on our principles and habits in search of balance and harmony. In program after program we are taught simply to replace unproductive and ineffective habits and thoughts with better, more empowering ones. Most of us realize at some point that something is seriously missing in this approach. In this book, Tom Riskas helps us understand why. He shows us how to work at a much deeper level, "beneath the surface," to integrate ALL of the forces at work in our lives. He tells us how to get in touch with our soul's hidden agenda -- the one that is naturally striving for wholeness, whether we realize it or not. For the first time, someone helps us integrate the productive and effective sides of our personality ALONG WITH the darker sides that we've been trying to ingnore and suppress. As a former teacher of "principles of effectiveness" he knows as well as anyone that in order to truly have the breakthroughs that help us get control of our lives on a sustained basis, we must be willing to suffer -- to do hard work at a core level to understand and work with our hidden agenda. The rewards are huge. His book is excellent. Very insightful and full of personal experience and practical advice. But for it to be of value, you have to be willing to do some intense personal work. This is not the book for the person looking for the next popular "effectivess" program.

"Yes" is the story of a man who lives in rural Austria, a scientist with an overactive imagination, and a psychologically oversensitive nature. His friend, a real-estate agent, sells a highly undesirable plot of land to a Swiss couple, a man retiring from a successful career as a power-station architect, and his female companion, a middle-aged Persian woman. The narrator strikes a friendship with the woman, and finds her his intellectual equal, or at least his emotional one. He wonders why this couple has chosen that horrible plot of land (which his friend had never previously been able to sell), and why they are building an ugly home on it.

He begins to suspect the retiring architect does not treat his female companion with as much respect as she deserves. He retreats into his home for a time, trying to get away from the world, in a fit of general agitation and anxiety, but eventually returns to his friends' company, and deepens his friendship with the Persian woman, who seems to be growing apart from her companion. The novel ends with an emotional shock, summarizing the story's happenings, and explaining it in highly dramatic terms.

This novel is unequivocally brilliant. Thomas Bernhard (1931-1989) does not employ a style easy to understand at first, but it is worth every ounce of energy invested. For example, he has written this short novel with no paragraph breaks whatsoever. (The book is 135 pages long, but the type is larger than usual and the pages shorter than usual.)

Bernhard writes in an overflowing, fulsome style, not unlike Samuel Beckett, full of language, full of description, incessant, and captivating. This is exactly his strategy: he is trying to capture the reader by forcing them to expend so much energy following his text, his narrative, his story, and his unusual style, that the final words of the story will hit the reader like a ton of bricks. This is Bernhard's signature, and this novel is a fantastic example.

Any reader should try this novel who is interested in an inventive, experimental novel, but one which does not veer too far from normal story-telling. Berhard's novels, for all their roller-coaster style, are actually quite conventional, and "Yes" is a great introduction to his literary work. His vocabulary is sharp, his characters are well spun, his occasional insights are spectacular, and his stories are intruiguing. This novel is highly recommended for anyone wishing to sharpen their mind, find a new adventure after having enjoyed Beckett's works, or introduce themself to one of the finest writers of the 20th century.

This novel was my first exposure to Thomas Bernhard and I have to admit I was initially put off by its style. Some of the sentences went on for a page and half, using only commas as punctuation. After the first page or two I began to enjoy it. The plot is very simple. The narrator is a scientist who has retired to the Austrian countryside to conduct his research on antibodies. At first he believes that the isolation will benefit his studies but gradually, he works less and less, due to the great depression that comes over him. He begins to cut off all relations with the outside world, keeping only a token connection with his friend, Moritz. When he comes to recognize that his mind can only be stimulated by socializing with other people it is too late. He cannot free himself of his terrible loneliness. It's been so long since he has communicated with a human being he doesn't know where to start. All this changes when a Swiss engineer and a Persian woman show up at Moritz's house to buy a plot of land to build a home on. Talking with the woman, the narrator finds new life, but tragically, it will be shortlived.

This is a great novel. I have never seen the mindset of isolation and the depression that follows better portrayed. The style of the piece lends itself to a breathless reading. You don't notice that periods are scarce after a while. It has an exquisite flow to it. All the characters are nicely done. The translation is excellent. I really have nothing negative to say about it.

I have long been a fan of Bernhard, and this is one of my favorites. It appears to be less ambitious than his "masterpieces," but this untrue. I find it to be one of his most intimate, intelligent, comical and most brutal pieces of work. It is incredibly concise and as readable as "Wittgenstein's Nephew." It contains everything one desires of Bernhard, due in part to the fine translation, stripped down to the to the bone. Something is always lost in translation, but an excellent ear and eye has been at work here. It is a poetic masterpiece with blinding light, brialliant language, and a twisted satori. Aside from the politcal, moral, social and philosophical criticism that is Bernhard's trademark, there is a unbelievable consecration between the author and reader that takes place and demands that "you must change your life." If you allow it to happen you will be left with nothing but an eyelash and a sock, but you will find that the author with all his vitriol,sarcasm,and "so black it's blue" humor, has still preserved what is best in the human heart, and damn, he tells a good story.

This book describes ways you can build or fix up your house frugally. It discusses aspects of homeownership I'd never thought of before from the perspective of someone who's been there. Most useful for those who are trying to minimize their housing expenses rather than build equity in a home for resale. It also has a great section in the back describing property tax laws, assessments and how to appeal them in each US state.

I happen to come across this book at someone else's house and found it to be most informative! Even though I'd never wield a hammer or measure a floorboard, it certainly was interesting to discover what gets taxed and what doesn't. A real eye-opener for most home-owners! The book is clearly written and easy to understand. REally useful!

It's too bad a book doesn't get a star for every thousand dollars the reader might save by reading it because if this were the case "Your Low-Tax Dream House" would have at least 30 or 40 stars. There are lots of books about how to save money when you are building a house, but this is the first one I've ever read that shows you how you can maximize your comfort while insuring that you don't pay an unnecessary fortune in taxes during the life of your home. Every building contractor should read this book as a strategy for basic survival, but if you are building your own home independently, then you can't afford not to read it.