If you're truly ready to redesign your life from the inside out, transforming your life to let in more happiness, do less work, and make more money, this book is for you! Many of us are more than ready to get off the treadmill and create a life worth living. Not for the casual reader, this book is for those high achievers who are open and willing to be pathfinders and do it all differently. You gotta be ready to shine if you pick up this book! It will become your constant companion. White shows the way with an amazing program that unlocks your potential and allows you to start living life the way you want to--on your own terms. If you want to put passion back into your work and your life, get this book today. As a success coaching columnist, my job is to review self help books for readers. I have read them all--the hype and promises that ultimately fall flat. Not this one! This book is overflowing with exercises that guide you through the process of leaving the herd mentality and creating a terrific new way to master time (not manage it) and create new profit centers that focus on what you do best (White helps you figure that part out). It's a one-of-a-kind tranformational sucess manual you'll wish that everyone could follow, one that you'll pass on to everyone you care about. I wholeheartedly endorse White's program for my coaching clients and I'm having amazing results using it in my own life and business!

As any Amazon shopper knows, there are a plethora of self-help books out there designed to help you live better. What I LOVE about this book is that it's well-organized, pragmatic (and yet spiritually infused, which is important to me) and best of all, it works! I'm a coach myself (like Jen) and so have used these specific, clearly spelled out techniques not only in my own life but with my clients. My personal favorite in this overly busy, cell-phone/email/voice mail/Palm Pilot world is the Power of 3 - by focusing on the top 3 things rather than being scattered way more is accomplished - with more calm, to boot! I can truly say that if you DO this book, not just read it, that it will very postively impact your life. Get it!

I have read a lot of books on how to be successful--from these books I learned it takes hard work to make money. But what about life? Having a balanced life yet still making lots of money seems impossible--from all the reading I had so far.

Then when I pick up this tape I was really suspicious. After I listened to the 1st tape, I absolutely LOVE it! Absolutely fantastic! I found myself talking this to myself (happily): Paraphrase: Do what you'are best at (your "brilliance") and "Laser day/support day/free day" building momentum theory, 80/20 focus phylosophy (this is not new, but it's nice to hear it from a different person again in a different way of explanation), delegate, duplicate, saying no (I said no to a meeting that does not let me focus on my brilliance--yes, I'm so happy!!!), when is enough for adding value(talking about a sincere wise phylosophy!!), free up space and time to focus on your brilliance, write journal. All in all, it confirms my own beliefs that when you have a life besides work you can sustain your brilliance better than overly working. I haven't finished the tape now, I'm on Innovation now. She said most of people think they are not innovative. But you are, everybody are. If you think you are, you are! Using a new way of doing things better, that's innovative! You don't have a dead soul...

Some of the suggestions are not new, a few examples are not that convincing, yet, those are so minor!!! Nobody or no book/tape is perfect--this tape are exceptional!

I have read many books, but no matter how many times I read this book, it always seems new. A classic story of boy and his horse, the book starts with Alec returning from a summer with his uncle in Africa. Alec, aboard a steamer bond to New York, watches a magnificent, wild stallion being loaded. During the long trip back, Alec tries to make friends with this beautiful horse. When the ship sinks, Alec is pulled by the black stallion to a small desert island. On the desert island, the boy and the wild horse learn to depend upon each other in order to survive. When Alec is rescued, he brings the "Black" to New York. Alec's neighbor, a retired race-horse trainer, recognizes the Black's true potential- as a racehorse. This book will hold you in suspense untill the end.

I have read and reread this book more times than I remember ever since I got my first copy of the book what seems like ages ago. Yet even now as I read it again the spirit of the Black Stallion never fails to move me and draw me into its surging, wildly attractive story. There are few stories as appealing and compelling as the magical bond of love, trust, and understanding forged between a beautiful, untamable stallion and a young boy, and the great things that they accomplish together.

The Black and Alec have inspired and unfailingly won the hearts of millions of people throughout the generations and I have no doubt that they will continue to do so long after many of its original fans have left this world. Theirs is an epic story that instantly captures and draws the attention of even the most idle reader. Farley has created a timeless, classic masterpiece that should be read by everyone!

The Black Stallion is a wonderful story about a teenage boy's relationship with a wild Arabian stallion who rescues him from drowning after a shipwreck. The two are isolated on an island for many weeks and learn to respect and care for each other. Alec tames the Black with love, and rides him all over the island. The book progresses through their rescue and trip home, where Alec boards the Black with his neighbor Henry, a retired race horse trainer. Alec soon discovers that racing the Black professionally is not as easy a galloping wildly across the island, but he's determined to try, and with Henry's help, brings the Black to a stunning victory against the fastest horses in the country!

It's a shame that Random House has let all but 4 books in this series go out of print. Also, a succession of cover illustration changes was not a good idea either. The original paperback illustrations by artist Ruth Sanderson were INCREDIBLE! I can remember reading the books when I was about 8, and drinking in the lavish, dangerous looking images of the Black and the other horses. The re-done illustrations are clumsy, and do not portray Walter Farley's legendary horses as he intended them, i.e. wild and dangerous! Perhaps someone at Random House will get a clue, and re-issue the entire series with the original covers! Please!

I was forced to stay up late into the night last night to finish this novel. That is to say that I just could not tear my eyes from the page, even after I finally closed this book, I lay awake thinking about it. When a book can do that it deserves the highest rating there is to give (and from a first time novelist no less!)

How do we forgive the unforgivable? That is the question that is at the crux of this well etched novel. This is a novel about women on death row, but just to say that would be selling this book incredibly too short. The story centers around three women: Celia, Franny, and Karen. Their lives become inextricably entertwined during a few short months in the hot Texas summer. All three have dealt with copious amounts of sadness throughout their lives and in the end have managed to work through it with tremendous grace.

This is a compelling read, very vivid, poetic. Ms. Eyre-Ward's style and her characters are memorable, no nonsense and very very real. I look forward to more by this author!! I have read many really good books so far this year, but the hours I spent engulfed in this story and these women's lives were the most rewarding.

This book grabbed my attention from page one, and didn't let it go. I simply couldn't put it down.

The characters, the descriptive writing style, the story - just check it out for yourself!

What a great book...

Throw away your preconceptions about reading about death row inmates and pick up this book! Sleep Toward heaven is a funny and touching novel in which inmates with nicknames like "Satan Killer" and "The Hairdresser of Death" become real women with real names: Sharleen, Veronica, Samantha, Karen. The intersection of the lives and sorrows of the three main characters-- inmate Karen; Celia, the widowed wife of one of Karen's victims; and Dr. Franny, the prison doctor--will make you laugh and will make you cry.

I ordered this book hoping that it would give me hints and insights towards getting into one of the most competitive and challenging careers. I have had only one interview in the last 20 years and felt I needed guidance in order to compete effectively. This book is great! It is both a guide and is essential for the Flight Attendant interview. It is written clearly, is easy and fun to read, and is an inspiration for us that want to get into this career. Oh yes, I was invited to training by 2 airlines. Thanks for such a great professional resource.

As someone who is just starting the rather grueling process of trying to become a flight attendant, I can attest to the accuracy and helpfulness of Ms. Ward's manual. Her wealth of experience comes shining through, page after page. After attending two interviews for major airlines, I found that all of what I had learned from The Essential Guide to Becoming a Flight Attendant was, indeed, essential! It helped me immeasurably - in fact, I was invited to a second interview with both carriers! Anyone serious about becoming a flight attendant in today's competitive market will appreciate Ms. Ward's insights--especially her sample (and very accurate) interview questions and tips on what to expect and how to plan for your interview. Ms. Ward is also available for follow-up advice by e-mail and she has been unfailingly helpful throughout my own interview process. I highly recommend the manual to anyone else in my position.

I gave the guide to myself for Christmas last year and set my mind to being hired at an airline in 2002. I am so glad I bought the guide and educated myself before I ever applied. I was so prepared at my interview session and it was obvious that others were not. There was a not a question asked that wasn't in this book. The funniest thing is that my interviewer caught a glimpse of the book in my bag and recognized it right away. She praised me for preparing for the interview and guess what.... I start flight attendant training next month! This guide was exactly what I needed to completely inform myself about the flight attendant life, totally prepare for my interviews and finally get the job of my dreams!

I read Len Feders review and I was so horrified that I had to write something myself. Forget the politics, its a book! It's a great story and it is a story about choices, real choices like we face in real life, not fairytale endings like Len was seeking. Forget bad guy good guy stuff - all the patients in the cancer ward face death and their pasts are irrelevant. As the poem says -scepter and crown are equal made with poor and crooked scythe and spade (Death the Leveller). What distinguishes this book is the ending where Kostoglotof walks out of hospital to view the world with hope and to live each day for what it is, as each of us should live every day of our lives. We all die - cancer or not - and what is important is not that we live but how we live. Forget the politics -read this as a book about people - just ordinary people dying in a cancer ward.

Reading Solzhenitsyn's "Cancer Ward" without the historical background of the country in which it is set, a casual reader would be shocked to learn this book was banned by the Soviet government for many years. This book would seem to be nothing more than a sad story of life in a poor country's ward for terminally ill cancer patients. But through the interaction and description of the doctors and patients in Solzhenitsyn's brilliant novel, especially the loveable protagonist Kostoglotov, it becomes apparent that the ward is the Soviet system in a microcosm. With that understanding, this becomes one of the most scathing indictments of a totalitarian state written in the 20th Century. Even Orwell's great novels were not as passionately and directly damning of the Evil Empire.

This is a very typical Russian novel in that the setting is very stationary, the plot is slow moving and not well-defined in many parts, but it is also psychologically deep and gives the reader an immensely profound look at the minds and souls of its characters. But what separates this from so many Russian novels, especially those of the 20th century is that it slams the Communist regime while taking a bleak, Dostoevsky-like view of man as well. Kostoglotov's experiences at the end of this book are not as cathartic as those of Dostoevsky or Tolstoy characters, but the hope that he has is clearly the same in that it stems from a source greater than him or any man. This is an emotionally challenging book and the interpretation of the ending is divisive (just read some reviews here to see both opinions), but that just adds to the genius of this book. I believe the ending is phenomenally beautiful and Solzhenitsyn at his best.

This is a classic that is unfairly dismissed by today's modern, Western, intellectual elites, but its historical significance is undeniable. This book along with a few others inspired the anti-Soviet movement in the U.S., its allied countries, and the democratic revolutionaries inside of Russia in their eventually successful quest to destroy the most murderous empire our world has ever seen.

"Two things he liked: a free life and money in his pocket. They were writing from the clinic, 'If you don't come yourself the police will fetch you.' That's the sort of power the clinic had, even over people who hadn't got any cancer whatever."

God bless Alexander Solzhenitsyn.

Those were the words that Dorothy used to describe Oz after waking up in the bosom of her family. The same intense feeling came over me while reading this book, a task that spanned several years, as I often put it aside for other things, always returning, drawn by the power of the author's prose in opening his world to us. The realness of Solzhenitsyn's worlds makes him perhaps the most accessible Russian novelist. As he described the village where Kostoglotov, the protagonist, lived, or in recounting how Ruasov, the villian/fellow victim ruined lives while justifying his actions, a vivid portrait fills the reader's imagination.
The human struggle to find hope and beauty in the most tragic of settings is what this novel evokes so well. Soviet medicine, cancer, a Zek fresh from the Gulag, and in a twilight turned dawn, Solzhenitsyn finds for his semi-autobiographical protagonist happiness, not only in winning victories against a malignant tumor, but in thoughts of perhaps one more summer to live, with nights sleeping under the stars, of three beech trees that stand like ancient guardians of an otherwise empty steppe horizon, a dog that shared his life there, and of a young nurse and spinster doctor, both of whom he hoped at times to love.
The picture one often got (accurately) of the Soviet Union was of greyness, gloom, uniform drabnes, and of a totalitarian police state. This book serves to remind the reader that, despite such circumstances, even desparately sick human being might still seek, and find, happiness in his own, private world. Along with that, Solzhenitsyn never lets us forget the utter corruption of the Soviet state, often in the person of Ruasov, an ailing bureaucrat who has managed to turn personnel management into an exquisite art form, as an instrument of psychological torture, slowly administered.
Of all Solzehenitsyn's works, this is my favorite. The people one encounters are vividly real, and the ending isn't what one would think (or hope), but is fitting, nonetheless.
-Lloyd A. Conway

I'm 9 years old and love horses so this was a great book for me! The Island Stallion is an exciting story about a boy dreaming of a horse and finally getting the one he dreams of. I encourage you to read this book even if you are older than 9.

This is a fantastic book about an wild stallion on Azul Island who the Black has met in the Black Stallion and Flame. Steve had dreams about this flame coloured stallion which only became real when he and his friends unlocked the secret of the island on a trip there. This brings them into the heart of an unknown world of horses who lived unseen by humans for centuries. When Steve begins to bond with Flame after Flame's defeat in a battle, he rescues him from death. Steve helps him to recover to finally win back his herd. The ending was the best part when Steve made a decision which would affect Flame's future. Leave him be on the island or take him to live with him in the world of civilisation? I respect his decision and I am glad that Walter Farley made it that way. That was what made the book so great combined with a great description of the enviroment and a real feel for horses. It shows the reader a picture of the wild horses. I think Walter Farley is a wonderful writer, way better than Steven Farley. I love all his books and this is one of his best books. Walter Farley at his best. You can tell he really likes horses a lot.

I absolutly loved this book. It had a story line similar to the Black's but much different in a way. you'll surprised how the slow beginning becomes a fast paced adventure.

Steve and his archeologist friend have decided to go camping on Azul Island, an island which seems to be nothing but sheer unscalable cliff. Some how they find a way inside to what seems a beautiful paradise where lives the beautiful Stallion named Flame. Steve imediatly falls in love with the horse who leads the herd of wild horses. But when Flame suffers a terrible defeat only Steve has the power to save him. Now Steve must risk everything. He can bring Flame back to New York and ruin the secret of Azul Island and let Flame's beautiful herd of horses die out or leave him and be forever scarred. Now you must read the book to find out what Steve's decision is.

This book by Gretchen Ward has been the most useful and used book that I have as a reference for teaching ballet. The pictures are wonderful. They actually show photos and not poorly drawn pictures. It shows so many movements used in classical ballet, with pictures and descriptions. It also has a wonderful section for teachers, which give you tips and a teaching guide that gives you insight on the order of what you should teach at specific levels. This book is so organized and covers so much material. I love this book and highly recomend it to every teacher who teaches ballet!

This book is an indispensable reference book for any seriousstudent or instructor of ballet. Its many photographs of professionalsexecuting each step (up to 6 to 8 photographs showing each stage of a step) is extremely thorough. I have both taken and taught ballet for years and I have never seen another book as complete as this one. It provides both inspiration and clarification regarding the numerous ballet basics and steps, while including differences in steps from the different schools of ballet. While this is the more affordable version of the hardcover edition, I would recommend the hardcover edition if you can afford it. This is surely a book that will be looked at numerous times and will remain in your personal library (or dance school, public school, or public library) for many years.

This book is wonderful for those dancers struggling to perfect their tecnique, or trying to learn many different styles. This book, however, is not for learning alone, it is a picture-filled book of ballet tecnique. I have found it to very helpful with the visualization of some complex steps and vocabulary explanations. It is the best book of its kind and a treasure of age-old tecnique finally written down in images for future generations to keep.

After years without picking up a novel by Dickens (memories of starchy classes at school), I decided to plunge into "Bleak House", a novel that had been sitting on my bookshelf for about ten years, waiting to be read. Although I found it heavy going at first, mainly because the style is so unfamiliar to modern readers, after about ten pages I was swept up and carried off, unable to put the hefty tome down until I had finished it. This book is a definite classic. The sheer scope of the tale, the wit of the satire (which could still be applied to many legal proceedings today) and the believable characters gripped me up until the magnificent conclusion. One particularly striking thing is the "cinematic" aspect of certain chapters as they switch between different angles, building up to a pitch that leaves the reader breathless. I can't recommend "Bleak House" too highly. And I won't wait so long before reading more Dickens novels.

This is the second book by Dickens I have read so far, but it will not be the last. "Bleak House" is long, tightly plotted, wonderfully descriptive, and full of memorable characters. Dickens has written a vast story centered on the Jarndyce inheritance, and masterly manages the switches between third person omniscient narrator and first person limited narrator. His main character Esther never quite convinces me of her all-around goodness, but the novel is so well-written that I just took Esther as she was described and ran along with the story. In this book a poor boy (Jo) will be literally chased from places of refuge and thus provide Dickens with one of his most powerful ways to indict a system that was particularly cruel to children. Mr. Skimpole, pretending not to be interested in money; Mr. Jarndyce, generous and good; Richard, stupid and blind; the memorable Dedlocks, and My Lady Dedlock's secret being uncovered by the sinister Mr. Tulkinghorn; Mrs. Jellyby and her telescopic philanthropy; the Ironmaster described in Chapter 28, presenting quite a different view of industralization than that shown by Dickens in his next work, "Hard Times." Here is a veritable cosmos of people, neighbors, friends, enemies, lovers, rivals, sinners, and saints, and Dickens proves himself a true master at describing their lives and the environment they dwell in. There are landmark chapters: Chapter One must be the best description of a dismal city under attack by dismal weather and tightly tied by perfectly dismal laws, where the Lord Chancellor sits eternally in Lincoln's Inn Hall. Chapter 32 has one of the eeriest scenes ever written, with suspicious smoke, greasy and reeking, as a prelude to a grisly discovery. Chapter 47 is when Jo cannot "move along" anymore. This Norton Critical is perhaps the best edition of "Bleak House" so far: the footnotes help a lot, and the two Introductions are key to understanding the Law system at the time the action takes place, plus Dickens' interest in this particular topic. To round everything off, read also the criticism of our contemporaries, as well as that of Dickens' time. "Bleak House" is a long, complex novel that opens a window for us to another world. It is never boring and, appearances to the contrary, is not bleak. Enjoy.

"There is little to be satisfied in reading this book"?? I couldn't disagree more. Bleak House left a profound impression on me, and was so utterly satisfying a reading experience that I wanted it never to end. I've read it twice over the years and look forward to reading it again. Definitely my favorite novel.

I don't know what the previous reviewer's demands are when reading a novel, but mine are these: the story must create its world - whatever and wherever that world might be - and make me BELIEVE it. If the novelist cannot create that world in my mind, and convince me of its truths, they've wasted my time (style doesn't matter - it can be clean and spare like Orwell or verbose like Dickens, because any style can work in the hands of someone who knows how to use it). Many novels fail this test, but Bleak House is not one of them.

Bleak House succeeds in creating a wonderfully dark and complex spider web of a world. On the surface it's unfamiliar: Victorian London and the court of Chancery - obviously no one alive today knows that world first hand. And yet as you read it you know it to be real: the deviousness, the longing, the secrets, the bureaucracy, the overblown egos, the unfairness of it all. Wait a minute... could that be because all those things still exist today?

But it's not all doom and gloom. It also has Dickens's many shades of humor: silliness, word play, comic dialogue, preposterous characters with mocking names, and of course a constant satirical edge. It also has anger and passion and tenderness.

I will grant one thing: if you don't love reading enough to get into the flow of Dickens's sentences, you'll probably feel like the previous reviewer that "...it goes on and on, in interminable detail and description...". It's a different dance rhythm folks, but well worth getting used to. If you have to, work your way up to it. Don't start with a biggie like Bleak House, start with one of his wonderful short pieces such as A Christmas Carol.

Dickens was a gifted storyteller and Bleak House is his masterpiece. If you love to dive into a book, read and enjoy this gem!

Although The Case Of Charles Dexter Ward is one of the few old-fashioned horror books I have read, I found it quite interesting. The plot isn't as far-fetched as so many plots of modern-day horror stories are, but it's still fiction. The horror/action doesn't unfold too early in the story, but when it does you won't stop reading. The descriptions, in the book, of different regions are so clear and imaginable you will be able to draw pictures and design maps. The ending is unique, almost predictable, that's what makes you want to hurry-up and finish the book. Another thing I like about the book is the use of language. I think it goes perfect with the setting even though I had to read some lines over in order to understand them. To write this book in modern-day language would set it apart from other horror stories in that it wouldn't be as good.

This is one of THE Lovecraft stories to read alongside The Call of Cthulhu, At the Mountains of Madness, The Dunwich Horror, and The Shadow Over Innsmouth. No one writes horror like Lovecraft. His cold and analytical style somehow makes his works even more terrifying. It may be the shock of the rational scientific minds of his character's seeing something that goes beyond explanation that makes his stories so jolting, or the horrifying results of what happens to those rational, scientific, and inquisitive characters, like Charles Dexter Ward, who seek the truth and discover too much of it. But maybe the reason Lovecraft is so scary is because all positive human emotions such as love are abandoned leaving only fear. The Case of Charles Dexter Ward is chock full of fear and little else as it takes you through the paranoia of the American colonial days, through the degeneration of a young man's sanity, and through the ancient catacombs of an old house where something inhuman screams from the bottom of a pit. The mystery aspect of the story isn't too hard to figure out, but that may not have been so back in the 1930's when it was first written, but the journey is absolutely terrifying. Lovecraft puts pure fear on paper and that's something no modern horror writer I can think of has been able to do since.

Long one of my favorite horror stories (I remember reading it at age 13 one night and keeping one eye on the corners of my room), the main thing to remember about this novella is that it was written in the 1920's. I mention this because some of the plot elements could be seen as trite and overused given the wealth of modern horror literature.

Some of the previous reviewers have alluded to the rather plodding pace at the beginning but once the character of J. Curwen is introduced you literally will not be able to put the book down. Even the rather slow start of the story is very entertaining (esspecially the glowing language Lovecraft uses to describe Ward's ramblings in Providence - clearly Lovecraft has a special kinship for the historian in the book's title character).

The story itself is compelling and foreshadows many plot elements that were to become horror mainstays in later years. Interestingly, the typical Lovecraftian mythos here are not the central object of the story, but merely mentioned almost in passing. Curwen - his diabolical use of his young descendent, the noble yet hopelessly naive Ward and the brave Dr. Willet have all become horror archetypes. While these characterizations could be considered wooden and almost one dimensional, they none the less fit the mood and "feel" of the story perfectly.

Lovecraft also treats the reader to well crafted details. The small, minor details and difficulties Curwen experiences in 'modern' day Providence illustrates this perfectly. Curwen's detailed and yet still mysterious history and the town's efforts to expunge his evil from their community are a gripping joy to read and re-read.

Terry Ward has written a beautiful human story and travel journal. I laughed, I cried, I lived through these travellers-- even after I had finished the book!

My favorite part is when Terry receives a present-- a hand woven carpet-- from a woman who had a crush on him 30 years ago as a girl and who he barely remembers. And the note behind says in broken English, "... from your bicycl girl-friend, Isfahan 1998."

But it's not the "touchy feely stuff" that makes this book good. It is also very insightful. Ward discusses the class dimension of the Iranian Revolution in a way that some of the best "current affairs" writers have failed.

What emerges as conclusion is that all the diplomatic negativity of our politicians don't matter much anyway. What matters is beauty, love, friendship, art, poetry, literature, ... culture. From the vantage point of a 3,000 year old country it doesn't really matter if our countries are officially friendly or not -- today's "friends" are tomorrow's enemies and vice versa.

I wish he had included the following from Mowlana in the last chapter-- it just fits so well.

Out beyond ideas of
Right doing and wrong doing,
There is a field.
I'll meet you there.

The understanding of Iranian people and culture by Mr. Ward is thorough and fascinating. I learned much about Iran from this book and I am an Iranian. His explorations on topics such as the poet Hafez or the religious figure Imam Ali as well as the roots of the Iranian revolution are well researched, valid and thoughtful. The audience for this book should include not only the people interested in Iran or the Middle East, but also the policymakers and think tanks of American foreign policy in the area. A definite FIVE STAR.

I just finished reading this book and am still wiping the tears from my eyes. "Searching for Hassan" was truly extraordinary. I cried as Hassan spoke with Terry and his brothers about how he will always remember the kindness of others, especially the kindness that Terry's family gave to him.
Iran has always been on my itinerary, as one of the places I've always wanted to visit. I learned much more than I knew before about Iranian culture, and this book left me with a longing and curiosity to see this beautiful country.
Kudos to Terence Ward!!!