They said you had to be ages 4-8 to enjoy this book. In some ways I disagree. It is so old and involves such a different culture that really, a ten year old would find it "topping". This is the first in a series of many and it starts out pretty slow. My suggestion is too skim the first few pages unless you are completely interested in taking a tour of certain parts of Europe. Pretty soon, the story picks up and you can't help but love Joey though there really aren't any main characters. Some interesting and somewhat unpredictible things happen that are totally irrevolent. The main idea of the story is that this English girl decides to start a school in the Tiernees Mountains. Slowly the school poputlation grows and the usual amount of unusual accurences accur. It's a pretty good read, even if you are older than eight!

With this book, we take our first steps into the world of the Chalet School - a series that eventually covered almost 30 years of the life of Jo Bettany.

In this book, you will find why Madge started the School, and the difficulties Jo has with settling down to life in a school environment.

Enrol in the Chalet School, and discover a forgotten world.

There are a few good points made in here. But I'm appalled at how many pages he gives to the basic idea of mentally joining opposites, so one sees the world more holistically. A decent point. But he says, "You should not see things as feminine or masculine," and expands on that. And he lists all these opposites, one by one, page after page, that you should see as one. He could basically have said in two pages "See the world as yin and yang" like the Taoist symbol, and not belabored it so extensively. The rest of the book has good points. But it is basically watered-down Abraham Maslow, from his book, TOWARD A PSYCHOLOGY OF BEING. Maslow says it better in that book.

Dr. Dyer first puts into words, the reasons why you set limits on anything you want or need to do. He then, through examples in nature, physics, and common sense, makes the most valid arguments as to why ANYONE can remove those limits, and not only achieve, but grow. The book is not religious, but it is spiritual in an almost cosmic sense. Beware, this book may cause you to change the way you live and look at life, in a way that most people only dream of.

The 3/15/03 and 4/13/03 reviews have opposing opinions of this book. Funny thing is, both are right in what they say. Dyer's biblical overview is accurate but he has little to say about Saddam Hussein, despite the fact Hussein is on the cover of the book! I sure was expecting more info on Saddam Hussein than I got.

Now that the 2003 Persian Gulf War is over, let's see if those "weapons of mass destruction" are found in Iraq, as President Bush insisted they would be. Any bets?

In view of the escalating tension between Iraq and the rest of the world, this book offers some eye-opening details and insights. About 2500 years ago Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon besieged the kingdom of Judah, conquered the Jews and took away to Babylon all their treasures. This rise and fall of Nebuchadnezzar is narrated in the Bible. Has Saddam Hussein of Iraq taken on the mission of this world conqueror? The author Charles Dyer who has traveled extensively in the Middle East, has some shocking details and insights to offer.

I was fascinated with the insight into Saddam's rise to power. I started reading this book just before the war began in Iraq. I was convinced that we were right to make sure Saddam was overthrown. The nation of Iraq has been in turmoil since day one of Saddam's reign and too many innocent lives have been lost. As a Christian interested in prophesy, this book also answered many of my questions as to Iraq's role in the events leading up to the Tribulation. As a bonus, Mr. Dyer has included some fascinating photographs of the ancient city of Babylon.

When I picked up this book, I quickly discovered that I'd overlooked something: It is designed for adults who are learning to read. With that caveat in mind, Jesse James and the Civil War in Missouri is an interesting glance at the influence of the Civil War and Quantrill's Raiders on the infamous Frank and Jesse James.

Given its goal of being a easy-to-read book, Dyer decent a good job of describing the divisions between Unionists and Confederate sympathizers in Missouri and the rather limited role the James Brothers played in the Civil War. All in all, the book mostly whets one's appetite for more information, but there are some good photos and basic information that might recommend the book, particularly to younger readers who are interested in the Wild West or the Civil War.

I really enjoyed this book. I wanted to know more about Jesse James and what was going on in Missouri during the time of the civil war and Jesse's robberies and this book gave me a good basic understanding.
It was very easy reading and helpful.

Here is another instance of worn-out mythologies being used to justify the ways of Man to men. Doctor (not in the medical sense) Dyer and some of his cronies from the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago comfort us with the notion that the present slaughter of the Palestinians fits right into God's Plan for mankind. He makes a joyous hullabaloo, full of Biblical gibberish, to prove that you don't need to know anything more than George W. Bush to understand what's going on in the Middle East. Israel is God's Instrument for bringing about Kingdom Come, in its Protestant fundamentalist version, of course. Rest easy, don't worry about Bin Laden or what kind of mess the Knesset and the United States Congress will make, God will defeat the United Nations and Armageddon us through to a permanent apotheosis of the American suburbs.
What sport Mencken would have had with these people!

In five riviting chapters, Charles Dyer and four other faculty members of The Moody Bible Institute explain the history and the significance of events ocurring in the middle-east today. This short book will give you a clear insight into the underlying reasons for the failure of years of diplomacy to bring an end to the bitter conflict in Israel. The authors help you to understand how today's headlines are setting the stage for the fulfillment of Biblical prohecies regarding Israel and the Church.

If you are confused and troubled by the seemingly impossible task of achieving peace in the middle-east, then, this book is a 'must read' for you. You will be comforted as these gifted scholars help you to see that God is still in control of this chaotic world and that His plan for it is right on track.

This is one of the worst texts I have read. It reads more like a marketing brochure for a "team building" consultant rather than giving practical advice on actual team building. Every dilemma is resolved by consulting with a team building consultant, or facilitator.

Of much greater value is "The Wisdom of Teams" by Katzenbach and Smith - a book I would give 5 stars for thoroughness and practicality.

This book is easy to read and understand - if only teams were that easy. Dyer has covered all major topics in team development and managed to do it in a text you can acutally apply in your everyday team development efforts. Dyer explains why companies have turned to using teams and the dimensions of the team, when to use a team and what type of team you should use, what happens when teams make unhealthy agreements and the behaviors you will see. There is information on maturity, culture, organizaitons, and building healthly teams with diveristy. Easy to use suggestions, questions, and statements help you set up team building efforts and identify when a team needs help or should be disbanded. This is a handbook - every team member should own one.

Huh huh! Play Doh! Ah ha ha ha ha! No, but seriously, this was a very well written tale. I especially enjoyed the details surrounding the controversy about Socrates' teachings. I reccomend this book to anyone who has a laptop and is planning to sit on the john all day. And if you don't have a laptop,TRY METAMUCIL - never fails! Well, I'm SKATE, and that's my TAKE!

Seemed to be very comprehensive yet easy to use.

4 characters. Luke. Alex. Sahra. Nicole. Living in Paris. In love. Having fun. Having sex. Taking drugs. Uh-huh. What else? Not much.

Reading this book was like eavesdropping on a conversation. At its best, the tale told was amusing, sometimes curious and I read with uncommitted interest. At its worst, it was as insipid as any conversation one might overhear between strangers. And, to me, these characters remained strangers - indistinct, faded strangers - from start to 300-page finish. What specific insights and traits a reader could glean from the characters, Dyer spoon-feeds us through direct narration and heavy-handed depictions instead of subtle guidance and gestures. I couldn't understand why any of these character would consider the others interesting or compelling. Moreover, there did not seem to be any ultimate truth or principle in the novel that was worth pondering over. (The theme of "living out one's destiny no matter the cost" was weak and, at least in the way Dyer developed it, not worth more than a few seconds thought.)

Oddly, the strength of this novel was that it *did* make me feel as if I were eavesdropping. As I read (listened to) their conversations, stories, and jokes, observed their interactions, I was vaguely curious about their lives and relationships with one another in the same remote way I'd be interested in 4 people sitting next to me in a cafe. In other words, from a distance, the interaction between the characters and the outward structure of the relationships seemed real. But, when I tried to become more interested in Luke, Alex, Sahra and Nicole as individuals, I realized that I couldn't. There just wasn't anything there.

I read this book not expecting much. It seemed to be an example of someone trying to recreate the books of the lost generation in post-modern dress. I thought it would fail to be something new. I was astounded at how wrong I was. This book has some major faults but they are sandwhiched between large segments of the novel that are amazingly brilliant. This is, perhaps, the best look at the feelings of early love Ive ever read. The book is a deep look at beauty and happiness, asnd the degree to which moments of happiness survive the passage of time. Dyer brilliantly uses a second person narrator who admitedly tells the reader mental thoughts of the characters that he could not know. He has decided that since the main character will not tell his story, he must do it for him and he must fill in the holes. He does so in brilliant fashion. He captures what it is like to be twentysomething and in love, he captures what it is like to be in love in Paris, and he manages to capture the spirit of lawrence, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and Dos Passos WITHOUT it feeling like a retelling of modernism. The book is definitively post-modern both in style and message, but still manages to update the tropes founded by The Sun Also Rises. A must read for any fan of post-modernism OR the lost generation. Dyer may well be Britain's most promising young writer. This is a life-affirming novel.

Geoff Dyer's other books are mostly unclassifiable meditations on jazz (But Beautiful), the fascination of war (The Missing of the Somme) and the fear of failure (Out of Sheer Rage). His infrequent novels are pretty good, though. Paris Trance is about falling in love - I actually typed "failling" by mistake, but it was serendipity, because it's also about failing in love. Luke, the hero, is admired by the narrator Alex in much the same way that Fitzgerald's Gatsby is admired by Nick Carraway. (Hmmm, my name is Alex and my brother's name is Nick. Odd that.) What Luke is after, or thinks he's after, is a dream of perfection, and it's only when he achieves it that he lets it go. Drift is the order of Luke's universe. There's a terribly sad episode about half way through when Alex pays Luke a visit in the present (most of the book is a vast, quasi-nostalgic flashback) and speculates to himself about the loneliness of Luke's life; lines from that part have followed me around for months.

Some of the dialogue is uncomfortably Hip; there's some rather too-easy pop-culture riffing, inspired according to Dyer by his admiration for Don DeLillo's way with dialogue. But the book has the same sort of deeper ambiguities as "Gatsby"; Alex writes the book as part of a struggle with himself between his creeping discomfort with his own ordinariness and Luke's tragic appetite for living such grand abstractions as Destiny and Bliss. The sheen of the prose, when describing events like the characters walking through a French field high on acid, has the poignant lustre of remembered happiness. (Dyer's first novel was called The Colour of Memory and is, I think, quite a bit better than this one.)

I don't know if Dyer is a natural novelist and he isn't too sure himself. But Paris Trance is a beautiful book, if it isn't this writer at his best. And it has some wonderful bits: a spoof re-enactment of "Brief Encounter", brilliant accounts of what it's like to go to a pub in a foreign city and a couple of great sex scenes. His non-fiction is maybe more intellectually electric but his fiction is a quieter pleasure.

Five stars, not because I think the book is a flat-out masterpiece but because he's a fantastic writer and I wanted to bring the average up.

Generally I am a big fan of Deepak Chopra and Wayne Dyer. This one was not worth buying. I found that the first half of the material was recycled from previous tapes. The second half had a few new tidbits and restatements of concepts already presented in other books, tapes and videos. At the outset Dr. Dyer talked about this being a project that both of them had wanted to do for a long time. I wish that they had indeed collaborated on developing new insights into consciousness and our relationship to the world.

This book covers 3 topics, cassettes 1 and 2 covers "how to get what you really really really really want", 111 minutes. Cassettes 3 and 4 covers "wisdom of the ages", 96 minutes. Cassette 5 and 6, "seven steps to get in touch with cosmic consciousness" 91 minutes. The total length is less than 300 minutes, on 6 cassettes. To get it over 300 minutes, Wayne has to add a 9+ minute introduction to the book. Dyer's newer books like "its never crowded..." which has over 7 hours of material offers much better value.

It's a paradox: even though one good idea or piece of wisdom can expand life infinitely,because of the expense of this program, people considering buying it should be aware that it may be much shorter than they expected (some tapes only run 25 minutes a side), that the speakers even repeat the same anecdotes, and that much of the material is quoted from other sources (particularly poets). The program includes some GEMS, particularly from Deepak Chopra.(I found the tone of the Dyer contributions condescending.) Still, for a person truly looking for "what it's all about" (on a limited budget!), I would recommend the "Living, Healing & Being" audio series by Mitchell May or "Creating Your Heart's Desire" by Sonia Choquette. In closing I would like to say that the speakers' good intentions in creating their program are tangible and thus I hesitated to write this, but for the price, I feel the buyer deserves more.