Mr. Owen suggests that management, a barely disguised euphemism for control, is a figment of our imagination. He holds that choas is actually the natural state of human affairs, not the exception. If we let go of outdated beliefs, and simply observe how things really get done, we will transform toxic workplaces into inspired organizations. By simply embracing what is.

Like a lot of people, especially women, I left corporate America because I was unable to reconcile their values w/ mine. Always puzzled by people who contrasted their "work personalities" with their "real personalities", I'm more convinced than ever that separating from ourselves at work is not only unnecessary, but destroys the organization along with the selves that make it up!

Spending time with Harrison Owen's voice allows you to hear your own.

Ms. Harrison's newest book, "Seeking Rapture - Scenes From A Woman's Life" are selected stories from a life of many levels. From the abandonment of a mother, betrayal of a father, motherhood and lighter mood stories of cheating on her driver's test, Ms. Harrison's work is never boring and always effective.

"Seeking Rapture" is a wonderful collection of prose from an exceptionally talented writer who never seems to shy away from the taboo or shocking and, I really admire her for that.

Saylor does a good job of bringing Rome to life; he includes many details, including descriptions of the narrow, winding streets, the oppressive heat of summer, and the intricacies of the Roman legal system, that create a sense of place and painlessly educate the reader. There are only a few places where the description intrudes into the story. Since the story is bound up with the political intrigue surrounding the rule of the dictator Sulla (80 BC), a knowledge of Roman history will help the reader keepthe characters and their motivations straight. Saylor does give an explanation of Sulla's rise to power and the atrocities he and his followers committed, but it comes late in the book and drags on for several pages, so this is not as useful as it could be. Readers not familiar with (or uninterested in) Roman history may have trouble getting into the book, but overall the setting is well-done and convincing.

The mystery aspect of the novel was not as interesting as the historical aspect; the story is slow in places, and it was hard to care about the characters, especially since many of them lack redeeming qualities. Also, Saylor has an unfortunate tendencyto overemphasize key plot points, as if he doesn't want the reader to miss the fact that a certain discovery is a clue. Part of the mystery reader's responsibility is to find the clues on her own; it is the mystery author's job to confuse the reader about what is a clue and what is a red herring. Saylor doesn't seem to have mastered that skill. The end of the novel, which includes the requisite court scene with Cicero making his argument on behalf of the accused, seems to take forever to lumber to a conclusion. Read the book for its setting, but don't expect too much in the mystery department.

Steven Saylor's Roma Sub Rosa series is wonderful for the exploration of character, for the mysteries (of course), and for bringing Ancient Rome to life. The descriptions of Rome made me feel like I was walking through a city teeming with life, people, sights, sounds, smells.

The novels seem to become more complex as the series goes on. Roman Blood, the first novel in the series, is the most straight-forward murder mystery. Arms of Nemesis puts Gordianus under pressure with a time limit, and looks at the way slaves fit into Roman society. Catalina's Riddle takes place on a farm, in the midst of a possible revolution. The Venus Throw involves, scandal, politics and an examination of morals. I haven't read the other books yet, but I have ordered them. I heartily recommend this series.

Enjoy.

Or so the conventional wisdom goes. And I have never seen an author as villified as Kathryn Harrison has been for defying that idea. She's been accused of telling her story for a sick sort of fame; nevermind that she was already a fairly successful author with a seemingly idyllic life, and that it's pretty implausible to imagine a woman of her intelligence failing to understand how this book change that life forever. She has both been accused of eroticizing her experience, and not being explicit enough. She's been lumped in the same category as morons who appear on trash talk shows. Because she never obeys the rules of the confessional genre by saying "I sinned," or "I was victimized," she is regarded as a whore who entered into a relationship with her fantastically cruel father consensually. Because she doesn't beg her audience for forgiveness, she receives none. She's been called, bizarrely, "passive-aggressive" and "nuerotic" by armchair psychologists who'd rather diagnose juicy pathologies than trouble to themselves to read her text.

From where I stand, the publication of this book is an act of consummate courage. Every sentence is hammered onto the page so slowly and carefully it seems like she wrote perhaps a few a day, like haiku, yet the cummulative effect isn't ponderous at all -- the whole flows and flows relentlessly, terribly -- I read it compulsively in a night and cannot remember when a book affected me so physically, made my heart hammer, covered my hands with sweat.

After the truly harrowing experience of reading this book, I am o! utraged at the idiocy of the bulk of Harrison's professional reviewers: anyone who finds anything remotely titillating or "pornographic" in this book should worry about their own mental health before anyone else's. What they have failed to recognize is that this book is a gift. Harrison has lived through an experience that should have destroyed her, and has done something heroic. Instead of confessing and offering her readers a penance, she tells her story lyrically, in the classically tragic manner: even though it is the most deeply personal story, it reads like a terrible myth. Nearly done in by her jealous mother and mysterious father, she finds her way out of Hell, beginning with a line older than once-upon-a-time: I alone survived to tell thee. For her bravery, for the restraint and clarity with which she relates her tale, for her generosity in sharing it with a wide audience, she deserves so much better than the shabby treatment she has received.

The telling of Harrison's story is amazingly well done. No self-pity, no over-analysis. Just the plain and simple albeit disturbing facts. This short book, though at times hard to read, is even harder to put down, and impossible to forget.

Writing this memoir took guts of steel. And no, she's not "cashing in on the incest trend" like some of her critics accuse. Those who are uncomfortable hearing about incest need to realize that keeping victims silent helps allow it to happen.

However, this book is not motivated by money or awareness causes. It appears motivated by the author's own need to free herself from the paralyzing memories of the horrible situation she was thrust into, to explain it to herself as much as to the reader. To "get it off her chest" so she could move on.

Harrison fans like myself will also notice that she *has* moved on. Her novels since this memoir ("Poison" and "The Binding Chair") show that Harrison's mind is now free to imagine other stories worth telling, which are painstakingly researched and beautifully written.

I highly recommend this book. It is this gifted author's best work, and it is one you will never forget.

This book is truly mesmerizing!! I wasn't able to put it down, and I finished it with a sense of wanting & needing to know more. I have since went on to read "The Journey of the Soul Series," which even more descriptively describes the meaning of our existence, our purpose, God, and the Other Side. This series is more advanced spiritual reading than "Life On The Other Side" and is a great compliment to it for people wanting to know more.

I'll be honest, if you're not open to the idea of possibly going against what you may have learned in many of the typical organized religions of today, this book may not be for you. But for those who feel there's "just something more out there," and those who are looking for answers, this is a GREAT start at some incredibly spiritual reading!!

Even after studying piles and piles of thick "egghead" books and books that correlate Travel on the Other Side with Physics, I truly believe that Sylvia has expressed the basic concepts and Truth of The Afterlife, in a Concise, Easy to Read, Easy to Digest format ! One need-not sit down with a pile of occult texts and Quantum Physics books to understand Why and How it all works, when Sylvia gives a very good Synopsis of the Basic Concepts. However, listening to Deepak Chopra's tapes, such as "Journey to The Boundless" is a Great way to understand HOW all the things Sylvia talks about are possible (and Scientific) !

I find her description of The Afterlife / Astral World to be written much the same way a person would Describe ALL of Europe, after Only Traveling to France--but, aside from this very structured description, from a singular viewpoint, it still stands to Truth. However, I honestly believe not Everyone will see things Exactly the same way, or go through the Exact same proceedure upon Crossing-over. Yet, for beginners and people of All Faiths, this is a GREAT Introduction to the Afterlife, in a more Common-Sense approach, than we are taught in church. I absolutely LOVE her explanation of the Reality of Heaven, vs. the things we are Indoctrinated to believe about Heaven !!!

I found my favorite new quote, in this book, as well--when I read Sylvia's opinions about Humans NOT needing a "message carrier" to moderate with God for us !!! (Amen). No one needs a "go-between" to carry messages to God. One only needs to speak Directly to The Big Guy/Gal, on a personal level. Priests need-not apply. I am very, very happy to see someone admitting the Truth--esp., after being Indoctrinated with a certain belief system that Stresses the Necessity of having a moderator Dividing us from God and Interpreting for us. Bravo ! She should get ten stars, for being so bold as to speak the Truth.

I honestly believe she was writing from the Heart, in many instances. In fact, during my own Psychic Investigations, I have always noted that when something about Ghosts / Hauntings is True, I get a certain series of Chills, Gooseflesh, etc. in my body and it feels as-if someone passes through me. As I read a Touching story in this book, that Truth Test happenend to me!

So, as far as I am concerned, this book receives the Psychic Seal of Approval (but, I don't have any fancy Certificates to prove it--just 30 years of Real-Life Experience).

I strongly recommend people of All Faiths to read this book. This is a Wonderful Starting Point, for a Journey into the Mysteries of Life After Death ! Well-Done!

I read it again a few years later. I don't remember what I thought of it. The third time I read it, it was hilarious; parts of it made me laugh out loud! I was amazed at all the puns Melville used, and the crazy characters, and quirky dialog. The fourth or fifth reading, it was finally that adventure story I wanted in the first place. I've read Moby Dick more times than I've counted, more often than any other book. At some point I began to get the symbolism. Somewhere along the line I could see the structure. It's been funny, awesome, exciting, weird, religious, overwhelming and inspiring. It's made my hair stand on end...

Now, when I get near the end I slow down. I go back and reread the chapters about killing the whale, and cutting him up, and boiling him down. Or about the right whale's head versus the sperm whale's. I want to get to The Chase but I want to put it off. I draw Queequeg with his tattoos in the oval of a dollar bill. I take a flask with Starbuck and a Decanter with Flask. Listen to The Symphony and smell The Try-Works. Stubb's Supper on The Cabin Table is a noble dish, but what is a Gam? Heads or Tails, it's a Leg and Arm. I get my Bible and read about Rachel and Jonah. Ahab would Delight in that; he's a wonderful old man. For a Doubloon he'd play King Lear! What if Shakespeare wrote The Tragedy of The Whale? Would Fedallah blind Ishmael with a harpoon, or would The Pequod weave flowers in The Virgin's hair?

Now I know. To say you understand Moby Dick is a lie. It is not a plain thing, but one of the knottiest of all. No one understands it. The best you can hope to do is come to terms with it. Grapple with it. Read it and read it and study the literature around it. Melville didn't understand it. He set out to write another didactic adventure/travelogue with some satire thrown in. He needed another success like Typee or Omoo. He needed some money. He wrote for five or six months and had it nearly finished. And then things began to get strange. A fire deep inside fret his mind like some cosmic boil and came to a head bursting words on the page like splashes of burning metal. He worked with the point of red-hot harpoon and spent a year forging his curious adventure into a bloody ride to hell and back. "...what in the world is equal to it?"

Moby Dick is a masterpiece of literature, the great American novel. Nothing else Melville wrote is even in the water with it, but Steinbeck can't touch it, and no giant's shoulders would let Faulkner wade near it. Melville, The pale Usher, warned the timid: "...don't you read it, ...it is by no means the sort of book for you. ...It is... of the horrible texture of a fabric that should be woven of ships' cables and hausers. A Polar wind blows through it, & birds of prey hover over it. Warn all gentle fastidious people from so much as peeping into the book..." But I say if you've never read it, read it now. If you've read it before, read it again. Think Dostoevsky, Shakespeare, Goethe, and The Bible. If you understand it, think again.

Honestly, Moby Dick IS long and looping, shooting off in random digressions as Ishmael waxes philosophical or explains a whale's anatomy or gives the ingredients for Nantucket clam chowder--and that's exactly what I love about it. This is not a neat novel: Melville refused to conform to anyone else's conventions. There is so much in Moby Dick that you can enjoy it on so many completely different levels: you can read it as a Biblical-Shakespearean-level epic tragedy, as a canonical part of 19th Century philosophy, as a gothic whaling adventure story, or almost anything else. Look at all the lowbrow humor. And I'm sorry, but Ishmael is simply one of the most likable and engaging narrators of all time.

A lot of academics love Moby Dick because academics tend to have good taste in literature. But the book itself takes you about as far from academia as any book written--as Ishmael himself says, "A whale-ship was my Yale College and my Harvard." Take that advice and forget what others say about it, and just experience Moby Dick for yourself.

Criticize all you want of Melville's scientific inaccuracy, wandering themes, or even his improper punctuation. The guy wrote this thing in a year - not enough time to refine it, and it was a book he knew would not sell.

Underneath a mess of useless whaling information and Ishmael's rambling are ideas and questions that most people don't dare think about. Unlike Charles Darwin, Galileo or the fearless Ahab, Melville hid safely behind his metaphors and guided the careful readers to draw their own conclusions without completely leading the way.

Let me explain.

While to Ishmael, Moby Dick is nature's wonder and to Starbuck is just a whale, to Ahab Moby Dick is God, with his infinite power.

There are some disturbing things in the universe begging for an explaination, such as why one person is rewarded with happyness while another punished in suffering. There are feel-good answers, like the idea that the score will be evened in the afterlife and there are humble answers, like the book of Job, which suggests that man has no right to complain or question God. Melville's Ahab takes this to another level when he asks why man needs to be God's puppets. Ahab is insulted by God's creation of man, letting man live in suffering, "with half a heart and half a lung".

The bewildered God-fearing masses will not comprehend the depth Melville trys to take them. This most important theme was written for the pursuit of truth, not happyness. This book is not for everyone, and a lot of chapters are better off skipped, but those with enough empathy for Melville will find an emotional and intellectual adventure.

One down side: This is good enough to buy the hardback, its a keeper, but I made the mistake of getting the paperback. This is the Ballantine Publishing Group paperback with the headless statue on the cover. The leaves were already falling out of the book before I'd gotten 10 pages in. If you are like me, part of the enjoyment of a book is the feel (I like paperbacks) and the feel of a book with pages falling out is down right depressing.

After years of work, one man, John Harrison developed a series of clocks that would work aboard a ship at sea and keep time to within the tolerances required to maintain accurate time. This timekeeping was vital in that age and was the only then available method of knowing the time in ones home port which was need to compute positions of longitude when sailing at sea. The book chronicles John Harrison's inventions (H-1 thru H-4) and his lifelong struggles with and against others who were proposing and developing other methods of navigation utilizing lunar and celestial observations. Chronicled are his battles with the Board of Longitude and its commissioners, some of whom became his archrivals in proposing alternative methods. Harrison was ultimately awarded the Copley Medal in recognition of his work by the British Royal Astronomical Society, an award that was later bestowed on persons such as Benjamin Franklin, Captain James Cook and Albert Einstein.

The book includes accounts of alternative methods being developed, including a somewhat humorous account of the quack proposal of using the "Powder of Sympathy" which involved the magical curative powers over long distances of a medicinal powder that could cause an injured ship board dog to yelp at prescribed intervals. Such was the desperation of mariners to solve the longitude problem.

Ms. Sobel has written a very readable book that is short enough to finish easily in a day. My copy was the hardcover bookstore version that had a nice color card insert with the photographs and descriptions of the John Harrison timepieces, H-1 thru H-4. An illustrated version of the book is available and I would suggests it or other version with pictures, drawings or photographs as the insert card photos helped immensely in my appreciation of the clocks and John Harrison's life work. The book is very enjoyable reading that formed the basis for the acclaimed A&E movie by the same name.

The man who "solved" (he died before his clocks were mass produced but his pioneering efforts were absolutely crucial) the problem was a carpenter and a watchmaker named John Harrison. His watches were among the most accurate in the history of time keeping. When he heard of the Longitude Act (the British government established a prize to anyone who could invent a usable and practical way of finding longitude at sea), Harrison set to work. His clocks were tremendously innovative; he solved the problems that plagued previous clocks on sea voyages (e.g. the metals in the clock would expand when in tropical climate and contact in Europe; these changes would render the clock unreliable). Harrison once built a clock that was almost entirely built of wood (with the exception of some brass parts); this clock never needed lubrication!

In the competition to win the £20,000 (roughly equivalent to several million modern American dollars), there were many quacks who advanced their various ideas but there emerged two dominant methods which vied for success. The clock method (How does this work? "To learn one's longitude at sea, one needs to what time it is aboard ship and also the time at the home port or another place of known longitude - at the very same moment. The two clocks enable the navigator to convert the hour difference into a geographical separation." Pages 4-5). However, this required a very precise clock and all clocks of the day were incapable of such precision. The other approach relied on the movement of the Moon relative to other celestial bodies. The astronomical approach continued to be championed by much of the scientific elite but it initially required four hours of calculations to determine longitude (this was eventually reduced to 30 minutes) and one had to have a clear sky (in order to see the Moon etc..) The Board of Longitude (which functioned as the Government body to determine who is to win the prize and give out grants to prospective men) subjected Harrison's various watches (he made four different ones, all different. The first three were very large and the last was about 5 inches in diameter) to many tests including observation at Greenwich Observatory, sea trials, disassembly before a panel of experts, reassembly and so on.

I found the intrigues of the various scientists interesting; it is not a phenomenon limited to the 20th century by any means. Harrison was looked down upon because he was what was called a "Mechanick," (i.e. a tinkering engineer) and the highly educated, academic astronomers did not think such a man capable of solving the vexing problem of longitude.

I have an interest in ships and their role in European empire building (e.g. the Dutch, French and British empires) and commerce and through reading this book I gained an appreciation of just how vital this piece of technology was to navigation in an age where radio and GPS were simply unavailable. Also, the idea of a Government sponsoring scientists to solve scientific problems (i.e. the concept of grants) seems to be pioneered here.

What not 5 stars? The technical descriptions of the mechanisms Harrison invented were difficult to visualize; some diagrams or even actual pictures of the devices would have been very helpful. I would also have liked to see some pictures of the various scientists involved.

The problem was so serious that the English Parliament passed the Longitude Act in 1714. The Act established a panel of judges to study the problem and announced a prize of £20,000 (worth millions of dollars today) to anyone who could determine longitude accurately.

Enter John Harrison, a self-educated amateur clockmaker from Yorkshire. He believed that the solution lay in time, not in the heavens, as the scientific establishment had postulated. Harrison devoted his entire life to the pursuit of the longitude prize, all the while battling university scholars who thought him an incompetent crank.

In Longitude, author Dava Sobel tells Harrison's story with vigor and insight. It is clear that she greatly admires Harrison's genius and determination. She describes how he "went from...humble beginnings to riches by virtue of his own inventiveness and diligence, in the manner of Thomas Edison or Benjamin Franklin."

Throughout Harrison's illustrious career, he invented a number of innovative techniques for keeping accurate time-and solved many problems that had plagued clockmakers for centuries. Sobel writes: "Most pendulums of Harrison's day expanded with heat, so they grew longer and ticked out time more slowly in hot weather. When cold made them contract, they speeded up the seconds, and threw the clock's rate off in the opposite direction." Harrison solved this by "combining long and short strips of two different metals-brass and steel-in one pendulum..." Another invention of Harrison's was caged ball bearings, which are still used today.

Harrison did eventually win the longitude prize, but not until he was in his late 70s. The debate over the way longitude would be found raged on throughout his many trials over the decades between the 1720s and the 1770s. He submitted two clocks to the Longitude Board between 1737 and 1741 (named H1 and H2), but spent nearly twenty years perfecting H3, which he finally submitted in 1769. During this time, a rival 40 years younger than Harrison, the Reverend Nevil Maskelyne, insisted that the lunar distance method was the way that longitude was to be found. Sobel makes clear that Maskelyne, while a foe to Harrison, was not exactly a villain. Rather he was more like an anti-hero. While Harrison's method eventually won out, Maskelyne did make many important contributions to the science of astronomy. Sobel is objective enough to give credit where credit is due.

Longitude is written in a breezy, easy-to-read style. Sobel tells her tale chronologically, providing the essentials of the struggle while maintaining the historical context. She describes the painstaking observations and integrations that Harrison had to make in order to create his famous clocks. The solitary years he spent in his workshop focusing on his central goal is an inspiration to behold, particularly in an age like ours, where the individual is often looked upon with derision and contempt.

Because Longitude is a popular account, there are few technical details. For the most part, this lack of detail does not detract from the book, but occasionally the lack of technical description confuses the reader. For example, Sobel does not explain how one determines local time on a moving ship. Nevertheless, this flaw does not detract from the overall value of the book. Sobel tells her tale well and brims with enthusiasm for John Harrison and his wonderful invention that solved a centuries-long obstacle to safe navigation on the high seas. At the end of the book, Sobel touchingly describes her reaction to seeing Harrison's clocks for the first time. "Coming face-to-face with these machines at last-after having read countless accounts of their construction and trial, after having seen every detail of their insides and outsides in still and moving pictures-reduced me to tears."