If Nisargadatta had been born in California I would expect him to sound much like Robert Adams does in this book. Robert speaks from the position of someone who knows by direct experience like Nisargadatta or Maharshi. The words mostly are as profound as either. Robert also gives practical advice on Self Enquiry and practice in general. Robert calls himself a desciple of Ramana Maharshi as he apparently had a spontaneous awakening as a teenager. A couple of quotes:

"There is only one I actually. That I is Consciousness. When you follow the personal I to the source, it turns into the universal I, which is Consciousness. Begin to catch yourself. begin to realize your divine nature. You do this by keeping quiet. The fastest way to realization is to keep quiet."

"Grass grows spontaneously, but we can imagine we are making it grow with our willpower. The same with the activities of our bodies."

Recommended

i would strongly recommend Robert Adams' "Silence of the Heart" as one of the clearest and most pragmatic approaches to actualizing Advaita Vedanta as a practice. Realizing that Advaita Vedanta is a practice of no practices, Robert does a masterful job of describing many simple, practical approaches to "Truth", approaches that take one out of the habitual mind games and move one to directly face the reality of the present moment. His voice comes not from someone else's story, but from his direct experience as a reporter and observer of his own. All that Robert reports are what one does really find at the end of the approaches and they are reported with as much clarity and simplicity as possible. Strongly recommended for the experienced "nondualist" or meditator who has moved to the end game that is no end game.

This book is simply very good. Read it, read it slowly, read it again. Advaita, American style. Follow the recommendations, they work. Vol. II to follow, hopefully soon.

I was blown away by the down-to-earth descriptions of "psychological marriage" with a parent, how it develops and how it affects future romantic relationships. I was comforted to be able to understand, yet challenged to take action. It explained all of my recent relationship dilemnas with my partner so much that I felt it was written about us. I was comforted to realize that there were real reasons for our problems and yet, I feel scared to open up this topic for discussion between us. My partner has limited insight. Thank you for helping me see that I am not imagining things or going crazy!

The single most important thing I have read in my adult life. It's scary but helpful to find oneself being totally described in the pages of a book...and I found this happening to me here.

This is the single most powerful book I have read on what it means to grow up in a household where the parents are not fulfilling each other's emotional and physical needs. The children become the receptacle for all the frustrated sexual energy the parents are experiencing, even if they are not talking about it. This is exactly what happened to me -- the oldest daughter of an alcoholic and his angry wife. Finally, I understand the "ickiness" (the author's word) I still feel every time I am required to spend time with my parents.

This book talks about the specific, sexualized emotions you experience while growing up in a dysfunctional home that don't get articulated because it's too squeamish to talk about them. And yet, it does so in a very safe and comforting manner. It's like getting the hug and shoulder to lean on that you never got growing up.

Facing the truth of being emotionally used by one's parents is a sobering experience -- but oh what a relief to have these feelings explained and validated. I feel extraordinarily relieved to have read this book -- it gives me new hope for my present, my future and my marriage.

Although the program is designed for ages 8+, I bought it for my homeschooled 5 year old who has been reading since age three. The results were immediate and he is whipping through the lessons painlessly. Minimal time required per lesson, only 15 minutes for the student and 5 minutes for the teacher. I highly recommend it, though it is expensive.

My 7 year old groaned every time we mentioned spelling. She had low confidence in her spelling ability. The first day we started this program--WHAM-- what a difference! She saw that she could spell! She loves the 10 step study pages. Also, she likes that you only have to study the words she missed and not 10 to 20 words a day for a test at the end of the week. In this program, you take daily tests lasting just 5 minutes. Then the missed spelled words are repeated the next day.

I'm looking now for the activity cards. This program is wonderful for homeschoolers and anyone wanting to improve their childs spelling ability.

The author of the book recommends this for grades 3 to 12, but used it with her 5 year old granddaughter. We are using it with our 7 year old who is an advanced reader. Also this 10 step word study helps her with independent learning. She focuses better with steps.

They have their own website if you want more info. Just type Spelling Power into your search engine.

I am a professor for Mercy College. I would like to have a copy delivered to me. I would like to rewiev the book and encourage my graduate students to use the book in their classroom.

My address: Dr. Romulo Macias c/o Mercy College GraduateDepartment of Education Second Floor Office of Dr. Palomini and Dr. Sanchez 50 Antin Place Bronx, New York 10462

Paul Kallmes compiled and edited a stunning collected of photogaphs and essays concerning the work of Vittorio Sella. He is to be commended for bringing this collection of Sella's photographs to the attention of North American readers. Mr. Kallmes is a visionary. Bravo and thank you Paul!

Vittorio Sella is little-known today, but knowledgeable people like Ansel Adams consider him one of the greatest mountain photographers ever. Sella did his work at a time when cameras weighed 40 pounds, glass negatives two pounds apiece, and mountain climbing was much more primitive than today, without the warmest clothes, tough equipment and bottles of oxygen. Sella is also known for being the first person to scale the Matterhorn in winter.

Sella was the son of the first Italian to write about photography and his uncle was a famous leader of Italian mountaineering. Expedition photographs were a new idea in his day, and primarily served the purpose of map-making for subsequent expeditions. Sella's work also served that purpose, but transcended it with stunning minimalist views. As Ansel Adams points out in his preface, Sella also understood the technique of mountain photography in ways that are missed by many current photographers.

His work was of such stature that he was invited along on important expeditions by the Duke of Abruzzi, which allowed him to be the first to create images of many important scenes. These expeditions included his native Alps, Alaska, Uganda, the Caucasus range, and the Himalayas. His photograph of K2 in the Himalayas is considered the finest one ever.

As dazzling as these images are, the essays in the book greatly add to them by explaining the context of their creation, the photographic problems involved, and the artistic aspects of the work. I enjoyed reading each of them, because each shed a different light on the work.

Although the book is about summit photographs, the book includes many photographs during the ascents, of the people met during the expeditions, and of local scenery.

The summit photos are remarkable to me in many ways. First, he made great efforts to get the right perspective -- often climbing another mountain to get a view the the one alongside. Second, he created stunning panoramas of the major chains which exceed what the eye can see, even if you were there. Third, the pictures have a sense of motion in the glaciers that is quite remarkable. These rivers of ice look like they are moving in videos when you look at them. Fourth, the mountain views have a spiritual quality that is uplifting. Your view of mountains will be forever changed by these photographs.

Also, I feel grateful for the photographs because, although I love mountains, I am not a mountain climber and would never have a chance to see these beautiful, inspiring scenes otherwise.

I encourage you to read and enjoy this book as example of what goals can provide. In the days when Sella was climbing there was no chance of reaching the top of many of these peaks, such as K2 (thought by many to be the toughest mountain in the world to climb). Yet the climbers and Sella achieved lasting meaning for themselves and for us in their partially successful endeavors. Goals take us to the top of our skills by extending our ambition and focus. Be sure you are always looking for the next mountain to climb (and photograph). Let these wonderful images inspire you on to your personal greatness! Also, think about choosing goals that will aid and inspire others for many years in the future as Sella did.

Vittorio Sella photographed primarily in the late 19th and early 20th century and chronicled many important expeditions. In this book, the authors present an wonderful array of his work, and the photographic reproductions are remarkably loyal to the originals in coloration. Admirers of Ansel Adams will love this book and will clearly see the antecedents of his style.

Loved this story about family relations.

I enjoyed this short story very much.

I really enjoyed this cute family type story.

This is the most accurate portrayal of drug addiction I have ever read! It's a must-read for anyone wanting to understand the world of addiction.

Rivals Stephen King, only this guy's tale is true. Fast-paced and exciting. Excellently written. A frightening portrayal of drug addiction, just how low a person gets, and what it does to families, friends, loves. Put it on your Must-Read list. . . .

This was an amazing book. Filled with true life (very real) experiences. I could feel his pain, his struggles and his relapses. The further I read into the book, the harder it was to put it down. A "must" read for families of addicts for a clear understanding of the struggle.

Congratulations to Bill and Cindy Adams on their Whole Systems Approach. In all my thirty years in leadership coaching and organizational development, this is the most coherent manual for corporate change that I have come across. Not only do they successfully show us how to apply living systems theory to large systems change they do so in a practical, balanced, step-by-step manner. Most importantly, they emphasize the need for leaders to engage in their own transformation, to value "not knowing" and to involve everyone in the change process. I highly recommend this book to anyone attempting change in organizations. It's a great book of tools that will raise your spirits regarding what's possible in the world.

There are books on change written mostly by people who have watched change and then written about it. This is written from the trenches by people who have worked in the trenches. They have captured how complex and , sometimes heartbreaking, the process of change in a business. And they have the scars to show for it. This should...MUST...be mandatory reading for anyone attempting to change their business.

As an organizational consultant I found this book leaps and bounds ahead of the others. The information in this book is so valuable, I've recommended it to several of my clients (not a common practice).

Once you have read a book on a subject that you find fascinating and easy to understand as is the case with "Immune Crossover . the two faces of immunity "(Enrique Rewald, 1998, Parthenon Publishing), you feel like reading more about the same. This did happen by reading "Tending Adam's Garden", Irun Cohen's outstanding book. Both have much in common. Besides a similarity in design and in some ideas, their approach appears to be complementary. They are worth having near.

I have read Immune Crossover by Rewald and it was clear enough. Then Tending Adam's Garden of course attracted me. I started reading it and I stopped. I have never read any book that starts with the too wonderful words other people write about it. It kills the suspense of finding something good. Modesty is a great virtue especially in science. I don't think that someone else's opinion will change the content of the book.

Lía Barberis
Specialist in medical translations

Cohen's book is the first book I've read about immunology that baldly goes where no book has gone before. Cohen does not seem to be afraid to explore the field of immunology with what used to be the holdings of other fields. He doesn't hesitate to use philosophy, computer science and physics whenever the need arises. He not only ignores the superficial boundaries between the fields we were brought up on, but he even presents immunology in a way that seems obvious, given the other sciences of the 20th century. It is evident from the book that Cohen has a clear agenda and his own theory on the structure of the immune system. What many immunologists try so much to ignore - the urgent need for a new theory replacing the 50-year-old Clonal Selection Theory, turnes in his hands from a problem to a solution. Anyone interested in seeing how science is about to change, how borders between disciplines disappear and how immunology can be the basis to learning information theory, network theory, philosophy, system design, biology, evolution, cognitive systems and much more. And do all that while getting to know one of the most ingenious systems - the immune system, should read the book.

I expected not to finish this book, given my previous lack of interest in Vietnam-War history, but I found that the story transcended its milieu and beyond that drew my interest to a key period of recent American history. I imagine that fans will counsel students of history and political science to read it, and they probably should as an interesting nuance from more high-level views provided by more famous luminaries like Westmoreland, McNamara, et al, but I found this fascinating from a different standpoint: how one individual struggled to keep his intellectual integrity in the face of massive institutional pressure not to. There are lots of melodramatic movies that seek to capture the situation more cleanly, but this book, in chronicling one man's true-life experience, did it better and with more resonance than any film I've seen. As a young person who works with "numbers" myself, I understand how frequently people try to manipulate them and use them as persuasive devices for major decisions.

War of Numbers is an essential book for intelligence analysts as well as students of the Vietnam War. Adams provides key insight to strategic policy failure. In order to fully appreciate Adam's contribution to the intelligence history of Vietnam, it is important to understand that wars are fought by nations in the pursuit of interests and that for Americans, the decision to go to war should address seven considerations: Problem Identification, Interests Assessment, Objective Identification (including End State Assessment), Strategic Self Appraisal, National Power Assessments of The Enemy, Strategy Development, and the Identification of Gaps between Policy and Means.
Adam's book addresses errors in the National Power Assessment phase which had a negative cascading effect in subsequent decision making. Flawed enemy strength calculations contributed to flawed strategy development which contributed to a gap between policy and means. When Adams identified the flaw, the Johnson Administration was too heavily committed to a war of attrition to tolerate public exposure of the gaps between policy and means. Strategically, telling the truth about the numbers of enemy forces would have required larger commitments of U.S. forces increasing the strain on public support for the war. The strength of Johnson's political will and McNamara's quantitative analysis approach to war deeply affected the way the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, counted the enemy (called, Order of Battle).
MACV kept three sets of books; The first set of OB was the official version sent to Washington. The second set belonged to the OB Analysts themselves, and the third set was a blend of the first two. The first set was an undercount to keep official Washington placated; the second set was the honest count but did not go anywhere, and the third set went to Westmoreland who kept it close hold.
Adams contribution to the intelligence discipline is his description of how he found the flaw in OB accounting and the political correctness that resisted him within the intelligence community. The key to his breakthrough was to have actually gone to Vietnam, worked the Order of Battle issues on the ground, understand the enemy from "the enemy's" perspective and then double check how U.S. reporting of enemy strength matched that of how the enemy was reporting his own strength. This is when Adams discovered that MACV was undercounting troop strength. He performed a validity and reliability check on MACV and found their procedures and results wanting. The technique he used is described in detail and serves as a lesson learned for today's OB analysts.
The second lesson is how Adams' persistence caused a rift between the CIA and MACV over the integrity of the OB counting. The CIA is evenhandedly portrayed in the book. Individual analysts who looked at the numbers invariably sided with Adams; those in responsive political positions and vulnerable to the political influence of the Johnson-McNamara Administration behave in the subtle manner normally associated with behind the scene politics. Adams illustrates how assessments were watered down, reports delayed, egos clashed in the briefing rooms, and all of the suppressive efforts were brought to bear to keep him muffled and how he countered them. Basically, his operating principle was that the truth should be allowed to surface and he describes how he created those opportunities; back channel copies of reports; boot leg copies of reports, analyst to analyst contacts (CIA to DIA, for example), as well as maintaining contact with the honest brokers at MACV.
This is an important book for students of Intelligence Analysis. It serves as a guide on how to double check the validity and reliability of Order of Battle data; it gives insight to how politics heavily filtered ground truth under the Johnson Administration, and it lets the world see that the CIA wasn't evil incarnate. Like every other agency in Washington, it simply surrendered to political pressure from the White House.

Adams' book is not so much a book about Vietnam as a chronical of what happens when intelligence units and agencies report what the commanders WANT to hear. The CIA and J2 of MACV in Adams' book become pawns in the politics of Vietnam. They ignored facts and basic tenents of intelligence reporting. The agencies feared reaction to the facts and its possible effect on public sentiment to US involvement. Because of that they purposely, according to Adams, reported and knowingly maintained false information.

Even more disturbing are Adams' insights into the CIA of the middle and late Sixties. Though deeply entrenched in war in Vietnam, they seemed to take an overall cavalier approach to the mission. Adams notes after Tet-1968 there were "considerably less than 6" CIA agent handlers in Vietnam who spoke vietnamese. These same case officers received a grand total of 2 hours orientation on Vietnam and their enemy prior to assignment.

This book is a MUST read for intelligence personnel, policy makers and anyone who wants to learn how, the hard way, not to run an intelligence organization.

Just enough information to make realize you don't know enough to manage your own portfolio, but not enough to make you really understand. This book is a great plug for the investment professional-in the end you realize you need one. Of course if you have an MBA and your CFA designation this book is also useless because it's too cursery and superficial in its treatment of the subject. If you want a better understanding get a good college level textbook on investments.

I was trying to get a book that includes a great deal of modern portfolio theories and some practical examples to show me how to allocate my asset in a more scientific and knowledgeable way. This book has cached my eyes and I was very satisfied by the amount of knowledge I learned from it in a relative short period time. Here are some pro and con I want to mention about this book:

Pro
. Great amount of financial knowledge covered (asset allocation, risk analysis, etc)
. Easy to understand (practical examples present)
. Do not need to spend too much time on it, everything was concisely written (only 250+ pages)
. CHEAP comparing to other financial books

Con,
. Though ideas were clearly crossed inside the book, but some parts are poorly written.(Not a big deal, but still)

Conclusion: a MUST BUY for those entry level or intermediate level investors who want to learn modern portfolio theories in a relative short period of time.

This is an excellent intro to the concepts of modern portfolio management. It is vital for today's investor to understand that he needs to take a portfolio view when making investment decisions and understand how the portfolio's assets are inter-related to each other. He must also realize that understanding how much you can lose is as important as understanding how much you can gain. This book clearly and effectively illustrates these and many more fundamental concepts that every successful investor should know. It's a great read.