This is a must-have cookbook, whether or not you keep a kosher home. The production values are fantastic (clearly written, full color pictures of many of the foods, informative sidebars) and all the recipes that my friends and I have tried were easy to follow and tasted delicious. If you are looking for kosher recipes that are elegant and a cut above the usual fare of kreplach and stuffed cabbage, then this is definitely the book for you. I also found the index to be very well organized. Your only problem will be finding the time to try everything out!

My mother gave me this book as a present two weeks ago and I LOVE it! The recipes are easy to follow and they taste great. (My husband keeps asking me to make him the chocolate chip sticks again.) The information and tips given in the sidebars are very helpful and really make this more than just a cookbook - it's a cooking lesson.

The color photographs in the book are beautiful and entice you to try out all the recipes.

I predict that this cookbook will become a must-have for any kosher cook.

Recipes are elegant and easy, there hasn't been one recipe that I've tried that wasn't good. Simply the best!!!!!

This book confirms what we all know but refuse to acknowledge...our food, our environment and our general outlook on life will be our downfall. Thanks to Dr. Hazel Parcells and Joseph Dispenza we can take heart in knowing all that can change. This book is a must for anyone concerned about health and well-being. It offers practical advice for daily living, but most of all it offers HOPE

I am a former student of Dr. Parcells. I believe her work is on the cutting edge of health and healing. She has changed the way I treat my patients. Her philosophy from Live Better Longer teaches people to take responsibility for their healing instead of living out the doctor's diagnosis.

The author does a masterful job of exposing the remarkable work of Dr. Hazel Parcells to a wide audience in a way that is enjoyable and yet very practical and informative. The consciousness of this planet has never been more prepared to embrace this beautiful message. That if we understand natures healing principles and take responsibility for our own health we have a chance to "Live Better Longer". Thank you Joseph Dispenza for bringing us this message of hope.

Blue is a modern saint. He is not afraid to fly kites, sleep on roof tops, and write letters to heaven. He is a poet, and artist, an idealist, and a noble soul. I have never been touched so deeply by any character before I met blue. Read this book, and look at life a whole new way. I laughed and then I cried my heart out. This is a book for the soul.

Simply: the story of the happiest man in the world. (And his happiness WILL affect you.)
I first read this book 30 years ago; I have reread it many times since. It is part of my being. . .a part of my better being.

This book was given to me by William Stringfellow, unquestionably the outstanding 20th century American theologian. Karl Barth called him that. Stringfellow was a laymen, a lawyer, and a prophet. His admiration for Jay Blue was exceeded only by his fidelity to Jesus Christ. Mr. Blue blew my mind. One of three best books I have read. I have no idea how my copy every left me. It's an incredible story about a sinful saint.

This book can be read in at least two ways: in the interest of understanding Cardinal Ratziner the man, or to understand Ratzinger the theologian. In other words, this is both a personal and intellectual book.

Here Seewold succeeds in not only getting to Ratzinger's theological positions, but also the more personal thought processes that were instrumental in the formation of his very important views. This solid interview with one of the Church's most larger-than-life figures shows how little of himself Ratzinger can see in such a discription. That is, the overwhelming modesty of the man is what comes through most strikingly.

This is a book length interview of Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, prefect of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. He is the Roman Church's sentinel on the frontiers of theological adventurism, there to keep watch that the Church's Deposit of Faith is preserved against impious attack. He has held this position since 1981, when Pope John Paul II called him to Rome from Munich, where he was archbishop.

He was born in Bavaria seventy-three years ago. As with Karol Wojtyla, he had a full life before going to Rome. As a young man and seminarian he was exposed to the rise of Nazism in Germany. He was a prominent theological advisor during the Second Vatican Council and taught theology at Germany's most prominent universities. He earned a reputation as one of the Church's brightest and most creative theologians.

In an age when Truth has come under unceasing brutal assault, he has become a target of attack worldwide. He is routinely caricatured in the worldwide media as the new Grand Inquisitor, unthinking and dictatorial. This book will discomfit his enemies. It shows a deeply learned man moving carefully and deliberately across all the issues of the "Canon of Criticism," forthrightly defending the Church. It shows a man with a keen understanding of our present age and the ideologies that animate it.

The Roman Church is contemptible to so many precisely because it stands in unabashed reproof of so much of what passes as wisdom today, including the central "truth" of our post-modern era: that only truth is that there is no Truth. This reminds us that the Church is now, as always, a scandal. But it is necessary, Cardinal Ratzinger reminds, us to distinguish between the "primary" scandal and the "secondary" scandal. "The secondary scandal consists in our actual mistakes, defects and over-institutionalizations . . .." (124) The Church is made up of men who are subject to all the frailties to which flesh is heir. But the Church aspires for more. That she occasionally fails should not surprise us. That she aspires for more should inspire new generations of saints. Yet the very idea that man is not naturally good and should aspire for more through self-abnegation is a deep offense to the modern mindset that man is good and is always, inexorably, getting better. This makes the Church an object of contempt and, in time, hatred.

"[T]he primary scandal consists precisely in the fact that we stand in opposition to the decline into the banal and the bourgeois and into false promises. It consists in the fact that we don't simply leave man alone in his self-made ideologies." (124) Substitution of transitory political ethics for Christian ethics leads to despotism, the exaltation of a mere man as God: Lenin, Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Ho Chi Min. "We can say with a certainty backed up by empirical evidence that if the ethical power represented by Christianity were suddenly torn out of humanity, mankind would lurch to and fro like a ship rammed against an iceberg, and then the survival of humanity would be in greatest jeopardy." (227) "For this reason . . . the Catholic Church is a scandal, insofar as she sets herself in opposition to what appears to be a nascent global ideology and defends primordial values of humanity that can't be fit into this ideology . . .." (124)

"[I]f we give up the principle that every man as man is under God's protection, that as a man he is beyond the reach of arbitrary will, we really do forsake the foundation of human rights." (204) The sacred tradition of the Church is arrayed in defense of the dignity of mankind. Contrary to fashionable caricature, the Church is not an ossified tree, subject to being felled by the latest gale. It changes, but slowly, deliberately, organically. "[T]here are various degrees of importance in the tradition [of the Church] . . . not everything has the same weight . . . [but] there are . . . essentials, for example, the great conciliar decisions or what is stated in the Creed. These things are the Way and as such are vital to the Church's existence; they belong to her inner identity." (207-208) As to its essentials, its First Principles, or everlasting verities, the Church is powerless to change even in face of popular demand.

Bringing to mind Edmund Burke and G.K. Chesterton, Cardinal Ratzinger reminds us that "the Church lives not only synchronically but diachronically as well. This means that it is always all - even the dead - who live and are the whole Church, that it is always all who must be considered in any majority in the Church. . . . The Church lives her life precisely from the identity of all the generations, from their identity that overarches time, and her real majority is made up of the saints." (189) Our present age cannot cavalierly discard the wisdom of this great communion of the living and the dead, of one hundred human generations of the Church, confident that it has somehow achieved superceding wisdom. Instead, it must, as must all generations, submit to the essentials of the Church, to revelation and the Church's sacred tradition. "Every generation tries to join the ranks of the saints, and each makes its contribution. But it can do that only by accepting this great continuity and entering into it in a living way." (189) The Church does not need additional "reformers" of institutions. "What we really need are people who are inwardly seized by Christianity, who experience it as joy and hope, who have thus become lovers. And these we call saints." (269)

This is not easy for any generation. It places a break on volition. It posits that man's every impulse is not virtuous. Intrinsically, it asserts that man is not God, that man must prune his impulses, as he would an overgrown plant to prepare it to bear fruit. "[P]eople don't want to do without religion, but they want it only to give, not to make its own demands on man. People want to take the mysterious element in religion but spare themselves the effort of faith." (212) This is New Age faith, not the faith of the Church and her saints. "If the willingness to be bound is not there, and if, above all, submission to the truth is not there, then in the end all of this will simply remain a game." (235)

It is often heard today that if only the Church would make priestly celibacy optional, ordain women and "reform" its doctrine to accommodate other contemporary demands, that she would flourish as never before. These cavils ignore the central truth of any true church - that its communicants come to it and submit to the truth it professes, a truth beyond editing by plebiscite. It also reveals a stunning lack of critical intelligence. "These issues are resolved in Lutheran Christianity," Cardinal Ratzinger notes. "On these points, it has taken the other path, and it is quite plain that it hasn't thereby solved the problem of being a Christian in today's world and that the problem of Christianity, the effort of being a Christian, remains just as dramatic as before." (181) Why should the Roman Church make itself a clone of Lutheranism? "[B]eing a Christian does not stand or fall on these questions [and] . . . the resolution of these matters doesn't make the gospel more attractive or being Christian any easier. It does not even achieve the agreement that will better hold the Church together. I believe we should finally be clear on this point, that the Church is not suffering on account of these questions." (182)

Cardinal Ratzinger is forthright in his pessimistic assessment of the time ahead. "The danger of a dictatorship of opinion is growing, and anyone who doesn't share the prevailing opinion is excluded, so that even good people no longer dare to stand by such nonconformists [i.e. Christians]. Any future anti-Christian dictatorship would probably be much more subtle than anything we have known until now. It will appear to be friendly to religion, but on the condition that its own models of behavior and thinking not be called into question." (153) The Church must attorn to the zeitgeist in this scheme. These themes are explored in Michael D. O'Brien's "Children of the Last Day" novels.

It is time for the faithful, Cardinal Ratzinger says, to form "vital circles." [T]here are great, vibrant new beginnings and joyful forms of Christian life that don't figure much statistically but are humanly great and have the power to shape the future." (143). "Particularly when one has to resist evil it's important to not to fall into gloomy moralism that doesn't allow itself any joy but really to see how much beauty there is, too, and to draw from it the strength needed to resist what destroys joy." (69)

In his autobiography "The Sword of Imagination," the novelist and historian Russell Kirk writes, "Not by force of arms are civilizations held together, but by the threads of moral and intellectual belief. In the hands of the Fates are no thunderbolts: only threads and scissors." Throughout this book, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger demonstrates that he understands better than, perhaps, anyone e

A very readable, interresting book! Cardinal Ratzinger gives his views on a wide range of topics in the course of an extended interview with Peter Seewald, including his life and the state of the *world-wide* Church. This book offers valuable insights from a man who is uniquely positioned to "see" the workings of the Church as a whole.

In the more "liberal" circles, there's apparently a tendency to villify Cardinal Ratzinger as some kind of "right-wing", closed-minded fringe type. Having read this book, I find that claim hard to believe: whether one agrees with his views or not, it is hard to see the Cardinal as anything other than a thoughtful, intellegent and learned man.

When I came to the States from Taiwan at age 13, my father gave me this book and told me to read it carefully. I had had only one year of formal English instruction back home. I credit this book entirely for building a solid foundation for my understanding of the English language. To top it all off, the book was actually fun to read! Now if only someone will write a book for building volcabulary in such an easy and fun manner...

As a journalism student many moons ago, English 3200 saved me from the fate of sixty percent of my peers. Back then, the majority of prospective journalism majors washed out of the College of Communication at my university. The reason? Any paper submitted for a grade with a spelling error, incorrect grammar, punctuation error, or improper formatting earned an automatic "C" with half letter grade deductions for subsequent errors. This book beefed up my English language skills in a hurry and I was able to graduate from the program cum laude. Today, our language has been deconstructed by a pervasive popular culture and educational apathy in public schools as students are 'dumbed down' to the lowest common denominator. English 3200 fights back with a practical vengeance leaving its readers more articulate and fluent in our native tongue. As an adjunct college instructor, I am always distressed, but hardly surprised, to find many foreign-born students more fluent in English than native-born speakers and writers. This book, once completed from cover to cover, provides the proper guidance, as much as most of us will ever require, for expressing ourselves using our native tongue in correct and impressive form.

In high school, I was placed in "dumb" English, but while in the U.S.Army, a friend gave me this book. I read it over and over and this, along with a small pocket dictionary, qualified me for honors English in college. Subsequently, I earned a Medical Degree from UCLA, and I am now a medical writer as well. I recommend English 32000 to all writers and students.

Since this book was first published in 1929 my friend doubted that I would like it suggesting it's information is out of date. But it's a masterpiece! It doesn't waste time looking at piles of other people's experiences. It tells you how YOU can have an out of the body experience yourself. There are plenty of effective inducing methods to help you get out of your body. You just have to imagine particular visions. You focus on the image of you going up in a lift. You are shown how to lossen your astral body from your physical body! Then you can have a great adventure. The main reason I want to astrally travel is to travel in time. My main objective is out of the body time-travel! Wouldn't it be so COOL! I know some of these things are really hard to believe but it must be true...

I've had alot of conscious out-of-body experiences in my life and read many books on the subject. This book really hit the nail on the head! The most detailed and accurate book on the subject with lots of exercises that really work! I recommend it highly!

Simply put, an excellent book! I read many other books on Astral Projection (Monroe, Bruce, Peterson, Buhlman) before I read Muldoon's which was written decades ago. I found it surprising how many concepts were discussed in Muldoon's work and how much this influenced the later studies on Astral Projection. This is the book that opened up the gate to understanding astral projection.

This book is unquestionably a classic. My first introduction to the Arabian nights(this is much easier to type than the title of the book)was as a kid when my mother would recite these stories during mealtimes. Being an Indian, I was not new to the world of Jinnh's, magic carpets and other such wonders. Everyone enjoys the popular stories such as Alladin and Ali Baba(thanks/no thanks to Disney). However, this book is one way of getting to the real Arabian nights that have not been adultrated by Disney. Sorry Disney fans, but the truth is often bitter. The thousand nights and one night is a perfect source of transporting oneself to the ancient middle east. The land of the Caliphs ,where women were immensely beautiful and heros truly heroic. Each story in this volume is a wonder. There is much to be learnt from these stories since they reveal age old wisdom in addition to pure joy to the heart. The stories themselves go beyond plain narration and successfully give the reader an insight into the life in the ancient middle east. Oh! I know that the thought of people flying around in magic carpets sounds preposterous. It is the cultural background that I am talking about. The book reveals middle eastern charm, something that is to be found in traces even today if you were to visit the middle east.The book begins with the disillusionment of King Shahriyar by his wife, something that makes him an absolute tyrant. He kills her and then decides to marry every night and put the bride to death in the morning. The vizier's daughter who marries him decides to change his distressing behaviour for good. She starts the practice of reciting captivating stories every night that are left unfinished in the morning, thus extending her own life. This is the birth of the thousand nights and one nights. When I read this book, I spent several sleepless nights trying to finish it. I believe that it is a true classic just like the Iliad, Odessey, The Poetic Edda, Mahabharata and the Ramayana. A piece of the old world that we are lucky to retain.
However, I MUST add a note on the content. This book is definitely NOT for kids. There are plenty of adult language and situations that would definitely not do for a child. One must make allowances here since this book is probably a direct translation of the original text. In addition, there is a strong bias regarding non islamic communities. Since this book is but one for a four book series, the bias may not necessarily be a part of this book. While reading the entire series, I had to make allowances for racial and religious discrimination. Remember the age in which these stories were written and then try to forgive the original authors for their attitude and mentality.
On the whole, a wonderful read for people interested in old folk/fairy tales.

Almost nothing can be said about the Thousand Nights and One Night, except what is obvious to anyone who understands its substance. It is one of the truly essential pieces of world culture, and probably the most extensive universe of stories in history.

Something must be said, however, for those who are NOT aware of the extent of this work. This is not the simple batch of a dozen or so stories -- Aladdin, Ali Baba, Sinbad, and the like -- that most people think it is. This is over 2400 pages of narrative, comprising close on 100 stories -- some of which are themselves as long as novels, and many of which contain smaller stories within themselves. The stories range from the profoundly epic to the delightfully whimsical, and there is variation in mood and length throughout the series that it not only serves as a collection of discrete stories but functions as a unified whole.

As such, the attempt to read the Thousand Nights and One Night in its entirety can not be a halfhearted one. The reader must be prepared to invest considerable time in the reading. The rewards, however, are incalculable. The complete experience has few parallels in fiction, because few works of such volume possess such unity. Reading moves from the hasty and immediate to the comfortable and regular. The difference is akin to that between listening to a 3-minute pop song and listening to a 30-minute symphony. The individual stories fade into memory, retaining their own identities but also falling into place within the whole.

I will not attempt to address the individual stories themselves in any detail. Suffice it to say that they narrate love, lust, sex, war, peace, contemplation, action, commerce, politics, art, science, and many other things, in the spheres of the supernatural and the mundane. The Thousand Nights and One Night is a virtually complete panorama of human existence, with each story a component scene.

I will, though, address the issue of translation. I have perused other editions of the tales in varying degrees (although this is the only one I have read completely). In the first place, any translation which omits some stories is not worth consideration. Although there is some controversy over whether Richard Burton (the first to translate the tales into English) corrupted the original text and inserted spurious parts, there is nothing to be gained by being persnickety in this regard. This edition contains more tales than most others I have seen, and therefore is more likely to contain the "right" tales somewhere inside. On a less abstract level, this text is simply more fun to read than most others, and, as mentioned, there is more of that fun text to be read.

Also, it can be plausibly speculated that this translation is particularly likely to have fewer Burton-induced inaccuracies, since it is not in fact a direct translation from Arabic to English. This 4-volume edition is a translation into English, by Powys Mathers, of a French translation, by J. C. Mardrus, of the original Arabic. It is somewhat surprising that an indirect translation such as this should be of such high quality, but I have found it to be so. In particular, this Mardrus & Mathers version includes substantial verse passages (which in other translations are often rendered as prose) and is refreshingly frank in its translation of the more ribald passages (which are numerous).

The Thousand Nights and One Night is not merely a book that can be read; it is a world which can be experienced, and the memories of that experience can mingle almost indistinguishably with memories of reality. Only a work of this size can work on large and small levels, with many intricate details but also many large thematic components. As an added benefit, by the time you have finished reading the fourth volume, your memories of the first will be fading, so you can begin a new reading immediately, and experience the joys of the Thousand Nights and One Night all over again.

The stories contained within are truly wonderful. They oftentimes read with such beauty and vividness that I almost believed I was there! If there's such a thing as a darn-near perfect translation, these books are it imho. Why not introduce your children to the tales of the Arabian nights via these books? I'm no historian, but these tales have a much more authentic feel than others that I encountered as a child. Read a few stories each night, and enjoy the whole series over a period of time! Or dive in and don't surface until you're done!

If you are a trained statistician, you will probably love this book. For each major leaguer, it takes his actual numbers and washes out park effects. Then it compares the value (in runs) of the player's production to the league average. There are fielding and pitching "stuff" statistics invented by Baseball Prospectus that attempt to account for all the variables that contribute to performance. For minor leaguers, it calculated "major league equivalencies"--i.e., what numbers the player would have put up if he had played in the majors.

The problem is that the bewildering array of new terms and statistical explanations will mean little to the casual fan. Even an experienced roto player who has a healthy respect for such methods, such as myself, will have an extremely difficult time putting it all together.

Fortunately, the player write-ups are as compelling a reason to buy the book as the statistical analysis. They are hilarious--inventive, creative, and full of oddball references. Baseball Prospectus can be a little too opinionated at times, and a little subjective for a group of people that professes to believe only in the data, but that's part of what makes them so funny. It's unbelievable how many different ways Joe Sheehan & Co. can find to say that a player is worthless.

I stumbled upon the Baseball Prospectus website about a year and a half ago and after reading the articles they frequently publish there, my view of baseball has totally changed. Basically, the BP team laughs in the face of traditional yet very lacking statistics such as batting average, RBIs, saves, wins and losses. They include several mathematicians who have created very comprehensive systems to evaluate batters (equivalent average), starters (Support-Neutral Wins Above Average), and relievers (Adjusted Runs Prevented). While they value the sabermetric approach to baseball, they also provide commentaries on less quantifyable aspects of the game.

While BP is occasionally prone to making sweeping exaggerations regarding a subject, they provide generally objective analysis of baseball in a very entertaining manner. BP 2002 is well-written and contains paragraphs on about 50 players per organization, organization reviews and assorted other articles along with each players translated (meaning adjusted for AAA, AA, etc or parks) statistics. I highly recommend it.

I forgot to mention in my lengthy review below that one of the best properties of Baseball Prospectus 2002 is the humor ... it adds to the readability a lot knowing that some funny and off-the-wall statements crop up in the player comments. I inadvertantly found myself up way past my bedtime recently reading about minor-leagues for the Tigers when I hit this note on Brandon Inge: he "does less damage at the plate than Lara Flynn Boyle". Good stuff. Keep it up, boys.

Father Girzone's view of Christianity is a vision of how I believe the Christ wants His people to behave. While the story in this book is not as compelling as the Joshua books (it's still pretty good), the message is the same. Christ is here, today and we should behave accordingly.

Those that insist that their sect are the only ones "saved" will not enjoy this book, but those of us that believe that we are Christians first and that our denominations are less important than Christianity will find inspiration here.

Like all of Joseph Girzone's books, Joshua and the Shepherd is extremely well written. It is easy to read (excellent prose), and Girzone weaves such a detailed story that it is hard not to get swept up in the flow of the story. This book is definitely a story about the universal love of Jesus (Joshua) for all of His creation. The book is definitely idealistic in its ecumenical storyline (different denominations establishing a strong single community), but Girzone does leave one with the impression that there is definitely hope for such a possibility if people truly listen to the Word. Overall, I liked the book. Being an advocate of ecumenism myself (though I must state that I would not want unity by sacrificing Truth) I could relate to this book and thougth the message was truly inspiring. My one problem with the book however was that at times, Girzone writes so simply, you feel as if the book was actually written for grade schoolers. Then again, perhaps it wouldn't be such a bad idea to expose children to this message (the one of ecumenism) anyways.

This was the first of Girzone's "Joshua" series I read, and it is still my favorite. Whenever I re-read it I have to clear about four hours on my calendar, because I plow right through from beginning to end. It's that good!

This is the story of a "good" priest who is made bishop of his diocese. He is seen as one who applies church law consistently and without favoritism. Unfortunately for his parishioners, that means that he has often acted more like a Pharisee than like a disciple of Jesus. What a profound change he will make when he encounters Joshua, a simple wanderer who seems strangely in tune with the will of God.

Without naming names, Girzone rebukes those who follow man's rules rather than God's, and gives us a modern interpretation of what Jesus might say if he showed up at your door tomorrow. I wish all clergy and faithful would read it; I *really* wish all clergy and faithful would examine their beliefs and practices, as Girzone's main character does.

It is an inspirational, hopeful book -- corny as it sounds, I still get a shiver down my spine when I read the last few pages. I give it my highest recommendation!

Last August I noticed a very slight pain in my upper right shoulder. It didn't seem like a structural injury, so I continued to train normally. One day, after about twenty minutes of crawl laps in an Olympic size pool, the pain in my shoulder increased suddenly and dramatically. I iced it and took some non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, and resolved to rest a few months. A few months later, I was no better, and I went to the University medical center. The range of motion tests I underwent actually worsened my condition, and I nearly went to the hospital emergency room two days later. After the typical rigmarole with hospital administration, I finally got to see a sports medicine specialist and then received a referral to physical therapy. A month later, I had spot numbness in my arm, and was still unable to jog, swim, lift...anything.
So my mom bought me this book. I didn't pick it up right away, and I regret it. After only three days following the rehabilitation exercises in this book, I am back to almost full strength and mobility, and have taken up Brazilian Jiujitsu, and returned to regular weight-lifting.
At first, I was leery about the book because one of the authors is a chiropractor. But none of the material in the book is controversial or esoteric. It's extremely common sensical, and includes very helpful information about exercises you may be performing which could permanently damage the health of your shoulders. Further, it presents anatomical information in a manner that is clear and approachable. The doctors I saw didn't bother to inform me of the distinction between internal and external rotators, and all the exercises they gave me were for the internal rotators.
As a young man, I frequently took my health for granted until this shoulder injury. Anyone who is suffering similar problems, and the same confusion and ambiguity that I did, should give this book a chance. At the very least, it presents a wholly scientific and reasonable alternative to surgery and debilitating steroid treatments. Good luck...

This book is really well done. It is written in a language anyone can understand and perfectly illustrated. For each passage the author talks about, there is a small illustration showing exactly what is being described. It makes the information very easy to understand and utilize. I have never had any rotator cuff problems but I am a personal trainer and I have many clients who have had problems with this area. This book outlines routines for rehabilitation, and also for injury prevention. It also includes some fabulous stretches for the chest, shoulders, and biceps, as well as the rotator cuff muscles. This book is a great resource to have in your library of training texts and I highly recommend it.I wish that all books on injury prevention and rehabilition were done as well as this one.

Some of the other reviews have mentioned how this book has helped overcome an injury. I recommended this to a tennis playing friend with a rotator cuff injury and he was able to return to his former level and then some. That's my anectdote.

The shoulder tries to be a ball-and-socket joint and to some extent it is. Two common analogies are that it is like a baseball on a golf tee or like a large beach ball on a saucer -- a very shallow ball-and-socket joint. The shoulder joint also has a large range of motion, but the price for this range of motion is instability. The book's diagrams show how various muscles act to keep the joint stable. But the degree of stability depends on how well all the muscles are developed. Unfortunately, many exercises and sports act to create an imbalance by developing the internal rotator muscles and not the external rotators. Add to this some commonly performed exercises that can cause injury either through impingement or stressing an unstable shoulder and it is no wonder that injuries occur even without a direct blow to the shoulder. This book shows how many injuries occur in addition to showing how to strengthen the shoulder joint to make it more stable and less susceptible to injury.

More and more weight training books (i.e, THE POLIQUIN PRINCIPLES and MUSCLE MECHANICS) are including exercises for the rotator cuff. Everett Aaberg, the author of MUSCLE MECHANICS lists 15 references and, sure enough, THE 7-MINUTE ROTATOR CUFF SOLUTION is one of them. Horrigan and Robinson's book may have started or at least contributed mightily to the trend. Injuries alone are not the reason for this. Including rotator cuff exercises often produces a sudden increase in bench pressing poundages. In fact, the WestSide Barbell Club bench press workout videos include exercises specifically for the rotator cuff.

The book also includes a lot of material applicable to other aspects of shoulder health. Page 54 illustrates Lying Flyes which I have found to be a most effective exercise for the rear deltoid -- for me better than bentover laterals or bentover cable laterals. And if you're fond of doing weighted parallel bar dips be sure to read what this this book has to say about them before you suffer some degree of shoulder separation.

In short, if your sport involves the shoulder at all you'll find THE 7-MINUTE ROTATOR CUFF SOLUTION an excellent investment. Plenty of text, plenty of diagrams and routines for both rehabilitation and prehabilitation.