Harry Potter is fictional witchcraft. The books that Dr. Mark A. Ventimiglia, PhD., writes are real witchcraft. If you are one of the many millions of persons that have bought the Harry Potter books, you have probably already asked yourself the question: "Is there any truth to this witchcraft stuff?" If so, I can honestly say that the answers you seek are found in the book, "THE WICCAN REDE." Dr. Ventimiglia is a real witch. He learned witchcraft from Dr. Raymond Buckland, PhD., who brought witchcraft from England to America in the 1960s. Dr. Ventimiglia is a Wiccan high priest and the founding member of the Coven of the Green Earth. Wicca is witchcraft! Forget Harry Potter and forget Hogwarts school of witchcraft and wizardry. If you want to learn the real witchcraft, then get this book and study it! Put it into practice! And you will be well on your way to becoming a powerful witch! I guarantee it!

For the past few decades, the bookstores and libraries have been filled to overflowing with tons of literary garbage (occult and otherwise), and the result is lower IQ's for the average American, along with a sluggish economy, high rate of unemployment, and an overall sad state in the quality of life. The Wiccan Rede, and the spiritual philosophy that it represents, can (and will) make a difference in the world, if that philosophy is adhered to and practiced. All of Mark's Wiccan books are geared toward building quality people through the instruction of good morals and ethics. By building quality people, we are thereby strengthening our society's future. I feel that publishing companies have a responsibility to their readers to publish quality literature... literature, like The Wiccan Rede, that emphasizes proper moral and ethical philosophies in a world that currently has none. Sure, we live in a market society, but there has got to be a standard that is more important than simply turning a profit! This book is the cornerstone on which that foundation can be laid.

Wild Asia: Spirit of a Continent is a beautiful oblong title providing a visual journey through the Asian wildlife world based on an international television series by the Natural History New Zealand. Enjoy color photos and a variety of writers who focus on their regional knowledge of Asia, from the Arctic tundra to central Asia. An exceptional visual display blends with nature insights.

This book was a great buy for me. Although it is very general as animals and plants go, it opens up the wonder of Asia to the reader. Its pictures are extremely magnificent; they are the main focus of the book. It is said a picture tells a thousand words, and it is very true for this book. The color and great shots are just as good as it gets, next to being there.

Wild Virginia is the ultimate hiking guide to one of the most beautiful states in the eastern US. Whether you're looking for day hikes or extended trips, this is the guide for you. This book not only offers an informative overview of hiking in the wilderness areas but also provides a description of each trail in great detail. If the authors state that the trail curves sharply to the left or there is a fork in the trail, you know it's there. The maps are also true representations, making this guide essential while planning at home or hiking on the trail. I can't wait to see their West VA guide!

Wild Virginia is a unique work that clearly presents information about wilderness areas in the state. I have been unable to find a good source to have on hand when planning trips, and now that I have discovered this book, I am excited to take it along. It is obvious that the authors have been thorough in their research, and have taken great pains to hike and explore every trail they discuss. Their presentation of each area will make it easy for any newcomer to enjoy the wilderness of Virginia.

I enjoyed this book a lot. It has great pictures! I brought it to school every day and bought it for my cousin Casey. It was also well written. I would recommend this book to any Wills fan under 15. GO MARIE MORREALE!!!

This book takes one through the marriage of Prince William's parents, through his birth, through the divorce of his parents, through his last vacation with his beloved mummy, and though his trip to Vancour, British Columbia, in March of 1998.

There are many, outstanding pictures of this handsome, young prince, as well as, some of his immediate family. Many of his likes and dislikes are included along with some of his royal stats.

We are shown that despite all the pomp and circumstance in his life, he is still very much a normal tennager who copes with life's everyday situations. Also, we are shown how he has coped with tragedy and triumphed over all odds.

Above all " William craves privacy. He is not a great lover of London life. " P. 96

This is a paperback book which measures 8x8 inches.

I too grew up in Wyo. and this book features one of the most interesting cross-sections of the rugged individuals that live there. I purchased it because my brother is featured in it (horseshoer, p. 130), but my friends and family are fascinated by it. It is a featured "coffee-table" book in our home.

The pictures were excellent and the stories, for the most part were quite interesting. If you've ever wondered what life in Wyoming is REALLY like, you must read this book.

Zarate has written an first-rate review of this excellent book but may unintentionally suggest that the value of the book will be greatest for "mature" organizations when, in fact, small-to-midsize organizations also have an urgent need to "design and implement scorecards" by which to obtain accurate measurements of various kinds. My own opinion is that their need is indeed greater because they have fewer resources available and narrower margins for error. Therefore, organizational waste and incompetence can have much greater impact. Aphorisms which endure express an essential truth. For example, "You can't manage what you can't measure." There may be some exceptions but not many. What Brown accomplishes in this book is to provide and then explain a cohesive, comprehensive, and cost-effective system which accommodates most organizations' needs for operational metrics and plans, for strategic metrics and plans, and then for implementation of the "scoreboard" after it has been devised. He identifies ten "Mistakes" which create barriers to addressing these separate but related needs:

1. Tracking output/outcome metrics that cannot be influenced or controlled

2. Gathering data that tells you what you already know

3. Gathering data for its own sake

NOTE: Brown and I apparently disagree about "data" which I consider a plural.

4. Relying heavily [too heavily] on customer satisfaction surveys

5. Executives focusing on detailed metrics

6. Measures that are not linked to the strategic plan

NOTE: Kaplan and Norton have much of great value to said about this in their most recent book, The Strategy-Focused Organization: How Balanced Scorecard Companies Thrive in the New Business Environment

7. Failing to define Practical Correlations between [and among] key metrics

8. Reporting data that is difficult to read and analyze

9. "Superstitious" process metrics

10. Measures that drive the wrong performance

Brown explains how and why such "Mistakes" are made, how to correct them, and also how to avoid repeating them. For purposes of illustration, let's say your organization needs to improve performance in these three areas: Cycle Time, First Pass Yield, and On-Time Delivery. Although separate, they are also interdependent. Obviously there are problems which need to be solved. More often than not, a corrective action responds to symptoms rather than to root causes. We all know that many (most?) of those involved in any organizational process (regardless of nature and extent) fear change, resent what they perceive to be criticism of their performance, and will therefore resist (perhaps sabotage) efforts to transform the status quo. Hence the importance of formulating the correct metrics, applying them where they will generate the data needed, and -- meanwhile -- ensuring that the "score" kept is appropriate to whatever "game" is being played.

This book goes a long way towards helping organizations actually implement balanced scorecards instead of giving them lip service. It also shows what to measure and why, and gives a list of measurement mistakes that render many company's balanced scorecard efforts meaningless.

Unlike Kaplan's and Norton's seminal (and decade old) book, "The Balanced Scorecard", this book is short on theory and heavy on practical applications. This is not a criticism of "The Balanced Scorecard" - just recognition of the fact that in the ensuing decade since that book was first published there have been lesson's learned about what does and does not work. The author distills these lesson's learned into this slim, content-filled book.

What I like most is the author clearly links metrics to vision, mission and strategy. This is what a balanced scorecard is supposed to be about, but this is not always so in practice. He also sorts out the difference between basic business indicators and critical success factors, which is augmented by an outstanding discussion (throughout the book) on top measurement mistakes, and a liberal sprinkling of tips throughout the book.

Probably the most valuable parts of the book are Part 3, where step-by-step procedures are given to implement an *effective* scorecard, and the appendices which contain case studies drawn from real organizations and actual scorecards. The examples given are worth their weight in gold and elevate this book from the theoretical to realistic and practical. My highest recommendation and 5 solid stars.

Timothy S. Murphy has contributed an extraordinary study, a book that finally does justice to the Burroughs canon, reading his work in the hypercritical line of Swift, Orwell, and Ralph Ellison, an unrepentant political literature firing the engines of social change. Readers of Burroughs scholarship are all too familiar with the widespread academic attempt to "postmodernize" him, of a reflexive poststructuralism which consigns his work to the a-referential abyss of a Robbe-Grillet, or a John Barth, an insular, disconnected fantasy-realm of linguistic wordplay bouncing off the padded walls of introversion. Murphy has arrived to correct these academic non-readers, quick to point out that Burroughs's first book, *Junky*(1953), was nothing if not trenchant social critique, his later, more well-known novels (*Naked Lunch*, the Red Night trilogy) simply a more sophisticated apparatus for exploring these same social issues, the perverse realms of technocratic subjugation, the sexually charged resistance of a socio-guerrilla liberation movement.... The great intertextual encounter is between Burroughs and French uber-theorist Gilles Deleuze, whom Murphy powerfully invokes as one of the few theoretical approaches that can give Burroughs his critical due. When Murphy wrote to Deleuze asking the philosopher's position on the Burroughs corpus, he replied that his own work "'can bear [comparison] on three points (the idea of a body without organs; control as the future of societies; the confrontation of tribes or populations in abandoned [disaffected] spaces).'... [Thus,] Burroughs and Deleuze rely, not on the permanent grounding of truth (and Law) in modernist myth, but on the fluid mechanisms of desire in fantasy for their amodernist utopian drive. [Murphy's] task, then, is to see how such an amodern libidinal or *fantasmatic* politics WORKS in the writings of Burroughs and Deleuze"(7). The sadness of Murphy's book is his revelation that Burroughs was never really able to discover or originate the revolutionary constructs he so dearly wrote after, that in the afterbirth of each new book the scales had to be reset, the war-machine dismantled, the battle plan abandoned in search of *yet* another reality-engine. Yet Murphy's knowledge and scholarly rendition of this trajectory, one of the most critically underrated careers in American letters, has given Burroughs back to us, has rendered the most powerful scholarly defense of his work I've yet encountered. This definitive volume, currently in exile, will hopefully be reissued soon, so that it may reach the wide audience it deserves. (Lately I've seen spine-rolled copies in my university bookstore's remaindered bin, quite disheartening.) It is certainly a text to be taught, to be pored over, to be dearly grateful for.

Alongside the earlier works by Eric Mottram and Jennie Skerl, Mr. Murphy offers the reader an insight into the life of William Burroughs as well an in depth analysis of his works. ''Wising Up the Marks'' is an indispensable work for both the Burroughs's collector and academic historian alike.

A hilarious book of qoutes, sayings, and one-liners only Mark Twain could have the genious to create.

A qoute from Adam, the first of many: Adam was but human - this explains it all. He did not want the apple for the apple's sake, he wanted it only because it was forbidden. The mistake was in not forbidding the serpent; then he would have eaten the serpent.

From Adam, the wit and humor only becomes more hysterical, more riveting, more evident; and we soon discover the true intelligence of Mark Twain. He was not an ordinary man; for no mere ordinary man could have thought, and often dared, to utter such words as Mark Twain, in the era in which he lived.

The Wit and Wisdom of Mark Twain contains some of his most outrageous qoutes, either written within his books, or his journals, and spanning more than four decades. A great read, which you don't have to start at the beginning, and work your way to the end. And a perfect way to escape the drollery of prime time television.

Mark Twain captures human nature at it's best and worst in this book. The collection of quotes by Twain "alphabetically" comment honestly on topics ranging from adultery to government to money to youth. Such insight into humanity rarely comes along in a lifetime (or several lifetimes!) His words in truly reflect society during his lifespan and, as I have reread this book several times, the passages reflect society today. This book is an "easy read" as it contains memorable quotes as well as portions of a variety of speeches, papers and books/stories Mr. Twian wrote. You can read the entire book at one sitting or glance through it if you have a few minutes to spare and still feel the impact of his writings , thus finding yourself highly amused by his insight. You can pick up the book again at a later time and enjoy it as much as before. The "authors"/collectors/writers of this book are to be applauded.

Twain was the funniest American who ever lived. His satire puts him on par with Voltaire, Wilde, Shaw, and Sinclair Lewis. Imagine the five of them under the same roof! Twain's cynicism is similar to Nietzsche's.

This small book has 357 quotes by Twain, 16 of which I have here for sampling:

"The way it is now, the asylums can hold the sane people, but if we tried to shut up the insane we should run out of building materials." (p. 2)

"Be good and you will be lonesome." (p. 9)

"We have a criminal jury system which is superior to any in the world; and its efficiency is only marred by the difficulty of finding twelve men every day who don't know anything and can't read." (p. 20)

"There has been only one Christian. They caught and crucified him-early." (p. 24)

"[The preacher]never charged nothing for his preaching, and it was worth it, too." (p. 26)

"Honesty is the best policy-when there is money in it." (p. 33)

"You want to be very careful about lying; otherwise you are nearly sure to get caught." (p. 35)

"A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." (p. 35)

"It is more trouble to make a maxim than to do right." (p. 40)
"In the first place God made idiots. This was for practice. Then he made school boards." (p. 41)

"I have been on the verge of being an angel all my life, but its never happened yet." (p. 46)

"Why is it that we rejoice at a birth and grieve at a funeral? It is because we are not the person involved." (p. 48)

"The English are mentioned in the Bible; Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth." (p. 48)

"Whenever you find you are on the side of the majority, it is time to reform." (p. 50)

"I would rather have my ignorance than another man's knowledge, because I have got so much more of it." (. 51)

"I like a good story well told. That is the reason I am sometimes forced to tell them myself." (p. 52)

"Put all your eggs in one basket and-WATCH THAT BASKET." (p. 55)

...of spicy quotations by the master of words and wit. Gives sources too. Very enjoyable reading.

I have read "Words of Love for Men" and it gave me a new perspective on the power of the spoken word. If everyone would learn to integrate the formulas from this book into their conscious behavior, the formulas can be generalized and applied to all of their interpersonal relationships.

This book provides concrete tools that will assist in transforming any relationship. It has definitely had an impact on my life, making communication so much clearer and easier, with my partner, my children and my friends.

I highly recommend this book to everyone who wants to bring a little light and love into their lives and their relationships.

I have read Words of Love for Men and was amazed at the simplicity of the book but yet it was so thorough and powerful. I found the emotional discriptions in the book of how women feel mirrored my feeling exactly. It was so helpful to me to realize that other women were struggling and frustrated with the same issues and felt the way I did.

This book made such an impact on both me and my fiance. Our relationship continues to grow and our ability to effectively communicate our love for one another improves by using the easy to apply principles.

I highly recommed this book to everyone, men and women, to better any and all relationships. I would be more than happy to talk to anyone about the great things in this book and how it impacted my life.

Misty