this book is the best book i have ever read. it depicts people of african descent in the most positive light that i have ever read about. mr. harris whom my mother had the opportunty to meet has done a wonderful job in this book. i have recommended it to all of my friends and i recommend it to you. if you like adventure, romance, action, intrigue, then this book should be number one on your list to buy. the best part about this book is that though it is listed as fiction it could really happen. it will make you open you eyes to the things that are going on around the world. things that you probably would not have exposure to. keep an open mind and a open heart and you will love the books and especially the characters in the book. "to only have the chance to live in their lives for one day." what they do in a day some of you never do in a lifetime. enjoy!!

In politics, many different rules and regulations create problems for consumers. Regulations that cause people to die - or contribute to their deaths - should bear the highest possible level of scrutiny. In this book, medical doctor and former Food and Drug Administration official Henry Miller addresses problems with the way the FDA reviews and approves new medicines. His analysis is extremely important because, when the government delays the introduction of critical medical innovations, people can die.

The key point in Miller's argument is that imposing excessive regulatory costs on American pharmaceutical firms forces them to experience corporate mergers, reduced competition, and higher prices. In the long run, this leads companies to focus on shorter-term, lower-risk research and development intended for larger patient populations. Thus, smaller groups of patients in need of new medical innovations that require long-term study at higher per-capita costs suffer the most from delays in approving new products.

Miller addresses the myth that there must be a tradeoff between promoting more efficient drug research and improving drug safety. Efficiency and safety can both be improved simultaneously by introducing competition where regulatory oversight has become excessive and changing the FDA's role in the process. Rather than evaluating data itself, it should allow other organizations to evaluate clinical testing and focus on monitoring their efforts instead.

A key problem that many drug manufacturers face is that regulations are not static. When new rules are enacted, regulators generally adopt narrow interpretations of them, but broaden those interpretations as time goes on. Because of this, regulators must be viewed as a special interest group - expanding their turf by skirting congressional oversight and gradually inflating burdens for manufacturers underneath the radar screen.

These problems lead many companies to alter their research priorities. Instead of focusing solely on prospective benefits for consumers when choosing which products to develop, firms must account for potential regulatory costs as well. The high costs of getting drugs approved reduces the diversity of products being prepared - leading many companies to devote more energy to dealing with the regulatory apparatus. Innovation suffers as a result.

The biggest problem with the FDA's current system, though, is its lack of accountability to the public. Consumers cannot participate in its product-review process and cannot obtain judicial review of its decisions. In addition, seldom is information about delayed or rejected drugs and medical devices made available to the media. Thus, the nature of the evaluation process itself reduces consumers' freedom of choice and individual autonomy. It leads many frustrated consumers to travel abroad to obtain safe drugs and services not available here in the U.S.

Fortunately, Miller offers a solution to the problem: allow independent, non-profit drug certifying bodies - instead of the FDA - to review test results from companies. Then allow the FDA to monitor the technical, scientific, and managerial expertise of these bodies to ensure they perform proper reviews. This would be similar to OSHA's accreditation process for testing laboratories. It would also introduce much needed competition, innovation, and efficiency into the oversight process and help alleviate many of the perverse incentives regulators face when interpreting new standards.

Overall, America's drug review procedure is in need of reform. Excessive regulations that lead to increased suffering or death among consumers should be repealed. In addition, when the regulatory process itself delays new technologies or innovations that can reduce suffering or death among the public, the procedure itself should be closely examined. Miller's book sheds new light on a frequently-ignored cost of overregulation: how preventing the adoption of new products or services that save lives can be just as costly as overlooking those that cost lives. His arguments should be given careful consideration by anyone who is concerned about the state of health care in the United States.

I do not want this to sound insensitive, but the one thing I kept thinking as I was reading this book is why was he there? The U.S. government was telling U.S. citizens to leave, the Lebanese government did not care, his employer wanted him to leave, and there were increasing hostage incidents. The book his the story of his capture and the seven years he spent as a captive of this militant group. He does a good job in describing the locations he was in, the people that were his captors, and the other persons that he was with. I thought the most interesting parts of the book detailed his conversations with some of his captors and their views on the situation.

The book is a very interesting view of what happened to the author. The details are rich and he does a good job of painting the scenes for us. He also did a good job of explaining the depression of being a captive and what it is like to loss seven years of your life, although I do not think any author could truly express the emotional pain that he must have gone through. If you are interested in this part of the world or this story, this is a great book. It is also interesting given the current climate in the Middle East to read about what was happening 20 years ago.

Den of Lions: Memoirs of Seven Years by Terry Anderson is one of my favorite books. The book grabbed my attention and kept it. I read the book in one day. Learning of Terry Anderson's ordeal through his eyes and in his words was amazing. Having been only 4 when he was taken hostage, I did not really know much about him until he was released from Lebanon in 1991, when I was 10. I grew up watching the news with my parents and I can remember seeing his return on television.
When I decided to study journalism in college, I chose the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University. When I heard that Terry Anderson was going to be joining the faculty at Scripps, I was truly excited. I read his memoirs and then had the opportunity to hear him speak about his ordeal. Having him as a professor at Scripps was a wonderful experience for all journalism students. I have the great privilege of saying that I met one of my role models and I am grateful for that.
Den of Lions: Memoirs of Seven Years is one of the best books I have ever read. It is touching and wonderfully written. It tells Terry Anderson's story in a way that only he could.

Terry Anderson's Den of Lions is a den of insights into the radical bi-polar terrorist mentality in which he was trapped for over seven years. His descriptions of the bombings, shootings and random daily violence that permeated around the non-citizens and the citizens of Lebanon, make this a classic Middle East hostage survivor's story. Anderson's poems of his cruel incarceration are filled with searing depth that transport you to the various scummy basement cells which he shared with other Westerners. Den of Lions and Hostage by David Jacobson go hand in hand and are important contributions in the collection of Middle East books that help those of us citizens who were not there or too young to remember, the horror that Beirut was during the eighties and early ninties. Very highly recommended!

Though Anderson has been documented as having inconsistant, shakey work, Winesburg stands alone as his best work. Winesburg was a contriversal and unique 80 years ago as it is today among the great colleges of America. (Winesburg is required reading for many of the great colleges i.e. Evergreen, Reed)Using short stories to illustrate the suffering and pleight of the towns citizens, Anderson raises questions over morality, family, gender, and sexuality. Though the book would seem to be a textbook case of 'Americana' and the joys of living in a small, rural town, Anderson illustrates the bizzare and dark world of American towns at the turn of the century. Every citizen has skeletons in their closets and everyone has fears, passions, and insanity running through their blood.

There are many interesting ways to interperate Anderson's landmark work. While there have been many cases of the book being used in Harvard as examples of American literature of the turn of the century, colleges such as Evergreen have used it to inquire into the sexuality and gender issues that we face today, and the development of the American psyche.

Anderson's book will read like a book of his time, so if you are looking for a book the dictates American history from an Ivory tower 50 years from the future, this is not it. This is first hand history, and first rate literature. This is a complex, exciting, and disturbing look into the American midwest.

Sherwood Anderson's "Winesburg, Ohio" is a string of twenty-one connected stories (plus an introduction) that, like James Joyce's "Dubliners", links a community of people to a single place and time and explores common themes. Most of the stories are told from the vista of the recurring central character George Willard, the local newspaper reporter and a sort of alter ego of Anderson, who used his own rural hometown of Clyde, Ohio, as a model for Winesburg.

Rather than an idyllic portrayal of American small town life in the 1890's, these stories are about psychological isolation, loneliness, and sexual repression and frustration brought about by small town mores. These people are as sad and neurotic as any that might be found living in the big cities. Anderson calls them "grotesques," people who are warped by the sanctimoniousness of provincial piety and their own inhibitions. His nonchalant, ironic way of writing understates the peculiarity and the gloominess of the stories.

The stories are loaded with symbolism that is difficult to decipher. My favorite is probably the four-part "Godliness", which, in a satire of religious fervor, merges parodies of the biblical tales of Abraham's near-sacrifice of Isaac and David's slaying of Goliath. But all the stories have interesting allusions of various degrees of subtlety. This work must have seemed quite groundbreaking in its depth, complexity, and boldness when it was first published in 1919.

Sherwood Anderson published this collection of short stories in 1919 all set in fictional town of Winesburg, Ohio. Even though it's written in the third person, it's told through the narrative voice of George Willard, the town reporter, who shows up in most of the stories, sometimes taking an active role and at other times just telling a story.

It is obvious that the writer loves these people, and is frustrated at the isolation and unhappiness of their lives, even though he makes it clear that they hold within themselves everything needed to make them happy. The character in the first story is a dying old writer who is attempting to write about all the people he has known as a "book of grotesques". What follows is the collection of stories, which each character fulfilling that expectation.

There are the young lovers who don't quite connect; there is a old man so obsessed with religious fervor that he attempts to sacrifice his grandson; there is a married man who regrets it all and tries to warn a younger man of future unhappiness; there's a doctor and a sick woman who try to connect. The book is full of people who toil all their lives and never achieve happiness. As I made my way through the book I kept hoping that even one of the characters would rise above the morass. It didn't happen.

The writer has a wonderful sense of place and the town of Winesburg in the early part of the 20th Century is very real. These people were not poor or disadvantaged in the usual sense of the word; they didn't suffer fire, floods or famine. Instead, they trapped themselves in their own psychological webs that made it impossible for them to lead anything but sad unfulfilled lives. This is a fine book and stands alone as a clear voice of its time.

The author is heavy on the evangelism and light on the therapy. Most discussion leads back to biblical references, which is fine, but not apt always.

There are some interesting "counseling assistance tools" in it that could be helpful.

If you're looking for a book that more closely ties Psychology, Theology and Spirituality together look for the book by that very title - by Dr. Mark McMinn

Christ Centered Therapy by Anderson, Zuehlke, and Zuehlke attempts to integrate psychology and theology into a wholistic counseling approach. The authors explain that all counseling operates from either a Christian or an alternative spiritual worldview. The belief that it is possible to treat persons psychologically in a values-neutral manner is a myth. No therapist is values neutral. Values are the very lifeblood of all counselors do with their clients. Patient-therapist similarity with regard to religious values may be one of the best predictors of a successful outcome. The authors examine, compare, and contrast the four primary worldviews currently in psychology which are humanism, utopianism, new age, and Biblical. They agree that Christian therapists in nonprivate domains have the right and obligation to counsel Christian clients from a biblical perspective.

They explain that the evangelical Christian community is defined by several nonnegotiable core beliefs but beyond that there are diverse strategies in Christian counseling that the authors examine. They range from secular psychology by Christian practitioners to "Bible only" methods that reject all psychology. The authors then attempt to find a balanced integration of theology and psychology. It centers on helping a client to realize his new identity in Christ. The authors present a Biblical strategy for Christian counseling that involves three levels of conflict and seven steps to freedom. The seven "Steps to Freedom in Christ" is process that the counselor assists the client in working through where a person takes a moral inventory and makes a commitment to truth.

In order for a counselor to be effective he must be growing himself. Several recommendations are for growth are given. The subject of assessing client's spiritual condition is examined. The obstacles in counseling in the marketplace are discussed and an explanation of how to present the Gospel in that setting. Issues involving the reality of managed care are also considered. A large section of the book is given to the subject of counseling tools. A summary is given concerning each of these tools. They include cognitive-behavioral therapy, theophostics, and a therapy plan for the following issues: bonding; early recollections; eating disorders; grief and loss; physical, emotional, and sexual abuse; parenting issues; anxiety disorders; depression; boundaries; dissociative identity disorder; marriage communication; sexual addiction; and chemical addictions.

The book examines the issue of the professional Christian therapy and the church community as a collaborative partnership. A model for the interrelationship between the church and the Christian counselor is given. This includes how to establish a freedom ministry in the local church and the logistics and related issues in organizing such a ministry. Finally there is an extensive appendix that includes forms to be used in counseling ministry within the local church.

At the center of the book is Neil Anderson's 7 steps to freedom. This treatment plan is both Biblical and practical. I am confident that in many cases the 7 steps have brought individuals into new levels of freedom and wholeness. Yet the authors seem to promote the 7 steps as a panacea for nearly every mental health disorder. In my opinion this may be too simplistic and unrealistic. I also feel the book falls short in being a definitive integration of psychology and theology. This is unquestionably a Herculean task that was valiantly engaged but I felt the book fell short of fully satisfying this objective.

Despite its shortcomings, Christ Centered Therapy is a valuable work that should prove to be a wonderful resource for pastoral counselors and Christian mental health professionals as well as a quality textbook for seminaries and Christian colleges. The authors do a good job of exposing the anti-Christian bias in psychology and of explaining the different views of counseling in the Christian community. They have a great respect for the power of God's Word and the work of the Holy Spirit in counseling. I particularly appreciated the tool kit section, which presented various conditions and the interventions.

An excellent book to help us on the field who are seeking to provide quality counseling from a spiritual Christian perspective. This book offers good information in how to deal with the secular protocal required while at the same time not requiring the Christian counselor to abandon his person desire to be faithful to God in his counseling. I greatly appreciate their positive endorsment of Theophostic Ministry. Some have misunderstood and misrepresented this approach to counseling ministry without looking into its true theological basis and the incredible results people are having using this approach worldwide.

Since I was a child in the 1960s I am intrigued by the political processes of that decade; by the civil rights movement, Viet Nam, and the three presidents of that decade. I have read a number of books and was looking forward to reading The Sixties. I was disappointed. Mr. Anderson tilts his approach and inevitable editorial comments too far to the left and leaves the reader with the sense that the book had a political agenda rather than the book being an effort to provide an objective rendition of one of the more critical decades experienced by the United States. He writes very well; but there were times that the bias in favor of hippies, campus protestors, etc., was just too much to take. I have the benefit of sitting in "judgment" of the sixties (the decade, not the book) with total objectivity since I was only a kid at the time and based on all of my reading this book is simply too biased to the left to be taken seriously. I would certainly not have high school or college students read it if the purpose is to give an accurate historical perspective on the sixties.

When I first had to read this book for class I thought that it would be bad. After I read it I saw that it is a great book. The author looks at the 1960's in stages and covers virtualy every bit of that time period. He makes it fun to read about this time and it is a very scholaly look too. All in all I give it 5 stars and wish I could give it more.

Terry Hewitt has been a collecteor of cacti and other succulent plants for 40 years. For 25 of those years he has been growing the plants commercially at the well known Hollygate Cactus Nursery in Sussex, England.
His new publication is an excellent book for beginners who want the basics. Terry introduces you to the history of cacti and in the main deals with plants which are fairly common and often available from plant sources. You will learn how to buy and select the best plants, how to look after them, propagate them and control pests and diseases. A seasonal calendar is included explaining what to do during the different seasons of the year.
Information is additionally given on indoor arrrangements, greenhouse and outdoor growing. And a color photo section of about 50 varieties of cacti is included which tells you the origin of each variety, gives a botanical description and the expected height and spread of the plants when given pot culture.

General Bond kept a diary during his year with the American Volunteer Group. Unfortunately, it was slightly edited for publication, so we don't in all cases get his unvarnished view. Still, it's by far the best account currently in print from the point of view of one of the original Flying Tiger pilots. There's some historical context provided by historian Terry Anderson.

Search for: "Transforming Leadership: Equipping Yourself and Coaching Others to Build the Leadership Organization."

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This book purports to be serious scholarship but is little more than very readable libertarian/free market boosterism. It does, however, do a good job of reflecting the values of the so-called Gingrich revolution of the mid-nineties and probably those of the current Bush administration.

The book takes one of two approaches: to place absolute faith in markets when it comes to environmental protection, or to deny the reality of particularly intractable problems. It's interesting to note that the sub-chapter on global warming, titled "Global Warming or a Lot of Hot Air?" (deriding those who believe in global warming as "Chicken Littles") which appeared in the first edition has disappeared from the 2001 revised edition. The revised edition doesn't even list global warming or climate change in the index.

Anderson and Leal make their strongest argument where they write about "government failure" in funding the construction, by the Army Corps of Engineers and Bureau of Reclamation, of un-economic and ecologically harmful dams throughout the 20th century. This sort of pork-barrel spending wasted taxpayer money and harmed the environment and was largely unopposed, at least until Presidents Carter and Reagan (to both of their credit) began to resist, as is recounted at great length in Marc Reisner's excellent book Cadillac Desert.

In Anderson and Leal's chosen scheme of environmentalism, the most likely determiner of how natural resources would be allocated would be big multinational corporations, not unlike Enron, Global Crossing, WorldCom, etc.. We have seen how (un)wisely these corporations protect the public interest and how equally (un)wisely they protect the interests of their own shareholders. Yes, by all means, lets put the Great Lakes into a water market and allow some new "Enron" to control the trading. (See Anderson and Leal's Chapter 8, titled "Priming the Invisible Pump.") It's scary to think that the decision over whether we will have any wilderness left at all would be in such (in)capable private hands. Yet that's what the authors recommend. This book's solutions are overly simplistic and thus either wrong or incomplete. I give the book a five for readability and a one for policy, with policy weighted most heavily.

This book is a real eye-opener. It shows how sometimes the private sector is much better at protecting the environment than the government is. It builds from early examples in the 19th century up through effective private-sector efforts today. At the same time, it points out how government programs sometimes worsen the very problem they seek to correct.

Some people might not believe its notion that the private sector will always do the right thing. And, of course, it won't. However, this book is a good guide to the growing movement to find a better way to protect the environment.