Recipes For Enchantment: The Secret Ingredient Is You! by psychologist Barbara Becker-Holstein is a unique and insightful self-help guide to feeling better. Recipes For Enchantment is filled with inspirational stories with opportunities to journal and think through making positive changes in one's life. A warm book dedicated to lifting spirits and making a difference for the better, Recipes For Enchantment is the culmination of more than ten years of work and research and will reveal to the reader how to recall positive memories as an aid to dealing with the pressures and disappointments of our lives. The recollections, coupled with daily positive actions, will result in the substantial and enduring enrichment of our lives and personal sense of well being.

We all remember special moments in our lives but this book teaches us how to include those feelings as a more integral part of our daily lives. A magical book that leads the reader through self-discovery with practical examples to spark the "enchantment" process. Dr. Holstein's experiences and professional expertise are reflected in her writing and I strongly encourage those who wish a deeper enjoyment as they travel through life to pick up this wonderful book. Different and thought provoking!

I enjoyed reading Dr. Holstein's first book, THE ENCHANTED SELF, A Positive Therapy. However, RECIPES FOR ENCHANTMENT, The Secret Ingredient is YOU! is a book that is really for everyone with a step away from more of the clinical aspects of 'enchantment'.

It was a joy to read her enchanting and motivational collection stories and the follow up exercises allowed me relate her messages to my own experiences. I actually learned how to bring more joy into my life by tapping into my hidden potential through memory exploration. It's a great concept that really works.

In a nutshell it's a book that you want to pick up when you are looking for some heart-warming inspiration. She has a great flair for story telling and weaves lots of common-sense into her beautifully structured short stories. I loved it! I think women, especially, will appreciate this book.

Planning in the 21st Century

BY MARY R. ENGLISH

Part of a growing series on land use planning published by Island Press, Community Planning is modestly titled. It provides much more than an introduction: it gives the reader a working acquaintance with community planning.

In the United States, the concept of comprehensive local planning dates back to the City Beautiful movement spawned by the 1892 Columbian Exposition in Chicago. In the late 1920s, the concept took off on a grand scale with the Standard City Planning Enabling Act published in 1928 by the U.S. Department of Commerce as a companion to its 1926 Standard Zoning Enabling Act. Both were the culmination of the work of a commission appointed in 1921 by Herbert Hoover, then Secretary of Commerce.

While the Department of Commerce's model acts were simply that-models-they provided helpful guidance to states. In 1926, local land use zoning had received the blessing of the U.S. Supreme Court in Village of Euclid v. Ambler Realty Co., which sanctioned the use of public regulatory power to specify how private land may be used. To enable and provide direction for local zoning and planning, states passed legislation patterned on the Department of Commerce models.

Now more than 70 years old, these models have been scrutinized and alternatives have been proposed-by the American Law Institute and the American Planning Association, for example-but virtually all state zoning and planning legislation harkens back to these two standard acts. They are premised on the idea that good government requires professionalism grounded in fact-based analysis and dispassionate forecasting.

Just as you can take a trip without an itinerary, you can zone without a comprehensive plan. Properly done, however, a comprehensive plan brings logic, foresight, and defensibility to zoning and other community decisions. Sometimes called a master plan or a general plan, a comprehensive plan is, as Kelly and Becker note, "a tangible representation of what a community wants to be in the future."

Today, full-blown comprehensive plans typically include inventories of existing conditions, statements of needs and goals, and implementation strategies. Comprehensive plans also broach topics such as population, housing, land use, economic development, public facilities and infrastructure, natural resources, and cultural resources. These are often described in some detail, accompanied with maps and information on historic trends and projections. The comprehensive plan may also detail more specific plans for special areas such as a city's downtown, or special topics such as open space and recreation.

Community Planning is contemporary in its orientation. Kelly and Becker frequently note the need for early and continued involvement of citizens and elected officials in community planning processes. Nevertheless, the book is in keeping with the rationalist, "good government" spirit that motivated the U.S. Department of Commerce's model acts. It provides a systematic, well-thought-out guide to the community planning process.

Kelly and Becker's book was written to serve as a text for introductory classes in planning at the undergraduate or graduate level, and it moves from the general to the specific of tangible plans, the nuts and bolts of developing and implementing plans. The book wraps up with practical information useful not just to students, but also to community leaders with no formal training in planning on what work to expect from planners and on ethical issues to consider in planning. To assist the teacher or the self-taught reader, each chapter concludes with exercises, discussion questions, and annotated suggestions for further reading. The book also has an extensive bibliography.

Over the past few decades, debates have arisen about the utility of comprehensive plans. Are they worth the effort? Is the process of planning really more important than the document itself? Does anyone actually use the plan? As federal subsidies for local comprehensive planning processes dwindled in the 1980s, the popularity of massive plans waned.

Kelly and Becker acknowledge this shift, and they also point out that planning is inevitably political: despite the best efforts of the government reformers, planning remains political with a small p. At its best, it transcends politics and builds consensus across political coalitions. At its worst, it can become so embroiled in local political issues that it loses its credibility and effectiveness.

Nevertheless, this book is testimony to Kelly and Becker's conviction that planning and comprehensive plans, properly done, can and should make a positive difference.

Mary R. English, Energy, Environment and Resources Center, University of Tennessee, Knoxville

This review originally appeared in the Fall 2000 issue of FORUM for Applied Research and Public Policy.

We used this text in our planning course last fall and it was excellent! Eric Kelly is a genius when it comes to writing planning books. This book is a must have for all college planning students. I highly recommend it!

There are a lot of nice items to send away for. My Mom and Dad both get ideas and things for us to do from the book. The craft kits in the book, some of which want a dollar or two for postage are nice. Some great stickers, books and other goodies too.

I recently bought this book, and it has so much free stuff to last me a long while! I was actually surprised when it came because I have bought many free stuff books in the past, but this on was the best!

camille pissarro gets much less notice than many of his contemporaries -- renoir, monet, degas, cezanne, van gogh, sisley -- yet in many ways he's the most interesting and innovative of the lot. born and raised in the caribbean, he emigrated to france as a young adult and worked as a productive (though often near impoverished) artist for five decades. in that time many painting fashions came and went, yet pissarro was often at the forefront of them all. one of the founding impressionists, his paintings were early on more radical than other painters working at the time (his artistic convictions cost him dearly in market success); he befriended and mentored the likes of cezanne, gauguin, signac; he was among the first to apply the science of color vision to his painting, and with much more care and insight than the mechanical dotmaking of the neo-impressionists. his influence was vital to the development of 19th century painting and is brought to life in this well written and comprehensive survey. the many full page color reproductions of his beautiful, sensitive, skillful and continually evolving paintings show the depth of his artistic sentiment and insight. pissarro is a painter who looks better in the perspective of time, and this handsome study does him full justice.

My brothers, parents and I fondly remember reading this book to my little sister. The repetitive 7 little rabbits becomes so monotonous that the reader is usually asleep, while the child is still enraptured. Oh, and don't even try to skip a rabbit.

This book is fabulous. I teach kindergarten & preschool and the children want to sing this book all day long. I have found the book on-line, but I have not found the audio tape that goes with it. If you can get a hold of the tape, I am sure you will love the tune. It is very catchy. This is a must have book in your at-home library and your at-school library. Happy Reading!

Delightful, happy, fascinating and captivating. The young child will want to hear it over and over. Grandparents will hum the rhyme right along with the children! It's a classic that we plan to preserve for future generations to enjoy, too.

I am not a therapist but I think that this book is an excellent text and I have learned a great deal about my own "Enchanted Self".

The process in this book delves deep into the experiences that control and make up our lives, and clearly points out that our state of well-being has an effect on how we can learn to cope. The Enchanted Self teaches you how to grow as a person and deal with problems and situations more clearly. It also teaches you how to identify the negative messages that you are carrying that make it harder to maintain your "Enchanted Self", and how positive traits can help you achieve your goals.

It was refreshing to read about a process that reinforces the fact that we must concentrate on the positive (not negative) situations that we encounter. I also enjoyed reading about the experiences of other women like myself.

After listening to her clients mention and then discount the positive events and memories they had experienced, Barbara Holstein realized that psychotherapy as it is commonly practiced today focuses almost exclusively on client "pathology". Her conclusion is that clients cannot feel complete until their strengths, rather than their problems, become the fulcrum for therapy . She outlines and details her thoughts on the matter in The Enchanted Self, describing a new therapy designed for both therapists and therapy clients seeking to promote positive change based on a core of psychological and life-experience based health and strength. Also available in hardcover (90-5702-502-7, $56) The Enchanted Self is highly recommended reading for professional and lay readers, especially those whose previous experiences with psychotherapy techniques and traditional approaches have fallen short desired outcomes.

A real big waste of money.
On the cover of the book says Free Stuff, as soon as I got this book I looked inside. Most of the stuff you get cost a dollar or two, there's maybe two things out of the whole book that are free and there not even good.
They shouldn't have named this book Free Stuff at all.

There are a lot of nice items to send away for. My Mom and Dad both get ideas and things for us to do from the book. The craft kits in the book, some of which want a dollar or two for postage are nice.

This 30-page rag is filled with the usual Work-At-Home fluff that you will find just about anywhere. From envelope stuffing and home assembly to distributorships, this publication is a great example of the opportunities you should absolutely avoid!

While the content is undeniably stale, [price]is small price to pay to learn about what YOU SHOULD NOT PURSUE if you are looking to start a business of your own.

I bought and used this book and found all the opportunities I tried were nothing more than money down the toilet! The book states that the printers have checked out the businesses listed in it and found them reputable but there is no way this is possible! Out of five that I tried there was only one I didn't prove to be bogus and the reason for that is because it would have cost at least a hundred dollars to do so and I was not throwing away any more money!

I can't wait to get the 2003 publication. I found last years (2002) guide for at home work a real life saver. Keep up the GREAT work.