May be the best of Wilson's book for summing up his version of how the mind works. An excellent integration of diverse sciences, complete with many experiments you can do yourself. Also try Prometheus Rising, and Coincidance.

This book follows in the footsteps of Wilson's earlier work, _Prometheus Rising_, with an emphasis on language, psychology, and physics. It makes the intelligent or enlightened reader to smile in acknowledgement; it forces the average to change. How much depends on their ability to do so. Some of the material seems incomplete (with little attention to physics' Anthropic Principle), but in all fairness, one can only go so far before one has written several books, and Wilson certainly has. More careful and insightful than _Prometheus Rising_, it offers fans of Wilson his best work, and serves as a great introduction to his older and newer ideas.

Maybe this is what Clinton was referring to in his infamous linguistic/legal moment before the Star Inquisition. All joking aside, this book is a MUST read for anyone wanting to start getting rid of the semantic spooks in their psyche. This undefinable book of wisdom that weaves a coherent thesis out of such diverse topics as semantics, psychology, physics, model agnosticism and subtle humor makes clear better than anything out there just how much our perceptions and behavior are controlled/influenced by embedded language biases. Just learning to write in e-prime (english without the word "is") makes the book a worthwhile experience. Quantum Psychology opened me to a whole new way of thinking and perceiving, and that is something I can say but very few other books. I truly had no idea the robotizing effect language has on our behavior and perceptions--its not a discovery you can be "told"--you must experience it through the exercises in this book. You owe it to yourself to check this one out.

Although one's search begins with an alphabetized listing, the main body of this thesaurus (its original concept) is organized by category. This means that to find a synonym for e.g., "trouble", you will not simply be presented a list all the possible meanings of the word but you can choose your search depending upon the sense you are looking for. If you mean "annoyance" you will be sent one place for synonyms (nouns, verbs, adj, adv); if your meaning is more "presume upon" you will be sent somewhere else. In the case of "trouble" there are about a dozen places to go in the thesaurus depending upon the subtlety of meaning you are looking for. If you are a writer, this reference work is a sine qua non. Look no further than here for the best thesaurus in the world.

If you're a writer or interested in language this book is indispensible. This 6th edition is the first thesaurus I've owned and I wonder why I waited so long to get one. The first section of the book is a catalog of words grouped together by subject with the subjects listed at the beginning of the book. The second half of the book is the index, where a word can be found alphabetically and then indexed numerically to the categories in the front. I've spent some time perusing this book and I should say that I've had no difficulty with the typeface.

A dictionary of synonyms or a "thesaurus in dictionary form" (now that's phony titling) requires that you think of one of the words by which they sorted the language. A true thesaurus, though, while unfamiliar at first like any new and powerful tool, will let you find the word you are looking for when you can't think of ANY word to start. All you have to do is go to the area with the right sort of ideas and browse a bit. This book only gets better with time. Every writer of every sort needs a copy of this. (Oh, and the index makes a great spelling list for all the words science- and law-obsessed spellcheckers leave out.)

With all the nonsense written about astrology it's good to have a reliable book to explain the daily influences in your horoscope. Put down the newspaper. Put down the book that claims to tell you about your day based simply on your Sun sign. Those things are completely worthless. I was once fired on my supposed lucky day in one of those magazines. The newspaper and magazine daily horoscopes have given astrology a bad name.

Planets In Transit by Robert Hand is the real thing, the kind of book Sir Isaac Newton would have approved when he defended his belief in astrology to Halley (of Halley's comet fame) by saying - I have looked into the subject, Mr Halley, and you haven't.

This book is not for novices. You have to know the fundamentals of astrology to use it. You have to know what transiting Mars trine natal Venus means in astronomical terms before Robert Hand can explain it to you in astrological terms. You also need your chart and an ephemeris. If you don't have these things and don't know what I'm talking about, pick up a basic primer in astrology before graduating to Planets In Transit. I recommended the book to my astrology students when I taught an adult education course.

Is your life at this moment in time in a state of upheaval ? Then I bet you have major aspects in fixed signs. Saturn is making his last transit through Taurus (next trip is in 2028) and upsetting some applecarts along the way.

Learning about the transits of Saturn and Uranus has helped me analyze my life and has been constructive in dealing with change, making me resilient and adaptable. Robert Hand, who in my opinion is our greatest living astrologer, has in this book (originally published in '76) the definitive interpretations of the transits of sun, moon, and the planets through the houses and by aspect.

I usually focus on Saturn and Uranus, as these are the big daddy planets of change, but the others have their merit too, though the influence is subtler, and Hand's clear, concise and inspired writing and no-nonsense descriptions will help you get a good grip on the meaning of each transit. If you can read and own an ephemeris, this should be the # 1 book to go with it.

The first 3 chapters are short. One on interpretation, one on timing, and a case history of Nixon and Watergate. The rest of the book is devoted to aspect interpretation...477 pages of some very enlightening information, written by the best of the best.

I bought this book years ago in hardcover. I'm happy to say that I had the foresight to cover it with plastic since I refer to this book more than any other astrology book that I own and now, more than 20 years later, my copy is still in good condition. I have an entire shelf filled with astrology books, probably in the area 400+ books. I've been an astrologer for over 30 years and my highest recommendation goes to Planets in Transits. In 1980 I had the opportunity to hear Robert Hand at an astrology conference. He talked about how he wrote Planets in Transit and he said that at the time of the writing, he had a transit of Neptune going over his Sun. He jokingly said, "I don't even remember writing this book." Surely, with Neptune transiting over his Sun, he was blessedly inspired. For all new and intermediate students, this is the one to have on your shelf.

This is a wonderfully uplifting book on surviving a difficult battle with cancer, but it is even more the story of a family's love and support for each other through that difficult battle. Through this young woman's faith in God's healing power, and the love of her parents and husband she confronted this terrible illness with determination to live and the courage to undergo the treatment necessary to live. It is obvious, too, that her family also had to have a lot of courage and faith in this battle. Where many husbands might have become faint-hearted in this, Lisa's husband stayed at her side and had tremendous conviction that she would recover. He is to be praised for his steadfastness! With her recovery complete, what a blessing Lisa, her parents, and her husband were given with the birth of a son. This is most definitely one of the most uplifting and inspirational books I have had the pleasure of reading in a long while. I highly recommend it!

This is a wonderful book. It will make you cry, but will also bring joy to your heart and a smile to your face. It makes you realize the "choices" Lisa and her family had to make to survive where very hard for her and her family. You will admire her strength, courage, and her determination to beat this. You see first hand how it effects everyone in her family. How the love of her husband, parents, family members and friends are unconditional. It shows us how the small things we all take for granted can be taken away from us in seconds and our world can be turned upside down. How Lisa never gave up and if you "believe" anything is possible.

I highly recommend this book to everyone, not just those dealing with cancer. There is a "lesson" for everyone to learn from Lisa's experience. It's a WONDERFUL story of love, courage, faith and determination of a young woman who is fighting to survive cancer.

One word...amazing!

I have not had cancer myself, however I have many friends and family members who have both won their battle with cancer and some that have lost. I thought I understood what they were going through, not until I read Lisa Shaw-Brawley's book did I realize just how little I knew about their struggles.

I found this book educational and surprisingly, though I never thought I would describe a book on cancer as such, but also a love story.

For such a young woman, being diagnosed with Hodgkin's, Lisa at only 24 is a very centered and determined young woman. In the very early stages of her treatment she made choices about her journey through cancer that meant the difference between living and dying. With determination to fight her way back to a body free of cancer, along the way Lisa helped those around her deal with all of their confusion and fear of a disease that came into their lives with a thunder and changed them forever.

Have faith in God, trust in your doctors, love and support from family and friend and a will to survive, is what Lisa said got her through to where she is today. I cried for her and rejoiced for her and along the way was lost in this book that I could not put down. I have a greater understanding and admiration for what my friends and family members went through because of "Only When I Sleep".

Thank you Lisa for writing this book.

I first read this book years ago and I've revisited it as an old friend many times since. Presented as a generational saga, the book is wrapped around a fascinating and little-known historical event-the settlement of the Bahmas Islands by British plantation owners who found their lives after the War for Independence unendurable.

The story is first-rate with characters you care about. The struggle to recreate southern plantation life on the Outer Islands is brought to life but it's the characters who keep you turning the pages.

My book is falling apart so I need to buy a new one!

As a Boat delivery Captain, who has traveled thru the Bahamas I had heard of the book from many old salts and finally found a well used 1st edition of the book. It is a page turner and transports us easily back to the times of the early settlers of the Islands. I have heard of a sequel called Blowin in the wind, But I have never seen it. Wind from the Carolinas is one of my treasured positions.

I read this book many years ago, and it remains one of my all-time favorites. The characters are memorable and the description of life in the Bahamas at this period is fascinating. The dreams that were lost and the lives that were changed forever make for an unforgettable tale of human perseverance and determination.

I finished the paperback which is a reprint of a story Nora Roberts wrote in 1988, or at least that is what my book says. As with Sandra Brown, the publishers are reprinting the older novels of their best sellers. That's not a problem in Roberts case though, because her first published books to my way of thinking were her best. When she started writing, she had style. Maybe I think she even had class which set her apart and aside from most other writers. And I think this is what made her so great to start with. Too bad she's changed. I guess when you get to be so famous it doesn't matter what kind of story you write, the author's name will sell it. I do admire the lady with the utmost respect. I think The Last Honest Woman was written with a lot of theme from her own personal life, including the two little boys and location. (Just my own personal opinion) The romance is a heartwarming, tearjerker that has a happy ending, as the industry seems to think all romance stories should have. I read the story and felt the emotion. Abby, the middle of the triplets, was a strong and self-willed woman. Dylan was the knight in shining armour coming to save his princess. She writes romance in the early years quite well and this story proves it.

Please, I implore the publishers of these books to label them more clearly. "The Last Honest Woman" is book one of a 4-part series about the show-business O'Hurleys; unfortunately, not knowing that, I already read the other 3 parts. That said, it was fun to go back and revisit where this story began, and to see how and why Abby, the "middle" triplet, did not follow in the family business of entertaining others for a living.

Dylan Crosby, the writer who comes to chronicle the life of Abby's late husband, is almost too good to be true -- he likes her kids, cooks, pitches in around the house ... and of course falls in love with Abby. This is a very light read but a sweet tale.

Nora Roberts, well known for her family series, once again delights readers with several books about the O'Hurley family. Beginning with The Last Honest Woman, we meet Abby onew of the triplets born to Frank and Molly O'Hurley and their son Trace. The O'Hurleys are a show business family who travel from one gig to another entertaining audiences in both large cities and small towns. Each of their children in some way is able to entertain and so the world of show business is something they grow up doing along with their parents beside them.

Today, though, Abby no longer entertains but spends her days raising two small children and on a horse farm in Virginia. She is the widow of a well- known racing car driver, Charles Rockwell, who died during a race. But Abby who married at 18 was ill prepared for her husband's lifestyle and is acutely aware that her marriage ended way before Charles death.

Now Dylan Crosby, a journalist, has approaches Abby to write a book about her husband. As Abby wonders what she will say and what will be written, she invites Dylan to stay with her on the farm and see what her life is all about. Reluctant at first to give him all of the facts lest her children someday be hurt by them, Abby finds herself growing fonder and fonder of Dylan while he tries resisting her. But as Dylan finds out more and more about her supposedly wonderful life, Dylan can no longer stop feelings he also has for Abby and her sons.

This was a most enjoyable book as Ms. Roberts begins this series. The readers are offered heartwarming and endearing characters particularly Abby, Dylan and Abby's parents, Frank and Molly O'Hurley.

I can't add much to the reviews already present on this page; clearly this is a book that has left a strong impression on its readers. Read the book yourself and it will be easy to see why. Howard's mastery of pace and plotting puts him in a league with the greatest "thriller" writers: Haggard, Buchan, or Wilkie Collins. Moreover, Howard's ability to bring the sights, smells, and sounds of his invented Hyborian world to vibrant life is nearly unparalled in Fantastic Fiction. He's in a league with Tolkien (who, perhaps surprisingly, liked the Conan books--score one for Tolkien) when it comes to creating a sense of depth, but Howard's world is far grittier and more sensuous.

However, while this is a great book, I'm going to be the only one to give it less than five stars. Not because Howard lacked the talent to write a five star book--he had talent to spare--but because he simply didn't have the time to make "Hour of the Dragon" as good as it should have been. There are passages that clearly could do with editing or rewriting; occasional infelicities of style; and minor inconsistencies in the plot. In spite of this, "Hour of the Dragon" will keep you up reading all night. If you've never read Howard before, you'll wonder why it's so difficult to find his books. So, pass up the pastiches and cinematic stereotypes. Give Bob Howard, of Peaster, TX a read and you won't be disappointed.

Robert Howard wrote most of his stories for the pulp magazines so popular in Depression era America. As a result, most of his writings were short stories. Howard had many heroes (Bran Mak Morn, Black Vulmea, Red Sonja, Kull, Solomon Kane), but Conan was his best developed character, and the Conan stories were the best of his writings.

Howard got an opportunity to publish a novel in England, and he fell back on his old standby, Conan, to serve as the protagonist. Howard expected that his English audience would never have heard of Conan, so he borrowed a number of motifs from several of his short stories. Those who take the time to read all of Howard's Conan stories will recognize many of the elements in "Hour of the Dragon."

Alas, the book deal fell through, and Howard had to publish "Hour of the Dragon" in a pulp magazine.

Whatever Howard's difficulties in publishing the book, he had no difficulty in writing a wonderful tale of heroic fantasy. Conan is the ultimate sword-and-sorcery hero, and this is Conan's ultimate adventure.

If you really like Conan, you might want to compare "Hour of the Dragon" with "Conan the Conqueror," a paperback republication which was "edited" by L.Sprague DeCamp and Lin Carter. "Conan the Conqueror" is about 90% Howard, but DeCamp and Carter polished Howard's grammar and softened some passages they deemed politically incorrect. Howard's original version is more rough-hewn, but then Conan was a rough-hewn hero.

In addition to "The Hour of the Dragon", this edition also contains "Red Nails","Jewels of Gwahlur","Beyond the Black River","The Black Stranger","Wolves Beyond the Border(draft),"The Phoenix on the Sword",and "The Scarlet Citadel".This is the second volume of a 2 part set reprinting all of Howard's Conan stories in chronological order (volume 1 is People of the Black Circle). It's unfortunate that the publisher did not simply title them the Conan Chronicles Volume 1 and 2, instead of creating confusion by calling them People of the Black Circle and Hour of the Dragon. It's obvious that most of the people reviewing the book haven't read this edition but are just writing to say that they enjoyed reading Conan the Conqueror as a kid. Well that's fine and dandy, but you are not helping the people who already own the series published by DeCamp and Carter and want to know if it's worthwhile to buy this too. Well let me reassure everyone that indeed this is worth buying because it is THE ONLY place that collects ALL of the Howard Conan stories EXACTLY AS HE WROTE THEM,arranged in CHRONOLIGICAL ORDER of Conan's career, WITHOUT those awful pastiches by DeCamp and Carter mixed in.

I think highly enough of this book that I've given it to many of my clients, and I'm giving it to more clients for the holidays. When buying this book, I looked at them all. This one has the depth that I need, and in simple language that I enjoy for myself and my clients.

We recommend this glossary to all of our traders and investors, both experienced and novice alike. Investors at all levels can use this book for both reference and educational purposes. It's comprehensive--more terms than any other of its kind--and well written. I rate this as a core holding for any investor.

An excellent guide to all of those buzz words you hear on CNBC.My broker uses this book and recomended it to me. It is very easy to read and understand.

Bridging the gap between text and context, The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook offers everyone a deep and refreshing look at what work can be and should be. The authors ground their stories, examples, exercises in five conceptual touchstones--personal mastery, mental models, shared vision, team learning, and systems thinking. And these disciplines accurately reveal three core tasks in leadership: looking at self, developing others, and seeing the larger picture in order to chart a meaningful course. Stories enliven the ideas while examples and exercises offer practical models to use in any organization. Generous side margins, different colored ink, and graphic icons are visual treats as well as immediate graphic guides. And the narrative references to related issues make reading the book more intuitive, more interesting.

In fact, these physical details model the whole point of the book--that learning is essential for sustainable growth, for organizational and personal development.

Everyone who reads THE FIFTH DISCIPLINE comes away excited about the benefits of having a learning organization. Yet many get stuck in a rut as they try to implement what they learned in that superb book. THE FIFTH DISCIPLINE FIELD BOOK helps fill in that lack of understanding with dozens of questions, examples and exercises. You'll have a ball with this, even if you only use a little part to focus on where you need help. A great related book for building a learning organization is THE 2,000 PERCENT SOLUTION, which teaches a new thinking process that simplifies and speeds up learning for an organization. It also shows you where you need to get rid of old thinking that is holding you back. You should read and use both.

The Fieldbook attempts at making the esoteric concepts of the fifth discipline more down to earth and contains a treasure trove of strategies, tools, methods and explanations on how to make the learning organization into a reality.

Thus people who have read The fifth discipline will gain the most from this book. It's a must read for people who want to make their organizations transition into a 'learning organization'

Once I started reading this book I could not stop for very long. It was so good I did not want it to end. This book traces Emerson's intellectual and spiritual path in such great detail that it enables the reader to further investigate Emerson's sources if he or she so chooses. The biographical information was quite complete as well. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in Emerson or Transcendentalism. I noticed that Richardson has also written a biography of Thoreau and I will likely read it. This book represents a very high degree of scholarship and a great effort on the part of the author. I also greatly appreciated the photos of Emerson and the people close to him.

Personally, I would have liked to have seen a few more photos of his second wife and his children. I would have also liked to have learned how his wife managed after Emerson died and perhaps some information regarding his descendants. However, these are my own personal preferences and are in no way meant to diminish the excellence of this book.

The material is well structured into about 100 brief chapters which I thought made the reading easy. I never felt bogged down due to the length of the book. This is not a short book.

I really came away from the book with a sense of the man and an appreciation of the events and societal pressures of his time. After reading this book I think anyone familiar with Emerson's writings would feel like sitting down with the man to have a discussion to clear up a point or two.

It's hard to believe that this biography of Emerson can be topped. It's dense - but truly gives the ins and outs of Emerson's life, his passions, relationships and what influenced his thought...even his reading lists...it was a pleasure to read such fine scholarship....

I must confess that I don't understand the reader review below who found this biography of Emerson to be a difficult read. Although not quite a page-turner, I managed to read this in very little time at all. I must also confess that I do find Emerson himself incredibly difficult to read. But what I find to be the case in Emerson himself, I did not find to be true in Richardson's biography. While I find that Emerson constructed one stunning sentence and aphorism after another, I generally find his essays to be slow going. Nonetheless, while I am not his biggest fan, he is unquestionably one of the four or five greatest figures in American intellectual history, and Richardson's biography does him great justice.

The great merit of this biography is that at the end of it, you feel that you have gained considerable insight both into Emerson and New England intellectual life in the 19th century. I was especially intrigued with Richardson detailing of Emerson's reading. Emerson was, without any question, a great reader. Great readers rarely read books from cover to cover. Samuel Johnson, who was himself one of the most accomplished readers in the history of civilization, once said that we have more of a need to reread than to read. But he also once quipped, "What, you read books all the way to the end?" Emerson did not read books all the way to the end. But like Johnson and other great readers, he had a genius for picking out the most important points. What Boswell wrote of Johnson is true also of Emerson: "He had a peculiar facility in seizing at once what was valuable in any book, without submitting to the labour of perusing it from beginning to end."

One comes away from the book also enormously impressed with Emerson's character. He seems by any standard to have been a remarkably good human being. He was both a man of high principle, and a man of powerful attachments to other human beings. I found the accounting of his various friendships, many to equally famous individuals, to be of the utmost interest. Also, he seems to have met virtually every important thinker and writer in the English-speaking world, from Coleridge to Carlyle to Melville.

I heartily recommend this book to anyone who wants to gain a deeper knowledge of Emerson's life and work. By any standard, Emerson is one of the giants in American life. His influence on American thought is incalculable. Consider: not only was he the major influence on such American literary figures the magnitude of Thoreau and Whitman; he was a profound influence on artists such as Thomas Cole, Moran, and Bierstadt. America's deep-rooted environmentalism is steeped in Emersonian Transcendentalism. John Muir was a devoted reader of Emerson. One could make a case for Emerson having had perhaps more influence in the shaping of American thought than any other individual. This biography is an outstanding introduction to that person.