On our daughter's baptism four years ago, we gave her this wonderful book which she still often chooses for her night-time story, even though she is a big girl now. The editors have presented biblical stories that are of most interest to the youngest children. The illustrations are charmingly simple and include details that a child will enjoy picking out. The text is brilliantly cast in the first person ("Hi. I'm Noah. God told me to build a big boat . . .) so that the book "speaks" to your child in a personal way. It is successfully designed to appeal to a child's native interest in a good story as a "first step" into the Bible. Because it is so engaging, this bible comes off the shelf often as a well-loved storybook.

I reviewed a lot of bibles before selecting this one and have bought it many times for other children. My daughter is now familiar with the major figures of the bible and has heard many positive messages through our reading and rereading of this book. Because the stories are short and sweet, we can easily stretch or shrink the bedtime reading to suit our needs. Most importantly, our child has been given a way to talk about religion and morality--a dialogue, I think, many parents have trouble knowing just how to start.

Incidentally, because the book is aimed at the 3-and-under set, you won't have to worry about the crucifixion--it gets glossed over in a clever way. Likewise, Lazarus isn't "dead," but in a "dark place" when Jesus calls him out. We get the message without confronting death head on.

My daugher is three and we've been through several devotional books, but this is our favorite by far. The illustrations are great. The stories are simple, interesting, and have several pages devoted to each story. I'm buying in for my two-year-old niece and I think she'll like it as well.

I searched a while before purchasing a Bible for my 2 year old son. He loved this one from the beginning. It is his favorite book right now. I liked it because of the 10 word per page limit. The characters are big, expressive and colorful. The essence of the story is captured in a way a toddler can relate. Hands down, it's the best way to introduce Bible characters to your children.

This book will surprise you with its revelations, such as - what do the current and all previous UN Secretary-Generals have in common? All are/were socialists or Marxists (without exception). Here's the straight scoop folks: the UN Charter and the US Constitution are incompatible with each other. Something is going to give. The main difference, as the book points out, is the source of 'rights'. Our Constitution recognizes and protects 'God given' rights. With the UN, rights are not absolute, and subject to any number of provisos. Get this book, read it (it's not too long), and encourage your friends/family to read it too. We needed to get out of the UN 'yesterday'.

After reading this book, I have become encouraged to reach out and educate people of the dangers of the United Nations. Please do likewise!

People in USA and Europe must read this book and start a people movement to stop the madness. Luckily Norway is still out of the European Union, against the "Quisling" ,former Norwegian prime minister: Gro Harlem Brundtland. She is now head of the UN WHO ! Watch out all free and healthy people of the world!

I recently had the opportunity to hear this young, Christian poet read from her book, "God's Anointing Has Set Me Free." I knew then that this book was a must purchase and a must read. After reading this book and the way that it edifies the power of the Most High God, I have been thirsting for the power of the Holy Spirit,which I abandoned in my youth. Ms. Love'll has captured the essence of God's ability to heal the broken-hearted and mend the wounded spirits of his people. She reminded me that God was not the one who walked away, I was. John 1:1 says "that in the beginning was the word." Well, Ms. Love'll has found an experiential means of making his "word" applicable to most and relevant to all. She is a gifted writer who has truly been blessed with God's Anointing. I look forward to reading future works of this truly gifted poet. I thank God for placing this book in my path. I recently contacted the author to get permission to use one of her poems,'It's Not How You Look, It's How You FEEEEEL on the Inside,' in a motivational speech to 500 young people from across the State of Ohio. The poem was widely quoted all week by dozens of young people who said it taught them that no matter how they looked, they had now knew that they had worth and a purpose. Thank you Ms. Love'll.

I have read the book, God's Anointing Has Set Me Free, and it is an inspiration to anyone who gets a hold it. God has blessed the author with a pure talent of writing poetry. It is sure to touch all who need touched and there is a special poem for everyone. This is a Godsend to those in need of uplifting. Read it and be blessed.

I had the chance to read this powerful book and my heart is filled with peace as I read through the pages of God's Anointing Has Set Me Free. I hope this book is distributed world wide, because every one can benefit from the powerful words within the book. I never though that one book could be filled with love, life, encouragement and inspiration like this book is. I love to read and I love reading this book over and over. I couldn't put it the the first time that I got my copy from one of the author's book signings. And now a month later I am reading it all over again. That's how the book has impacted my life, because I can go back again and again and read the powerful poetry and stories. I have been truly blessed by the poetry and words from this uplifting book! I had the chance to meet the author and I must say in my eyes this is a best selling book! Get a copy if you can, and find yourself inspired by the word of God's Anointing Has Set Me Free! It is truly a blessing! For a first time writer, this is a work well done! Amen!

Tom Jackson tells us the life is not fair or nice or just or safe or pretty but it is drenched through and through in Grace.
This ever present and radically surprising Grace manifests in and through the broken wounded sinful lives of ordinary human beings many of whom would not be welcome in church. This book is the stories of the Grace drenching that is always closer to us than we are to ourselves.....just like the Gospel tells us it is. Dare you..!!!!!

I picked up "In Any Given Moment" on a weekend and cancelled all other plans until I had finished reading it. Although this book is about one man's experience and viewpoint, I found my own story, my own lessons, my own heartbreaks, and my own fears in each chapter. What is the book about? It's about all of us. Will you like it? If you're looking for a book that will help you feel comfortable, then no. But if you're looking for a story that will help you wake up to the grace that is alive in any given moment, then what are you waiting for?

Living deep in the Bible Belt where so many "talk the talk" while simultaneously building higher walls of exclusivity, it is a breath of fresh air to read about Fr. Tom and his community's day-in and day-out commitment to "walk the walk." With his stubborn unwillingness to tone down his frustrations at the hypocrisy he encounters, Fr. Tom's narrative will offend some but inspire many. Readily admitting his own imperfections, he describes his and the community's struggles to create positive change in the lives of many on society's fringe. Whether purposely or not, this book will challenge its readers to reflect upon their own lives and to what degree their daily actions are a reflection of their professed faith.

I read this book after seeing what other people were reading after reading Dr. Sally Shaywitz's book. The title leads me to believe I wouldn't get much from it, but I was very mistaken. I found myself underlining passages and writing notes in the margins. West details a very compelling argument. His theory is since it appears the people with literary disabilities have superior visual/spatial skills, these skills may often be mutually exclusive. Hence, people with superior literary skills often have poor visual/spatial skills. He postulates that since human society has only been post-literate for hundreds of years compared to pre-literate for thousand of years, people with better visual/spatial skills would have a survival advantage as better hunter/gatherers and avoid other dangers. People with superior literary skills in a pre-literate society would have poor survival skills although they would be needed as say shamans, storytellers or record-keepers. The theory makes sense evolutionarily as it seems to confirm Shaywitz's observation that 1 in 5 people have some reading disability. Which at the time seemed high to me. West goes on to argue that society has been selecting against people with poor literary skills and details the danger this can pose. He argues it appears that society is turning back to needing people with high visual/spatial skills with the advent of cheap highly graphic computers and other visual modes of information communication. West details several famous (Einstein, Churchill, and Edison) and not-so-famous people (Faraday, Tesla and Maxwell) with literary disabilities but superior visual/spatial skills and how their skills were important for their success. I feel that dyslexics, educators, and policy makers should read this book. West makes a very persuasive argument that society should not select for only one skill set because you never know what skills a future society may need. In an aside, the film Gattaca uses West's theory as a basis of the plot even mentioning how Einstein was dyslexic. If you find this book compelling, you will enjoy the film.

If you have your own voice, know it is precious. If your child has the same, cherish, accept and nuture it. It is hope, we all live life threaded by hope. Please read this gentleman's book, his words eclipse my own with more passion and presience.

Thank you Mr. Thomas G. West.

Dr. Mario T. Scaduto Ph.D.

I am a spatial thinker who still struggles with language (I am autistic), and this book was amazing to me. It points out that the very same areas that cause difficulty for so many people and cause them to be looked down upon, are somehow tied into the areas of great strength that they may grow up to show. (In other words, having difficulty with language can actually be simply a symptom of having extreme ability in visual or spatial thinking).

This book has strong implications for anyone who has ever considered autism, dyslexia, or learning difficulties to be horrible things that must be stamped out. It shows that the apparent "weakness" and "lack of ability" in some areas can really be an aspect of a major (but often unrecognized) area of strength.

It speculates that the very skills that cause people to have difficulty in language and arithmetic (and hence in school) are vital and useful skills which have only recently been characterized as deficiencies. It shows that intelligence and creativity are not in fact synonymous with language ability.

People who are autistic, dyslexic, or have other "learning difficulties" may be amazed to find themselves somewhere in this book; and people who seek to eradicate autism, dyslexia, and other "learning difficulties" may open their eyes and think twice about what exactly it is that they would be eradicating.

After a crisis in our lives my husband and me decided to really live our Christian faith and turned to the bible for answers as to how. We decided to read it straight through to determine what it really had to say to us. We never expected the words we found to crumble our entire Calvinistic way of thinking. The answers were surprising. The Word of God surely is sharper than any two-edged sword. It hacked away (and continues to do so) all the "doctrines and traditions of men" we had been deceived by. Praise His Name. (Bear with me; I'll get to the review shortly.)

Endless Torment didn't seem possible or plausible if God really is love, if His mercy really does endure forever, if His will really was that all be saved, if he really doesn't take ANY pleasure in the destruction of the wicked (a fact that is at odds with Jonathan Edwards wicked portrayal of God in Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God). The bible clearly stated all these things, even more strongly in the original languages! So we set out on a journey to prove or disprove this doctrine of endless torment. We encountered the theory of annihilation, but the same problems arose. To believe it we had to swallow the belief that God created some people to destroy--forever. It was simply inconceivable that God wasn't even as merciful as we ourselves were for we would never do such a thing.

Finally we landed at the doctrine of universalism. It may seem to you that the doctrine of "all men saved" is incompatible with the Bible, but this is not true. Talbott's book, from all the reams and sources we have read (and I'm talking 100s of hours of research) is the most logical, well laid out, consistent and comprehensible explanation of how universalism and biblical authority can co-exist (and are in fact the only really plausible way for biblical truth to exist). I wish we had started with it, but perhaps we weren't ready. We hope that you are ready to receive this message--the real Good News!

Talbott takes you on a journey that starts with his own experience and leads you step by step through all the counter responses you may set forth. For instance in this book you will discover that you are being deceived. Wouldn't you want to know that one of the "heroes of your faith" was in fact a murderer who had had a peer executed for the "horrendous crime" of disagreeing with predestination? Calvin did just such a thing as Talbott exposes. And that's not the only "hero" under the microscope. Would you be angry if you were shown that the world translated "eternal" in the bible was in no way has a connation of "never-ending"? (If so then it says Jonah was in the belly of the whale forever). Would you be a little surprised to learn the majority of the early church held to the belief of universal reconciliation?

At the best part of the book in our opinion, you will learn that Esau is not forever hated--and the discovery may well bring you to tears of joy and deep understanding as it did both my husband and me. And Talbott explains why it is so important that we don't allow "teachers and preachers" to lead us past our God-given spiritual ability to recognize evil as evil. If everything in our souls cries out that a God of Love would NOT endlessly torment the objects of His creation then why should we accept the theologian's assertion in some perverted faith in men? If logic tells you that not forgiving your enemies is a sin and God is NOT a sinner there is no reason your logic is flawed. The unsearchable ways of God have nothing to do with this demonic reasoning of today's religious teachers.

We are grateful beyond measure for this book and we thank God for it. We had recently decided that we believed in universalism, but this book simply strengthened our faith and hope in such a manner that I would strongly recommend it. If you are a universalist looking for an evangelism tool this is a wonderful book to give struggling Christians. If YOU are a struggling Christian wondering why a God would "choose" you and not your children, husband, mother, daughter, etc...this book will flood beams of light into your darkened confusion. The amazing thing about this book is that it has helped make reading the bible a joy. In effect it helped remove the "traditions of men" that made the word of God of no avail.

Hope is real people. God is Love. Wake up and smell the redemption! :-) In the words of Saint Paul:

1I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men; 2For kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. 3For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour; 4Who will have ALL men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.

I am a born-again, conservative, evangelical Christian. However, I also believe in Universal Salvation. This book does an excellent job of presenting the case. I recommend it for any Christian or person interested in Christianity. It will broaden your view of God's plan of salvation.

This book seems to echo the same victorious tones that Bonda's "The One Purpose of God: An Answer to the Doctrine of Eternal Punishment" and it seems to add demensions to his book. These two books should definitely be in every library and studied together for the maximum possible impact from Paul's epistle to the Romans. Talbott, though, doesn't just seek to explain the epistle of Romans in a lovey-dovey sorta way that's all inclusivistic. He deals with the New Testament for the most part as a whole and shows that a major problem with critics of Universalism is the fact that most traditional mainline clergy-men/women have never even met a Universalist. So, he starts from that basis and while giving some insightful historical observations, he for the most part tries to share what the big picture is; how to read the New Testament as a Universalist. As a philosopher Talbott adds refreshing theological insight in showing that there are only 3 paradigms from which the New Testament can be read and those are 1) the Armenian. 2) the Calvinist. and 3) the Universalist paradigm. This book is both philosophy and New Testament scholarship at it's best. He systematically takes the reader to the tearful conclusion that the Love of God truly is INESCAPABLE:-)

The book 'The Intimate Merton', edited by Brother Patrick Hart and Jonathan Montaldo, is a great encapsulation of the journals which Thomas Merton, monk, writer, activist and spiritual guide (I believe he would eschew the word leader, kept from the time he began considering a vocation (both as a monk and as a writer) to the time of his death nearly thirty years later.

The book is broken into sections reflective of Merton's monastic life. Each section is composed of selections, representative and/or significant, from his regular daily journals. Merton actually kept voluminous journals (published in seven thick volumes), much of which served as a basis and self-reflective sounding board for his other writings. This book is a user-friendly spiritual autobiography, distilled from the wisdom gained over twenty-nine years of teaching, prayer, reflection, prayer, writing, prayer, activity, and yet more prayer.

Merton was not (and still is not) universally loved, even by the church and monastic hierarchies who claim him as a shining example of one of their own. Merton's life is a quest for meaning, and quest for unity before God of all peoples, and a quest for love. These were not always in keeping with the practices of the church, which found itself more often than Merton cared for embroiled in political action in support of the state, or at least the status quo.

Merton was a Trappist monk. The Trappists derive their name from la Trappe, the sole survivor of a reformed Cistercian order in France about the time of the Revolution. This order of Cistercians (white-robed monks) had fairly strict observances which included the usual monastic trappings of vows of chastity, stability, obedience, poverty -- and a regime of prayer and psalm recitals coupled with daily work and study that is not at all for the faint-hearted (or faint-spirited). It was to this order that Merton pledged himself, in his beginning search for meaning and fulfillment.

'The great work of sunrise again today.
The awful solemnity of it. The sacredness. Unbearable without prayer and worship. I mean unbearable if you really put everything aside and see what is happening! Many, no doubt, are vaguely aware that it is dawn, but they are protected from the solemnity of it by the neutralising worship of their own society, their own world, in which the sun no longer rises and sets.'

Poetry in prose -- this passage, from the section on The Pivotal Years, reflects a searching nearing a conclusion, but still far from grasping, and far from complete. It also reflects the need for sharing, the drive toward caring, the simplest of things in the world, available to all, free of charge -- and most will never take possession.

God is calling in the sunrise. Merton recognises the call. He wants to deliver this sunrise in a package to the world. But he cannot. This is Merton's endless frustration, and the drive to do more, while yet being, as he would say himself, selfish in wanting to grasp it for himself, too. His time in the Hermitage, a time during which he was removed even from the company of fellow monks -- reflects this duality of vocation in Merton. He recognises that in some ways, it is an escape, but other ways, a fulfillment.

Even late in his life, after he was called away from his solitude at the Hermitage, because the world needed him, he was still humble and seeking. After nearly three decades of monastic practice and reflection on the level that Merton had done, one would expect a certain 'expertise' to have permeated his thinking. And yet, he would write:

'I have to change the superficial ideas and judgments I have made about the contemplative religious life, the contemplative orders. They were silly and arbitrary and without faith.'

This, on the basis of one retreat in December of 1967, with laypersons and clerics and monastics outside his Trappist order -- this is his conclusion, his resolute determination to not be boxed in, even by his own thinking. The true search can lead anywhere, even to the conclusion that one has been wrong all along.

And yet, Merton was not wrong. There was value in each of his spiritual discoveries as he discovered them. They still resonate for all of us today.

'Since Hayden Carruth's reprimand I have had more esteem for the crows around here, and I find, in fact, that we seem to get on much more peacefully. Two sat high in an oak beyond my gate as I walked on the brow of the hill at sunrise saying the Little Hours. They listened without protest to my singing of the antiphons. We are part of a menage, a liturgy, a fellowship of sorts.'

Near the end of his life, Merton was becoming more and more one with all around him, with all of God's creation, with nature, with people, with friends and strangers. And yet, he missed his privacy, his time for personal reflection and solitude.

'Everyone now knows where the hermitage is, and in May I am going to the convent of the Redwoods in California. Once I start traveling around, what hope will there be?'

Merton had premonitions that 1968 was a year 'that things are finally and inexorably spelling themselves out', prophetic indeed, for in the same year the world lost Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert Kennedy, and Brother Thomas Merton. He never was able to reclaim the solitude, pouring himself out for his friends ('what greater love hath anyone...'), who he counted as the entire world.

May Brother Thomas' journey enlighten your own.

One may wonder why another book on Thomas Merton, one of the most self-chronicled lives of the twentieth century, is needed, but The Intimate Merton serves a valuable purpose. Only academics and fanatical devotees of the famous writer and monk will have the time and interest to read all seven volumes of his personal journals. And yet, as this selection of entries from them demonstrates, Merton's journals are a treasury of autobiographical revelation, psychological honesty, and spiritual insight.

Just a few of the more memorable entries justify the book. These include an hilarious account of Merton the non-driver taking a jeep for a spin, a beautiful description of a night watch as a dark night of the soul, and Merton's sober yet grateful meditations on his 50th birthday.

Nevertheless, it is the sweep of years, the chronicle of a soul, that make these meditations most interesting. The Intimate Merton wisely focuses on the journal entries from the 1960s, material not covered by The Seven Storey Mountain and other earlier works. Thus we see a self-portrait of the older Merton wrestling with his need to be an individual versus his need to love and be loved, fitfully learning to accept his failures and to appreciate the gifts of others, and searching for his home in this world and beyond.

Thomas Merton was a complicated, Thoreauvian figure who considered himself to be, among other things, an "amateur theologian." Yet an amateur is essentially a lover, and Merton, for all his faults and doubts, was certainly a lover of God. Other lovers of God will enjoy tracing his spiritual journey through these pages.

I've been amazed over the years at how many people see themselves when they read something by Thomas Merton. What was it about this man? Women, Protestants, the unchurched, all sorts of people who are outwardly nothing like him, yet feel a strange, strong kinship. People have even told me what Merton would be doing if he were alive right now, as if they could know!
Reading this volume I understood anew how this is so. Merton wrote his soul, he wrote his life. We ARE THERE as we read it. I actually find answers to some of my life questions as I share the life of this Trappist monk. Many other people do, too.
This book is helpful because it puts so much of Thomas Merton's life between its covers. And, easy as he is to befriend, he is endlessly mysterious, perhaps just because he reveals so much. So many threads - what a complex and endearing man.

review by Janet Knori, author of Awakening in God

Goethe comes alive as a very real person, not just the famous German author, in this travel memoir detailing the two years he spent in Italy in the 1780's. A wonderful description of travel before airplanes and cameras. Somewhat tedious descriptions of geology and of his works-in-progress are frequent, but never too long.

It might be helpful to read (or re-read) the introduction after having read part of the book (say, into the first Roman visit).

In preparation for a trip to Italy, I began reading the accounts of famous travellers to that land: D.H. Lawrence, Charles Dickens, Tobias Smollett, and now Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. I had no great expectations but was knocked for a loop from page one.

Never before had I encountered a questing mind quite like Goethe's. Almost from the moment to left Carlsbad in September 1786, he was noticing the geological structures underlying the land and the flora and fauna above it. He sits down and talks with ordinary people without an attitude -- and this after he had turned the heads of half of Europe with his SORROWS OF YOUNG WERTHER. Here he was journeying incognito, apparently knowing the language well enough to communicate with peasants, prelates, and nobility.

One who abhors marking books I intend to keep, I found myself underlining frequently. "In this place," he writes from Rome, "whoever looks seriously about him and has eyes to see is bound to become a stronger character." In fact, Goethe spent over a year in Rome learning art, music, science, and even sufferings the pangs of love with a young woman from Milan.

Bracketing his stay in Rome is a longish journey to Naples and Sicily, where he becomes acquainted with Sir Warren Hamilton and his consort Emma, the fascinating Princess Ravaschieri di Satriano, and other German travelers. One of them, Wilhelm Tischbein, painted a wonderful portrait of Goethe the traveller shown on the cover of the Penguin edition.

The translation of W.H. Auden and Elizabeth Mayer is truly wonderful. My only negative comments are toward the Penguin editors who, out of some pennywise foolishness, have omitted translating the frequent Latin, Greek, and French quotes. I am particularly upset about the lack of a translation of the final quote from Ovid's "Tristia." In every other respect, this book is a marvel and does not at all read like a work written some 215 years ago. It is every bit as fresh and relevant as today's headlines, only ever so much more articulate!

This was billed as a good introduction to Goethe. I don't know, since this is the first Goethe I've read--but I'm delighted. It starts as a sojourn south, with detailed notations of rocks, geologic information and topography. Don't let that deter you! His description of eating just bread and red wine on his sea voyage to Sicily (because of his rolling seasickness) had me running for a bottle Italian Barbera! As my late great aunt would have said: "A nice, nice book."

The second book by the author I have read... sheds new light on Hogan and the game of Golf that we love... can hardly wait for his next book on Bobby Jones

Not understanding very much about golf I enjoyed the humane side
of "Golf Gave Me Something To Love".
It was interesting to read about how the experiences as caddies
when children shaped their futures and ideas as adults.
I also enjoyed the mischief they got into as children.

The story is a travel through life of a young boy trying to find himself. Love was not forthcoming in his family environment, but he found direction in the people he became associated with while learning the game . . . life and golf. If it wasn't for dinner, I would have read it cover to cover without stopping. Buy this book, read it, and pass it on to someone you know who will benefit by it. I did, and have heard nothing but good things from the people down my list that have read it.
I became interested in this book after reading "Ben Hogan's Secret", also written by Mr Thomas. This is another must read.

Father Keating displays a gift for imparting essential points of mystic theology (a beauty so ancient and so new ... could not resist adding that, because many of his references are Augustinian) in a manner so gentle that they seem simple reflections. (At this moment, I hope that my reference to "mystic theology" does not cause potential readers to click the back button.) Scriptural references abound, and are often haunting - so much so that the translations (his own?), which are rather excessively colloquial, do not make one wince. The author explains points clearly and well, and generally with an engaging charm. Very fine work.

INVITATION TO LOVE is the third of Father Keating's books to deal with Christian Comtemplation, centering prayer and developing a deeper understanding of our relationship to God. This type of prayer, unlike more active forms, enables us to "rest in God's presence" and can help us in our journey toward God.

In this book, the author discusses the many false programs for happiness and levels of human consciousness, giving the reader a better understanding of how we seek God on our terms, rather than on His. Our obstacles to prayer are shown in the context of our psychological background and social upbringing, yet Father Keating does so in a clear, yet inspiring style.

As other reviewers have noted, the reader may get more out of this book by reading OPEN MINDS, OPEN HEARTS and THE MYSTERY OF CHRIST. I read both of those books and found that each built on the other. Together, they are an excellent resource.

Father Keating introduces Centering Prayer in "Open Mind, Open Heart." If you have not read this introduction or "A Deeper Love" by Smith and Chalmers, I would recommend that you do that prior to reading "Invitation to Love". "OMOH" offers an introductory conceptual framework and understanding for Centering Prayer practice. Centering Prayer practice is a prayer practice of relationship between the human person and the divine indwelling Center which is called, "The Kingdom of God." When one has followed through with Centering Prayer practice for a while (perhaps 3-6 months) then read "Invitation to Love." This book invites the reader to ponder the deeper dimensions of the levels of consciousness and what is involved in the dismantling of the programs of happiness (the false self system) to which Keating often refers. This is an excellent resource for Centering Prayer practitioners but it is not a light book. It is a web of integrative material which gives an overview of the psycho spiritual developmental aspects of Centering Prayer practice. It is excellent. But those who will gain the most from it may need to do a little groundwork in Centering and basic reading first.