Sheltered by the walls of academia, I had forgotten that the writing process itself is a mantra of social change, that our awakenings lead to a more united world. Reading the poignant and inspirational stories submitted to Chicken Soup for the Volunteer's Soul reminded me of the many people who give selflessly of themselves, who teach us that heroes are everywhere we cast our eyes.

Janet I. Buck, Ph.D.

Think of your image of "volunteer." Now disregard it and check out "Chicken Soup for the Volunteer's Soul." Volunteer authors describe their experiences volunteering, and the variety and creativity of their work is truly amazing and inspiring. I loved the variety of volunteer stories in this book. It made me realize that if I don't have a lot of time or there's no big disaster around at the moment, there are zillions of ways that I can contribute to my community and the world, so I'm dumping my guilt and getting creative. . . . A big thank you to this great crew of authors and editors!!

Have you ever read a book that actually inspired you to contribute to the world..........to make a change? This book will do that. The authors have put together a tool for transformation..........helping others brings more love to everyone.

I have read and browsed quite a few self-help books for single women trying to find mr. right. After hearing about this book from a friend, I browsed it a bit at a bookstore and decided to buy it. I read it over a few days and found that while I didn't agree with everything, I think it's a refreshing way to look at dating and relationships. The biggest lesson I've learned is that I essentially teach men how to treat me. I have been following some of her tips and have found many of the things she says to be true. This books doesn't just stop once you have found that person but it also has plenty of information on how to stay happy in your relationship and deciding whether or not you need to leave it. Most of her suggestions seem like common sense but may take a little bit of practice to follow. I would recommend this book to all single women who have problems finding a relationship or keeping one.

Laura Doyle has such an amazing, gentle and honest way to help you along the road of dating blissfully. Since I started to follow the surrendered single way of dating I am attracting a much higher quality of man. I have learned that I can still be a strong independent woman, while being feminine and adored by a man at the same time.

While it is a growing process, sometimes one that is uncomfortable. I am learning so much about myself and what I want in a relationship. I am learning to let men treat me like a real lady and I am not settling for any less than I deserve. I have also learned that things are not always what they appear to be so if I think a man is half way decent I will give him a chance to take me out. I have been pleasantly surprised now that I have learned to put away my "check list" in what I want in a man. I actually enjoy dating now. Sometimes it is still uncomfortable but the book has given me so many new tools to use to help me along the way.

I recommend Laura's books to all woman I know, married and single.

Did you read that book, "The Rules" that was so popular a few years ago? If you did, you may wish to use it for something useful, like kindling for your firewood...and replace it with this book instead.

Surrendered Single is nothing short of the best source of information for single women. Even if you've decided that you're content with remaining single, read it anyway. If you read Laura Doyle's approach, and truly try her methods, then your dating life *will* change, I promise!

The subtitle, "How The Power of a Single Wish Can Change Your Life," says it all. The circle is a place where you align your energy (thought, word and deed) with the universal energy and focus it on making your wish come true. Day takes the reader through the three phases of the circle - Initiation, Apprenticeship and Master. Each phase contains three elements or steps to total nine steps in all. Of course, you're never really finished. Once you manifest one wish, you start the process all over again with another wish. What I love about the book is that it gives the reader something to do. After each essay explaining the "element," the author gives an action that the reader can do to illustrate concept. Readers are encouraged to live their wish or "New Reality" now. As for the actual writing, it's a small book and a very easy read. If you follow all the steps, however, it's a book that will be with you for a while. And if you do follow the steps to mastery, your wish (whatever it is) will certainly come true.

The Circle covers material that will seem familiar to those who have read Napoleon Hill (Think and Grow Rich and others), Norman Vincent Peale (The Power of Positive Thinking), Deepak Chopra (Creating Affluence), and Anthony Robbins (Awaken the Giant Within). Readers who found those books helpful will find that The Circle brings their understanding of the power of focus to a new and more refined level. The Circle is especially good for clarifying the psychological states that lead to accomplishing important desires.

Although the book refers to concepts that many associate with spiritual beliefs, Ms. Day encourages you to see the book as independent of any particular religion or set of spiritual beliefs. She also says that it is just fine to reframe her words here to fit into your own religious or spiritual beliefs.

The book's key point is that "what you perceive, what you conceive, and what you create are one . . . ."

The concept is developed in three parts: initiation ("In your initiation, you discover your one true wish and put it into the language of The Circle."), apprenticeship, and mastery. These three parts are broken in turn into a total of nine steps:

(1) Intention -- You pick a single wish that is "specific, positive, passionate, and present."

(2) Embodiment -- You create "reality" tales and songs, and meditate in ways that make the wish more real to yourself.

(3) Ritual -- You follow new rituals that you create to help you achieve your wish and eliminate old habits that would undermine you.

(4) Finding Luck (or Synchronicity) -- You learn to look for meaningful coincidences and tap into them. Often, opportunity will look like a problem, a setback, or a distraction. Pay attention!

(5) Make Room for Your Wish -- "Open your hand and let go of things that you have onto out of habit for years . . . ."

(6) Achieve Coherence -- Eliminate overt cross-purposes that pull you away from your wish.

(7) Eliminate External Roadblocks -- See each one as an "inspiring challenge" that brings you closer to achieving your wish.

(8) Eliminate Subconscious Roadblocks -- Let go of unconscious and outdated wishes, and hidden agendas. In attempting to deal with these other intentions, you may realize that your wish needs to be changed to better reflect what you really want.

(9) Create and Expand a Community to Support You -- "Give what you have. Ask for what you need."

The epilogue is especially good at bringing these ideas together. I especially liked the argument that both the past and the future exist now in the present. By re-examining the past in the present, you can give the past new meaning that can power the future fulfillment of your wish.

Each of the nine steps contains assignments to help you apply the book's thinking more accurately. I found these assignments to be very brief, but highly effective.

As I read the book, I applied its process to one of my favorite wishes. What I realized from this experience is that I have some issues in step 8 that I need to deal with. That was a very helpful insight to me. Prior to reading this book, I would not have realized all of the inner conflicts that I need to resolve before I can make the fullest progress. For me, that was a highly beneficial realization. I have no way of knowing what you will learn, but I suspect that you will gain value from seeing new issues that you can deal with in at least one area.

If the book's main strength is that it explains the psychological states of implementing intention very well, the book's main weakness is that it does not explain all of its concepts. You are left hanging with some of the same statements that bother people who read Napoleon Hill. For example, you are a "sender and receiver." I take that to mean that we share our intentions with people, and we receive questions, suggestions, and support that we must be ready to notice and employ. In the context of the way the concept is used, you feel like some sort of metaphysics is being described without any detail or support.

Anyone who wants to create more coherence in their life will find this book to be very valuable, if they do the assignments in a conscientious way.

After you begin to experience mastery in applying The Circle, think about how you could introduce this information to others in ways that will make them more effective in achieving their deepest wishes. After they are having success, ask them how you can build your mastery to a higher level.

Pick worthy goals, and commit to them with integrity!

Laura Day explains in practical terms the magical and the mystical ability of transforming your own life. You have the power, you have the ability and you can create whatever you desire.

Through the circle I have found an excellent job in a bad economy, a wonderful man with similiar interests and the hidden power that we all possess to have what makes us happy and to live life in true and ultimate joy.

Read this book, buy this book, give it to your friends and families and know that life has much happiness in store for you. All you have to do is reach out and select it!

The Memory Keeper was well written and easy to read. The author captured my attention quickly and painted a vivid picture of the characters and their surroundings. It would make a great movie. It is a story everyone can relate to. It made me realize how little I know about my own family background and how important it is to share with my children. I'm looking forward to giving this book to my family and friends for the holidays.

The Memory Keeper is a fun, exhilarating book that's full of history and life's lessons. It will leave you turning each page saying "Oh my gosh. I can't believe this is happening!" If you want a suspenseful, yet kind-hearted book, read The Memory Keeper.

THE MEMORY KEEPER is a collage of a book with a magical combination of written images. I couldn't put it down.

It is a rare find to read a book that is able to capture and develop the nuances of human emotion in its characters. Laura Hendrie's Remember Me is full of brilliant, vivid characters who all have an inescapable connect with one another. Hendrie has presented these characters and their complex relationships with such grace, intensity and passion as I have never read before in a novel. This book is a must read! I cannot wait for her next!

"Remember Me" grabs you and doesn't let go. Hendrie's voice for Rose is defiant, but her core is one of warmth, tenderness and vulnerability. You'll be engrossed by the story of Rose and her hometown of Quedero, New Mexico. You'll laugh, cry, and perhaps recognize yourself in the struggles of Rose, Frank, Birdie, Alice, and the rest of the bunch. The best book I've read in a long time. Hendrie is quite a talent and a valued find!

What remains sacred when everything is for sale? What happens to a tightly-knit community when heritage is traded for an illusory economic security?

Laura Hendrie sets "Remember Me" in the forgotten New Mexico town of Queduro. The residents, once miners and shepherds, now rely on tourists for economic survival. Queduro is the most isolated of mountain towns, cut off from the rest of the world in October through May by impassible snows. The town has long spent its winters bent to embroidery, but only in recent years has the outside world developed a taste for their intricately worked crafts.

Into this picture of a town struggling to create and maintain the perfect tourist enviroment are set some fairly eccentric characters. Rose Devonic, a twenty-nine year old woman who's been an orphan for the last thirteen years, is in Queduro because it's the only home she's ever known. Rose is as stubborn as she is strong, and she's determined to chart her own course in spite of the town elder's wanting her to spout the tourist line. Already teetering on the far edge of acceptance, Rose crosses the invisible line when she challenges Alice, the sister of a local motel owner, who has returned to this town she'd rather forget to sell her brother's business.

Queduro residents, sharply attuned to the business damage eccentrics could wreak, have had it with Rose. Alice presents a different, but fully equal challenge. Though she comes across as a strong and determined seventy-year-old, her mind has started to wander. It is only a matter of time before the town begins to turn on her as well.

Laura Hendrie crafts an incredibly lovely and moving tale in this first novel. Though set in the west, her themes are universal. Rose's loss of her home is paralleled by Alice's struggle to hold on to her memory. It's a conflict which unites some very unlikely allies.

It would be easy, and unfair, to characterize this work as a book which would appeal only to women. The main characters are women, but the issues raised by this work cross gender lines as easily as they do geographic ones. It is a book that looks at what makes a hero, and how does one make a home. It seems, in Hendrie's vision, home has very little to do with physical grandeur, and a whole lot to do with what you love.

This is a wonderful story, beautifully told, and a total immersion experience that should not be missed.

This one will be short and sweet. I just completed reading all five of the boxed set. I feel I knew the Ingalls family as I shared their lives, dangers, joys, and challenges. But, why, oh why, did I wait over fifty years to discover these wonderful stories. Laura waited until she was 65 years old to start writing them, so I think it safe to say that 65(my age) is not too late for me to read them.

To say this is about a pioneer family moving west, or about a little girl who lived in the big woods, on the prairie, near a creek, on the shores of a lake, and in various structures including a sod house dug into the side of a hill - misses the point. These stories are about adventures and goodness and have successfully warmth the hearts of generations of all ages since they were written.

I recommend anyone of any age read Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House Series. The best part of all is that the stories are based on her family and her life and capture the time and a spirit of those strong and determined folks who moved west in the 19th Century.

I remember reading the "Little House" books when I was a little girl. I am now 28 and looking forward to reading them with my 6 year old. We now live about 40 miles from Walnut Grove, MN and my daughter can't wait to read about that town and how life was in the pioneer days! I definitely recommend these books!

I remember devouring these books as a young girl, I'm 35 now and have begun reading the books with my 5 year old daughter. The first in the series is written so that she can read a great deal herself. Laura wrote such a wonderful recount of her life that you can really imagine, even if you are five, how much simpler life was . . . or complicated depending on how you look at it. We've had several discussions about the husstle and busstle of our life, brought on by the togetherness and importance of family that these books demonstrate.

This series has me hooked on it!It gets better with eveery book.So,if you havent read any of the clearwater crossing books,I suggest you read them before reading this,or else you will have no idea what is going on!In this book,Secrets come out.And trust me y=they are interesting.IM interested myself in starting a fan club for this series so feel free to e mail me!(at the top)Ok,so lets talk about the book.Leah has just become a model(no suprise to me:),Peter and Melanie become closer than usual,and Jenna is bummed,over her life basically.leah and Miguel do not want to keep their realtionship a secret anymore.

This is the first book in the series that I have read. I was looking for a good book to read at the library and decided to get this one. It was a good choice! Great book. I think Miguel and Leah are PERFECT for each other! I am now hooked on these books. Ms. Roberts you did an excellent job! read it!

I really like this series! It's great! I can't believe it's ending at book 20! Book 19 just came out. Anyways. This is a great series. A thing I like most about it is how everyone in this book likes someone. Nicole likes Jesse. Jesse likes Melanie. Melanie likes Peter. Peter likes Jenna. Jenna likes Miguel. Miguel likes Leah. Leah likes Miguel. And, well, Ben, he's just out there, but that's ok. Ok, now about this book:

It's really good! Leah and Miguel want to tell Eight Prime about them but Miguel wimps out and refuses and they get into a big fight about it. Melanie and Peter start hanging out a lot, and Jenna gets majorly jealous. Ben's trying to fit in, and Nicoles just jealous of everything: Melanie, Leah...etc. Overall a very good book. Recommend you reading the whole series.

This is absolutely the best romance novel I have read! It is great to see a woman in the warrior's role for a change. I wish more novels were written in the style of this one.

I adore this story -- the characters are so dimensional and developed. There is a poignacy to their scenes that I have not seen duplicated in other romance novels. I have read and re-read this book so many times its pathetic. I recommend this novel to anyone who wants to find out why we read this genre of books. Fan-bloody-tastic!

I like to read historical romance books were women aren't always meek and defensless. This is absolutly what I was looking for! Ms.O'Donnell will have you wondering what happens after the end of the story.She should make a sequal.This is definetly a keeper for my book shelf!

I'm ashamed to admit that Laura Jensen Walker is a spy. Evidently she has peeped into my life, and the lives of thousands of other women who find themselves on the other side of forty. Thank God we can laugh about it together, and that is exactly what she accomplishes with "Mentalpause". "I'm normal!" I shouted, after reading Laura's hilarious first chapter. I guess I'm not going crazy after all. I'm simply a bright, maturing woman entering a new season of life called "Mentalpause". Thanks, Laura, for the laughs and an honest, humorous look at aging.

I laughed til I cried! Not only does Laura Jensen Walker relate to those women who experience menopause at the medically correct age, she also speaks to those of us who have gone thru it early in life. AND...she somehow manages to hit every avenue of it without embarassing herself or her readers! The only red face comes from the age old hot flash one may suffer thru while reading the book! There's no reason to suffer thru menopause anymore! Laura has taken that which we dreaded and made it...well, ALMOST fun! Thank you, Laura Jensen Walker for putting into words what my hot flashes have been trying to say for so long!"

Laura Jensen Walker has done it again with her latest book Mentalpause And Other Mid-life Laughs. She relates the humorous side of going through Menapause to all women going through or gone through this time in their life. While reading Mentalpause women will laugh and realize that we all go through it. Lots of humorous stories from other women will help us all to see yet again that laughter is the best medicine during life's trials and tribulations.

Excellent book for any fan of the Little House on the Prairie series, or of pioneer history. Capture a taste of the old days making frontier foods that have been adapted for modern kitchens. Very interesting historical information regarding the recipes, cooking techniques, etc. Educational and fun!

I've been a Laura Ingalls Wilder fan for practically my whole life and am now delighted to be reading the whole series aloud to my young daughter who loves the books as much as I. My friend told me about this cookbook and we purchased it - it is WONDERFUL!

I read the whole thing cover to cover - it is just fascinating. The author writes in a very readable, extremely interesting style. I love having all the recipes for the meals mentioned throughout the Little House books and I *love* reading the history included in this cookbook. It adds such depth and perspective to our readings of the LIW books. [This book is as much a history text as it is a cookbook - and it does great justice to both genres!]

My daughter and I have made several of the recipes from the book so far and they have all been delicious, if not exactly health conscious. :) I haven't been able to bring myself to buy Lard, but we have delighted in making some of the same foods Laura ate. My daughter is learning a HUGE amount about history through these experiences.

Buying this book is the best money I've spent in years!

I hope that you will be as impressed with this book as I was. I was taken away with all of the background information on the preparing, cooking, and serving of food in this book. It has some very good recipes in this, as well as great documentation on the life during the time where Laura grew up. The book is also well illustrated. This has been the most impressive cookbook for children that I have seen to date in terms of extra information that goes with the cookbook. I would highly recommend this book to anyone looking for a book for their favorite Little House on the Prarie fan. This book would also be excellent for a scout troup wanting to do something a little historical. A definate must!