I can't say how many times I've flipped through the pages of this volume. Hellweg has collected a bevy of wonderful words, and has them categorized into fun chapters. You can be astounded by what words exist, and then have fun attempting to force the most unwieldy ones into conversations.

Containing weird, wacky, wonderful words of all sorts, the Insomniac's Dictionary is out-of-this-world for those sleepless nights. It's got love and sex words, fear words, food words, word words, any kind of word you could possibly imagine. (Did you know there is a word for "the fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of your mouth"? It's in there!) It is very entertaining, humorous, and great fodder for party conversation. :)

I first read this book when I was in the Fourth Grade. I fell in love with its fantastic tales of bizzarre circumstances and extraordinary characters. It has, since then, been one of my favorite books. This book will revive the imaginations of anyone who chooses to read it.

I love it when a book makes me stop in my tracks and think, "Wait a minute, that makes sense. Why haven't I ever thought to look at things that way?"

This book incorporates not only the premise that problems arise within a family system but also within the context of cultural assumptions. Our society values earning and power, thus the Golden Rule (She/he who has the gold, rules). Though each marriage partner has individual problems, these problems arise from the patterns of relating we learn from our parents and our families of origin. Until we understand them, we recreate them in our own marriages. This book, along with David Schnarch's book, Passionate Marriage, will really get your brain churning!

This extraordinary book is about much more than negotiation. It is really about the nature of marriage. Through her successful family therapy practice and her own personal growth, the author has achieved tremendous insights into the assumptions that Americans bring to marriage, how these assumptions can cause problems for us, and how we can rethink our assumptions in order to make our marriages work, or work better.

Carter shows how the traditional model of marriage has not changed fast enough to successfully support the other ways that society has changed. The traditional model is one breadwinner and one homemaker in a heterosexual first marriage. This is how most of us were raised, and perhaps more importantly, it is the model that society, for the most part, is currently set up to support and value. While many young people today intend to share expenses and responsibilities equally with their partners, when we get married, especially if we have children, we tend to unconsciously fall back into thinking according to the traditional model. There's nothing wrong with both partners choosing a traditional marriage; the problem is that many of us do not make fully conscious choices about marriage. Instead, we unwittingly buy into a model that does not in fact (usually) serve either party well.

What's particularly brilliant about the way that Carter explores these issues is that she shows the reader why it matters and how it can change. The book includes useful stories about real people's marriages, and the emphasis is on what was making these people unhappy, what was keeping them from seeing all of their options, how they learned to consider and embrace new options, and whether and how their marriages changed. Because the stories are selected so well and integrated so nicely with the broader exploration of social issues, the book is easy to read and the relatively complex social issues are made very accessible.

The book does not say that money always equals power, but points out that the two are generally equated in American society. It also points out that without autonomy, people do not generally feel equal -- because they really aren't equal in the sense of having the same options. Autonomy--being able to stand on one's own--is so linked with money, not just emotionally, but in reality, that it is important for us to understand the implications of who makes how much money and how the money is shared.

The book also makes it clear that there are two kinds of power, "power over and power to." The book does not advocate that anyone use power over another person, whether that power is in the form of money, affection, or anything else. It does show us why people sometimes do that, and how to think about and deal with people who come from that perspective. It also shows us how people can learn to use the "power to" make themselves happier. Many women are uncomfortable with any type of power, including the power to be happy and even to protect ourselves. This book helps us understand why it is a bad idea to pretend that there are no power issues or power struggles in a relationship, and why it is a good idea to learn more about these dynamics. But its focus is by no means how to win a power struggle. Rather, it shows us how a better understanding of these dynamics can help us negotiate a win-win marriage.

It also, by the way, describes how to negotiate a win-win divorce, with emphasis on how to best support and nurture children during and after divorce.

The book also emphasizes the importance of looking at the family as a system, and shows how our experiences in our families of origin play a shockingly large role in our relationships with our spouses. It includes very helpful examples of how people have reconnected with their "impossible" parents in order to learn more about themselves and the family themes that have shaped their expectations and assumptions (which are often hidden).

In short, this is a book about how to be happier. I would recommend it to anyone who wants to learn how to be happier in a committed relationship.

A great book for those who want to make changes in their marriage/relationships. The main issue that she puts forth is that money=power. That equation changes the way that people communicate and negotiate in relationship. Examples abound as well as helpful ways to boost your negotiating power.(the main one being - get and keep a job even if its only part time!) This book could change alot of relationships for the better.

This book has a great story to tell, but through the stalling and back-telling the powerfulness of the message is lost. I found that I had to force myself to finish hoping to be swept away by the ending, but was instead left wondering what I had missed. The narrative is confusing and lacks any passion on the subject at hand. However I believe this could be an intriguing movie.

This book was absolutely not good! It never made any sense and skipped around that by the time it got back to a certain person, you had already forgotten who they were and why they were significant! I just read a review and they said it was a romeo and juliet book, i had no idea the main character was even in love, much less there was a second main character! If you have nothing to do for days, and time to write down every character and their significance, read this book, otherwise, really don't waste your time!

Joan Didion's The Last Thing He Wanted is a mysterious, gentle little book that ultimately is quite sad. Elena McMahon does a favour for her father and through that favour and through her we see the large unfathomable world of conspiraces and esponiage boiled to very human elements. There is a cold spareness to the writing that left this reader unmoved until after it was over and then the sadness powerfully washed over me. It is an unique and haunting look at the choices people make and the lives and events that one can affect with simple, irrevocable gestures. A beautiful novel.

Compared to other Crawford biographies "Joan Crawford: The Last Word" is a slender volume. However the facts of Crawford's life move along in a steady fashion and the photos are lovely. The author refrains from waggling a scolding finger at Christina Crawford and gives weight to both sides of the Joan the Monster, Joan the Queen of Kindness images that Crawford summons.

Frederick Lawrence Guiles' intention in 'Joan Crawford: The Last Word' is to liberate the real Joan Crawford from the maniacal control freak enshrined in the public mind by her daughter's hatchet-job biography 'Mommie Dearest' and its subsequent shlock movie adaptation. It's a noble aim which is becoming very fashionable of late - especially with the recent publication of 'Joan Crawford: The Essential Biography' - but it's also a difficult one. Paint the subject in too negative a light and Christina's claims seem justified; too positive a light and, to paraphrase Shakespeare, it appears you are protesting just a little too much.

Guiles does quite a good job of walking the line in between, but what results inevitably remains little more than a short biography with infrequent interjections about Christina's inaccuracies and misinterpretations. Admirably, he resists the temptation to demonise Christina herself, although her distortions of the truth are manifestly obvious as Guiles explains. Perhaps the most potent example is the fact that, while 'Mommie Dearest' gives the impression of having been written as a reaction to having been left out of her mother's will, Christina actually began the book while Joan Crawford was still alive. Guiles conjectures that it may well have been Joan's horror at the venomous portrait her daughter was painting that prompted her to leave her out of the will in the first place, not the other way around.

What really comes across here - and in 'Mommie Dearest' itself - is that Joan and her daugher did not get along simply because they were too similar to one another, their personalities so strong that a clash was inevitable. Christina even grew up to take on many of the characteristics she hated most about her mother, including professional competition. Neither woman was perfect but, as Guiles attempts to emphasise, Crawford does not deserve to live on only in the guise of shrewish mother-from-hell. She was an emotionally crippled person, but not the cartoonish monster most people see her as today.

If you have read 'Mommie Dearest' and taken it as gospel, I definitely recommend giving this book a read, to learn that the truth was more complex. If you're after a straight biography of Crawford, leave this one for later.