I read this titillating tome cover to cover on the way home, laughing and being illuminated. I love it. I've already loaned it to my kid. I can't tell you how much I laughed. It was so good to find two people with a sense of humor and smarts and no-holds-barred courage. The honesty, coupled with the humor, sets a challenging example, I think, to any writer who reads it. Loved the raving about Viagra. Loved the actual conversations reproduced -- or produced. Loved the jealousy stuff, the women conspiring together against the guy stuff, the faked orgasm stuff -- if I keep going I'll end up citing every chapter and verse. I'm going to be recommending it far and wide.

This is an amazing, wild ride of a book. There is nothing else like it. The authors call it a 'rant', which is as good a description as any, I guess. It is funny, insightful. Very literate, tongue-in-cheek, but at the same time perfectly serious. That's what I found so amazing, the combination of humor and seriousness. Perhaps this is subject matter that can only be handled seriously by doing it with humor. And it is funny.But it's refreshing too. I've read a lot of self-help books, and sex books and none of them had the sheer nerve of this one. It's rare to read something both genuinely original and entertaining at the same time. I am still reeling.

I started reading your book. I like what I've read so far but there are still too many big words in it. Here's what I mean. "Then the man put his penis into the young woman's bottom to disentagrinize the moment into one, long dirty filamigtorism. As the man orgasms the woman screams "Oh, oh estigalitistic demophore!".

Were just plain, simple working forks. On the next book, please try and give us mouth-breathers a break and use words we can understand. Nothing breaks the flow of a paragraph than having to stop at every third word and go running for the dictionary.

Read Investing Like a pro before you make any Investment decisions. It is from the idiots guide series; don't let the name detour you. The information is priceless, from Roth IRAs to Hedging funds. "The book is good." After you are done reviewing, then decide if a FC is worth it!

Koch and DeSalvo have complied a comprehensive investment guide for the average person. Even those with financial experience who need information in a concise and user-friendly manner will benefit from owning this book. I am not ashamed to own "Idiot's" guides, simply because I have my own area of specialty, and do not have the time or will to specialize in every area in which I have a passing need or interest. This is where this book comes in, because most people don't have time to get a degree in finance or an investment license just to make their money grow.

This book covers the basics like investment risk tolerance, investment needs, and then covers ways to make more money available to invest. The authors point out that saving money is a form of tax-free investment. Then the authors discuss stocks, mutual funds, home ownership, saving for college, and reducing taxes. Finally they explore more risky investments like options and futures, as well as providing tips for online investing. The book has a few glossy pages, numerous charts and tables, and a glossary.

Overall, I recommend this book wholeheartedly. I knew nothing about investing until recently, and after I got my Series 7 license, I realized that this book had provided me with a strong background with which to begin studying. Honestly, after working with many financial planners, I think this book is probably more useful than many financial planners out there. While it won't make you an expert, it will provide the basic essential information the average beginning investor needs. Read this, and then move on to more advanced books, but all the while, start investing and making money.

I work in finace but really had no inderstanding of investments until i read this book. I found it very easy to follow and able to comprehend. Someone with a little finacial background probably would have been able to grasp it even better. Before you buy a single stock, bond, or mutual fund i highly recomend this book. I must say on the negative side that to truly understand finace you will need further reading, but this is a mandatory first book, and if all that is desired is a basic understanding of finace you could use this as your guide. I reccomend further reading though, for anyone working in finace or who plans on doing alot of investing.

This book has been a wonderful inspiration to me. It sparked me to really place emphasis and give much effort to praying. Prayer is essential to knowing God and being fruitful. So we must pray whether we are good at it or not. Whether we feel inspired or not. For "men ought always to pray and not to faint." So I pray and one thing I ask is that He would breathe on my weak prayer life and cause me to become a real praying man.

Also, this collection is superior to the Harold Chadwick edited collection. That version alters Bounds writing too much. I compared the first chapter of the two and there were significant alterations that changed the meaning of some thoughts. (This version also claims to have modernized the language but, thankfully, I don't think much was changed.)

This book will revolutionize your prayer life. It contains all eight of E. M. Bounds' classic books on prayer. I have read "Power Through Prayer" five times and it convicts and motivates me every time. It is a must read for pastors. "The Possibilities of Prayer" is one of the most faith-stretching books I have ever read. Bounds has a way of pressing to the heart the astounding promises made to faith and prayer. Few books have caused me to face the paucity of my own faith as has this one. I am actually still working through this large volume and find it to be a regular source of nourishment for my soul. There is an amazing grasp of Scripture in Bounds' writings and not nearly as much repetition as one might think. Bounds wrote with a fiery pen. If you want to be set aflame to burn in prayer, let this book ignite you.

In my desire to enrich my prayer time and pray more effectively I was disappointed with the selection of books available until I came across this one.

Within moments of beginning the book I literally could not put it down and was so impressed with the wealth of insight and biblical references to back to guidance to a more effective prayer life.

You will not be sorry with this choice and I would highly recommend it to Christians in all levels of maturity in faith.

Just imagine... if you could talk to God personally, and ask him all the questions that have puzzled (or haunted you) all of you life! This book is just that! In it, Neale asks God all sorts of perplexing questions which God actually answers! What is even more amazing is that the same thing happened to me (My Conversations with Jesus) many years ago, and I wrote them down just like Neale did. BUT, way back in 1985 no one would take a book like that seriously! Thank GOD that Neale opened the door for books like this and showed that a book with a person just casually speaking with God could become a bestseller (and Neale's book was a bestseller for over two years straight!) I have to admit my personal opinions and belief run contrary to what Neale proposes in this book, BUT, I must thank him from the bottom of my heart for providing the precedence that this type of book can sell, and sell well! My book is very similar to Neale's except that mine is Christian in origin and thought, whereas Neale's is New Age. All in all, I enjoyed reading Neale's best-selling book. It provided many though provoking questions and ideas, and I recommend it to others (along with the Christian version of mine titled: 'Oh My God! Are You Talking to Me?' and subtitled 'My Conversations with Jesus'.) This has turned out to be one of the most striking and interesting books I have ever read. -- Peniel G.G.G.

I have been through Book One several times (I have both the book and the CD collection). More than any book I have ever read, this work provides answers to a multiplicity of difficult questions. I view myself as functioning at a higher level ever since first reading the series three years ago. I had an opportunity to ask Deepak Chopra, live on PBS, his opinion of this book; his answer: "Truly channeled directly from God!" The quality of the CD set is excellent. The choice of Ed Asner and Ellen Burstyn was inspired (Ellen never ceases to amaze). This set is a good investment since many people are likely to want to hear the entire book repeatedly!

This book answers many of the questions few people know the answer to after an entire lifetime of search and devotion to spiritual life. There is no doubt in my mind that the words spoken through Neal Donald Walsh are Truth.

With Coup d'Etats continuously occurring all over the world, this book is more relevant than ever in dealing with the subject. For example, using the framework developed in this book, it is easy to understand why the many recent coup attempts in Venezuela have failed (both by Chavez and the more recent one against him). Every time there is a coup I find myself referring back to the book in order to determine if there were any telltale signs to predict whether the coup will be successful or not.

His basic framework involves timing, media control and popular support, and government organizational structure. With these factors in mind, the author examines a large number of coups, both successful and failed. The inner stories of many of these coups is fascinating by itself, yet the author does a good job of telling the tale while drawing the main lessons from it.

Luttwak himself provides the best justification for this book, which is that coups remain the single most common form of power change throughout the world but are rarely studied as a phenomenon.

With remarkable detail and historical examples, Luttwak examines the patterns that exist in all coups, including which ones make a successful or failed takeover, including timing of assault, control of media organs, and the role of the populace.

Coup D'Etat is an older book, but remains as relevant as ever. A great guide when forcasting the results of coups that make headlines to this day.

Dear Pedro,

Next time you wish to overthrow the leftist thug who currently occupies the Venezualen presidential palace, please read this book -- ya might learn something! Your recent aborted coup was a lesson in how not to overthrow a government. First off, you failed to learn the true loyalties of many significant players. This book reminds you of a key coup-throwing tip -- if you don't know their loyalties, round 'em up.

Project strength, control the media, neutralize doubtful elements of the armed forces, build coalitions where possible, and never let the deposed autocrat rally support for a counter-coup. These are but a few lessons you will find in this slim, yet elegant, volume. Read it, know it, be it (you'll have plenty of time while serving what promises to be a lengthy prison sentence)! And next time, for the sake of your people, make sure Hugo Chavez sleeps with the fishes.

In creating Augustine Cardinal Galsworthy, Edward R.F. Sheehan has made a rare contribution to the growing universe of novels imagining the next conclave, that rare gathering of the Sacred College of Cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church to elect a pope. "Cardinal Galsworthy" is panoramic in scope, rich and faithful in historical detail, at times beautifully written and has as its protagonist an uncommon character who is not a mere stick figure for some real-life character the author hopes will be elected to the Petrine throne. This is not yet another "Martini-for-pope" novel. It is not a philippic against the Roman Church and its current pope. It is something entirely different.

The eponymous Augustine Galsworthy is born an Englishman, but has a pronounced affinity for things French. His father, William, is an English Baronet -- a baronet being a hereditary knight, who ranks above all non-hereditary Knights of the Realm, except those illustrious but few Knight Companions of the Order of the Garter. We know this because Galsworthy, in his towering vanity and love for the theatre of life, cares very dearly about this and painstakingly explains all the minute but significant hereditaments of his English recusant family and of Roman Church through whose ranks he rises.

Sir William has one great ambition for his son - that someday he may add a "red hat" the family tree. But Augustine Galsworthy is not the poised child of the almost-aristocratic that one might expect. He trips, he falls, he runs into walls - and, worse yet, he stutters. So, Augustine spends most of his childhood and adolescence in a Benedictine monastery in France. There, a young monk befriends young Augustine and introduces him to the treasury of the Roman Church. One of his formative influences is, appropriately enough, the great French Romantic Chateaubriand and his "The Genius of Christianity."

Galsworthy begins his preternaturally successful ecclesiastical career in spiritual and moral turmoil. Does he truly believe in God? Does he want to be a priest? Can be resist the temptations that easily beset him? His struggles are set against a rich backdrop of history. We move from the end of the reign of the "Stern Pope" through the reigns of the "Sunny Pope" and the "Sad Pope," with their struggles with the Second Vatican Council, and, finally, through the reign of the "Slav Pope." The author steadfastly refuses to call these men by their real-life names, admirably reluctant to impute, even in a work of fiction, words to men who did not utter them. Still, he never strays from their personalities. (There is no "September Pope.")

Galsworthy is the close collaborator of the Sunny Pope, who raises him to archbishop at age thirty-four, thereby gratifying the protagonist's vanity. Galsworthy is an early supporter of the Sunny Pope's call of the Second Vatican Council and encourages the pope to cut through curial resistance to it. But his enthusiasm for the Council ebbs as he sees its aptitude to truncate church doctrine and scrap its liturgical traditions. Before he dies, the Sunny Pope expresses his outrage that Galsworthy turned against the Council and accuses him of vanity. Who is more vain, Galsworthy wonders: me or the Sunny Pope who desperately needs the love of the whole world?

The Sad Pope is determined to implement the directives of the Council and fulfill the legacy of the Sunny Pope. Love will conquer all, he assures Galsworthy. But Galsworthy has traveled the world, from the Middle East and Africa to the troubled Church provinces of the Netherlands. He knows better. Civil strife, guerilla warfare and the destructive impulse are not so easily regulated. The Sad Pope dies convinced that he was a failure and desperate that what he has down has helped undermine the Roman Church.

In the Slav Pope, Galsworthy is in orthodox harmony. But Galsworthy's lust gets the better of him as he chases after a woman several decades younger than him. The dénouement of his struggles with the flesh comes in a dramatic scene in New York's St. Patrick's cathedral, when homosexual activists burst in and seize the Eucharist.

This is but one of many real-life events in this novel. The author shows us the collapse of the ancien regime in Egypt, civil war in Africa and Central America, the collapse of the Roman Church in the Netherlands, the removal of the Jesuit father-general and conflicts with Marxist prelates in Nicaragua. We can also see in the author's characters the shadows of real-life characters: Alfredo Cardinal Ottaviani (in the person of "Cardinal Baluardo"), Pericle Cardinal Felici ("Monsignor Samosata") and Giovanni Cardinal Benelli ("Monsignor Gianni"). The rich historical texture of this novel is unmatched in this sub-genre.

The modern reader will probably take offense at Galsworthy and the tone of this novel. Galsworthy believes in the mystery, the poetry, and the theatre and drama of the Roman Church. His is not a low-church, a congregationalist-type church that exalts a transitory sense of social justice for the real salvific work of a church. For Galsworthy, the drama of the old Latin Mass subtly admits the faithful into communion with God and awes the squalid unbelieving into silence. For Galsworthy, the traditions, doctrine and discipline of the Roman Church are the work of twenty centuries and countless martyrs, evolving slowly under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and not something to be blithely discarded in a pell-mell attempt at relevance. This will not be a popular view today. It will even be alien. Perhaps the modern reader will be partially satisfied by Augustine Cardinal Galsworthy's penultimate act of sacrifice, made in that conclave called to elect a successor to our Slav pope.

I could not put this book down. Cardinal Galsworthy is a complex, sinful (as we all are) yet pious and faithful Catholic. This is a character you will never forget.

My husband and I thoroughly enjoyed this superbly-written tale of one man's journey of faith. Sheehan's insights into the worldy and other-wordly dimensions of the Church are outstanding. So beautifully written, you won't want to put it down.

Beware! This edition of the book does NOT come packaged with the CD-ROM. I don't know why Amazon doesn't specify this (somebody else's problem, no doubt). It's a great book. Just know what you're getting for the money.

I checked several chemestry text books at university and found this one to be the most thorough and clear of all.

I'm in my second semester of Chemistry and have used this book for both. I feel like this is a fantastic tool for learning a difficult subject. It is very clearly written for those of us who don't already have a chemistry background. While I haven't read other chemistry texts on this level, I feel that this one has done an excellent job of giving me a solid foundation with which to go on into more advanced chemistry courses. I will definitely keep this book to use as a reference.

Brown's work is much easier to read than many other books in this genre. He allows for exploration of different ideas and one need not have a PhD to learn a great deal from this book.

Have you ever purchased a book that seemed promising in regard to helping you understand the Bible, but when it came it was either far too simplistic or just over your head? For most readers, this book provides insight and commentary that will avoid both pitfalls.

Using the uncommon characteristics of the Fourth Gospel, Raymond Brown laid out in this readable volume his theories of why this account of the gospel is so unique. With accompanying charts that lay out the various groups which may have composed the "Community of the Beloved Disciple," Brown makes his theory especially easy to grasp.

Losing Raymond Brown was a great loss for the entire Christian Church. Having heard him speak in person and having read many of his works, I strongly urge this particular volume upon you if you have an interest in the Fourth Gospel.

In 1965 Father Brown published his great magisterial two volume commentary on the Gospel of John in which he advocated the traditional view the John the son of Zebedee was the evangelist. In 1965 J. Louis Martyn published his monumental work "History and Theology in the Fourth Gospel," wherein he proved, once and for all, that John the son of Zebedee could not be the evangelist. Now what would be Brown's reaction? This is it. He simply admitted that he was wrong and builds on Martyn's work in this marvelous book. Hopefully you can also read Martyn's book with this one, but this one alone will give you a glimpse into a first century religious community.

We picked up this book after our first board actually became a liability! It was only after the failure of original the board (which failed for exactly the reasons the book outlined as primary reasons boards fail!) that this book was recommended to us. The five founders all read it and discussed it.

Since we were in the midst of a reorg, it was exceedingly helpful in reshaping the new board into a more effective and cohesive part of the company. We did a much better job of first creating the criteria to evaluate candidates and a lot of the politics went out of the process.

I don't agree with all of the authors assertions about what a strong board can do for a company. I still think much of that is up to the people doing the actual work. However, since a board is a critical element of any modern company, read this first and do it right the first time.

This is a must read for every board director. Newly-electeds will find a treasure trove of important material; experienced directors will find data to either support or challenge their beliefs on corporate governance.

Bruce R. Ellig
Corporate Vice President HR (retired)
Pfizer, Inc.

In my role advising mid- and senior-level management of Fortune 100 companies, I found this book by Conger, Lawler and Finegold to be of immediate value.

"Corporate Boards: New Strategies for Adding Value at the Top" is positioned towards people who are perhaps on boards or who are executives dealing with boards. The authors are extremely credible, having dealt with and advised senior leadership from nearly every Fortune 100 company.

This book really brings together in one source all you need to know about building a more effective board - it is filled with real and practical guidelines and actionable how-tos. At the same time, it challenges the current governance approaches, arguing that despite all the "best practices" available, we still have a relatively simplistic understanding of how to build a great board. This book gives the reader more sophisticated insights into what it takes to have an effective board.

The authors also raise a number of issues that are critical given today's environment. For example, are boards solely responsible to shareholders or are there other, equally critical groups to which boards need to be accountable? Finally, the authors discuss the implications of the Internet for the boardroom.

In short, I strongly recommend this book, particularly for those who deal with senior leadership, corporate boards and governance issues.

I didn't care for this book. I found it difficult to follow with a dry narrative. But as others have said, if you want the facts, they are contained within the pages of this book. It's awful to think that the America high command was so willing to sacrifice the lives of thousand of young GI's for no tactical advantage whatsoever. This costly battle should never have taken place! The men who fought there never flinched from their duty and are due are highest degree of respect and admiration. But it angers me to think the whole thing may not have been necessary in the scope of world events.

A Dark And Bloody Ground: The Hurtgen Forest And The Roer River Dams, 1944-1945 by Edward G. Miller (an active-duty army ordnance officer) is a closely detailed study of the brutal fighting which took place in the Hurtgen Forest near the end of World War II. Those deadly battles in the Hurtgen Forest have been overshadowed in military history and popular imagination by the more famous "Battle of the Bulge", and yet the gripping depictions of combat, terror, and the revelations of lethal blunders in A Dark And Bloody Ground make it a truly recommended resource for avid students of Military History in general and World War II Studies in particular.

I purchased this book as part of research I am doing. I found it to be very informative and interesting reading. The author does a wonderful job putting names of men with places throughout the book. I was even able to find reference to my Dad, Capt. Gilbert H. Fuller, 2nd Battalion, 26th Infantry Regiment.

This book will prove very helpful in my writing of a WWII memorial of my parents and their contributions to the effort.

I would certainly highly recommend it to others.