Breaking the is truly a life-changing book for me. Just another self-help book, I thought. It turned out to be unlike any other self-help book that I've ever read.

How is this book different? This is not a book that made me feel good, but never managed to change anything about me, leaving me feel more powerless than before. The authors, Kurt and Patricia Wright, actually manage to engage into a relationship with me, never leaving me off the hook. On the contrary, sometimes I found them to be so inquisitive and personal I put the book down or feel uncomfortable with their questions.

It is indeed the questions that are life changing. I never really new how to ask questions of myself and others that actually improve things. You know how in our conversations and thoughts we so often focus on what's wrong and trying to fix that? And how it never really gets us anywhere? Breaking the Rules is about that, about asking right, empowering questions. About learning to recognize your already existing strength and to build on those so we can all reach a state of effortless high performance.

After reading this book I can never look at myself the same way again. It's like that image where you could at first only see the old lady, unable to see that there was also a young lady in there. Once you see the young lady you can never "unsee" her.

If you are ready for looking at what's right in your own life and the lives of those around you, whether in your personal relationships or in business, you've found your book.

I didn't expect this book to be so good. It's remarkable, wise, and soul awakening. Concepts such as all stress is self-induced, that all criticism is self-revealing, that every moment has total perfection, are mind stretching, liberating, and empowering. This is a classic book. I'm going to get copies for people I care about. Read it.

This is one of the most remarkable books I have ever read about effortless high performance.

Wright provides practical, achievable techniques that can take you beyond your wildest dreams, then backs them up with anecdotes. My colleagues and I have used these techniques and achieved remarkable success.

Bergson's _Laughter_ has been out of print for too long. It's the best theoretical study of comedy available. A meditation by the great philosopher of "elan vital" about our natural response to humans acting mechanically, _Laughter_ is also about the nuts and bolts of comedy. Moliere is the main model, but it works for Shakespeare, Chaplin and Preston Sturges just as well.

Bergson offers a taxonomy of laughter. The description is concise, realistic, and rife with examples. He begins with a broad definition of anything that is laughable and further narrows the definition where appropriate. Never have I encountered an example not explainable by this.

Henri Bergson describes why we laugh, and subdivides this description further into three characteristics. Each of these characteristics is then divided further occassionally. Example: >We laugh at mechanical rigidity. The three types are repetition, inversion, and reciprocal interference of series. An example of repetition is a frozen facial expression (repetition) and is comical only if it's imitatable.< Then he proceeds to give examples of word play, character, actions, etc which illustrate his points.

Ann Granger's novels involving Chief Inspector Alan Markby and his on-and-off paramour, Meredith Mitchell, take the classic British countryside cozy and update it in ways that turn it into an end-of-the-millennium contemporary. The inhabitants of a duplex in Oxfordshire symbolize this clash between the old and new. The ancient building with large back lot, once used to house farm families, is now split between Bodicote, the elderly village eccentric who keeps goats and has a wandering eye, and Liam and Sally Caswell, a professional couple who moved from London to the peaceful countryside so that Liam, a scientist whose research involved beagles, can write a book based on his work.

Trouble shows up swiftly. Liam's a dragon whose short fuse and total lack of manners has enraged nearly everyone he's met. Bodicote and he have already clashed over the goats getting into his garden, and Boticote's habit of barging into their house led to numerous unpleasant scenes. Bodicote's also angry at Sally when she fed his goats turnips and unknowingly spoilt their milk for awhile.

Then a letter bomb goes off, nearly killing Sally. A local animal rights group is suspected, but Markby's not sure.

The more popular Brit mysteries these days, and here I'm thinking of the ones on PBS and A&E featuring Inspector Morse, Jane Tennison and Dr. Edward Fitzgerald (of "Cracker"), feature the walking wounded as heroes. In general, they're unpleasant to be around, and saved only from total ostracism by the brilliance of their work. Granger's Mitchell and Markby are good people in the tradition of the classic characters, and she leaves the bad attitudes, shaky morals and addictive habits to her villains, such as the wonky thirtysomething son of the lady of the manor, who share the same manorial home and lead the local animal rights group.

"A Touch of Mortality" is full of twists and turns in the second half that led this reader to continue turning pages long after bedtime, and ends with a satisfactory climax in which justice triumphs and the guilty get punished, sometimes in ways that have nothing to do with the legal system. Granger scatters her clues fairly, lays down red herrings with consummate ease, and leads readers repeatedly, and fairly, down the garden path. As an excellent example of classic mystery storytelling, "A Touch of Mortality" is the best I've read this year.

Ann Granger has done it again. Mitchell and Markby are quite a pair. I recommend this book to anyone who likes a quiet read by the fire (or during the present heatwave the airconditioner). Granger conjures up good images of the characters and the English countryside. I enjoy the little tidbits of life in the pubs, the cottages, the towns and the interplay amongst the characters. My only regret is that since they start in England it takes a long time to get the next volume in the United States.

Liam and Sally Caswell leave London for the quiet rural community of Oxfordshire so that Liam, an animal research scientist, can write a book on his findings. However, instead of finding the countryside quiet and serene, the Caswells are immediately drawn into a squabble with their elderly neighbor Bodicote over the senior citizen's wandering goats. Liam also manages to alienate just everyone else in the neighborhood with his boorish behavior. ..... Everything abruptly changes for the worse when Sally nearly dies from a letter bomb. Assigned to investigate the case is Chief Inspector Alan Markby, who thinks that blaming animal rights groups for a terrorist act may be premature. As he digs deeper, with the help of his sometimes girl friend, Meredith Mitchell, Alan realizes that Liam has many enemies in London and here in Oxfordshire, including Bodicote. Danger mounts and Alan knows that he must solve the case soon before murder occurs. ...... A TOUCH OF MORTALITY is a great mystery based on the concept of a classic English cozy in modern times. The story line is superb as it is loaded with numerous false starts and reasonably distributed clues. Alan and Meredith are great lead protagonists, making Ann Granger's novel one of the best mystery stories of the year. This reviewer strongly recommends the previous Inspector Markby novels as well. .....Harriet Klausner

Meredith's masterpiece has been unjustly neglected in recent years, although it is one of the funniest novels in the English canon. If you like the comedies of Trollope and Austen, Meredith is a real treat (although his style is much more mannered, and his approach more difficult to appreciate, than either Trollope's or Austen's). The genius of THE EGOIST is not only in exposing Sir Willoughby's faults, and Clara's mounting panic as she can't maneuver her way out of her engagement, but in its serious appraisal of the difficulties faced by Victorian women in their limited possibilities after childhood. Meredith was an enormous influence on the later modernists, such as Woolf, Joyce, and particularly Forster, but although they more often mention THE ORDEAL OF RICHARD FEVERAL as Meredith's keystone text THE EGOIST is the one to enjoy.

This novel was written, and takes place in, 19th Century England. 'The Egoist' is Sir Patterne, a well to do gent in search of a wife. After being jilted once, he pursues Miss Clara Middleton. The majority of the novel takes a look at their engagement, and her doubts about it. There is a wealth of clever dialog to be found in this novel, much of which stays with the reader (or at least this one) well after the last page is turned. Most of the comedy comes from Meredith's exposing of the Egoist (of which there is more than one in this novel).

Miss Middleton actually has the attention of a few men, and this adds to both the drama and comedy of the novel. A sample of the witty dialog should be provided so you may decide whether to get this book. A friend of Clara's gets wind of her doubts. He can't come right out and let her know, but he hints at it. He starts off by informing her that he 'has written half an essay on honeymoons'. She responds by asking 'whether that is the same as a half written essay'. He tells her 'that it is, except that my essay is completely told, but just from one side.' 'And which side is that' she asks. 'The grooms' he replies.

So I would suggest that you give this novel a try, especially if you like 19th century writers.

Meredith's masterpiece is woefully underread, and it is a sad truth that the Norton scholarly edition is the only edition of THE EGOIST now in print. This is not an easy read, however: Meredith's caustic dialogue foreshadows henry James's in its mastery of ambiguities, and his witty paradoxes surpass even Oscar Wilde (who admitted his debt to Meredith). The plot is a simple one: the wealthy handsome and titled Sir Willoughby Patterne, having been jilted by one fiancée, proposes to another young woman, the intelligent and intensely likeable Clara Middleton, who accepts him; before very long, Clara has realized what a monstrous egoist Sir Willoughby is, but not after it seems too late for her to go back on her word. This is one of the most brilliant studies of mortification ever accomplished, and what makes it all the more amazing is that Meredith clearly modelled Sir Willoughby in part on himself and the extraordinarily sympathetic Clara on his wife, Mary Ellen Peacock, who deserted Meredith for another man. This book is funny, thought-provoking, and exceptionally poignant: there are moments when you read it that your heart will go into your stomach as you sympathize with Clara's appalling plight.

This is one of the funniest novels I've ever read. The basic story is simple: Sir Willoughby Patterne's betrothal to the young Clara Middleton is threatened when she realizes his enormous love of himself. The novel consists of Clara's efforts to get out of the engagement without doing something so scandalous as eloping with someone else.

The characters are drawn vividly and with depth. The incidents are both amusing and realistic. Clara Middleton is one of the great witty heroines of English literature, perhaps the wittiest Victorian heroine.

The beginning can be slow going. Meredith likes to use twenty words when other people might use ten. He also likes to play verbal games. As you proceed in the novel and get used to the style, you can have a lot of fun picking out the puns, allusions, etc.

This is Meredith's best novel. The plot is tightly controlled and the ending is pure comedy in the tradition of Fielding, Austen and Thackeray. I highly recommend this novel to anyone who feels comfortable reading Victorian English and likes a good love-comedy.

George Meredith's "The Adventures of Harry Richmond" is the most atypical of this dazzling and at times maddening Victorian writer.In it he eschews his usual epigrammatical wit and complex elliptical structure to write a straightforward autobiographical novel in the style of Kingsley's "Alton Locke" and Dickens'"David Copperfield".His best work up to that time-"The Ordeal of Richard Feverel","Evan Harrington" and "Sandra Belloni"-contain some of the most brilliant writing of the period,but they also are uneven-they seem structurally unbalanced and the ambitious prose sometimes falls(as Virginia Woolf pointed out)flat as a pancake.Later works,such as "The Egoist" and "The Tragic Comedians",probably display Meredith's writing at the its height-but their sacrifice of incident for minute but oblique analysis render them like James' last novels,difficult to approach."Harry Richmond",however,has none of the faults endemic to Meredith's work and if there is none of the famous authorial piquancy,it makes for a better overall experience."Harry Richmond" tells the story of a young man,Harry Richmond,torn between the conservative, commonsense rearing of his landowning grandfather and the romantic,fantastical schemes of his dashing,but penniless father.The book reads like a serious comedy of manners with its final struggle of duty and imagination,love and shame culminating in intense poetic tragedy.Richmond Roy,the father,is one of Meredith's most memorable creations,and the love interlude with the Princess Ottilia is one of his most exquisite scenes.The "statue" scene is,I believe,the best thing Meredith ever wrote-its power is amazing.Meredith at the time of his death was one of the most admired writers of his time,but his reputation has since declined because of his unique,lyrical style is not as accessible as other poet novelists-such as Emily Bronte and Thomas Hardy.But anyone who attempts Meredith will be rewarded,despite his undeniable flaws,with an original and fascinating writer,whose work as embodied in "The Adventures of Harry Richmond" still has the power to haunt and challenge. P.S.This was Edith Wharton's favorite Meredith novel.

I think the author as a very Good Imagination and very detaling In his work. It was a book that I could not put down. Always has you wondering what is going to happen next. Waiting for the next series to come out. Meredith! you are Great. Keep up the Good work. And not for a Child to read.

This book is scholarly but well-written and engaging. There are not a lot of decent books that focus exclusively on George Meredith, but I recommend this one highly for the serious scholar.

This is a sweet book James Barrie wrote about his mother and it tells of his life with her up until her death. It's really nice and very descriptive and I would recomend it.

As a Space Law practitioner, researcher, and author I have found this book'to be one of the most useful, complete and original among all the existing books in this field..