For anyone interested in UFO phenomena this is an excellent treatise by a professional aeronautical engineer. Perhaps the best available at the moment (better than any I've seen). Better ones will probably only appear after various governments of the world decide to end over 50 years of UFO pseudo-denial.

He takes one event at a time, and examining the reports and hard evidence where it exists, eliminates various suggested explanations if they don't fit. He doesn't answer all the possible questions that one can pose, but he does conclude that nothing the objects do violates any of our accepted scientific principles or the laws of physics. The propulsion system that he says fills the bill is a "focused force field". Although we admittedly haven't the foggiest notion of how to develop a focused force field, the scientific principle is sound. Gravity is a force field. We have electrical and magnetic force fields.

Hill also delves into advanced--but accepted--theoretical physics to explain how interstellar travel would be possible without exceeding the speed of light. The bulk of the book is written for a lay audience. Any normally intelligent, reasonably well educated person can follow it. He includes several appendices, however, which are crammed with mathematics far too arcane for me to digest.

It's a fascinating book, light enough to be enjoyed, but too heavy to skim. In the way that some people go to church "just in case", this work should be read, "just in case". I heartily recommend it.

Cramer has a cocky and cynical writing style that doesn't hesitate to shoot daggers at those deserving of scorn. One of his biggest targets is the media, and the so-called power brokers that can make or break presidents (Cramer calls them "big-feet"). People like David Broder, Jack Germond and Howard Fineman all fall under Cramer's critical eye. Cramer shows how the media obliterates people for their own benefit. Bringing down a candidate isn't done for the good of the country over serious issues, but rather to build careers and increase the salaries of the media darlings. The question "Who is watching the media?" looms large in this book. Cramer also targets the campaign teams who mold and buff a candidate so that he can be elected, no matter what the cost. These are the folks who are brought in to dig up dirt, lie, and raise lots of money so they can buy elections. People like John Sasso and Lee Atwater are the most prominent of these figures, and are painted in less than flattering terms by Cramer.

Some of Cramer's observations can get tiresome. How many times do we need to hear about George Bush making new friend because it "will be neat"? His cynicism can get old too, but since he's dealing with politics, it's totally understandable. I've seen several of the people talked about in this book on TV recently, and I immediately thought of them in terms of this book (Hey! There's Joe Biden! I wonder if he's buying a new house!). I also laughed out loud whenever Cramer talked about Elizabeth Dole. He would write her words in North Carolina accent, and you could almost hear her talking!

Only those interested in politics will probably enjoy this book. Since some of the people in this book are still involved in politics today, this book still has merit. I read the other day that Joe Biden might be an early prospect for president in 2004. Clear your calendar, too, as this is a long read. Recommended.

In this reporting of the 1988 Presidential election, Richard Ben Cramer presents THE authoritative review and analysis of the candidates, the nominee, and the eventual president.

This book is not for the faint of heart. At over 1000 pages, this book makes "Truman" seem like a Cliff's Notes review of a presidency.

What the length does provide is ubelievable insight into what made the candidates tick, and why they were successful, or unsuccessful, in conveying their story and message to the American people.

For those who want to know, this is the one book to read.

In terms of personalities, I particularly found the passages about Dole & Biden illuminating.

The princess won't use any of the special royal potties until she is tempted by a pair of pantalettes. Maybe that's a good reminder to us parents to be patient, but it doesn't encourage potty usage for my child.

The book discusses using the potty in very generic terms, nothing specific. No potty words (like pee or poop) are used. I view it as another book in the bookcase, which is OK.

My daughter likes for me to read this book to her, and enjoys calling her diaper "the royal diaper". Sometimes she likes to discuss pantalettes, but she has not expressed any interest in using the "royal potty".

I prefer "The Potty Book For Girls" as a potty-learning tool.

But, it took about 2 months to digest the full impact of Richard's new book for me. I learned what "affiliate" marketing is and have now become an affiliate for many companies.... I now can "refer" others to buy Wave 4 (and other books) via my web site and I get a 15% commission.... Cool! In visiting Richard's Wave 4 web site , you'll see he is doing the same thing.

He (and I) don't have to handle the inventory, manage the sale, ship the books, or anything else. Yet as a reward for "referring" others, we get a 15% commission.... Isn't that what networking is all about, referring others to products and services and getting paid to do that?!

So opening my eyes to this form of network marketing has been very revealing. I now share with others the many types of networking (affiliate, mlm) available to anyone who has access to the Internet.

I have also realized what a "Wave 4" network marketing company is and I am glad that my choice in mlm is now a Wave 4 company. Passive income, here I come!

The learning organization - Senge's vision for the productive, competitive, and efficient institutions of the future - is in a continuous state of change. Four fundamental questions continuously serve to check and guide a group's learning and improvement (see page 49): (1) Do you continuously test your experiences? ("Are you willing to examine and challenge your sacred cows - not just during crises, but in good times?") (2) Are you producing knowledge? ("Knowledge, in this case, means the capacity for effective action.") (3) Is knowledge shared? ("Is it accessible to all of the organization's members?") (4) Is the learning relevant? ("Is this learning aimed at the organization's core purpose?") If these questions represent the organization's compass, the five disciplines are its map.

Each of the five disciplines is explained, and elaborated in its own lengthy section of the book. In the section on "Systems Thinking" (a set of practices and perspectives, which views all aspects of life as inter-related and playing a role in some larger system), the authors build on the idea of feedback loops (reinforcing and balancing) and introduce five systems archetypes. They are: "fixes that backfire", "limits to growth", "shifting the burden", "tragedy of the commons", and "accidental adversaries". In the section on "Personal Mastery", the authors argue that learning starts with each person. For organizations to learn and improve, people within the organization (perhaps starting with its core leadership) must learn to reflect on and become aware of their own core beliefs and visions. In "Mental Models", the authors argue that learning organizations need to explore the assumptions and attitudes, which guide their institutional directions, practices, and strategies. Articles on scenario planning, the ladder of inference, the left-hand column, and balancing inquiry and advocacy offer practical strategies to investigate our personal mental models as well as those of others in the organization. In "Shared Vision", the authors make the case for the stakeholders of an organization to continually adapt their vision ("an image of a desired future"), values ("how we get to travel to where we want to go"), purpose ("what the organization is here to do"), and goals ("milestones we expect to reach before too long"). The section offers many strategies and perspectives on how to move an organization toward continuous reflection. In "Team Learning", the authors rely mostly on the work of William Isaacs and others, and make a case for educating organization members in the processes and skills of dialogue and skillful discussion.

This book is enlightening and informative. It has already found a place on my shelf for essential reference books.

In fact, these physical details model the whole point of the book--that learning is essential for sustainable growth, for organizational and personal development.

This book is great for getting your toddler interested in books. My two year old daughter loves reading her "Lellow Book" at bedtime every night, and I look forward to it as much as she does. (If I had the proverbial dime for every time I've read "Chipmunk's Birthday" I'd be richer than Jeff Bezos!)

The only complaint I have is that we've had to glue the spine to the pages several times. I suppose frequent use is a contributing factor, but other reviewers have noted similar binding problems from this publisher. If not for this one drawback, I would have rated this book 6 out of 5.

Richard Scarry's Best Storybook Ever is designed for a child to work through on his/her own. My son "reads" to himself for about an hour each day (self-inflicted!) and he already matches letter sounds to words. I'm not a believer in the genetics argument for most children; I believe that children learn to read early, and learn to have a love for books based on the environment provided for them. This book is a fantastic way to begin to set that environment for your child.

To help other parents apply this advice, as a parent of four I consulted an expert, our youngest child, and asked her to share with me her favorite books that were read to her as a young child. Richard Scarry's Best Story Book Ever was one of her picks.

This book was my daughter's choice night after night during the years from ages 3-6. The stories are all vividly colored, humorous, and reasonably short. They just suited her perfectly.

She would plead after each one, "Just one more story, Dad." (This was after her mother had read to her, as well.) I would read until I had almost no voice left. Eventually, we negotiated that she could pick two stories from this book, and if I was in the mood (and in good voice) we could go up from there. Otherwise, bedtime would have been delayed for hours!

If you don't know Richard Scarry, he has a wonderful, light sense of humor. He usually features intelligent animals, but in human-like contexts. This makes the moral of the story easier for the youngster to swallow, while making the story more interesting. For example, A Castle in Denmark is about the rules that you should follow in a castle (or a house) such as not leaving things on the floor where people can trip on them. Who else would have come up with such a wonderful way to help establish household rules?

The stories in the book contain all the elements needed in a preschool book, with lots of alphabet, numbers, socialization, and charming stories with important lessons attached. The book includes one of my daughter's all time favorite stories, I Am a Bunny by Ole Rison. This story was repeated like a mantra around our house by all four children. It is a great beginning reader story.

The stories vary in sophistication from simple ones to mini-mysteries involving detectives. My daughter especially loved the mini-mysteries.

Here are her favorite stories in the book (in the order they appear):

The Rabbit Family's Home

I Am a Bunny

Work Machines

Pip Pip Goes to London

A Castle in Denmark

Couscous, the Algerian Detective

Officer Montey of Monaco

Pierre, the Paris Policeman

The Country Mouse and the City Mouse by Patricia Scarry

Schtoompah, the Funny Austrian

From a value perspective, it is much less expensive to buy these stories in this form than to get them in the various Richard Scarry books. Of all the story books we bought for our children, this one was definitely the best value. I suspect it only cost about a penny per hour used. Running the television costs more than that!

Some readers have complained about the binding. Ours is a little loose in back after four years of hard use. For such a thick book, that's about par for the course. If your child is a hard user of books, you may want to get a new copy at some point.

After you have finished enjoying this book for the 4,317th evening in a row (if you have a large family), I suggest that you think about how these stories could be made even funnier by changing the context. For example, a castle in Denmark could become Cinderella's castle after she married the prince. What rules do you suppose Cinderella would have wanted to have? In this way, you and your child can exercise your imagination to have even more fun.

Take great stories and build on them . . . together with your child!

We start off in the mind of a killer who has subtly plotted revenge for an event that occurred on Halloween night, 1978. From there we're taken through the methodical killings of all those involved in the event. Nicholas Stella, a freelance writer, thinks he's stumbled onto a story of the week, when one of those killed is a priest he knew personally. Little does he know how deeply he will become involved.

This book is a must read for anyone who enjoys thrillers. With the wonderful pacing and believable characters, the reader will be hooked from the moment they read the first page.

The only problem is...now I can hardly wait for the next Montanari thriller!

Tina Hilmas

Three years ago I read Richard Montanari's first novel DEVIANT WAY and made a prediction that he would be the next big thing in the thriller genre. The book was a heart-pounding, baffling, pyschosexual whodunnit of the first order, one of those that keeps you guessing, literally, until the very last word on the very last page.

When I didn't see a new book from him a year after that, or even a year after that, I figured he was another one-book wonder. THE VIOLET HOUR has proven me wonderfully wrong. It truly was worth the wait.

The plot of THE VIOLET HOUR is so full of surprises that it is impossible to talk about it without spoiling something. Loosely, the story is about a group of snobby college students in 1978 who call themselves The AdVerse Society - they like to trash the greats in modern poetry, drink Algonquin Roundtable cocktails and practice suburban hedonism. The society has a Halloween party that year, a costumed soiree that turns into a demented, drug-crazed orgy. And something tragic happens.

Twenty years later, people who attended that party start dying in grisly ways. Doctors, lawyers, priests. No one responsible is safe. Nor are their loved ones.

Unlike DEVIANT WAY, there is no cop on the trail of the killer this time. Instead, there is a down on his luck freelance writer named Nicholas Stella, and a suburban housewife named Amelia Saintsbury. Amelia lives inside the mystery with her innocent little girl. Nicky Stella has to get there to save them.

At least five times during the reading of the advance copy of this book I had to rethink everything about which I thought I had been certain. Plus, the surprise ending nearly broke my heart.

The bad news, for me, is that I've already read THE VIOLET HOUR and it isn't even out yet. I hope I don't have to wait another three years.

-- Miranda Cielo

Three years ago I read Richard Montanari's first novel DEVIANT WAY and made a prediction that he would be the next big thing in the thriller genre. The book was a heart-pounding, baffling, psychosexual whodunnit of the first order, one of those that keeps you guessing, literally, until the very last word on the very last page.

When I didn't see a new book from him a year after that, or even a year after that, I figured he was another one-book wonder. THE VIOLET HOUR has proven me wonderfully wrong. It truly was worth the wait.

The plot of THE VIOLET HOUR is so full of surprises that it is impossible to talk about it without spoiling something. Loosely, the story is about a group of snobby college students in 1978 who call themselves The AdVerse Society - they like to trash the greats in modern poetry, drink Algonquin Roundtable cocktails and practice suburban hedonism. The society has a Halloween party that year, a costumed soiree that turns into a demented, drug-crazed orgy. And something tragic happens.

Twenty years later, people who attended that party start dying in grisly ways. Doctors, lawyers, priests. No one responsible is safe. Nor are their loved ones.

Unlike DEVIANT WAY, there is no cop on the trail of the killer this time. Instead, there is a down on his luck freelance writer named Nicholas Stella, and a suburban housewife named Amelia Saintsbury. Amelia lives inside the mystery with her innocent little girl. Nicky Stella has to get there to save them.

At least five times during the reading of the advance copy of this book I had to rethink everything about which I thought I had been certain. Plus, the surprise ending nearly broke my heart.

The bad news, for me, is that I've already read THE VIOLET HOUR and it isn't even out yet. I hope I don't have to wait another three years.

-- Miranda Cielo