Sherlock Holmes has been an obsession of mine since adolescence. When I came across this relatively expensive set of books in junior high school, I ran home and did every chore in the world in my entire neighborhood for three straight days --and added up the dimes and quarters people would give me until I had enough to buy these two volumes. They have been with me ever since. For the first time, I understood what all those words were that I couldn't find in a dictionary, with illustrations and explanations. Even more amazing, I learned that Sherlock Holmes was a real person -- or at least, the editors of these books believed so! The product of a great generation of Holmes fanatics, this collection is full of the arguments over what each story means, what has been included by Dr. Watson, and what must have been left out to protect the innocent. The one truly indispensable volume for Holmes fans, "The Annotated Sherlock Holmes" is an unadulterated joy!

If you ever wanted to read the entire Sherlock Holmes canon, this is the best book to buy. Also, if you are one of those Sherlock fans, you will certainly appreciate this book. Apart from Conan Doyle's original text, this book presents lots of interesting information about Victorian England, linking it with the text. If Holmes spends a crown on something, Baring-Gould will not only calculate its value today but will also show you a picture of the coins at that time. If Holmes and Dr. Watson have to take a transportation to go somewhere, Baring-Gould will show a picture and description of the exact transportation they used. Finally, if the two inseparable friends have to investigate something in a specific address, the book shows a map or picture of the site. However, the book most interesting quality is an extensive research the editor made in order to sort the stories chronologically, not in the order Conan Doyle wrote them but in the order they in fact happened. All those details make the book so real that after you finish this book, you will get a strange feeling that the most famous fictitious detective in the world really lived at 221b Baker Street or a strange feeling that Holmes was not simply a delusion of Dr. Watson, himself the alter ego of Conan Doyle.

the knowledge of when to stop." Thus remarks Holmes to Lestrade about the villainous Jonas Oldacre

( By the bye giving an excellent piece of advice to all artists, villainous or not. Truly the stage, as Watson keeps reminding us, lost a great actor when Holmes embarked upon the profession of consulting detective )

It would appear that Jonas, in his attempt to send the innocent John Hector Mc Farlane to the gallows, could not resist adding a final touch which brought his nefarious plans crashing down---he planted a stain of blood on the wall upon which Mc Farlane's fingerprint would be found!

Lestrade: "You are aware that no two thumb-marks are alike ? "
Holmes: "I have heard something of the kind. "

Whereupon Wiliaim S Baring-Gould, greatest of Holmseian addict/scholars treats us to a footnote on the margin regarding Galton's method of fingerprining, given to the British Association in 1899 and concludes that--

By my gold amethyst encrusted snuff-box, this is fun!

It's the best rendering of Conan Doyle's canon, complete with maps of London, illustrations from Collier's, vintage 1903; coats of arms, photographs, drawings--in brief, the world of S.H. made explicable, and vivid.

Naturally you knew that when Watson informs us that their long suffering landlady, Mrs.Hudson, lived on the first floor flat, he's using it in the English sense: what we Americans would call 'the second floor.' Or that a 'life preserver' was a short bludgeon, usually of flexible cane, whalebone, or the like loaded with lead at one end. Or that---

Hmm...now what was that about the supreme gift of the artist?

Rimbaud's life has been subjected to more myth-making and sentimental drivel than any other 19th century poet, probably because his life is such a great story. Teenage visionary turns thirtysomething gun-runner - what a headline! The great virtue of Graham Robb's biography is that he pays such close attention to the details of Rimbaud's life as it was actually lived, and doesn't allow the work, or indeed the correspondence, to dictate to him the meaning of it all.

The last great English-language Rimbaud biography was Enid Starkie's, now over forty years old, and while Starkie did massive valuable research (she later claimed, in classic biographer-rebel style, that she paid for her research by granting sexual favours to wealthy Frenchmen), her tone and approach were flawed by the temptation to rewrite Rimbaud's entire life in terms of his glittering adolescence, which was after all the time when he produced his poetry. Graham Robb combines an alert and vivid appreciation of Rimbaud's genius with a scepticism about Rimbaud's published statements about himself. This is a portrait of the artist as lifelong liar and shyster, and while Robb's Rimbaud is one of the least attractive heroes ever depicted, it seems all too true in the light of Rimbaud's withering, laser-like intelligence.

While Robb is exceptionally good at showing us the young, anti-social, utterly selfish teenage genius, you can tell from his crisp prose style and sardonic wit that while he admires the poetry, he finds the boy hard to like. This seems eminently fair in view of Rimbaud's youthful lack of any sense of gratitude, morality or decent behaviour. The older Rimbaud was more inclined to honour his obligations, but Robb convincingly demonstrates how the African Rimbaud's repeated complaints of having no money don't square up to his actual dealings with banks. It seems that Rimbaud the arms dealer was not the bungling innocent of legend, but a shrewd operator who made a considerable amount of money.

Robb's Rimbaud is a more modern figure, even a more (gulp) postmodern figure than we're used to in Rimbaud studies. This is no romantic dreamer (despite a dubious epilogue, the only false note in the book, I thought); Rimbaud seems to have dreamed the worst excesses of the 20th century before they happened, and reinvented himself as a man who could feel at home in them. It's a bracing, witty, scrupulous and searching biography of an exemplary figure - the brilliant boy who helped to create our idea of modern literature, and the brutally cynical man who regarded his early achievements as a drastically stupid dead end. The Rimbaud story will always be a fascinating and chilling cautionary tale; exactly what we're being cautioned against is only beginning to become apparent.

As Robb did in stellar biographies of Balzac and Victor Hugo, he paints a vivid picture of the immediate environment in which the genius in question grows, rebels, creates and explodes. Much has been written about Rimbaud and his short period of productivity as a brilliant poet and prose-poet, but too much until this biography repeated the same facts, the same received opinions and the same conclusions. Robb digs deeper to provide the fascinating and detailed world of Rimbaud's family, his provincial origins and his rage to create new forms. With that detail, Rimbaud comes spectacularly alive in context. And what a context! Most famously, poet Paul Verlaine stepped into Rimbaud's line of fire and literary history was made, with the young man/boy wreaking havoc in every direction. As Robb shows, Verlaine, Rimbaud's mentor, lover and punching bag, was merely one of those the wild child went after. Robb's prodigious knowledge of the poet, his time and his place in literary history makes this the definitive biography of Arthur Rimbaud. And although hard work, thoroughness and engaged insights are three of Robb's supreme qualities as a biographer, his glorious writing style, which provides every paragraph with exploding epiphanies that illuminate and delight in equal measure, remains a rare treasure among contemporary biographers.

The road to Hell has been well-travelled by many poets, including Rimbaud (1854-91), who wrote about his season there in Une Saison en Enfer (1873). Abandoned by his father when he was six (pp. 12, 156), and "marooned in a seedy neighorhood" in Charleville (p. 12), Rimbaud's biography tells the story of a tortured soul imprisoned in the ever-changing persona of a "grim-faced urchin" (p. 128), "rebel," "pagan" (p. 81), poet, "seer," "genius" (p. 126), "marriage-wrecker" (p. 156), "shabby young man" (p. 237), factory worker (p. 244), tutor (p. 262), beggar, docker (p. 269), mercenary (pp. 277-78), sailor (p. 285), explorer (p. 289), "angel in exile" (p. 289), trader (p. 315), gun runner (p. 341, Chapters 33-34), and money changer (p. 409). Rimbaud wonders, "O seasons, O castles, What soul is without fault?" (p. 158).

"I came to find my mind's disorder sacred," Rimbaud tells us (p. 154). In this 445-page "reconstruction of Rimbaud's life" (p. xviii), Graham Robb insightfully reveals how his subject's life--and stormy relationship with Paul Verlaine--provided Rimbaud "with some splendid material for his poetry" (p. 211) before he took an "agile leap into silence" (p. 240), and abandoned poetry when he was 21. For Rimbaud, the "idea was 'to see everything up close, to describe modern life with fearless precision, the way in which it warps the human being'" (p. 55).

In Robb's superb biography, it is never easy to connect with Rimbaud, the person, but as a rebel poet he is mesmerizing, even as a silent poet "disappearing over the horizon of the page" (p. 281). Although the journey may be difficult for many of Rimbaud's admirers, Robb follows Rimbaud "into the badlands of his post-poetic career" (p. 289), and to the poet's funeral no one attended in Charleville (p. 441). You will probably not find the Rimbaud you expect in Parts Three and Four of this book. It was only posthumously that Rimbaud became a Symbolist, Surrealist, Beat, revolutionary, avant-gardes poet (p. xiv).

"For now, I am damned," Rimbaud writes near the end of his raison d'etre as a poet. "I detest the fatherland. The best thing would be a good drunken sleep on the beach" (p. 231). "Rimbaud gave up writing poetry," Robb notes, "but few people, having acquired the taste, ever give up reading it" (p. xviii). And with fascinating biographies such as this, it is unlikely readers will ever lose interest in Rimbaud.

G. Merritt

If you do OO development, please read this book! This book, along with the GoF Design Patterns book are in my OO development hall of fame. Riel does a great job of presenting good design approaches and rules of thumb that help to improve object-oriented designs. Each heuristic is backed up with examples rather than just being presented for you to accept verbatim. Riel also does a great job of pointing out some of the problem areas in OO -- areas that cause consternation for all OO developers. Being a perfectionist is tough in this industry, and Riel's coverage of sticky topics helped me to accept that sometimes there just isn't a "right" answer. A helpful touch: In a fashion similar to GoF, Riel lists his heuristics in the front and back covers of the book, with page references to the supporting material.

Buy this book NOW

Object Oriented programming gives the developer a great many choices when designing. This book describes 68 heuristics that help you make optimal design decisions at every step of the way. The explanations are easy to understand and the focus on practical design considerations rather than theory make this book very easy to get through. If it's your job to do OO designs then this book is a must! It does the same thing for OO that Scott Meyer's excellent "Effective C++" books do for C++. The recent popularity of "Design Pattern" books should not distract you from books like this - buy this one first!

This is one of the best object oriented design books I have read. Traditional object oriented analysis and design books mainly focus on methodologies which can become very academic and perhaps boring to read. This book is different, it focus on design heuristics and gives practical tips on how to apply them. Most of the design heuristics in the book are well explained and the author did a good job in explaining the reasons behind these heuristics. There are codes given in the book to illustrate some of the concepts but I would like to see more of these codes in future.

I have many different translations of the Bible, from the King James Version to the NIV, and none of my study Bibles compare to the New Inductive Study Bible. The way this Bible is laid out just increased my zeal to study. Now, I consider myself a die-hard King James Version student. However, the NASB was so easy to read, and made my study easier. I highly recommend this Bible to anyone who is seriously interested in getting a deeper understanding of God's word.

This is the absolute best study Bible I have ever come across! I've used many, from the Open Bible, Life Application Bible, Thompson Chain Reference Bible, Ryrie Study Bible and Hebrew Greek Key Bible. There comes a time where you want to dig out what the Word says to you. Not commentators, Not translators. Just you and God. That's what this does. A small introduction is given at the beginning of each book, and you are given things to look out for or notice in each book. You have pages to record your notes on, and wide margins to write personal notes and applications right next to the text. There are also blank pages for notes in the back of the Bible. Also included at the end of each book of the Bible is a "Chapter Theme" Chart where you record the Theme of each chapter. It makes a wonderful quick reference! There is also a space for you to record the theme at the beginning of each chapter. I never realized how helpful it is to do it yourself! The more you make notes in this Bible and discover truths, the more irreplaceable it becomes. The text is a nice print and easy to read. It is single column text. The references are wonderful, and there anre many. I highly recommend it. It may be the last study Bible you ever need!

UPDATE: After using this Bible intensively for 6 months I have to add this: the cross references are plentiful and are some of the best I've seen and very, very helpful. Along with the cross references are translators notes that are included are invaluble. Like a study Bible in themselves. For example Rom 3:3 reads "What then? If some did not believe, thier unbelief will not nullify the faithfulness of God will it?"
The translator note to the side tells you that "did not believe" could also be rendered "or were unfaithful" and unbelief could be rendered "unfaithfulness" It is really enlightning to me, because although I have Heb/Greek dictionaries, I am not fluent in the original languages.

I'm under the impression that most of us read the Bible in short spurts, perhaps a few verses along with a devotional or a set portion designed to usher us through the Bible in one year. We're encouraged by some of it and confused or bored by the rest. Certainly, we aren't taught most of our beliefs by these brief readings. That comes from our Bible teachers. So, if that's true, what good was the Reformation and all the work that's gone into translating the Scripture in English? Not much, if we don't read it so as to understand it.

You and I could improve our understanding of God's Word and It's impact in our lives by doing two things. First, we could read a whole book of the Bible at a time and re-read it soon afterwards. Second, we could buy this Study Bible in order to learn how to deeply study Scripture for ourselves.

This Study Bible comes with an valuable introduction to the inductive study method so that you know what to do with the liner notes. To boil the method down to a sentence: Read a whole book carefully, ask questions, and take notes. The introduction explains how you may want to mark keywords, make lists of subjects, and outline a book. (I highly recommmend outlining a book chapter by chapter! It's one of the best ways to remember the subjects taught in it.)

The rest of this oversized Bible contains margin space for your notes, background information on each book, and recommended topics to pursue in your study. It avoids doctrinal teaching, like what you'll find in other Study Bibles, in order to focus your attention on understand specific verses in light of their context.

This Bible and the inductive study method are strong resources for every Christian, and through the teaching of the Holy Spirit and Godly teachers throughout the church, you and I can understand and love God more and more everyday.

As a school librarian, I am often looking for entertaining books to read aloud to my students. After my nine year old son finished this book, I scooped it up to read to fourth grade students at my school. All the children loved Murray, Kona and Stumpy, and laughed out loud at the trials and tribulations of these three engaging characters. It was wonderful to see my students so involved with a story and its characters - I had a captive audience each library period! Bravo to Cynthia Rylant for creating such a wonderful story and such lovable (and funny!) characters.

I think you would like to read this book because it is about a chocolate lab. He meets a squirrel and they become friends. Then the squirrel was going to have babies. Then they meet a bat named Murray. This is a good book because in the story there is a big storm and the squirrel babies get it trouble. Read to find out what happens.

Will this ice ever stop? Will Kona ever get to Stumpy? Gooseberry Park by Cynthia Rylant is about Stumpy a squirrel who is expecting babies. But soon after the babies are born an ice storm hits covering Gooseberry Park. Her best friend, Kona the dog, will risk the treacherous journey to save Stumpy and her babies. But is he too late or is Stumpy still alive.

Stumpy is a squirrel who likes to collect things. Stumpy is nice and is not very clean. She also is funny and a little bit of a smart alek. In the book she changes because she starts off as a collecting mother soon to be, at the end she is a mother with a curiosity about Gwendolyn and other Hermit Crabs. I think Stumpy is really cool because she really cares for Kona, Gwendolyn a hermit crab, Murray a bat, and her three babies Top, Bottom, and Sparrow.

This book is an outstanding book, both on photography itself as well as bird photography.

Art Morris takes a difficult subject and makes it much more approachable for the beginner. What is best and most valuable is the section on exposure as well as learning the various habits of your subjects.

I had the chance to meet Art Morris here in Austin a few weeks ago at the 2000 NANPA Summit.

There is no doubt that Art is the master of his "art", and it shows with the pictures in the book.

Yes, he is very brand specific, but so is Moose Peterson (Nikon), Art Wolfe (Canon) Frans Lanting (Nikon), and the list goes on. Any of the great nature photographers are very specific about the brands that they shoot.

So whether or not you shoot Nikon, Canon, or whatever else, you can learn a great deal about photography, birding, and still enjoy some stunning photographs!

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

I have read McDonald, Shaw, Wolfe, Lepp, etc. They are great, but when it comes to bird photogrpahy this guy is the man. I have read 30+ books on nature photography, and Morris still can show me tips I didn't know. An excellent book!

After reading previous reviews, I was a little chagrined when my book arrived and it was so thin, but after reading it, my reservations were gone. Of course,the photography was stunning; In addition to being an excellent technical manual, the book would be great as a "coffee table" book. The information was well presented and thorough. On the issue of "bias" toward Canon equipment, Morris is up front regarding his Canon contract, but does not hesitate to point out some features that other makers make available, but Canon lacks. My only resevation with book is a dearth of information on filters; Other than that, this book is an *excellent* primer on bird (and nature, in general,) photography. Well worth the money; I'm sure I will refer to this book many times in the future.

The King Arthur Flour 200th Anniversary Cookbook is perfect for the cook who's ready to branch out a little. The chapters begin with some basic recipes and explanations, then variations and improvisations. Directions are generally very clear and precise, and always include the reasoning behind the techniques. I especially enjoy baking variations on the basic scone recipe. This book has been a great confidence-builder; I know that as long as I follow Brinna Sands' basic proportions and techniques everything will turn out fine!

I consider myself to be very picky regarding what cookbooks I own - I'll read any cookbook but I won't buy them for my reference shelf. This cookbook is a keeper! Sands deftly tells you not only the "how" of each recipe but the "why". I've read plenty of the "chemistry of baking" and other such books, but this is the first that truly explained certain principles of baking to me (like why yeast doughs rise faster on humid days). There are even, in addition to the hundreds of recipes for baked goods, instructions on making your own play dough and paper-mache using King Arthur Flour! Don't be fooled into thinking this is a coffee table cookbook though - everything is black and white with no pictures (only a few line illustrations for things like the different bread braiding techniques) - but you are bound to come back to this cookbook again and again (in fact, it might be a good idea to buy a cookbook cover as the pages are sure to get smudged with all your efforts).

King Arthur Flour Bakery is right up the road from me. The flour has been a staple in my home for years, and it is suggested for use by all the best cooks and chefs. The King Arthur Flour cookbook has all of the recipes you would ever need for breads-yeast and easy breads, muffins, desserts of all types- directions for baking the best products and an area that directs you to buying best products. My favorite recipe is the blueberry muffins, and by all accounts from everyone who has ever tasted them, this is the best recipe ever created- look no further you have found it. I would imagine any recipe that you might try from this cookbook will fulfill your dreams- buy it and start baking right away- your family and friends will love the results.prisrob

What always gets me with Wells is the forcefulness of his imagination -- his ability to construct powerful, symbolically resonant setpieces based upon the scientific ideas of his time. In the final pages of "The Time Machine" he gave us one of the great apocalyptic visions in all of literature. In "The First Men in the Moon," he gives us a magnificently alien setting, full of bizarre moments -- jumping about the lunar surface in 1/6 G; the Giddy Bridge and the Fight in the Cave of the Moon-Butchers; the bizarre lunar ecology, in which all the plants die every night and are reborn each dawn.

Scientifically, much of this stuff doesn't hold up after a hundred years. And the device he comes up with to get his characters to the moon -- Cavorite -- is without basis, an arbitrary magical tool not unlike the time machine. Even when Wells' science is iffy, though, he presents it in such a clear, convincing fashion that you are only too glad to suspend disbelief while the story unfolds.

In the Selenites we have a metaphor for a different type of society -- rigidly hierarchical, with the needs of the individual sublimated to the whole. The metaphor obviously comes from social insects; though it became a sci-fi cliche, it was still fresh circa 1901. In the remarkable last section of the book (Cavor's communications from the moon), Wells describes the Selenite society with delightful attention to detail. He ends with a haunting, unforgettable image, and probably the best closing sentence of any sci-fi novel.

Although it is not as famous as some of his earlier science fiction books (or "scientific romances", as they were then called), and is not an absolute classic like those books are, The First Men In The Moon is nevertheless a delightful and important satrical SF novel. Also, its importance in the development of modern science fiction cannot be overestimated. Although numerous books before had dealt with a story set on another world (let us here, for the sake of convenience, refer to the Moon as a "world"), Wells's book is the first to make it convincingly real. Although, one hundred years on, much of the novel's science is dated and Well's Moon is far different from how we now know it to be, nevertheless, Wells here created a world out of his own imagination, and describes it with such a convincing level of detail that one actually feels like they are there. And the science, indeed, was, in fact, quite up-to-date for the turn of the century. The structure and format of the novel also was highly influential: one will see immediately upon reading it just how much modern science fiction owes to this novel, and to Wells (and yet, Wells himself borrowed prodigiously from previous books on the subject.) The book was originally supposed to end at Part I: Part II was added later by Wells after the book was already in the process of serialization. I think that the addition of Part II is what makes the book good instead of great. If it had ended as it originally would, it would still be a good book - a rousing adventure, an interesting yarn - but it would not be great. The second part makes the book a full-on satire - something that the earlier portion had merely hinted at. It sharply and bitingly satarizes manking and his many follies, particularly war. This addition of satire and borderline philosophy makes the novel a truly great one. I read an essay on this book that said it differs from Wells's earlier SF novels because it is not grim. I beg to differ. The ending, to me, seems quite grim, indeed. Although it does not involve the imminent extinction of man himself as earlier works did, it is nonetheless quite pessimistic and grim. The addition of the second part of the novel and the ending also pave the way for Wells's later works - ... This is a true science fiction classic that deserves to be more highly-regarded than it is.

Cavor, a genius, invents a material that allows him to build a Gravity-Defying Sphere. Soon he and a young, and very greedy, businessman use it to go to the moon. They find not only life, but the Selenites, a culture who can change their shape to fit their jobs. In other words, form is designed for the function of their class or in this case their caste. Over them rules the Grand Lunar, a being whose large brain gives him awesome power and foresight beyond even the businessman who tells us the story. Both characters show their human merits and their very human flaws. Not science fiction as much as a book on society.

I note a trend in popular psychology toward a focus on a single emotion. Perhaps in the future every human emotion will have its expert, just as entomologists specialize in beetles or ants or wasps or flies, etc.

At any rate, Ciaramicoli's "practical guide" for self-improvement is distinguished from other similar programs by the author's intense focus, his caring concern, and especially his use of "empathy" as the guiding principle. Ciaramicoli broadens the usual definition of empathy past the point of normal recognition. "All living things are wired for empathy" he asserts (p. 35), and he specifically includes "slime molds" and in fact gives a rather intriguing explanation of why he thinks slime molds have empathy on pages 24-25. In reading this sincere and caring book, I found it necessary to just accept his terminology and not quibble about definitions or the fact that slime molds are not "wired" even metaphorically, because essentially Professor Ciaramicoli is correct in asserting the tremendous power of empathy to help us understand ourselves and others. I wonder, though, how much would have been lost had the word "empathy" been replaced with the word "love."

Ciaramicoli, who is a clinical psychologist and a member of the Harvard Medical School, gives examples from his personal life and from his practice demonstrating (to his satisfaction) the power of empathy to change people's lives for the better. He works hard at making a distinction between, say, sympathy, which "seeks to console," and empathy, which "works to understand" (p. 38). On page 166 he quotes Gretel Ehrlich to the effect that empathy is stronger than sympathy because it contains honesty while sympathy may conceal. Consequently he sees empathy as a double-edged sword that in the hands of enemies or in the hands those who make a practice of exploiting others, can work for malevolent purposes. Clearly "empathy" used in this sense can be replaced with a phrase like "a thorough understanding." But whether empathy for, say, Saddam Hussein or even for O.J. Simpson, would or could change them for the better is, to my mind, debatable.

Ciaramicoli was led to write this book in part because of the tragedy of his younger brother who died of an apparent intentional, self-inflicted overdose of heroin. He expresses a sense of guilt about his brother's wasted life and writes that he believes, had he and others been more empathetic, the tragedy could have been averted. I am not so sure. Of course Ciaramicoli should realize that he is not his brother's keeper, but more importantly he should know that heroin addicts are not freed from their addiction and their self-destructive behavior through empathy, and Ciaramicoli should not in any way blame himself. Of course if you are a successful older brother, who is everything the younger brother could not be, it is hard not to feel some sort of guilt, something akin to "survivor guilt." Ciaramicoli would do himself a favor by studying the literature on heroin addiction and listening to the experience of other families who have experienced similar addiction tragedies. I think such knowledge would help him overcome his profound sense of guilt. (A little work with evolutionary psychology on the nature of dominance among siblings wouldn't hurt either!)

Although I don't agree with some of the psychology expressed here, I certainly agree with Ciaramicoli's intent to help others. He writes about responding to the tears of children in "comforting, reassuring ways" instead of with indifference. No one can disagree with that. However, if a child is rewarded whenever it cries, it will tend to cry more, and when the child is older, if its antisocial behavior is rewarded with "empathy" to the exclusion of a clear expression that what the young person is doing is wrong, the young person may be led into continued antisocial and ultimately self-destructive behavior. It has been said that "to know all is to forgive all," meaning if we knew all the circumstances that led to a person's behavior we might well conclude, "there, but for the grace of God, go I." That is empathy, for sure. Nonetheless we, as a society, must still punish the transgressor, lest others be lead astray.

I think this is a book that may resonate with some people where other books have not been helpful, just as the author's notion of "empathy" may work where the usual guiding principle "love" has not. I really think it boils down to "The Power of Love and Understanding," but I suspect that book has already been written many times over.

Many self-help books that are offered to readers today rely on "POP" psychology theories that lack personal experience. This approach, in my opinion, lacks depth, soul, and originality which in many cases is born from painful experiences. Dr. Ciaramicoli, on the the other hand, courageously weaves his private and professional life experiences throughout the book and pierces through to the souls of all those who read it.

Reading "The Power of Empathy" reinvented the term for me and made me realize the dark side of empathy, which is often displayed when we manipulate other people for our gain.

To sum up, I applaud Dr. Ciaramicoli for his courage to share his personal story to me--the reader, regarding the struggles he endured as it gives me hope and a feeling of connectedness which, in my opinion, is the essence of empathy.

Absolutely wonderful book which explains how empathy can be used to improve relationships. The reader learns early on that Dr. Ciaramicoli was compelled to write this book because of his younger brother's suicide. The book contains many examples of empathy's power and each story urged me to read on. Dr. Ciaramicoli's book has allowed me to have a better understanding of my own personal relationships and I thank him for it.

This is one of my favorite Barbara Tuchman works. It is the story of the Zimmermann Telegram, a message sent by the German Foreign Minister to the Mexican Government in early 1917. In essence the Telegram was an attempt to make Mexico a German ally in the event of the US entering World War I on the Allied side, with the bait being the possibility of Mexico reclaiming the states of Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. When British Intelligence intercepted and decoded the Telegram they made certain that the US government and public heard about it quickly in the hopes of bringing the US into the war.

The book is more than just the story of the Telegram itself. It includes a run through of the various German espionage efforts in the US before and during World War I and a good description of the unease felt by the US at the mysterious German machinations, including possibly collusion with Japan and an attempt to take control of the Panama Canal.

Like all of Tuchman's works, The Zimmermann Telegram is scholarly without being dull, and a real delight.

While the Zimmerman Telegram is one of the most important documents in history, and is perhaps the greatest result of code breaking in history, it is nonetheless frequently overlooked. Most people have at least heard "Remember the Lusitania" which had essentially nothing to do with the U.S. entering WWI. Few, however, are familiar with this short telegram that is truly a hinge on which history turned.

One cannot blame Barbara Tuchman for this, however, as this work brings alive the intrigue of the time like no other. Reading like a spy novel, and yet all the more chilling because it's true, Tuchman navigates the reader through the murky waters of WWI intrigue. We learn how, in a misguided effort to distract the U.S. from Europe, Germany sought to foment trouble on the U.S./Mexican border. We learn how the British scrambled to inform the Americans of this, without comprimising their sources. And we learn how a tortured President Wilson was forced to take the steps towards war.

"The Zimmerman Telegram" is history as it should be written; loaded with primary sources, and with the breathless pace that events really unfolded. While better known for "The Guns of August", it is this work that makes me rank Barabara Tuchman as one of the best historians of the 20th Century. Enjoy!

Barbara Tuchman is one of the leading historians of the 20th century ; she proves it here once more. In this book she manages to use an anecdote - the telegram - to explain in a thrilling and convincing way the reasons for the US to enter the war. It is a brilliant book thanks to her remarkable style which blends suspense and clarity and yet no compromise with historical truth.

Many historians are experts and have a vast knowledge of their subject. Very few like Barbara Tuchman make their knowledge accessible in an enticing way to the "man in the street".