Shaffer is a gifted poet, generously allowing us to see the world from his sometimes tilted (like a pinball machine) but generally optimistic viewpoint. His verse is accessible without being simple, and often cheerful but not sappy. And it comes with instructions! If you like your poetry dense as ancient fruitcake and studded with indigestible pellets of unidentifiable allusions you may not enjoy this book, but I found it refreshing and strongly recommend it.

Portable Planet is that rare book of poetry that gives you both immediate pay-off and a lifetime of contemplation. From the opening poem, "At Play in the Fields of the Word," Eric Paul Shaffer makes you laugh ("None come to the door but grim vendors of an angry God and trademark plasticware") and makes you think ("Today, I define 'freedom' this way: with nothing done, the future is full"). Each of Shaffer's poems hits you with power and precision. Shaffer has more to SAY than any other living poet I've read. Unlike most acclaimed (and rather boring) poets, he never hides behind safely ambiguous imagery; his voice is loud and clear, and playfully challenging. For example, consider this line from his long poem "The Western Room:" "From Japan, America is the land of the rising sun, inscrutable." From his poem "Yadokari: Hermit Crab, Okinawa," you can also learn how to live your life: "Life is kind. Move on. Carry what you can." If I were forced to choose my favorite, I'd pick "On the Verge of the Usual Mistake." (His titles alone are both funny and thought-provoking.) If you buy only one book of poetry this year, make sure you buy Portable Planet. It doesn't get better than this.

Portable Planet liberates American poetry from the stuffiness of the Academy and the silliness of the Slam. Here is a book whistling with fresh air, open vistas, and good humor. Portable Planet should be made into our next National Park, but hurry and get your copy, before the next administration sells it off! If Walt Whitman had looked under his own boot soles, he would have found Eric Paul Shaffer--and Shaffer would have been giving old Walt a hot foot. This book burns!

It is hard to predict how the politically correct police will respond to the publication of this engaging children's book. While the lead character is an Indian (or Native American or whatever p.c. term is in vogue these days) which they generally view positively, he is also a Christian which they generally view negatively. The plot twist that has Squanto embracing the Christian faith should truly ruffle some feathers (so to speak) because faddish dictates say that all religions save Christianity and Judaism are beneficial. Obviously by finding his new faith, he leaves the old one behind.

Well, it's too bad that the censorious elites may go on the warpath over this uplifting true story, because they will miss out on a great read. While Squanto's name is relatively familiar, his biography is penumbral to even many well-educated Americans. His story should be better known because he personified the American Spirit before there was a United States.

Kidnapped as a boy of twelve and taken across the ocean as promising chattel in the slave trade, he was blessed to have been "purchased" by some monks who took pity on him. (In a truly irritating development to the p.c. crowd it is his liberators who are portrayed as religious while his evil captors are not.) The Italian monks strive to return Squanto to his family but the homecoming takes ten years. Sadly that is too late as a plague has wiped out his entire village before his return. The remainder of the story summarizes the famous part of Squanto's life--his mutually salvific interactions with the Pilgrims. Charmingly illustrated this American tale may not be the best for very young children because it deals honestly with depravity of the slave trade although that is a tertiary focus of the story. And though the target audience is much younger, adults will enjoy this salutary narrative of a remarkable life that knew devastating heartbreak and ultimately redemptive joy.

A wonderful and accurate children's book about the first Thanksgiving. In a society where 'primary source documentation' and truth do not seem to matter anymore, this book brings back the factual account of Squanto and God's mighty power and grace. The illustrations are beautiful and the book is short enough so a very young reader will not lose interest. This children's book will be an inspiration to all who read it. Every parent should read this book before their child reads it.

It's no mere coincidence that those who bought this book at Amazon also purchased titles by Rudyard Kipling and Hans Christian Anderson, for Eric Metaxas tells stories the way they used to be toldy. His knowledge of history and attention to detail are solid and thankfully for the reader he hasn't succumbed to the popular notions of political correctness and historical revisionism. There are things in American history to be ashamed of but there are many more things to be proud of and Metaxas reminds Americans of this. Both Native Americans and those who came later will leave this tale with a smile on their lips and thanksgiving to God in their hearts.

I chose The Threee Billy Goats Gruff by Stephen Carpenter because it was my Mom's favorite story book growing up. The day I brought it home she sat down and read it to me and my sister. My favorite characters are the three billy goats because there funny and can play tricks on the troll. The troll was foolish to let the small and middle size billy goats go across the bridge, and then have to fight with the big billy goat. He ended up falling off the bridge and all three billy goats enjoyed the grass on the other side of the bridge. Now they will be able to come and go whenever they want. There is a lesson to be learned in this book. Don't let someone influence you by saying that something is bigger and better if you wait for awhile. Overall the book is alot of fun to read. I would definitely share this story with my children.

Many of the reviews listed here are for other versions of this story. I have checked out all seven versions of Three Billy Goats Grufff available from our library just to see which was best for a three year old. This one by Stephen Carpenter has large, clever, uncluttered pictures and tells the story in simple language. The troll is not too scary and, all in all, this one seems just right for little ones. Another version, the elaborately illustrated one by Janet Stevens, uses a colorful, imaginative vocabulary and would have more appeal to adults and older children (5 or 6 and up?).

This book has brought great joy to my daughters life. She is 2 1/2 years old and she just loves this story. I highly recomend this book to any parent who enjoys seeing their children envolved with a book.

Over the past few years, my husband and I have been growing in our uncomfortableness with the way our church and most churches have organized themselves. Without understanding why, or what it was we were sensing, we began to discover that what we were growing to want and believe in, was something very different than what contemporary churches were offering. We treasure our family, and wanted to find a way to worship, learn and grow together, not just at home, but in our church as well.

The segration of ages was disturbing to us because of what we were seeing happen. We couldn't put a finger on it, but something didn't feel right.

After reading this book, we were so encouraged! Most people didn't understand what we tried to explain to them because they had never felt like anything was wrong with the current way of doing things. And unfortunately, most still don't.

This book clearly lays out the very things we had been trying to understand, and gives great biblical insight into why we need to become churches that are uniting families, and not pulling them away from each other.

I could never even begin to explain how much reading this book meant to us, or how much it taught us. Our prayer now, is that someone, somewhere in our community will be receptive to the ideas in the book, and desire to become a church that doesn't segregate, but joins families together in worship and learning.

Eric Wallace has written a tremendous book that I hope you will read!

What a blessing to find a book that verbalizes the very things we have been feeling for so many years! The household approach to worship, teaching and ministery is exactly what is needed to bring our families back to living out their faith together in a manner that witnesses to the world.

It was with such relief that we read this book. Churches need to support the role of the families, and families in turn need to support the church. When these two are working to build each other up, a beautiful relationship that doesn't pull the family away from each other, but toward each other will result.

I wholeheartedly recommend this book to any family, household and pastor that senses a need for a different kind of balance between church and home, one that brings the family together AND stimulates the life of their church, all while eliminating segregation between the ages and encourages biblical roles and responsibilities.

Wallace brings to the forefront real solutions to issues that both churches and families deal with in our dis-integrated culture today. This book puts into words thoughts that I have had for 10 years as a father and pastor.

This masterpiece, from the writer of "Games People Play" as well as several other books dealing with the subject of interpersonal relationships, is excellent in its presentation and scope. The late author, Dr. Eric Berne, guides the reader through a clear understanding of how we inter-relate with others, as well as ourselves. His depth of understanding of the "human condition", presented with eloquent wit and charm, make this a volume that is difficult to put down. Dr. Berne's approach and skills at explanation make this a must read for anyone interested in this area of psychology. While the book could very well be used as a college text, the language is straight-forward and clear for professional or layman, alike.

Simply one of the best psychology books I have ever read. It's fascinating. I loved his interpretation of the story Cinderella. I will never be able to think of the fairy godmother as as a good-natured woman again!

This is the best book that I have ever read on the subject of pschotherapy.It shows how `parental influence' becomes your conscience and determines your destiny and ultimately what is written on the epitaph of your tomb.The illusion that a human being is a free, autonomous creature is shattered. One need not find this distressing as there is hope.To find out more read it, go through it again, unwind the tape on which the holes have been punched to make your program (Life script) and possibly try to reprogram yourself! Not a easy task, mind you.

Every business leader or human resource executive can learn more about how the top companies reward their CEOs and other top executives. If they don't, they clearly should. And Pay toWin can help accelerate this learning process. James Reda and James McMahon, as expert analysts of how people are paid, provide us with an in-depth analysis of how the executives in the top-performing companies in America are paid.

This book slices and dices the total compensation of executives in such brand name companies as GE, Oracle, Sun, Wal-Mart, and Enron, to provide you with guidance and solid benchmarking information you can immediately apply to the situation in your company.

Reda and McMahon study everything from the written executive compensation strategies of these companies, to how they pay in terms of base pay, incentives, and equity compensation, and provide actual proxy analysis about what is going on in American's elite companies. They provide a computer disk that you can use to do your own analysis of the information-this is an important tool you can put to work with your executive team. But this book is more than just a compilation of practice information-the authors provide analysis and commentary about what typifies the top-performers and suggest how you might add value to your business from taking their expert advice.

Each company in the study is summarized in terms of the elements of compensation, the composition of their board compensation committee, how they target total compensation and the market, and how they measures executive performance at the organizational and individual executive level. Whether you are interested in a specific company, a number of key companies, or top performers in general, Pay to Win will get you on the proper track.

Chapter 1 - Overview of CEO Compensation Trends. Defines executive compensation, reviews current trends in executive compensation, suggests the examples set by successful companies, and reviews developments in executive compensation as well as reviews what the authors predict we can see ahead. Chapter 2 - Findings of the Study. Reviews how companies were selected, reviews the importance of benchmarking top company solutions, reviews why a CEO is important, discusses roles and goals of the board compensation committee, provides information on characteristics of executive incentives, and reviews strategies of important companies. Chapter 3 - Analysis of Findings. Addresses the elements of executive pay including base pay, annual incentives, total cash compensation, long-term incentives, stock ownership and employment agreements and change in control agreements.

Chapter 4 - Good Corporate Governance. Provides a primer on what constitutes good corporate governance and guides us in crating a CEO employment agreement. Chapter 5 - Designing a Pay Strategy. Guides readers on shareholder and finance considerations as well as stock ownership among CEOs. Chapter 6 - How Small and Mid-Sized Companies Can Use Winning Company Strategies. The authors advise us that top compensation strategies and solutions are not just for the top companies. Instead, they provide sage advice to us on how best to work best practices in your company whether large or small. Chapter 7 - Two Case Studies: How Leadership and Pay Practices Impact Company Performance. This chapter discusses practice at IBM and National Presto Industries, two vastly difference companies. It shows how top executive reward strategies can help companies meet their business goals.

Chapter 8 - Profiles of the 200 Best-Performing Companies. This chapter provides an analysis of executive pay on a company-by-company basis to let you do some digging into the information yourself. Pay to Win closes with information on professional and trade organizations and a list of periodicals. The computer disk adds value to the book and permits you to continue the executive compensation developmental process on your own.

The information provided by the authors of Pay to Win is factual and based on solid investigation. This book should be read by those planning compensation in their companies or anyone interested in how some of the best companies define the concept of "pay for performance" for their executive team. It is a helpful tool to both the novice executive compensation reviewer or to those with considerable knowledge and experience. It provides a ready source of information on how a bevy or executive reward tools are and can be used and gives expert advice to those seeking knowledge on techniques and approaches to rewarding critical business leaders. This book belongs on your bookshelf along with the top-selling pay and reward books published during the last few years.

Reda's book, 'Pay to Win,' combines compensation theory with an unprecedented review of actual CEO compensation arrangements. 'Pay to Win' is a 'must have' reference source for corporate counsel, directors and CEO's alike.

'Pay to Win' captures the essence of successful CEO pay programs. Anyone who is interested in the details of top executive pay arrangements should read this book.

Written at a High School level, this is a quite literate and well developed treatment of The Hulk, Spiderman, and The Black Cat in novel form. It has all the action and story value of the comics. For newcomers, there's enough exposition to introduce the characters, done briefly enough not to annoy old-timers well acquainted with the Marvel Universe.

There's reasonable complexity here. Neither the heroes nor the bad guys are completely working together since each has his or her own agenda. Added to that is the S.A.F.E. agent working under cover representing government but not necessarily in the best interests of the heroes. And so there are easily enough complications to keep a mature reader interested.

This isn't a bad book at all for those who want to get better acquainted with the not altogether jolly green giant before they see the movie. Just bear in mind that the Hulk's creators made him a reasonable 7 footer as opposed to the 12 foot creature in the movie. Note also that the character has developed in several ways over the years and so you might find his characterization in this book somewhat different than the movie characterization.

Worth reading, even if you're way past High School age.

This book is great. It is a great beginin for a great trilogy. Though this book takes place in present time, some events go as far back as when doom tried to steal surfer's power. If you thought that the hulk we bad news, then try to imagiane fourteen hulks on the ramapge and one of them being Flash Thompson spidy's close friend and being controld by a mad man. I recomnd this series as a must buy.

I've never liked Fingeroth or Fein as writers, so I almost didn't buy this book, but I was pleasantly surprised. And I love SAFE, who have been in a lot of the Marvel novels. The idea of Hulk clones is kind of goofy, but they made it work here.

This books was excellent, considering the kind of book it is, and it really gave a clear picture of what it might have been like to be there. Return of the Jedi has always been my favorite Star Wars movie, so this book, perhaps for that reason alone it is better than the other two. However, I still don't like that they turned "me" into a self serving idiot, with no courage or moral values, certainly not the sort of character I want to be. I also didn't like that they specified several times that "I" am a boy, when I (and many other readers I'm sure) am a girl. And why did they have to make up this other character for "me" to be anyway? I would much rather have been Luke or someone, especially since Return of the Jedi has always been my favorite because it has many deep turning points for Luke, and I always wondered what he might have been thinking and feeling during that time. This book would be best for children twelve and under, though older people could read it as long as they keep in mind that it is a Choose Your Own Adventure book, and they don't expect an epic.

With Return of the Jedi Being my favorite Star Wars movie, I was very eager to sit down and become part of the story in one of these "Choose your own adventure" stories. In the book, you play the role of Luke's Best friend, as you attempt to rescue Han and defeat the evil galactic Empire. Along the way, depending on the choices you make, you will zoom along with Leia on speeder bikes, join (Reluctantly) forces with Bobba Fett, set the rancor monster free in Jabbas palace, and my personal favorite, Go with Luke up to the Death Star and decide the fate of the galaxy. There are lots of really neat endings and plot changes in the book depending on what choices you make. There are lots of good and Happy endings, and of course, some very deppressing ones, but thankfully, there are not so many this time (Unlike the Empire strikes back one). One thing that really suprised me are the types of choices in the book. For instance in one critical part, if you choose the good bath, you get a bad ending, but if you take the good path, you get a good ending. My only gripe with this book is that you are considered a weakling too many times by Han and the Others. But it is still the best in the series of Adventure books. Dont miss it!

The good: You are a main charachter in Star Wars! Lots of happy endings, really cool scenarios

The bad: Some dissapointing endings

And the ugly: You are often reduced to the role of "Idiot" a lot.

I read the three Star Wars choose your own adventures and this book is my favorite of the three. It is like having an adventure sitting down.

This book was a tragic, candid look at the lives of everyday soldiers caught up in a hellish conflict. This reality is so unimaginable for my generation today, yet these men confronted it with honor and dignity. The author's affection and admiration for his companions makes his memoir both powerful and moving.

An incredibly detailed, truthful, moving, and painful personal account of war as experienced by a front line soldier in the Vietnam War.
This book was obviously written from extensive notes taken by the author when he had the time in the field to write down his feelings and experiences. For reasons of his own, the book was not published until after his death in April 1994.
This book will have immense meaning to anyone who has experienced the hell of war, as well as, anyone who wishes to understand the sacrifices our fighting men and women in battle must endure. President Bush and his top advisors should read this book before they send our treasured youth to fight another war. If those in positions of highest political authority, after reading Sgt. Peterson's war memoir, still decide we must go to war then they will understand we must fight the war to the finish with the best military tactics and strategies available not hindered and defined by vague political considerations.
I recommend this book to all. I sincerely thank Mr. and Mrs. Peterson for their service to our country.

one of the best memoirs i have read on the vietnam war.
maybe even one of the best books i have ever read.
peterson's daily account of his vietnam experience is meticulously described,providing a view of his metamorphosis from an average midwestern farm boy to combat-weary grunt that is brilliant. reads more like a novel in the sense that the character in the first few chapters could not even fathom the feelings,thoughts, and experiences of the character at the end.
also provides compelling illustrations of the frustrations and inner conflicts felt by an average american required to follow orders which he is morally opposed to and intuitively wary of.
the book grows darker by the page and the reader is drawn into his sense of impending doom and constant fear.
i highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the vietnam war.