Is soul the essence of one person or of a good relation between persons? This book tries to prove the latter, and it does so by showing that freedom, identity, honor, and faith all depend on relations of high quality with others. We can't have these four human distinctions without the help of other people, whom we too often fail to appreciate.

Facsinating study, well-written and always profound. A must read.

I truly wish I had this book in my hands during the time I was raising my three children. Being divorced, remarried, having
an asthmatic child, one that had epilepsy, and one that dealt with extreme anger,this would have been a God sent.

Written in a simple, yet concise way, this book deals with many of the problems that
parents face each day with their children.
Be it fears, eating and sleeping problems, social behavior, or more serious topics, they are covered in this book.

I feel this work should be in every home.
It will calm your fears and help you to recognize when you do need to seek help.
A very good read, with practical help that
all parents will embrace.

Collaboratively written by clinical psychologists and educators Rita Sommers-Flanagan and John Sommers-Flanagan, Problem Child Or Quirky Kid? is a straightforward, parent-friendly, "common sense" introduction and guide to the nature of significant childhood problems in terms of what is normal and what is not. Problem Child Or Quirky Kid? deftly addresses such issues as hyperactivity, childhood trauma, disobedience, suicidal tendencies, alcohol and drug use, chronic anger, socially crippling shyness, radical mood swings, and more. Thoroughly researched and offering solid, reliable information, Problem Child Or Quirky Kid? is very highly recommended for concerned parents who find their children exhibiting what seem to be unusual, detrimental, or worrisome behaviors.

Interviewing textbooks are notoriously dry and mechanical. I can count using the fingers of one hand the number of books I have read on the subject that are worth their weight in cotton candy.

This work by the Sommers-Flanagan duo represents an excellent addition to the instructional literature on the fine art of interviewing. They use an wonderful blend of humor, humanity, sound advice and counsel, and theory.

Highly recommended.

As somebody entering into a relationship with a man who is adevoted father, I picked up this book to skim the chapter onStepparenting. Instead of skimming a single chapter, I opened the bookto the dedication and found myself reading the entire book in one evening, page after engrossing page.

The authors, who have years of professional as well as personal experience in dealing with children of divorce, have done a remarkable dance in the writing of this book. They are present to offer some guidelines, to make a few points. Then, they tiptoe to the background and let the children who they interviewed speak for themselves, sometimes in their own script. The authors are there again, at the end of each chapter, to provide a summary. The authors' commentary is sensitive to the experience of all involved.

The children's voices are compelling and let me really appreciate the experience of my to-be stepdaughter. The book also made me understand the importance of everyone having voice in the creation of a stepfamily.

I will share this book with my partner, with his daughter, and with my partner's ex-wife as well. The book gives me hope that we can create a future that meets the needs of the one most important and least often heard -- the child.

I got this book not for the way it was written - I understood it was for younger kids, but rather I got it for the colorful and beautiful photos and facts about Ancient Egypt. I myself love Ancient Egypt and enjoy reading anything on the subject, plus I love The Mummy and will no doubt love The Mummy Returns. I have already also read the novel by Max Allan Collins. It was fast-paced and exciting. So if you're older and interested in The Mummy Returns, you can still get this book. It's a treat for the eyes, and simply nice to have. I can't wait for the arrival of the film itself!

I usually don't even buy these kinds of things, but I lumped it in with other stuff and it was a great buy for the price.

The images were great and a special pleasant surprise was teh first person vantage from Alex's viewpoint. For that alone it is priceless.

And if you're like me, the pages are great for wallpaper, postcards, etc....oops!!!

When I first got The Mummy Returns Scrapbook by John Whitman, I was amazed by the pictures and the time and effort put into the making of this awesome scrapbook. This Scrapbook also gives the story of the book as well as amazing pictures. This book was written fantasticly, and assembled with a lot of thought behind it. If I could say one word abouth this wonderful book, that word would be "Awesome"!

First a warning: I advice you to skip the very first part of the book, in which is the author tries to give the reader a feeling on the Polish background of the pope. It's unbalanced, emotional, somewhat chaotic, and very little to the point. I almost stopped reading the book because of this.

But when you start reading where the chronological description of the pope's life starts, you'll find a thorough biography, without exaltation, and not without some critical points of view. The first half of the book deals with the years before Karol became pope, and show how he was trained, coached, and grew as a actor, priest, play write, bishop, mystic poet and cardinal, in the often hard conditions in Poland. The second half deals with his policies as pope. Here is also a special focus on the Polish situation and how the pope exercised influence there. The book helps understanding the motivations of John Paul, even though one doesn't have to agree with him on all accounts.

An interesting, insightful book.

This book is an excellent resource for anyone interested in the life of one of the greatest and most influential popes ever, John Paul II. Through the author's exceptional work, we get to know the man who became John Paul II, and relive his early heartbreaks and triumphs. From Nazi occupied Poland to the modern day Vatican, all significant events are detailed and discussed. This is a biography to be reread time and again.

Pope John Paul II has revolutionized the Papacy, stripping away much of the secrecy and making the Pope, for the first time in history, a Shepherd available to his flock. Although I thought this book leaned a little too heavily on Poland and Polish history, I will give in and say it enhanced my understanding of this complex and charismatic Pope. A very thorough biolgraphy with fascinating looks at behind-the-scenes-politics in Vatican City. Because of John Paul II's impact, he gets my vote as Man of the Century and I recommend this book as a must read for people of any faith.

This book is a novelization of the film The Mummy Returns, which is the sequel to The Mummy. It is set in 1933, ten years after the first movie. Rick O'Connell and Evelyn Carnahan are now married and have an eight-year-old son named Alex. While in Egypt exploring the ruins of an ancient temple, Rick and Evy find the Bracelet of Anubis. They bring it back home to London. Even though he knows it will anger his parents, Alex plays with the bracelet and accidentally sets off a chain reaction that could lead to the end of the world. When Alex is kidnapped, Rick and Evy must race against time to save their son and prevent the end of the world. I loved the movie The Mummy, and after reading this book I am even more excited about seeing the upcoming sequel, coming to theaters in May.

I was so excited to see this book come out the other day, since I so eagerly anticipate the films release. I am an avid fan of the first film (my favorite movie), and Max Allan Collins' book. So I was thrilled to hear he would handle the novela1ation of the sequel. I obviously haven't seen the film yet, so I am unable to make a comparison. But from reading the book, I can say the film is going to be the wildest ride! It is the most epic work, and Collins' deft handling of the humour and human relationships is overshadowed only by his ability to craft rollercoaster chills and blockbuster thrills! His handling of bus chase sequence is a standout among many, and his description of the Scorpion King (The Rock in the film) makes him out to be the ultimate eight-legged terror! I was unable to pu the book down until I was finished, which was only about four hours. The author is so good at hooking his audience into the story (just as writer/director Stephen Sommers). I highly recommend The Mummy Returns, it's 288 pages of pure adventure!

I've always been a huge book-fan; and let's face it, if you fall in love with a movie while it's still in theaters, you're going to go fairly crazy waiting for it to be released on video once it *leaves* the theaters so that you can finally see it again (only 24 more days until "The Mummy Returns" will FINALLY be available to own and watch again and again)----so anytime I fall in love with a movie, one of my first steps is to go racing out to get the novelization.

And, to be honest, most of them really disappoint me. "Galaxy Quest" was a simplistic version of the script put into the past tense, as near as I can tell; "X-men" failed to impress me as anything special. "Dungeons & Dragons" was descriptive, but it treated the characters _so_ vastly differently than the movie that it hardly seemed to be telling the same story.

So was I pleasantly surprised by the excellence of the novel of "The Mummy Returns". I absolutely love it. It is descriptive, action-packed, humorous, and fills in some gaps and scenes that the movie either cut or didn't bother with; it filled us in on some loopholes (ie, that mysterious train track in the middle of the desert wasn't far off the base at all). I didn't find it repetitive in the least, nor did I think the character portrayals were off, either. I think it was simply a matter of how Collins interpreted the characters (because, let's face it, they come off differently to everyone); I think he saw O'Connell as a bit more rugged than others do. But I didn't find his portrayal out of sync in the least. That bit of cynicism that Rick has was still there, off-balanced by his good humor. Evy was quite different from how she was in the first one----but the *movie* makes her quite different to begin with! The characters have changed in ten years (what people don't?), and the movie reflects that.

Attention is given to all the characters (I especially like hearing about my two favorites, Jonathan and Ardeth Bay), and the book is over-all well written. If you love "The Mummy Returns" as much as I do, I highly recommend this book. It's not a flaky read----it's a *quick* read if you want it to be, but not a flaky one. This book is actually trying to say something about friendship and the strength of love----if you give it a chance and keep your eyes open, it might actually touch you. Give it a whirl. You won't regret it.

Self-help is big business. According to Gerald Rosen (1993) as many as 2000 self-help books are published each year. However, only a very few have been evaluated empirically. This sad state of affairs is a poor response to the appeal made by Rosen (1987) that self-help books should first be evaluated empirically before being sold to the general public. Additionally, the little research that has been done on do-it-yourself treatment books sometimes demonstrates major limitations in their usefulness. Yet psychologists continue to develop and market new programs with increasingly exaggerated claims. This is potentially a problem. Especially as psychologists often use self-help books as adjuncts to their clinical practice (Starker, 1988). The good news from research (e.g. Gould & Clum, 1993) is that certain self-help programs can be quite effective. Fairburn’s Binge Eating Disorder treatment (Carter & Fairburn, 1998) and the Albany protocol for Panic Disorder (Barlow & Craske, 1994) are two good examples. In Gould and Clum’s (1993) meta-analysis, fears, depression, headaches, and sleep disturbances were especially amenable to self-help approaches. Sometimes with effect sizes as large as for therapist assisted treatments.

How can busy clinicians keep up with the flood of new self-help books, and know which to recommend? Guilford Press offers a solution. In an attempt to help the clinicians a guide to self-help resources in mental health has been published. It includes ratings and reviews of more than 600 self-help books, autobiographies and popular films. It also includes hundreds of Internet sites, and listings of online support groups. The book addresses 28 prevalent clinical disorders and life challenges – from Schizophrenia, Anxiety and Mood Disorders to Career Development, Stress Management and Relaxation.

To determine the usefulness of the self-help resources a series of national studies have been conducted over the past 7 years. The methodology consisted of a lengthy survey mailed to clinical and counselling psychologists residing throughout the USA. A total of 2,500 psychologists contributed with their expertise and judgement in evaluating the books, movies, and Internet sites. The self-help resources were rated on a 5-point scale (-2 to +2). These data were converted into a one to five star rating (negative ratings were given a dagger). On this basis, 19% of the self-help books were rated as “very helpful” and fortunately only 1% as “very harmful” [e.g. the assertiveness training book Winning Through Intimidation by Ringer (1973) and the weight management book the Beverly Hills Diet by Mazel (1981). Interestingly, many of the books by Scientologist guru L Ron Hubbard are categorized as extremely bad].

When looking more closely at a specific disorder, let us say for example panic disorder, there are some good books that I feel are missing. This is probably because of the rating criteria. In order for a book to be included in this self-help guide the psychologists used as referees had to know about the book beforehand. It was their rating of previously read books that mattered. Hence, if there were good books out there that had not been read by many referees [like the Australian panic disorder workbook by Franklin (1996)], they would automatically receive a lower rating. Thus, a low rating does not necessarily mean that a book is less helpful than a higher rated book – only that it has not reached a wide audience. For example, an excellent book, An End to Panic (Zuercher-White, 1998), previously recommended in a review article (Carlbring, Westling, & Andersson, 2000) was described as “highly regarded by the psychologists in our national studies but not well known, leading to a 3-star rating.” (p. 79). Another thing that disturbed me was that this particular author’s name was misspelled. Instead of Zuercher the surname appeared as Luerchen. No wonder the book was “not well known”! One wonders how many other errors this survey included.

In a perfect world all self-help books would be scrutinized in the same manner as other treatments. However, as a majority of the published books still have not been evaluated, this new guide to self-help is a step in the right direction. Despite questionable inclusion criteria and a few errors I thoroughly recommend this excellent guide to self-help

From books and movies to the Internet, Authoritative Guide to Self-Help Resources in Mental Health provides a strong survey of self-help resources in mental health which reveals the good ones, bad ones, and how general consumers can tell the difference. Five national studies involving over 2,500 mental health professionals lends to a rating of over six hundred titles and films, along with Internet sites evaluated by a clinical psychologist.

This book contains reviews / lists of the best (and worst) of self-help books / movies and internet resources. It has been compiled using surveys of 1000's of mental health professionals and gives essential guidance on which resources are helpful, and which are best left alone.

The book is clearly-written and well laid out - each chapter relates to a specific problem area eg mood disorders, men's issues, abuse, anxiety etc.

I found the recommendations on books particularly helpful - one can immediately determine which are the best books to read on their own specific problem. Clearly, the input of mental health professionals gives a "scientific" basis on recommendations which in turn leads to a systematic process of choosing which resources should be given credence.

Essential reading if you want to build up a collection of serious (i.e. most useful) self-help resources.