It seems unnecessary to point out that this book is only for the true political junkie, since it's unlikely that anyone else would pick up a 700-page book with Clinton, Bush, and Perot on the cover in the first place. But for diehard politicos like myself, this book is a terrific account of the '92 campaign. The lengthy passages on political strategy may be trying for some, but the behind-the-scenes look at the inner workings of the three major campaigns (not to mention those of Jerry Brown, Pat Buchannan, et al) are fantastic.

I found this book to be extremely interesting and full of insight about the candidates and their campaigns. It also effectively represents the overall mood of the campaign and the issues facing the US at the time. Fascinating for anyone who is interested in presidential elections, and politics generally.

This book includes color photographs of the current gardens at Monticello and black & white reproductions of Thomas Jefferson's own sketched plans for the gardens. There is an annotated list of the flowers and "woody ornamentals," such as roses and shrubs, grown by Jefferson. There are many excerpts from his writing and letters which give the reader a greater sense of Jefferson's broad intellect and love of nature as it relates to his gardens. I was hoping to find a list of flowers native to Virginia cultivated by Jefferson but, while the origins of many of the flowers are indicated, there is no separate list of the native plants as I had hoped.

I found the book to be quite intersting and a valuable resource for the gardener. Thomas Jefferson is well known for his gardening efforts, both as ornamental and practical for food stuffs.

The book has excellent photographs of the gardens of Monticello as well as Jefferson's drawings of how he wanted to landscape the area of his "Little Mountain." There is great pride in the book to document over one hundred species of plants cultivated by Jefferson while living at Monticello.

Jefferson was a champion of cultivating indigenous plant life to Virginia and that of North America, but he had plants comming from thoughout the world also.

Cultivating a mountain top graden presented problems for Jefferson in both climate and the proper hydration of the plants themselves. Without all of the modern conviences that we have today, Jefferson managed to have some of the most beautiful gardens in Virginia.

This is a must book if you are looking for gardening proportion and scale. As Jefferson said, "There is not a sprig of grass that shoots uninteresting to me." Well said...

In the book you will find very good descriptions of the plants grown at Monticello, this is a must volume for reference.

Brain's Winter Essay
The novel brains winter the author Gary Paulsen produces an absolute masterpiece. Brian who is a thirteen-year-old boy has crashed while going to Canada to visit his father. He has already survived the summer and part of fall but will he survive winter. It is the sequel to Hatchet and it gives an awesome description of the struggles in the winter. For example Brain needed to use his survival skills like to hunt animals, build a shelter, and provide warmth. Brian had gone through the summer trying to survive and stay alive, and he had thought that it was tough. But now he is in a whole new world. It is below freezing temperatures, food is harder to hunt in the snow, and he had to kill more animals for food plus to use the skin to stay warm. As he moves along winter and he gets used to the surrounding he hunts larger animals such as moose and deer. One day he went after a moose and was attacked and hurt in the process of killing it. So he tried smaller game and he then killed a deer. He thought the deer had suffered to much and he felt bad for it. But later in the book he found that when the moose was attacked by the pack of wolves he was no longer in sorrow for the deer. The deer compared to the moose was so much quicker. The wolves attacked and practically ate it alive while the moose struggles to get away.
In the first couple chapters of the book Brian was a little unprepared for the winter. He had felt better now that he had the survival pack with the food, lighter, pots, and sleeping bag. He had felt the cold air and the leaves falling off the trees, but he had ignored all the signs that nature was telling him. He then noticed he could see his breath and ice started to form around the lake. He then realized that it was going to change fast and he needed to catch up to be ready and prepared.
Brian had had a good idea of what the winter would be like. He had gotten many ideas from nature to make his shelter warmer and to have better chances of surviving this winter. For example, Brian had seen the beavers making a house by packing mud around the outside of their shelter and so Brian had done the same. He then realized that he now had a warmer shelter so all he had to do was make a little fire to make it warm. Brian also later in the book discovered that he needed snowshoes to stay above the snow. He had got this idea from the rabbits because in the winter the rabbits adapted by growing bigger feet to get away from predators easier.
I would rate this book a four out of five stars because it is a nonstop action book. It is a great book for the outdoorsy type of person and it is a heart pounding descriptions such as both the moose killings. And the author has one of the best ending out of all the books I've ever read. But you have to read it to find that out.

In the novel Brian's Winter a boy named Brian Robeson gets in a plane crash in the Canadian wilderness. He was stuck there for about 94 days now. Well with in those days Brian made a lot of mistakes like not look at what is going on around you like the weather for example. Well Brian did pay attention to the animals like the beavers, bears, wolves, and rabbits. Brian first came to the Canadian wilderness with just a hatchet. But when Brian finally noticed what was going on around him he made things like snowshoes and a parka to help him survive.
I liked the novel Brian's Winter because it gives you a lot of good survival tips to know how to live in the wilderness, if it ever happens to you at all in your lifetime. I also had a connection or to, like when he felt bad when he killed the animals, but you need to for you to survive. I also liked the way that the author kept on making you guess what was going to happen. That is what made me want to read the book more and more One of the dislikes that I had in the novel was that some of the graphics of when he killed some animals I thought it was gross.
I think I would rate this book a 9 out of 1-10 because of some of the graphics but other than that I think it was a rather good book.

Brian Robeson is a teenage boy and he wants to survive the wilderness. The novel Brian's Winter is written with great, realistic details. It was also written with simplicity, which is why I liked it. I could understand it, completely. Brian is a thirteen-year-old boy who hasn't been rescued, from the novel Hatchet. So he has to face the cold winter months, alone in Northern Canada. This time, Brian has a survival kit, which he found in the plane wreck. The kit includes a rifle, two butane lighters, a fishing line and a sleeping bag. But he still has to find some food, to stay alive...I liked this book because it has a lot of hunting, and suspense in it. When Brian was in the woods alone, he hunted, and I could imagine that I was he. One part I liked in particular was when he found the Cree, and he was warm and stayed full of food.

Peters zeros in on innovation as the touchstone for success, along with a passionate presentation of fifteen other related ideas such as: distance is dead; destruction is cool; we are all Michelangelos; welcome to the white - collar revolution; the intermediary is doomed; and the system is the solution. The book's visual layout model's its theme which is - It is the end of the world as we know it, so whatever made you successful in the past won't in the future. What, then, can you do? The answer is...innovation! This is another WOW book, exuding the excitement and novelty that makes Tom Peters, himself, a living example of what he passionately and entertainingly writes about. Peters delivers content in a form that breaks all book 'rules,' using a plethora of P. T. Barnum pizazz. Among business books, that's innovative! I don't think Peters expects or wants you to read this book, but to experience it. It is a bit more like a roller-coaster than a book, with zigs and zag! s and lots of zip. Still, for all its flare, this is not a ground-breaking work, falling short of Peters' Liberation Management.

THE CIRCLE OF INNOVATION is written in slide book form. This is the form that consultants use for seminars. Each exhibit that the seminar attendees will see is included, along with a page of script that covers the content of the exhibit. The result is highly enjoyable, as you vicariously imagine being in the room with Tom Peters, the world's most sought-after business speaker. The exhibits are wonderfully funny and evocative, and use all kinds of visual tricks to get and keep your attention. I had people all over the plane looking over my shoulder to see them, as I read the book on a recent flight. Tom Peters also walks his talk, and really lives with passion -- which strongly comes through in this book. His interpretations of the world are almost always tied to quotes from important thinkers and business leaders, which gives the book a relevance and immediacy that a more cerebral book would have lacked. I found this book to be very satisfying to read. It affected me at a very fundamental level, so I could tell that I was "getting" the message. The result is a most impressive example of a way to communicate through books. The principles seem to be sound in most cases (although not all markets are dominated by women purchasers -- such as boxing gloves -- but many are such as cars), and they should stimulate your thinking to expand the scope of the innovations you think about. The book could have been improved with a consideration of processes that work better than others for getting the innovation work done. For that assistance, you will have to look elsewhere. In the meantime, do read, think about, enjoy, and apply the lessons of THE CIRCLE OF INNOVATION.

Be warned that if you like unusual formats, you'll find this book refreshing. If you hate anything unusual, you may not like this book.

The Circle of Innovation is written in slide book form. This is the form that consultants use for seminars. Each exhibit that the seminar attendees will see is included, along with a page of script that covers the content of the exhibit. The result is highly enjoyable, as you vicariously imagine being in the room with Tom Peters, the world's most sought-after business speaker.

The exhibits are wonderfully funny and evocative, and use all kinds of visual tricks to get and keep your attention. I had people all over the plane looking over my shoulder to see them, as I read the book on a recent flight.

Tom Peters also walks his talk, and really lives with passion -- which strongly comes through in this book. His interpretations of the world are almost always tied to quotes from important thinkers and business leaders, which gives the book a relevance and immediacy that a more intellectual book would have lacked.

I found this book to be very satisfying to read. It affected me at a very fundamental level, so I could tell that I was "getting" the message. The result is a most impressive example of a way to communicate through books. The principles seem to be sound in most cases (although not all markets are dominated by women purchasers -- such as boxing gloves, football tickets, Viagra, etc. -- but many are, such as cars), and they should stimulate your thinking to expand the scope of the innovations you think about.

The book could have been improved with a consideration of processes that work better than others for getting the innovation work done. For that assistance, you will have to look elsewhere. In the meantime, do read, think about, enjoy, and apply the lessons of The Circle of Innovation.

Another good book on innovation is Peter Drucker's Innovation and Entrepreneurship.

I admit, I bought this so I could listen to Alan Rickman for hours on end. However, when listening to that first chapter, I was wondering if I was going to be able to endure the following cassettes... To my suprise, after that dreadful, long-winded, over-descriptive first chapter, the story line really picked up and I actually quite enjoyed the entire story!

Not being a literature-buff, this book becomes a fascinating history lesson as well, with words and situations appearing that I thought were only pertinent to the 20th century, not 19th. There were also, the obligatory words that we no longer use (but only a bare handful...). This (for me) all added an extra richness to the story that Hardy tells.

Alan Rickman's reading was delightful, with him displaying consistency throughout in portraying all the characters. Like other reviewers before me, to listen to Mr Rickman singing the fench song Tape 8 is worth a listen in itself!

All in all, listening to this story unfold by cassette probably makes it more enjoyable than trying to read the book, where I am sure most would give up before finishing the first chapter...

When I began reading the book, I could not see the point of long descriptions of everyone and everything but as I kept on reading, I understood its' significance. The vivid description unconsciously painted the picture of the heath and the people living there. It took me some time to understand the character of Eustacia but her thoughts, passions and feelings seemed real and felt as if such a person actually existed. The edition of the book I read, after the tragic ending, had another chapter which Thomas Hardy added later, on the readers' demand (because when this book was originally published, some people considered it too tragic). But I think that howsoever tragic, the ending was a suitable one and left an impression for the reader to always remember the story. The later addition of another chapter was unnecessary and side tracked from the original essence of the story. Still, its a great work and worth reading.

What struck me on reading this book was his modern understanding of the motivations that determine the relations between men and women. Of course, the setting is crucial in any Hardy novel. Mankind's trivial concerns in this unchanging and unforgiving landscape. What is interesting is the dialogue between Wildeve (great name for a lover of nightlife) and Eustacia. The weakness and inconstancy in his character rather than evil and the troubled beauty and vanity of Eustacia's combined for predictable longing, rejection, and ultimately tragedy. He's the only game in town for this bored beauty, and when Clym pops up with his Parisian past, Wildeve was history for the moment. When Eustacia no longer showed interest, he was dying for her. Loved the reddleman who was always Johhny on the spot. The whole gambling sequence and the interplay with Wildeve and the hapless fool that lost Mom's money and then Reddleman's great comeback was wonderful. Hardy claimed that Clym was the center of the novel, but obviously the dullest thing in it. Only the Reddleman shines and in the end comes clean.

One of my friends recommended that I read Thomas Hardy, but she cautioned me: "Thomas Hardy isn't for everyone." I discovered while reading "Tess of the D'Urbervilles" that what she may have meant is that Thomas Hardy didn't write light works to be read and then forgotten about. Through this book, Hardy addresses issues that society in his day didn't want to face: the fate of the farm worker in the increasingly industrialized society, predjudices held against minority groups, and the inequality of women. All of this is not to say that this is a dry or boring work -- "Tess" is gripping, riveting, and almost overpowering in its emotional appeal. One cannot read this book without becoming involved in Tess's situation. I have never been so angry with a character in a book as I was with Angel Clare at a certain point in the novel. So, in conclusion, "Tess of the D'Urbervilles" isn't for everyone. . . but it should be for every thinking person, everyone who isn't afraid to face issues, think deeply about them, and apply them to life.

This book is tragic and wonderfully written. Hardy uses words to create a scene for you that creates the visual for you completely. I think that the sadest thing for me was to realize people did live like this, life really was that hard. As a 21st century woman I was outraged at the way that Tess was treated by men and by society. Who is the true bad guy, Alec or Angel? When we read it with our societies mores we perceive it one way, but if we were ken to the morals of that society how would we see it? Are they really dastards, or are they all just victims. I am not a scholar, I liked the story for being a good story.

After reading the book I rented the A&E movie. As I watched it, I realized how well the book translated into video, because I had already seen the exact same scenery in my mind. The only thing that surprised me was the bleakness of the trunip farm and Tesses horrible conditions. I couldn't imagine anything that awful.

There are a lot of words, similar to DH Lawrence, but I wouldn't get rid of a one of them. If you come to this book as a great story and not as a classic novel, you will hold Tess to your heart and never forget her tragedies.

Please ignore the immature high-school student reviews and understand that this book is a masterpiece. Hardy analyzes the relationship between human desire and society's mores to an unprecendented degree. The characters are multi-faceted and very life-like. Hardly aptly avoids the mistake of creating mere carciatures of the pure woman, idealistic intellectual, and spoiled playboy. Moreover, his use of religious allusion is excellent although this may alienate the modern, secular reader. And perhaps this is the problem with some readers. Finally, Tess is an admirable and strong woman who had difficult circumstances. How many people would act as admirably in her circumstance? Not many! The reviewers that criticize her actions should realize this and that they ignore one of Hardy's key points: Don't be so judgemental! This is one of the best books I have read and believe me, I have read a lot of the "good" books.

If the idea of living forever interests you then Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt is a book you will find thought provoking and enjoyable. This modern fantasy told by a third person all knowing narrator, has a plot which revolves around the idea of water giving people eternal life. The major theme of Tuck Everlasting is the value of the life and death cycle; therefore I think the novel is appropriate for students in 7th and 8th grade. Natalie Babbitt does a wonderful job with the use of symbolism in Tuck Everlasting. In fact, the first sentences of the novel compares August to the top of a Ferris Wheel. Symbolism is also used when the life cycle is explained, as a wheel, by Angus Tuck in his attempts to explain the benefits and pitfalls of eternal life. The main character, 10 year old Winnie Foster, is a dynamic character. In the beginning of Tuck Everlasting Winnie is a very sheltered girl afraid to stand on her own, but in the course of the novel Winnie meets the Tuck family and her world changes. Winnie is forced to make many difficult decisions which ultimately change Winnie forever. Winnie is given the opportunity to have eternal life...does Winnie drink the water and live forever with the friends she made? The suspense will keep you reading until the end to find out for yourself.

The book Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt is one of my favorite books. The begining starts out in Tree Gap (town name)while ten year old Winnie Foster is laying in her fenced in yard looking at the woods and feeling traped inside. "I will run away" Winnie said to the toad. So she did. While Winnie is venturing through the woods she meets a boy named Jesse and then his family soon with him. Who are these people and what do they want? Read to find out.
I gave this book 5 stars because it is adventuous and each page you turn you will want to turn the next to see what hapens next. I recremend this book to all children over the age 8. The eight year olds might not understand some strange words and vocabulary.

In my humble opinion, Tuck Everlasting is one of the greatest children novels of all time. Although it is classically categorized as a book for children, and I've acknowledged is as such, I consider it deep enough and beautiful enough for all ages to enjoy. The tough questions it touches on, like immortality, human greed and death, and the non-condescending but beautiful way it goes about them is really touching and though-provoking, especially since the people of its target age audience are probably just beginning to think about those sorts of things. Babbit's imagery is wonderful, but not too ornate and doesn't take away from the story. The story flows simple and real, and the characters have so much depth you can picture them perfectly. The whole story, and the quiet but significant ending really touched me and made me cry and I read it for the first time at the age of 16. I suggest this book for all children able to read it, as well as their parents.

While the book is an interesting and entertaining read, most of it is untrue and horribly researched. The one star review lower on this page got it right. The facts that Mr. Allen gave as the boy's identity, his father, and where this all happened are all dead wrong. Nothing ever happened in the town or house that he said it did. It was apparent that Mr. Allen did minimal digging into the subject and just took what he found and threw it on the page with nothing to back it up with. What's even odder about this is how easily the real information(from the "Strange" Magazine)was found by that reporter. That Mr. Allen didn't take enough time to see that what was in front of his face was horribly wrong and what was right was not hard to figure out. When Mr. Allen was even contacted by the other reporter, he seemed to not care or answer any questions as to why he didn't go further to find the real truth. Everything he has stated about the boy and the location, is all wrong. Even the possessed boy himself stated that he never lived there and didn't know why people thought that. While the book is an interesting read, it can only be categorized under 'fiction', because that is what it is.

When I first read this book in its previous edition, I, too, was impressed with its supposedly accurate and dispassionate account of a true-life exorcism. That was before I read the extensive "Strange" magazine article debunking the case, which shows up the shoddy lack of research conducted by Allen. (In fact, Allen ends up looking like the Erich von Daniken of exorcism scholarship.) "Strange" magazine's investigative research discovered a whole lot that Allen apparently did not (or did not wish to reveal), such as the fact that the case did not take place in Mount Rainier, Maryland, as press reports stated, and the fact that the boy's father did not believe his son was possessed. The "Strange" magazine researcher not only tracked down the identity of the "haunted boy," but interviewed former neighbors, friends, and classmates -- basic research that Allen failed to do. The actual facts are quite different from those claimed in Allen's highly sensationalized and fanciful account.

I have always wanted to tell this story someplace, and here seems as good a place as any. I swear that what I am about to describe really happened. It was pretty scary.

Although we now live in Pennsylvania, my husband and I used to live in St. Louis. We know where the Alexian Brothers Hospital is and some of the other landmarks in the book. When this book came out it was released in St. Louis first, before it had a nation-wide release. I purchased the book with the intention of sending it to my father in NY State as he had liked the movie The Exorcist.

The first night I read 1/2 of the book. The following day while cleaning the livingroom I heard the distinct sound of rapping and/or scratching coming from a corner of the room, up near the ceiling. My husband laughed it off as either a mouse or my over- active imagination from the book, but later that night he heard it too. We had never in over 10 years had a problem with animals or mice in the walls, etc. In the book...the possession starts with rapping sounds.

That night I read the rest of the book, although by this time I was a little frightened. The following morning my mother in NY State called to tell me of an odd occurrance. The phone had rang the day before and when she answered it the person asked for "Sadie", my mother's name. When she said, "This is Sadie" the person started talking, according to my mother, "gibberish". She couldnt understand what they were saying or even if it was a male or female or what language they were speaking. When she asked who it was the person stated "Emily" which is my name. My mother said, "This is Emily, my daughter?" to which the person said, "yes" and then started speaking gibberish again. My mother hung up.

What is odd is that the phone number at the time was listed only in my father's name and I hadnt lived at home for almost 10 years. How did this person know BOTH of our names?

Because this freaked me out even more, that day I wrapped up the book and sent it to my parents. I didnt hear anything about it until about a week later when I asked my mother if she had the book, she said she did, and that my father would thank me for it but he wasnt at home. I asked where he was and she said that he was at the hardware store buying mouse traps as "We have heard scratching in the walls for a week now, so we must have a mouse."

This incident happened about 10 years ago. Nothing else happened after that, my parents never caught a mouse, the scratching stopped, and the book appears to be lost as I havent seen it when I have been over there. But it was very odd when it happened.

So...read the book, it is a fascinating story. But if anything odd happens to you or your family, please write a review and let me know. Thanks.

First a word about the edition that I read. It was the Oxford World's Classics paperback. It claims to have modernized the spelling. I don't know about you, but as far as I am concerned doth, hath, belongeth is not modern. It wouldn't have been very hard for them to change it to does, has and belongs. Many people complain about the way it was written, making it hard to read. I found that if you read the difficult parts aloud, as if you were giving a lecture, they are easier to understand the first time through. Definitely not for speed-readers.
Hobbes was a remarkable man. He published Leviathan when he was in his early 60's. For someone of his age he was very much in tune with the science of his day. One can only speculate that if he were to have been born 400 years later, with modern science at hand, he would have been considered the greatest philosopher of all time.
The first part of his book, "Of Man" goes about providing definitions of what must be virtually all of humankinds various behaviours and emotions. He also goes on to define what is basic human nature. It is here, without the benefit of modern science, where his philosophy, indeed the cornerstone of his philosophy, gets off on the wrong foot. Thanks to modern archaeology we know that humans are not solitary creatures by nature, but social animals.
In the second part of his book "Of Commonwealth" he spells out why we form commonwealths, and how a commonwealth should run. Again he is very thorough in looking at all aspects of a government and what it needs to do. He defines the power of the sovereign, the making of laws, the consequences of breaking these laws, and where the sovereign gets authority to carry out the consequences. I felt that he gave the sovereign far too much power, and he is there, it would seem, for life. The people only make covenants between themselves that this person or peoples are to be sovereign. Once a sovereign is declared, there is no covenant, or constitution, between the people and the sovereign; the sovereign is given Carte Blanche powers. One must remember that this book was written while Hobbes was in "exile" in Paris during the English civil war and the subsequent government of Cromwell. And while he is careful to call the sovereign "a person or assembly of people" it is quite obvious that he prefers the singular.
The third part of the book "Of a Christian Commonwealth" was for a large part just skimmed over by me. Some people suggest that Hobbes, because of some of the things he says in the first half of the book, was really an atheist. They say that he wrote this to fool the church to thinking otherwise of him. After skimming through this part I feel that Hobbes was more likely a reformer, someone who definitely believed in God but didn't agree with the way the church and the Pope were behaving back then. I myself am an atheist and cannot imagine writing so copiously on a subject that I do not believe in, never mind doing all of the Biblical research that Hobbes must have.
The fourth part, and the conclusion really don't have much to say. He is busy blasting the Pope, the Catholic Church and Aristotle.
All in all some good philosophical points. His definitions of free will and spirit I think should be more widely taught. The fact that this edition could have been modernized a bit more, as well as the last half of the book being pretty useless today, leads me to give it three stars.

Leviathan is one of the first books written after philosophy begun to detach itself from the Catholic inspired medieval thinking, also marking the beginning of the influence philosophy received from the scientific thinking, a point not suficiently y explored by Thomas Hobbes but which one we can get with the benefit of hindsight.

Leviathan is an old Fenician word for a mythical crocodile, quoted in some verses of the biblical Book of Job, an taken by Thomas Hobbes as meaning the representation of a powerfull governor totally devoted to do his most to the benefit of the Commonwealth. In Hobbes mind the most efficient form of government was monarchy, but he takes a lot of time to analyse also Democracy and Aristocracy. One has to keep in mind that the time the book was written was one of internal revolt, a civil intestine strife in England, and the objective of Hobbes was to lay the foundations for human actions conducive to an equilibrium within the state, ending war.

His book can be also be taken as one where many important aspects of Right and Laws are aprehended, from the perspective of a deeply religious anglican man, that tried his best to separate, in his words, the Kingdoms of men (where civil laws are imperative) from the Kingdom of God (Naturall Right). He does extensive analysis of God's Laws and its importance to the balance in the relationship between men.

The edition is a very good one, with a good introduction and is a copy of the text as written in the 17th century, exhibiting an archaic English sometimes difficult to understand. Also, some quotations in Greek and in Latin are not translated, despite all the effort the author makes to turn them inteligible to the reader.

The book could be understood as antipodal to Machiavellian's The Prince, because power is not taken here as something good in itself, but only as a means of carrying the security and hapinnes the kingdom subjects deserve.

Hobbes Leviathan is an essential read. Firstly I admire Thomas Hobbes for his bravery during the 17th century when this book was written and secondly for his grim view of humanity. Atheism during the height of the Catholic Church was strictly taboo and he had to write this piece very cleverly. Leviathan is a must for those whom are interested in the philosophical ideology of who we are and what makes us strive for things that we do and generally what makes us as men tick.

This book is complex. The common "run-on" sentences used in philosophy and the Old English style makes the book difficult to understand at times. It almost seems to be pure thought with no organization which has been jotted down in 728 pages.

In all, I like to call Hobbes Leviathan the "Atheists Bible" (though perhaps Hobbes would not like this type of name for one of his works) and I truly believe that this work is just as essential and important to philosophy as Plato.

I've read the first book in the series "Brand You" and am starting "Professional Service Firms" because I like the way Tom Peters thinks and presents his material. However, this book, "The Project" has the same Peters quality--but his 50-List could have been shrunk to 20--it seemed as though he was just trying to meet the 50-List title in the book series. His material focuses on the small project--you take it on--and you are still taking on a thread of of the organizations DNA/culture. I would still buy the book--it will just be a quick read for you.

As a multimedia software writer/producer, I thought my projects were pretty hot stuff. That might be true, but reading "The Project 50" sent me on a quest for the fabled "way cool" moniker for every project I do.

In this practical and outrageously optimistic book, Peters makes a clarion call for work that matters, that takes your breath away--that, in short, WOWs not only your clients/customers but everyone who sees what you do.

With 50 suggestions (each with a number of action items) for creating WOW projects, Peters stirs a divine dissatisfaction for business-as-usual. "Good enough" work no longer is--and will soon be the death knell of its practitioners.

With characteristic bullets, colors, UPPER CASE PHRASES, and underlines, Peters confronts us with the challenge of the near-future: Making the most of the new millennium will require nothing else than producing WOW projects--whether they be spread sheets or theme parks.

This book reinvigorated me and recast my vision for the future--so much so that I bought copies for my fellow writer/producers. Read it and you'll see why.

Tom Peters explains how to develop "Wow!" projects - projects that are significant, revolutionary, exciting and dramatic. He claims that all companies are going in the direction of using projects as their fundamental work unit. The key to success is knowing how to create, sell and implement your projects and then how to exit to your next project. The book is devoted to these four steps. Peters offers 50 key tips on how to develop and launch these projects. This idea-packed, easy-to-read book is written in breezy, short, to-the-point sentences. Peters often uses the "!", which he has adopted as his symbol. His jazzy style underlines his message: Throw aside traditional thinking and accept the new. This approach also makes this book, like his other recent books written in this style, fun to read, although the information he presents is quite serious and powerful. We [...] highly recommend this book to everyone in business - from clerks to top executives.