In this book you will find prayers that are written on the basis of scripture, upon which you can literally throw yourself on God's promises and pray according to His perfect will. Many times when I have found that my words fall pitifully short when I pray, I can always look in here and find inspiring words to lift me up and help me pray with power. Although it really isn't what you say that matters to God, but what's in your heart, these prayers can be used as models for your own prayers. Find wisdom, comfort, peace, forgiveness, hope, and whatever you long for in these pages. It's a must book for your Christian bookshelf and one of the biggest blessing you can give to others. My favorite prayer is the one on Adoration ("Hallowed be Thy Name") See what a mighty, merciful, and awesome God we have as you read through it. In Christ, Algis Morales

Germaine Copeland's book is a very effective tool for those who want to improve the effectiveness of their prayers. Her message is simply to pray to God using His unchanging, unfailing Word. Each chapter in the book gives examples of both personal and intercessory prayers. The prayer purposes vary from such goals as health and healing to victory over depression or peace in a troubled marriage. The book concludes with separate chapters on the prayers of Jesus and also Paul. This book will appeal especially to those who wish to add authority to their prayers.

This book is the best example of true and effectual prayer. The highest rating doesn't give it the true honor it deserves.

I really enjoyed the book. When I need a reality check or some uplifting, I pick up the book and re-read specific chapters. The book "Baring My Soul" is very inspirational. It made me laugh, cry and go hmmmmmmm! I am waiting on "Baring My Soul II" because I feel that there was so much yet to be told and now I would like to know about how Stacey & her family have dealt with the loss of her brother.

A friend of my purchased a book and originally I read portions of her. And it was so good that I had to buy one myself. I really enjoyed reading this book. Mrs. McAdoo undertook a huge project to write about, with such honesty and bravery, subject matters that many of us only whisper about. And while I found the entire book interesting and a page turner, I especially liked the section on race relations or "Black & White" and "White Privilege" as they were respectively entitled. I think it's sad that in this day and time, we still have a race problem. I also found myself saying "Amen" during the "Real Men Don't Cry" chapter and laughing during the "Marriage Isn't Logical" section. This was a great read. Stacey is an excellent writer and I can't wait to read more of her work.

If the book "Baring My Soul" by Stacey James McAdoo was to be made into a television series, it would define the true meaning of "reality" television and open the door for more of the kind to follow! Stacey tears down walls and barriers to let nothing but the truth - plain and simple - come barreling through. I could definitely appreciate the raw and intense honesty delivered by Stacey when sharing of her brother's bout with manic depression and the effects this mental illness had on her and her family. The incidence of mental illness is more prevalent in our society than we may want to admit and we can not afford to turn a deaf ear to it. In her "non-mincing of the truth" style, Stacey brings the message home with a distinct IN YO FACE delivery.

Thank you Stacey for exposing yourself and allowing me to get to know you on a more real and peronable level. Your memoir further drives the point home for me that we all have a story we MUST tell!

Whether you are new to the field of teaching Social Studies or whether you are an experienced teacher, reading and using A Passion for the Past is a must. It is philosophical, engaging, stimulating, and practical at the same time. Jim Percoco has been generous in sharing his insights, strategies, curriculum ideas and specific lesson plans. He also shares his enthusiasm for teaching history, which is highly motivating in itself. If you are interested in stimulating ideas for an interactive teaching style, this is the very best source to check. Give yourself some time to read and work with this material - you will be inspired and guided - and so will your students! I can't rate this source more highly. Anyone teaching American History today will want to be familiar with Percoco's ideas.

Whether you are new to the field of teaching Social Studies or whether you are an experienced teacher, reading and using A Passion for the Past is a must. It is philosophical, engaging, stimulating, and practical at the same time. Jim Percoco has been generous in sharing his insights, strategies, curriculum ideas and specific lesson plans. He also shares his enthusiasm for teaching history, which is highly motivating in itself. If you are interested in stimulating ideas for an interactive teaching style, this is the very best source to check. Give yourself some time to read and work with this material - you will be inspired and guided - and so will your students! I can't rate this source more highly. Anyone teaching American History today will want to be familiar with Percoco's ideas.

Percoco's book should be a required read for anyone preparing to enter the world of teaching history. As a former student of Jim Percoco at West Springfield, I can say that he honestly lives and teaches by the words that appear in his book. Now a U.S. History teacher myself (inspired by the Percoco classroom), I have used many of his ideas in my own classroom. His strategies are engaging, and the results are astounding. My students have developed a much deeper understanding of history by active and creative learning as prescribed by Percoco in his book. A Passion for the Past shows new teachers how to NOT bore your students of U.S. History. I can't wait for his next book!

Lieber writes about a company that taught its employees to fix prices, steal technology, dispose of waste by mixing it with feed, hire prostitutes for corporate espionage, use shareholder money for illegal campaign donations and other crimes.

Mark Whitacre, president of the bioproducts division, was a very good student and also the FBI's cooperating witness for two and half years. During this period Whitacre was also helping himself to illegal bonuses. Lieber shows the company was aware of the bonuses, yet they denied any knowledge or involvement. Whitacre underestimated the power of ADM's Chairman Dwayne Andreas and landed in federal prison for 10 years. Dwayne Andreas got immunity for himself and other executives for the above mentioned crimes, except his son Michael Andreas and Terrance Wilson who were indicted on one count each of price fixing. They received only 3 years in federal prison camp after bilking ADM's customers out of $100s of millions over the years while the FBI witness got 10 years.

Lieber shows how the government and the powerful Washington law firm of Williams & Connolly worked together to hide all the crimes and make an example out of the FBI witness so no one will ever think about standing up against ADM in the future.

Every American should read this book to realize it is the corporate criminals who operate with impunity and immunity that are the real threat to democracy, yet we are loading our prisons with the young who have made minor mistakes compared to the enormity of ADM' crimes.

If you read one book this year, read "Rats in the Grain." Behind the facade of "ADM Supermarket to the World" a criminal element operated that would have made Al Capone envious. The author reveals how a criminal empire was built on political donations to elected and appointed officials of county, state and federal governments dating back fifty years. It was these connections that kept the chairman out of prison. ADM had the power to thwart FBI investigations, decide who should be indicted, and send the government witness to jail for ten years. They concocted a coverup with the help of devious lawyers from Washington DC. The government witness Mark Whitacre is a hero and also a casualty of a corrupt Justice Department. If it can happen to him it can happen to you. This is required reading!

AGRIBUSINESS ANTITRUST CASE LEAVES WHISTLEBLOWER IN PRISON The book, "Rats in the Grain; The Dirty Tricks and Trials of Archer Daniels Midland" by James B. Lieber describes what Nicholas Hollis, president of the Agribusiness Council called "one of the most important antitrust cases of the century. It certainly was the most important to agriculture." The case developed because one of ADM's highest officials, Mark Whitacre became "one of the most productive...and...courageous" whistleblowers in history," Hollis added. He noted that Whitacre "stood up to two eight-hundred-pound gorillas, ADM with the Andreases and the federal government." He's talking about ADM's primary grandfather, Dwayne Andreas and his relatives. Ironically, the federal judicial system treated the whistleblower more harshly than it treated ADM and its leaders. Whitacre was given up to 10 years of prison (probably until 2007) while only two of his supervisors were tried and given a couple years. One of them, however, was Andreas' only son, Michael (Mick). Helpful in Lieber's 400-page account are various appendices that list people and places linked with white-collar crime close to the case. Despite its lawyer-like detail, this is not a tedious book. It suspensefully chronicles case events. Lieber also includes useful data on U.S. trust busting history. Lieber describes an epic struggle for justice and his part IV, "The Cover-Up" shows how the government avoided giving ADM the usual punishments for such major crimes. It seems justice has yet to be served. This book ought to be require reading not only for every journalism, law and business student who wants to know what goes on in the 'real' world but for every high school class studying the U.S. government. Lieber documents every truth about the ADM scandal. Read "Rats In The Grain!" - end -

Mr. Hendricks has a unique theology/philosophy which melds spirituality and science fiction - or could it actually be non-fiction? As the story unfolds through the character development, the reader's interest is upheld to the end. Whether you believe that the author's theory could actually be truth - or not - the book will make you think about the possibilities.

Most writers had us believing that great things were going to happen in the year 2000, but those who really follow the prophecies know that the calendar is an arbitrary contrivance that had its beginning hundreds of years after the life of Christ. Such being the case, any reference to timeframes could be off as much as three hundred years, but the general consensus is that the time differences are closer to thirty to thirty-five years, so events prophesied for the end of the second millenieum, such as those offered in The Enoch Revelation are still yet to occur. I enjoyed this book and believe the author is onto something that still awaits us. The really good stuff is yet to happen. The story unfolds during the next thirty years!

I have never read such a well researched and reference based book with such a non-traditional hypothesis. At first I thought, "no way" - but then, "maybe" and now YES! This is a must read - can't wait for the sequel!

Stedman's Medical Dictionary is a near-perfect lexicon that should serve the needs of anyone interested in medical language. With it, you are assured of simple but precise definition of terms. Although its biggest shortcoming is having fewer entries than the Dorland's, its colourful illustrative figures are far better than the black and white charts that the Dorland's boast of.

This dictionary has many helpful features such as a well-illustrated color anatomy section, a large word-finder index, appendices of DRGs,blood groups, lab values, temperature scales, elements, symbols, and more. The inside cover details the many features contained in the definitions. The layout is easy to read. This also contains many illustrations and diagrams. This is an excellent medical reference book.

Having just started my medical studies I was looking for a complete dictionary to meet my demand for a comprehensive and "easy-to-use" book to guide my among the vast and sometimes difficult medical language. I found quickly that Stedman's had everything i could ever ask for in a medical dictionary. It's up to date in current research and also has many entries for termonology of old. The book is very comprehensive and detailed and even surpassed my dictionary of organic chemistry when I studied the subject.

What I especially apriciate with this book is it's pedagogical illustrations and a passage with "building-blocks of the medical language" wich has been a great help for me in understanding and memorizing medical terms.

During my studies I have compared my dictionary with many other medical dictonaries and have found that Stedman's remains my first choise by far!

While it is quite true that Haught's book does not present a formal refutation of the main tenets of organized religion, it does provide an excellent sampling of the theistic, though more often anti-theistic, thoughts of extraordinary minds. On occasion the selections do leave one hanging, wishing that more had been cited. In some instances, one can justifiably object that perhaps someone's words are not being properly presented. However, this does not ultimately refute the underlying premise of the book: there are alternatives to theistic thought.

As I read the acidic published review of Haught's work, I could not help but get the impression that the reviewer had missed the point. The work ought to be considered a stepping stone in the process of challenging the powerful icon of religion in society. Since the majority of the population has some form of religious belief, be it mono-, poly-, or pantheistic, those who question the posited existence of a higher power can feel intellectually alone. By providing selections from some of the most notable people from the annals of time, Haught lets the budding freethinker, rationalist, or atheist into the presence of greatness.

Hence, when a detractor faults the book for lacking structure or formal arguments, they have missed the point. The book simply shows that one does not need to have any particular form of religious belief to have an impact upon society. When one faults the book for making admittedly brief citations, the objector rarely admits that in most cases there is a wealth of information that supports the viewpoints and opinions suggested by the few lines from various sources. Had Haught sought to fully cite each section of each author, fully document each minute detail of each quotation, the book would quickly fill several volumes, and would thereby become a very intimidating tome to a neophyte.

Thus, I freely concede that there are faults with the book, but ultimately it demonstrates that theism is not the only source of greatne! ss in history. It is an excellent starting point for a new rationalist or agnostic, and is definitely a worthy addition to both the theistic and atheistic library.

Christians are going to go through the roof when they read of people like Franklin, Jefferson, Lincoln, Adams and other founding fathers (and mothers) that had no use for organized religion.

The chapter on James Madison is especially interesting in its depiction of Madison and Jefferson's battle to pass Jefferson's Religious Freedom Act. This action was necessary since a tax bill was on hand (1784) to give sums of American tax dollars to Christian churches, thus establishing a federally funded religion. Had this occurred, the religious freedom so many people had died for would have evaporated. Jews, atheists or otherwise would have been out of luck. Fortunately, that bill was defeated and the tenets of Jefferson's Religious Freedom Act were sewn into our Bill of Rights in the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.

I find it important to illustrate the fact that one does not have to be an atheist to find value in this book. For those of us that are interested in human history, this text lends great insight into the minds of many people that have impacted our world's past, present and future. Its claims are exhaustively researched and documented on the pages. If the inclination to dispute or research is felt, all one has to do is have a pen and paper handy.

This book is very good. It is chronologically ordered, so that one can read what various freethinkers throughout history thought of religion, often at the threat of social disdain (at the very least) or death. Although a great many ancient minds thought the Earth was flat and posessed by various gods of a Draconian religion, there were those precious few that were surprisingly ahead of their time. This book chronicles this nicely.

Even theists that have the slightest bit of doubt will enjoy this book, perhaps unwittingly. There are some great minds listed throughout such as: Voltaire, Copernicus, Magellan, Einstein, Freud, Mark Twain, Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Susan B. Anthony, John Adams, Ben Franklin, Darwin, Ayn Rand, Louis Pasteur, Thomas Edison, and lots more.

Also littered throughout the book are various snippets of historic events, such as atheists who were murdered for their beliefs. Makes one realize how serious people were and are about their pet mythologies.

This book is a must have for the atheist seeking some fun arguments by authority or for the theist who is impressed by such. In any event, it is VERY insightful!

Dan The Burke

Derrida is my favorite philosopher. I don't think that his 'Deconstruction' is holistic necessarily but the gist of it explains the inherent problems of doing philosophy better then anything else I've read.

Unlike the greats of Science who simplify complex ideas (i.e..Stephen Hawking, Richard Feynman), the guru's of philosophy take fairly straight-forward ideas and shroud them with such mysterious sounding proprietary language that their work becomes nearly impossible to decipher. Derrida is no exception. This is a shame because his underlying message is brilliant...and really not not all that abstract.

So until philosophers realize that less words does not directly translate to less intelligence, we should be very glad to have commentators like Jim Powell around.

"Derrida For Beginners" concentrates on developing the key concept of "differance" and defining the necessary Derridian terminology used to communicate its meaning. The book clearly defines, "binary opposites", "texts", "logocentricism" etc.. and has plenty of diagram's to help you get the idea. While I can't say the artwork did much for me, the cartoon setting does force the message to be carried accross succinctly...no babling. The first book I read after failing miserably to tackle "Of Grammatology" was "Derrida" by Christopher Norris. While his was an excellent introduction..I will say that after I read "Derrida for Beginners" I went back and read most of Norris' book again and got a lot more out of it. Try this: read "Derrida for Beginners" as many times as needed until you have all the words in bold print at your fingertips..then, read Norris' book "Derrida". With this few hours of investment, do some online searches and read some of the commentaries and criticism of Derrida. You will be surprised at how badly he is misunderstood by so many who have studied him a lot more then you, and should feel good about your knowledge in comparisom. Of course you then need to get humble again so start reading "Of Grammatology". :)

Before I read this book, all I ever hear of Derrida is that he is so hard to read. Upon reading this, I realized where this could be true. This beginners book is very well written and made Derrida's work simple to understand. Although one may need a basic knowledge in linguistics and Sassure, one does not need it all together to comprehend some of Derrida's work. Author Jim Powell gives a concise look into the dense writings of the linguist which I not only found easy, but exciting - enough to make me want to go out and read some of the material that is written about. Along with an explanation of Derrida's work is also a brief biography which gives on an idea where he is coming from. Highly reccomended! One of the best beginners book to date.

I thought that the book was excellent. I would think that anyone who read it would be able to tackle texts like Dissemination etc. There are so many bad introductions to Derrida around that this book came as a refreshing surprise. I felt that it gave a very good coverage of Derrida's work.

Have you ever wondered why you return time and time again to certain web sites yet there are others you wish not to return again?

One of the measurements of site success is customer retention. In order to retain your customers, you must know and understand them. Not all web sites have the same customer requirements but they do share some of the same principles. Van Duyne, Landay, and Hong provide the guidance to explain the differentiation of site categories, what they have in common and what customers expect out of them. They reveal how the top benchmark sites are developed from the customer viewpoint. They explain how a customer should know where they are on a site and to navigate, even if they enter the site 5 layers down.

The authors define eleven site genres and then discuss the various patterns that best fit specific type of site or general to multiple types of sites. There have been many books written on web usability and design ... but this book provides the reading experience that can be applied to any site.

Have you ever wondered why you return time and time again to certain books yet there are others you wish not to return again? This book is a "Pager Returner."

This book is highly recommended.

Unlike many books on usability or on web or interactive design, "The Design of Sites" covers both aspects in equal depth. It is well research, with hundreds of examples, and it is written in concise language with oodles of cross-references to other sections. The book is very attractively designed, and works well from start to finish or with random soundings. Above all, it is comprehensive in addressing all design problems, yet brief and to the point on the many "patterns" (which could just as well be called "topics") it covers.

Perhaps not the first book a new web designer should read, but a good candidate for the second one -- it is certainly of great interest to anyone who has begun to grapple with the many design challenges of web development.

Highly recommended.

This is the first computer related book that I have bought and thought - "Perfect, just what I needed." What I like most about this book is that it spends so little time explaining why building user centered web sites is a good idea, and tells you exactly what techniques are used to create them. You can open the book up to almost any page, read a paragraph and get something out of it. It is clear that the authors spend alot of time laying out the book to make information retrieval easy.

Dont let "look inside" pictures that amazon has posted fool you - they are probably the only boring sections of the book. In part 2 (about page 100), the book gets really really good. For the next 500 pages they cover almost every area of of web design imaginable and present the areas in a problem - solution format. Many books dont offer concrete techniques, just tell you - "design for the user", "users hate poorly designed pages" etc etc. Each problem/solution is about 2 pages long, and they are web techniques that can be applied to almost every web site. They literally say to solve X problem do Y solution. Very specific, very useful.

The book also is good from cover to cover. I have found that alot of books are good for the first chapter and then loose quality. They present each "nugget of information" with the perfect amount of description - enough to explain why its useful, but not too much to drag on.

They also use these hand drawn pictures that I liked to show how a generic web page would function, instead of only pictures of pre-existing web pages ( which they also have ample examples) So you can actually apply it to your project instead of saying, I understand why hotmail looks the way it does. I would recommend this book to anyone, hands down.

Orson Scott Card is one of my favorite authors, and in some recent Amazon-surfing, I was delighted to discover this Card novel that I'd never heard of. I got a used copy, and I really enjoyed it. The book is based on the 1989 movie "Abyss" by James Cameron, who did "Aliens," "Titanic," and the "Terminator" movies. It's about a deep-sea mission, some cool aliens, and a bunch of interesting people, their relationships, and their deepest personal struggles. I'll probably rent the movie eventually, though I'm guessing I won't like it nearly as much as the book, since a movie can't explore the characters in the same depth.

(A similar undersea sci fi adventure is Michael Crichton's "Sphere," which I didn't like, but the average customer review is 4.5 stars, so if you're into thrillers, you might like it. And I highly recommend most anything by Orson Scott Card, especially "Ender's Game," one of the best science fiction novels ever, and, if you're into religion, "Stone Tables," which is a novelization of the life of Moses.)

The dusk jacket of this novel takes great pains to explain that this is "A Novel by Hugo and Nebula Award-winning Author Orson Scott Card based on an original screenplay by James Cameron." That lengthy description is important because it is trying to make it crystal clear that this is NOT a "novelization" of a screenplay, and to give you some idea what a unique and exquisite book you are reading. Card provides an entirely new dimension to Cameron's screenplay.

I still think the Abyss is James Cameron's best movie, Oscar winning block busters aside, although that other film certainly proves water is his natural element. Displeased with the "cursory, mediocre, often inaccurate, and sometimes downright reprehensible" novelizations he had already read of his films, Cameron determined there would be a NOVEL. In a totally unique process, Card worked from videotapes of the film as the editing progressed, updating his manuscript as scenes were changed, added or cut. In addition to covering everything you see in the film version of "The Abyss," Card made two significant contributions to the story in his novel.

First, he wrote chapters focusing on the three main characters of Buddy, Linsey and Coffee. Each chapter goes back to when they were kids and relates the seminal events that made them the people they grew up to be and brought them to the setting of this story. Cameron was so impressed with these chapters that before filming began he gave them to Ed Harris and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio (and you have to wonder what Michael Biehn would have done with the background on Coffey). Second, Card works in the entire story from the side of the alien beings, explaining what they are doing and thinking even when they are not around the humans on Deepcore. Things that you wondered about in the film (How could Coffey survive that great depth and cut the right wire?) will be made clear and the additional scenes add great depth to the film (intentional pun).

It is because of this added dimension that I think you will best enjoy this book after you have seen the film and more specifically the Special Edition or Director's Cut of the film. Of course, I can certainly appreciate that fans of Orson Scott Card might pick up "The Abyss" without any care about the movie. This is not a bad thing either because Card is a first rate imaginative writer, as he has proven from "Ender's Game" to "Enchantment." If you loved the movie, you will love the book. You do not want to miss out on this one.

And that's a pretty strange recommendation to make for a movie novelization, it's supposed to be the other way around. Following writer/director James Cameron's recommendation to write a real novel based on his story rather than just write it in narrative form (which so many writer-for-hire types do) Orson Scott Card crafted a well thought out expansion of the film's story. In addition to having the pre-special edition cut sequences (which go a long way in explaining the abyss's residents motivations and such) Card also contributes some welcome background material for the main characters. In an interesting note about the novel's origins (it was written during filming) Card shares that Cameron actually had the principle actors read their individual character's background material from Card's early drafts to better understand the inner workings he wanted communicated in their performances. Highly recommended.