It's about time someone took the woowoo out of self-realization, and Katie's done it, because really, there's nothing mystical about "enlightenment." Realization = getting real, in the moment...and we can only get real when we examine our thoughts and find our own truth. A book or a teaching alone can't give this to you; there has to be the willingness to go deep and not know. LOVING WHAT IS is the beginning of a wild ride, should you choose to strap yourself in.

If you think meditation is "spiritual" and mentation is the devil, this isn't the book for you. If you want a way to get real, I recommend reading every single word of LOVING WHAT IS. I facilitate this process, and without exception, everyone I've sat with who has been willing to go all the way "gets" it. Kids do this work. Brain-damaged people can do it. It's simple, so simple that at first glance it can appear simplistic, unappealing to our minds that love complication and drama. If you've been looking for nirvana or satori or samadhi all your life, I invite you to suspend all concepts of how to get there, to read LOVING WHAT IS, try The Work, and use the mind to make friends with the mind. That's really all it takes.

A friend of mind literally put this book in my hands. I had been obsessing about someone for months. I have a meditation practice, a therapist, friends who had been listening to me patiently. But this book seems to be helping in a way nothing else has. This cool thing called "The Work"--where you have to write down what's bothering you and then ask four questions and turn your problem around--made me see that he had hurt me once, but I was hurting me every single day, with my thoughts, repeating the whole thing over and over, letting it take me over. I feel so much lighter about the whole thing now, even kind of amused at times by my own craziness. I really recommend this book to anyone who thinks too much. And I really want to meet Byron Katie someday--the way she talks about Reality being God--if only we were willing to truly see it, the way she talks in general is kind of startling, wakes you up. In person, she must be amazing.

I can honestly say that out of many many self-help and spiritual growth books, this has by far been the most transformative, uplifting and profound. Rather than offering ways to fix my life, it offered a way to change my thinking, so that the circumstances of my life no longer caused me pain. This requires a pretty big paradigm shift, but I can say with complete honesty, after years of seeking, that it is the only authentic way I have found (so far) to experience true - and reliable - happiness.
The book / audiobook provides instruction in and examples of a technique of self-inquiry called "The Work". It is an extremely simple technique but one which I have found extremely powerful.
Here is my testimonial...
Before I even heard of this book, I began to explore the idea that happiness comes from loving what-is, whatever it is. My first challenge came when I injured my shoulder very badly and was essentially disabled for nine months. The pain was terrible and there were times when I couldn't pick up my own baby for days at a time. During this time, however, I made a remarkable discovery. I discovered that without what Byron Katie would call a "stressful story" about pain, pain couldn't hurt me. It was possible to be experiencing extremely strong sensations of pain, and still be completely calm and happy. Fortunately, I recovered, but my "apprenticeship in pain" served me well. When I had my next baby, I went through labor at home with no pain medication and it was the most blissful day of my life.
My postnatal experience, however, was far from blissful. It was both physically excrutiating and emotionally traumatic and left me feeling eaten up with resentment towards my in-laws. In the year that followed, I desperately searched for inner peace once more, and read many self-help and spirituality books in my attempt to put my soul back together.
Browsing on www.amazon.com one day, I spotted the title "Loving What Is" and was intruigued because it was an expresion used by my teacher, Jeannine Parvati Baker. I read the reviews and was impressed, so looked up Byron Katie's website. There, under "Samples of the work" I listened to the introductory chapters of the audiobook, and two dialogues. I was blown away. The dialogue called "The work on family life" instantly cleared all the painful issues I had been struggling with with my in-laws. I felt like I had suddenly woken up.
So I ordered the audiobook and soon after, bought the paperback. I also attended a workshop on "The Work" with Rosie Stave. One of the changes in my life since I started doing "The Work" is that I have become a vegetarian. Before, I had a lot of stories about eating meat that were causing me a lot of stress. On the one hand, I believed that I SHOULDN'T eat meat for environmental and compassionate reasons. On the other hand I believed that I HAD TO eat meat for health reasons (I have been iron deficient before). In the course of doing the work, I realized that I didn't really know if any of these beliefs were true. When I sat down in front of my plate, without these thoughts, I noticed that I just didn't eat the meat. Not because I thought I shouldn't, but just because I didn't. When I approached food with the belief "It's okay if I do eat meat, and it's okay if I don't" the transition to vegetarianism happened all by itself. Incedentally, I just had a blood test (because I investigated my thoughts that blood tests are traumatic, my dr would be judgemental of my new eating habits, and I dislike drs) and my iron and everything else are excellent.
The one irritating factor I have with the audiobook is that there is no table of contents to tell you which sections are on which CD. However, it is not hard to note down your own on paper or against the table of contents in the paperback. Also, the audiobook and paperback are organized differently with some dialogues in different sections. Also note that the paperback contains some dialogues not on the audiobook and vice versa. This is one of the reasons why I highly recommend getting hold of both the audiobook and the paperback. Also, I find that listening to the dialogues is much more effective than reading them. But I prefer the paperback as a refernce on how to do the work myself. Particlarly the chapter "Deepening Inquiry". Buying both might seem [costly] but, personally, I have found that "The Work" has meant that I haven't needed to buy any other self-help books since. (A considerable saving in my case).
However, I am not asking you to order both items on my word alone. ...
So if you are looking for a way to be happy no matter what - to be able to be happy even if your soulmate leaves you or you body falls apart - I cannot recommend this book and audiobook highly enough.

I enjoyed this work more than many I've read lately. Good sci-fi without trying to push all the moral envelopes. This is the kind of fiction I've missed in my recent reading.

Sadly, I find that there are too many questions left open at the end of the book. I want the answers. Will I find them in upcoming novels and will it be in a timely fashion? I hope so.

I'd have given the book five stars if it had wrapped up more loose ends.

you can't complain when you're set in the world of the three laws of robotics with a beautiful young woman and a man without a memory--first rate pastiche by the two authors in the book. I loved it!

The saga of Robot is continued in this novel, which can only be described as exellent, with a dose of brilliant, and a side of superlative. The story of Robot City is expressed through the further development of the characters Derec, a man who crash landed in the aptly named Robot City, a city run and inhabited entirely by robots. Having lost his memory in the crash landing, he takes the name of Derec, which is the manufacturer of his jump suit. Throughout his journey, he meets the mysterios Katherine. After a bout of being captured by extraterrestrials, and such other madcap antics, Derec and Katherine are deposited in Robot City together. It is here that the plot begins to thicken, and the character development becomes signifigant. This volume of the series is a perfect book for any science fiction fan, and perfectly expresses the three laws of Robotics and their applications in the real world.

I checked this book out after my 3 yr old preschoolers had done a theme week on space at school. My son looked at it before I had read it and the first thing he told me is "there is no moon in this book". Every picture of "space" shows the earth in a larger than life format (doesn't the earth look tiny from outer space??), yet not once is there a hint of the moon or stars or anything resembling "space", especially in the eyes of a child.

Aside from that annoyance, this book still has the great illustrations of other Byron Barton books. My guys' favorite picture is the shuttle blasting off. They also enjoy the pictures of activities that take place inside the shuttle - eating, sleeping, working and most of all, floating upside down! Now THAT's what we expect in a book about astronauts!

"I Want to Be an Astronaut" is another good entry in the series of young children's books by Byron Barton. This one opens, "I want to be an astronaut, a member of the crew." Such simple text is combined with Barton's distinctive illustrations. Bright, solid colors and heavy outlines combine to create figures that have an iconic feel; his pictures make me think of a sort of modern variation on Mayan hieroglyphics.

In the book we see the space shuttle taking off; astronauts working, eating, and sleeping in zero gravity; a cutaway view of the shuttle; etc. Nice touches include a view of earth from space and the portrayal of a multi-ethnic shuttle crew. Recommended for small kids.

Typical Byron Barton cartoon-illustrations with his typical simple text. This time around he uses phrases "I want to'" followed by various actions of astronauts who fly a space shuttle into space to do various astronaut tasks: working, eating, sleeping, etc. Simple text, adored by my son.

Barton's books are a staple in our family. There is just something about the illustrations that my children love. The words, although simple, still capture the and hold the attention of my four year old.

Female astronauts and people of various ethnicity's are represented.

Regarding the age recommendation that some reviewers are discussing, I want to add that since infancy, my son has loved Barton's books, whether they are board versions or regular paper versions. This book is loved by my less than one year-old son, and continues to enthrall my now 4 year-old son, who does have a fascination with space and astronauts. I would recommend this book for babies who don't rip regular paper books, and for 4 year-olds and maybe 5 year-olds who especially love space. If the older child is *not* especially interested in all things space they may be bored with the simple text.

Huggins' tale of a genetically engineered dragon is like riding along an interstate and trying to avoid the potholes. In this one, it's the plotholes that are constantly attacking. Although one must admire Huggins' attempt to parallel this story with Biblical references, and show the Christian fight of evil vs. good, he does it such a soporific way that I found it hard to get involved. So many scenes are repetitive, contrived, and at times, laughable. While Thor is definitely a heroic type, his battle with Leviathan can only be considered high camp, even from a spiritual point of view. There is so much computer jargon that it bogs the story down. Also, if you look at this dragon that these scientists have created, it is supposed to be the world's most effective killing machine, virtually indestructible, and yet a handful of humans manage to destroy the creature, but not before going through some hilariously impossible schemes. Here we have another hero, Jackson Conner, a mere electrician, mind you, who fights like Spiderman, practically gets himself killed, yet manages to single-handedly finish off what Thor started. Some of the characters just disappear, without knowing their fate. And Huggins must love the word muscular, as he uses this at least twenty times with the heroic serviceman, Barley. Conner's wife, Beth, serves no purpose but to hang around and moan, although she is clever enough to decode the special encryption set up to disallow anyone tampering with the GEO computer. Which by the way is encrypted with the brain of Dr. Frank's dead wife, Rachel. The scene in cyberspace is virtually (no pun intended) a big anti-climactic howler.
I appreciate the Christian approach to science fiction/fantasy; in fact, Frank Peretti does a beautiful job; however, Huggins spends so much time spouting out philosophies, his narrative loses its punch.
I WOULDN'T BOTHER IF I WERE YOU.

After having read "Cain" and "Hunter", I was on familiar ground with my third Huggins book. As with the others, it is a story of good superhero vs. evil monster. As with the others, however, it has most of the same flaws. This time there are two heroes instead of one, in the form of a viking Catholic priest named Thor and a grim handyman named Jackson Connor. Thor is literally a giant with an axe to grind and the mind of a literature scholar. Still, how can a man be both eight feet tall and built like Hercules? Even the tallest NBA stars aren't eight feet, and they look like beanpoles. Jackson Connor, however, is much closer to a normal person than any of Huggins' other heroes. He's simply a smart, tough guy with a background in fixing everything, and he generally outthinks the monster instead of outfighting him, unlike the others. This makes Jackson the most plausible and empathic of the main characters in the three books, but there are some flaws. 1) The relationship with his young son is pure sap. 2) Everyone calls him by his last name, even his wife. 3) Why is Jackson working as a foreman at a research site, even for extra pay, when his wife is obviously a computer genius? On to the monster. This time it's an honest-to-goodness dragon, making it the most invincible, and coolest, of Huggins' other monsters. The science behind the artificially created beast is believable enough for this genre, and the idea of a fire-breathing lizard running around making charbroil out of a bunch of idiots is very appealing. In one of the better parts of the book, Huggins even has Thor recount (apparently) genuine historical writings on actual dragon encounters in recorded history. HOWEVER, there are more than a few mistakes. Thor actually fights the dragon hand to hand in one unconvincing, if epic, battle, and the result is completely implausible. The dragon actually sees the shadow of the Devil, directing the beast to kill the boy. Finally, the wringer Jackson puts it through at the end is unbelievable. Not even the wounded Leviathan could withstand the whole series of traps he lays at the end. Finally, the evil-bad-guy-project-director is the same stereotype found in the other books. Then there are the usual literary mistakes. Huggins uses the same adjectives over and over again. The introduction of the dragon's statistics is a ham-handed presentation. There's a totally unnecessary side trip into virtual reality. And when Jackson finally kills the thing at the end using a particular tool, the method he employs should have killed him too if you pay attention to the details of its use. Yet all of this isn't to say I didn't enjoy it anyway. It's just disappointing to see the same stuff over and over again, even though that's what action books/movies usually boil down to. After the first third of the book it becomes a constant pulse-pounding action sequence as the good guys lay traps and fight the beast with a constant barrage from grenade launchers. Huggins introduces some interesting history and mythology without laying on the Christianity too thick. The science is pretty cool, and Thor is interesting, if implausible. In the end, this book is a lot like a good action movie: turn your brain off, bring plenty of popcorn, and have a good time.

This was the first book I read by James Byron Huggins. Now I have all of his books. I really like his books, because they are filled with characters with warrior hearts, and faith in God.

I don't want to give too much away, but this book is basically about man trying to play God, and it turns around and bites him in the butt... literally! Man creates the ultimate machine, and then looses control of it. I won't say anymore... so you better get it, and read it. [....]

The Tell Tale of Heart by Edgar Allen Poe wrote about a mad man who killed someone, Eventually tells on himself. This man is known to be crazy. Every night he goes in a room and watches the man with the evil eye. Until one night he decides to kill him. The mad man thinks the evil eye is after him. This book would be of interest to middle school level to adults. I loved his vivid details and use of vocabulary. This story is one of many stories I loved of Edgar Allen Poe. His twisted mind makes many of his works enjoyable. I recommend this book to many people.

Within The Tale-Tale Heart, a disfigured old man becomes the object of the narrator's wrath. With precision the narrator sneaks into the old man's home and kills him because of a grotesque eye that has obsessed the narrator. Through the narrator's actions, Poe destroys "the external universe as usually perceived and eradicates the barriers erected by time, space and self. With the destruction of the reasoned world, the world of the imagination can take over [allowing] Poe to confuse sight and sound, sight and smell, fire and water, life and death, and the various other elements which man's reason keeps apart or regars as polarities" (Ketterer 28). Through the narrator's slow creeping motion into the old man's room (which lasts hours), Poe is able to not only alter reality, but also our concept of time.

As in The Black Cat, the narrator in this story also leads the police to the body. However, it is not an outside force that leads to his capture, it is his own mental state. "In the conclusion of the story, the ringing in the madman's ears first is fancied, then later becomes distinct, then is discovered to be so definite that it is erroneously accorded external actuality, and finally grows to such obsessive proportions that it drives the criminal into an emotional and physical frenzy" (Howarth 97). The beating of the old man's heart that the narrator hears in his mind is an distortion of his reality. The man's heart is not actually beating, but the narrator is convinced that he hears the sound because Poe has created a sound illusion. Reality and illusion in this story merge to create a new world where anything is possible, even the beating of a dead man's heart.

It was a very good book. It is about the narrator who is convienced that this old man's eye is evil and it is going after him. His compulsive disoder takes him to go and see the eye every night. Until one night he goes to see it and the old man is up. The mad man shines the light in his wide open eye. the man kills the poor old man and does unmetionable things to him. The police finally get there and question him. To convience them that he is inocent he invites them in for tea. While sitting down he starts getting insane and hears his heart beating, but he thinks it is the old mans. He finally fesses and is sentenced to death.

The Cask of Amontillado is a well written story, but can be hard to read because of the outdated language the narrator uses. The plot is carefully thought out, but again can be hard to pick up on or comprehend. Poe writes this story along the basic story line of many of his other books. The story of a man who gets away with murder is definately one of Poe's favorite tales. If you are fond of strange stories or stories about strange people this book will probably wind up somewhere on your top ten list

This is Classic Poe... It was a required reading for me in school but after I read it I was compelled to re-read it. This story captivates the reader, while forcing you to ask, Why? Poe never really gets into the insult that occurred, but it is obivious that Poe is the master of Payback. He takes one of his greatest fears, being buried alive and transcends it into this story. What I find fascinating it the extent that he is willing to go to exact his revenge. Not only is his enemy buried alive, but he knows the person who has committed this endeavor

E.A. Poe's work in "The Cask of Amontillado" is either hated or loved very much. To most people they miss the entire point of this story. One of only few stories, such as "Animal Farm" by G. Orwell, if you read it over again, and again, you gain more insist of what is really happening. The most missed part, and exciting is the ending. When the question is answered. Why is Montressor telling this story? Poe sends your mind not only thru the endeavors of a premeditated revenge but also transcends time at the end. I suggest after reading it, read the very last paragraph, sentence by sentence, in its own entirety so you can grasp the power of the story.

To begin with, the more exacting reviewers are correct in their assertions that there is nothing new here, aside from Eisler's "spin" on previously well-known facts about the infamous and lionized Poet and Lord. This book is definitely NOT for those interested in a thorough, searching delve into Byron and his poetry. But, moreover, it is not even the "page-turner" which other reviewers make it out to be.

The book is written in this precious, cozy, semi-academese which drains the blood from the writing. There is no evaluation of the poet in the context in the particular developmental stage of English poetry at the time. And Shelley, in particular, gets a particularly curt dismissal.---But the real problem with this biography is not that Eisler is dismissive of other (in Shelley's case, better) poets or that her book is simply a rehashing of previously known circumstances. The problem is her plodding, lifeless, cutesy writing style. By the end of the book, one feels that Ms. Eisler has appropriated Byron into her cozy world of popularized, made-for-giant-publishing-houses beach-read bios. Has anyone else noticed that all the chapters are almost the exact number of pages in length? Such precise compartmentalization does not for the reflection of a life make, in particular Byron's!

The one merit this book indisbutably does have is to make you want to read or reread Byron's poetry. Eisler's citations of neatly culled snippets are the only lively thing in the book! So, after you've read all about the minutiae of the poet's life and feel drained and off-put at the end:

Close thy Eisler! Open thy Byron!

I became interested in Byron after reading a brief biography of the poet in a women's magazine which mentioned, among other things, the shocking fact that Byron had indulged in incest with his half-sister and fathered a child by her. Could this, I wondered, be true? And if so, why had none of my English teachers bothered to mention this titillating detail (there being no better way to motivate kids to read than by sharing prurient, violent, or otherwise scandalous of disgusting tidbits with them)?

Fortunately for me, my step-mother is a scholar of Byron, and, on hearing of my interest, she promptly sent me Eisler's biography of Byron, which, weighing in at over 800 pages, promised to satisfy my need for prurience in spades.

As it turns out, I did enjoy Eisler's biography and the portrait that she paints of the poet, his contemporaries, and his travels. Byron's reputation as a literary bad-boy seems to have been richly deserved. Eisler chronicles his early homosexual interests, his penchant for getting low-class servants and prostitutes pregnant, his cynical association with a society maven a la Les Liasons Dangereuses which resulted in his catastrophic marriage to an innocent, upright, and deeply religious young woman, his affair with his sister, and (when social outrage threatened to make things uncomfortable for him) his eventual flight from England, leaving his sister and their infant daughter to bear the stigma and to withstand the scorn of society alone.

Eisler mixes this tale of profligate erotic dalliance with serious consideration of the literary development of the poet, from his first forays into verse as a boy to his final production of masterpieces such as Don Juan. She also weaves into her story details of the pressing financial problems which faced the impoverished (and irresponsible) young peer and analysis of the effect of Byron's physical problems (a club foot and a life-long tendency to being overweight) on his growth as a man and an artist.

Yet there are also weaknesses in Eisler's work, some of which may merely be the inevitable errors which creep into any lengthy work, but which nevertheless cause the reader some concern as to Eisler's judgement. Let me offer an example which requires a bit of background information: a) when writing letters it was common, in the early 19th century, to abbreviated words; b) Byron's ancestral home was Newstead Abbey; c) Byron liked, for reasons unclear, to call his girlfriends 'Antelope.' What should we then understand when Lady Caroline Lamb, one of Byron's lovers, writes: "you give us both up no ties can bind but Newstead A bears your unkindness in sullen silence"? While you, dear reader, might assume the word starting with A that Caroline abbreviated was "Abbey," Eisler thinks otherwise, filling in "Antelope" (albeit with a question mark indicating uncertainty). Try reading the sentence again and see which interpretation makes more sense.

There are other similar little slips scattered throughout the volume--not so many as to seriously damage the work, but enough to make the reader wonder about the care with which the manuscript was prepared. Other aspects of the book, too, leave room for improvement. Why, for instance, is a holograph letter reproduced at the end of the book but never (as far as I can tell) referred to in the text? Why is there no map to assist the reader in following Byron on his complicated travels throughout Europe and the East? Why do we learn so little about the Gothic movement by which Byron, evidently, was influenced? And could we not hear more of the reception of Byron's poems by his contemporaries?

These problems, however, are small in the grand scheme of things. Overall, through Eisler's work we can appreciate many different sides of Byron and of the fascination that he exercised on so many of those who met him. Perhaps the most flattering thing I can say about Eisler's work is that I found it compelling right to the end, and it has certainly inspired me to read more of Byron's verse.

The biography of Byron by B. Eisler is thoroughly researched, beautifully written, and will become, I do believe, the definitive biography for years to come. The reader can follow almost a day to day life of this most modern of poets, womanizer, blackguard and traveler; but one is always held in thralled at the scope of his poetry, and the tragedy of his short life. Bravo Ms. Eisler.

The authors explain their hypothesis that people tend to treat computers, television and new media like they would human beings, and that people react to media-based presentations as if they were real-life situations -- even when people consciously realize this is not the case. It's a really interesting premise and the authors do an excellent job explaining their ideas.

The only reason I didn't give this work 5 stars is that the authors do not provide enough data on the results of their experiments. They frequently mention "significant" results, but they do not offer the results themselves for the reader to decide just how significant those results may be. This book is clearly written for a large audience, most of whom probably prefer to have the authors offer an interpretation without padding the work with lots of charts and tables. I would have liked a footnote or two with the actual experiment data, but regardless it's an excellent and intriguing read.

I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in interface design or media studies.

Anyone working in "new media" (writers, political consultants, market research, advertising, software designers, tv and movie makers, webmasters, cinematographers, etc.), not aware of how our "old," hunter-gatherer brains interpret the modern world, isn't working with a full tool box.

Authors Reeves and Nass show, through their experiments, that people (including programmers and many others intimately familiar with how media works) cannot disengage hard-wired caveman brains when working with software, playing a game, watching an ad, or seeing a movie. If we could, then why did that horror movie make our hearts race? And why did it make us jumpy afterwards?

So how do we treat computers like people? Here's one example from the book. In human interaction, one is likely to politely agree (a/k/a fib a little) with an acquaintance who says, "Isn't this a great sweater?" One also tends to be more honest discussing the sweater with a third party, "That sweater isn't my favorite color."

If people do treat computers like humans, then (substituting computers for people in the example), a person would agree with Computer A (out of politeness!), but tell Computer B the truth. And that's what happened in the authors' test lab.

People were quizzed by Computer A (programmed to perform poorly), "Aren't I doing a great job?" -- and they gave Computer A high marks. Then, in another room, Computer B asked about Computer A's performance... and people rated Computer A more honestly (and consistantly lower than they rated Computer A "to its face.") The pattern of response to the computers matched the way people interact with each other.

In example after example, covering many, many areas of human behavior (from politeness to flight-or-flight and even to how little it takes for us to perceive something as male or female and how that colors our thoughts), Reeves and Nash show us how our old brains are responding to our high-tech world .

The ideas in this book should provoke discussion, controversy, and more study. But, those in media need to adjust to the reality that if you want to talk to the 21st century human -- you better learn, first, how to appeal to the caveman.