"Being on the tightrope is living; everything else is waiting." -Karl Wallenda (1904-78)

Do you act intuitively and act decisively? In the world, everything is changing so fast that you can't always control your own destiny, let alone feel confident enough to lead others through seeming chaos. This book demonstrates how you can become at ease with change and how you can analyze your own strengths so you can deal with ambiguity.

Aspects Covered Include:

The real work of leadership

Damaging illusions from the twentieth century
Motivation by mysteries
Risk tolerance
Polishing your Personal radar

The 8 Enablers - find out which type
of enabler you are.

Mystery Seekers - I started to highlight a ton of this area and figured
I must be a mystery seeker.
Risk-Tolerators
Future-Scanners
Tenacious Challengers
Exciters
Flexible Adjusters
Simplifiers
Focusers

However, you might have qualities of a Restrainer/ There are 8 Restrainers. I'm more than likely part "Detail Junkie." These are negative and overplayed sides of enablers.

Do you have trouble with transitions?
Are you unmotivated by work?
Do you fear conflict?
Can you put all the pieces of the puzzle together. What are
the signs of a "muddy thinker."
How can you communicate more effectively.
Are you hooked on detail?
Do you focus on the here and now or do you see the future?
Do you long for the bygone days?

My favorite section was the Enabler Section on "Mystery Seekers." It is a section that explains how this type of enabler gets energy from not knowing. They might even appear strangely happy when things don't work out perfect the first time. When writing recipes, this was true, because then I could test the recipe again! Ha!

"Imagine that everything was attractive. Imagine that the more you didn't know, the more you wanted to know. Imagine that maybe wanting to know was too weak a description, there was a hunger to know what drove you from whatever eles you were doing and pushed you to continually make further inquiries about the things you didn't know. Imagine insatiable curiosity. You are a Mystery-Seeker." pg. 30

More than likely, the "risk tolerant" segment is highly relevant right now. These types are not hampered by insufficient or ambiguous data.

I think that the best way to use this book is to highlight your own qualities or areas you want to work on. I don't see why you can't be a bit of all 8 Enablers. It is like being a personality type with elements of each. I don't think anyone can be a specific type, but can be a combination and then certain aspects will be highlighted and more obvious.

Complex at first and I thought this would be over my head, but once I started to read it became much clearer to me. I think you will enjoy this book if you are a business leader or just want to analyze your own qualities.

In uncertainty, there is certainly room for change. ;>

This is an extremely useful book for its times. It comes along during (another) period of great unsettling uncertainty. Uncertainty never actually goes away, of course, but it's more pressing and obviously present at some times than at others.

The book makes the central point that "The real work of leadership is embracing uncertainty," that the defining mark of a leader is confidence with uncertainty, along with the ability to acknowledge it and deal with it. The authors present a detailed recipe for anyone seeking to enhance their ability to manage and exploit the uncertainty that often precedes change or destabilization.

The core of this book by Philip Hodgson and Randall White is a taxonomy of personalities that "enable" and "restrain" organizational change. Most of us will be able to quickly spot ourselves (and other key people) on their list. There are Mystery-Seekers, Future-Scanners, Tenacious-Challengers, Exciters, Simplifiers, Wet Blankets, and Muddy Thinkers, among the many. Case examples are provided for each type, along with recommendations about how to deal with them and take advantage of the possibilities that they offer. The book provides specific suggestions on how to grow into an "enabler" of productive change, aong with ideas about how to handle the restrainers.

The book is written in clear language and format, its terms are well-defined, and the style is very accessible. It is the kind of book that could serve as a quick reference whenever things bog down or get strange.

"RELAX it's only uncertainty: Lead the Way When the Way Is Changing" is a terrific book - one that provides an answer for anyone worried about the future of their organization. And who isn't? "Innovate or get left behind" is the challenge facing most organizations, including those I am familiar with.. To meet this challenge organizations need leaders who can deal with uncertainty.

For anyone who thinks that this is a "slam dunk" answer, let me assure you, it is not. Most people in leadership positions CANNOT deal with uncertainty. They avoid it by focusing on "business as usual", what is known and familiar. This is the path to trouble in a world where technology and marketplace pressures are demanding something different and much better than business as usual.

In these conditions the work of leaders is not to follow the tried-and-true path, but to create the path forward in a world of "what-ifs".

Leaders capable of doing this can be identified. In fact, most of "RELAX it's only uncertainty" is devoted to describing what these leaders think and do. The authors identify eight characteristics of such leaders, including: Having a curiosity about what is not known, Tolerating risk, Gathering ideas about the future, and Simplifying information. This description is tremendously valuable because it enables anyone to spot this kind of leader.

The authors make this even more practical and useful. They identify behaviors indicative of each characteristic. For example, a forward-looking executive seeks out information about the future, formulates hunches or intuitions about future developments and listens constantly for "faint signals" of these developments. A list like this can be used to assess how strong or weak a leader is in a particular area and to coach and develop her/him to a higher level.

"RELAX it's only uncertainty" points out eight factors that block a leader's ability to deal with an uncertain future. One is a preoccupation with the past that is known and familiar.

This book is a "wake up call" and guide for anyone concerned about the future of their organization. Organizations with leaders like the ones described here are much more likely to be successful. The others are heading toward tough times.

For Gioconda Belli, a woman's sexuality and female identity are inseparable from an expansive and nurturing love of the world. In her poetry, the longing for a society in which people construct a future together is animated by an inextinguishable erotic, maternal, and transcendental loving desire. The poetry in FROM EVE'S RIB, a selection that includes Belli's early as well as recent work, is revolutionary in that it links an intense eroticism with the insurrectionary spirit of the Nicaraguan people.

"Her poetry [is] at once extremely sensual and politically direct...a kind of public love-poetry that [comes] closer...to expressing the passion of Nicaragua than anything I ever heard." --Salman Rushdie, The Jaguar Smile (Penguin, 1987)

"Her lessons in eroticism and her deeply engaged social conscience and her feminism, her historical perspective and her personal, passionate imagination have marked her poems with the indelible hand print of originality." --American Book Review

"From Eve's Rib" is a collection of poetry by Gioconda Belli of Nicaragua. Her work has been translated into English by Steven F. White. This is a bilingual edition, with the Spanish originals and English versions on facing pages.

Belli's voice is passionate, lusty, sensual, tender, and politically aware. Many of her poems are woman-centered; she writes about menstruation, pregnancy, childbirth, physical love, and pride in being a woman. Many poems deal with the Nicaraguan revolution and its aftermath. One of the best poems in the collection, "The Dream Bearers," is a prophetic poem of hope in which Belli celebrates those who dream "not of the world's destruction, / but of building a world of butterflies / and nightingales." Also memorable is "Conjunction," in which Belli reflects on the women writers of past generations. This is a fine collection of poetry that I enthusiastically recommend, particularly to those with an interest in women's studies or Latin American literature.

This book is very good in that it not only goes into great detail about the Prussian army and the myriad battles and wars it fought, but also it explains the political, social, financial, monarchial, and geographic influences on the army itself, all of which were important. Many similar books have come out about the Prussian/German army, but this book excels at integrating the rest of Prussian life and culture into the book, which gives the reader a real feel as to why Prussia developed a paranoia about the rest of Europe and had to raise a huge army for hundreds of years.

For those interested in purchasing this book, it might be useful to describe Dr. White's style as being akin to Stephen Ambrose's own, but transplanted into the context of the era of horse and musket. Dr. White discourses on the weapons, politics, and major combats of the period, but never seems to leave the reader with the impression that this book (while compact) is really anything less than a complete synthesis of the phenomenon of militarism within the Prussian state. White is readable, personable, and does not cower behind the dispassionate mantle of of military historians such as Keegan when expressing his own views as to the nature of war. Hence, I reccommend _The Prussian Army_ to those seeking an overview of the rise of armed, nationalistic nations which, for the first time in quite awhile, does not take Adolf Hitler's Germany as its subject.

And to those who should have the good fortune to meet the author (as I have), please take the oppertunity. He is an extremely helpful, considerate, and supremely intelligent fellow.

-Brett MacKellar
U.S. Army, GVSU Alumn

The wide variety of writing here examines the vast amount of literature about drugs with emphasis on drug users. It's a comprehensive anthology that permits the adventurous reader to experience the complete range of substances, from absinthe and ecstasy to yage and opium to moonshine, as narrated by some of the world's most imaginative writers. These include William Burroughs, Nelson Algren, Florence Nightingale, Jean Cocteau, Arthur Conan Doyle, Philip K. Dick, Miles Davis, Aldous Huxley, Charles Baudelaire, Terence McKenna, Lewis Carroll, Hunter S. Thompson, Paul Bowles, Arthur Rimbaud, Marie Corelli, Tom Wolfe, Timothy Leary, Charles Dickens, Oscar Wilde and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Whether in ecstasy or hung over, addicted or recovering, the writers in White Rabbit examines the drug experience from every angle. Their always fascinating and often eloquent narratives provide a colorful read, amply rewarding the reader with its variety of experience. Some pieces are way too short, though, like Florence Nightingale's one little sentence, Paul Gauguin's two short paragraphs and Rimbaud's brief poem. Elizabeth Barrett Browning's little ode to opium is also quite skimpy. There are interesting biographies of all the authors, giving some background to the pieces here. This is a valuable work as it brings together so many interesting perspectives and writing styles. As the authors put it so well: "Drugs are inherently subversive, sometimes dangerous, occasionally great fun. They 'clear away the past and enhance the present,' they can inspire great art and greater experience, or they can unleash the monster lurking within."

A great anthology of stories, one of the most complete piles of drug culture writers around, giving one a brief look into a plethora of great writing that will lead to further investigation of their works by teasing them with this fine book. Packed with writers from all over the spectrum and many genres, old and new alike. A Must have for those deeply in love with the drug culture. This book gives the reader a taste of many great writers out there, all with mounds of their own material that needs to be read, this book can prove as a lead in to these readings and makes for an excellent leisurely taste of what is out there for those who desire it.

The authors ask, "Can women reach the top of America's largest corporations?" They can and they have...but rarely. This book examines the results of a three-year study of women executives in "Fortune 100" companies. First published in 1987 and then in a revised edition in 1992, Breaking the Glass Ceiling is not wholly current with the situation in these same companies today. (Question: How many have lost their lofty rating they have under-utilized the capabilities of their female employees? Hmmm....) From my perspective, however, most of the book's assertions and conclusions are still valid. The so-called "glass ceiling" has been raised since 1992 but it is still there. Although no long legal, it remains a major barrier nonetheless.

Think about it: You can see where you want to go...you know what you must do to get there...and you are confident of your abilities. So your upward journey within the organization begins. Just as Dorothy saw the distant glow of Oz, you see just as clearly your own destination. It excites you, it inspires you, and you begin to think about how wonderful it will be to get there. As you carefully ascend, you encounter what seems to be a pane of glass. Your face is flush against it. You can still see your destination above you, so near and yet so far. You have hit the "glass ceiling." Now what?

The authors organize their material within eight chapters whose titles correctly indicate the sequence of their analysis:

The Ceiling and the Wall: The Double Barrier to the Top

Up or Out: How Women Succeed, How They Derail

Perception Is Reality: The Narrow Band of Acceptable Behavior

Lessons for Success I : It's Not Enough to Work Hard

Lessons for Success II: It's Not Enough to Work Smart

Breaking the Glass Ceiling: Making It to General Management

Hitting the Wall: Facing Limits, Finding Alternatives

The Future: Can Women Make It to the Top?

Where Are They Now? According to the authors, they are encouraged by two trends: the development of a new "business imperative" which requires organizations to utilize fully all of its human assets, and, the renewal of "legal and legislative pressures." The former is best understood in terms of enlightened self-interest; the second is best understood in terms of the threat of litigation if prevailing laws against gender discrimination have been violated. Whatever it takes. The authors observe: "While there is still a long way to go, progress is being made. Some have broken, or at least cracked the glass ceiling, while others have found ways around it. All have treated the last several years as a learning experience and have applied their own advice in facing the challenges of pioneering women." The "business imperative" as well as "legal and legislative pressures" may have done much to eliminate the "glass ceiling" within organizations. Well and good. But a significant challenge remains: To remove it it, also, from within the minds of those who have been its victims.

Breaking the Glass Ceiling (bold face) helps us to measure what has been accomplished since 1987 when it was first published; 14 years later, it reminds us of what remains to be done.

Prehistoric Art: The Symbolic Journey Of Humankind by Ice Age art and technology expert Randall White (Professor of Anthropology, New York University) is an amazingly impressive and informationally detailed survey overview of the paintings, sculptures, pottery, and more, crafted by human beings before times remembered and recorded by the written word. Breathtaking full-color photographs superbly enhanced a thorough, scholarly, fully accessible text describing what is known about sites of prehistoric art worldwide. Prehistoric Art is a work of impeccible scholarship and very highly recommended addition to Art History and Anthropological Studies reference shelves and reading lists.

I did not think this was an appropriate book for my 5 year old son. It talked in some detail about eating the liver and lung of Snow White. It ends with a description of the demise of the Queen, "But they had already put iron slippers over a fire of coals, and they brought them in with tongs and set them before her. Then she had to put on the red hot slippers and dance till she dropped down dead." Need I say more? This is not for small children! The pictures are beautiful giving the book a few stars, but there are only pictures on every other spread. My son continued to try to turn the page while I was reading the pages with only words while I am trying to anticipate what to skip over.

Parents - read these stories to your kids. No, the Brothers Grimm are not Disney. They are not a contrived fantasy world that teaches your children little fairies will come and save them from their troubles when something goes wrong. Disney is good for sing-a-longs. Parents, if you want to teach your children *life lessons* about growing up, about facing their fears, and about not being ashamed of who they are, read the Grimm tales to them. Then, after you're done, explain to them what these books entail. Teach your child about *life.* Allow their minds to function, because a nonfunctioning mind is clinically dead. .....stories of the unconscious.....

Jarrell translated this famous folk tale of the Grimm Brothers (Jacob Ludwig Carl Grimm, 1785 1863, and Wilhelm Carl Grimm, 1786-1859) of the princess who is forced to hide from her evil stepmother. Jarrell retains the grim ending to the Grimm brothers tale. This issue was illustrated by Nancy Ekholm Burkett and it was a 1973 Caldecott Honor book (i.e., a runner-up to the Medal winner) for best illustration in a children's book. It is a book that should be on the shelves of all serious students of children literature.