The Gifted Cat is Able to Detect Near Dead Someone

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Hyperion; 1 edition (February 2, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1401323235
• ISBN-13: 978-1401323233
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.7 x 1 inches

Oscar is one of several cats who live at Steere House nursing home. All of these cats provide companionship and love for the residents, but only Oscar has the special talent of being able to sense when people are nearing the end of their lives. The nurses were the first ones to figure it out as they noticed how frequently he showed up just at the right time.

No one knows how he does it, but when he detects that someone is near dying, he takes up residence on their bed and usually stays until the funeral director comes to collect the body. During this time, he also offers comfort to the family who are there to be with their loved one during this transition. When there's no one to sit with the patient, Oscar maintains a solitary vigil. No one dies alone on Oscar's watch.

People who love their pets probably won't question Oscar's abilities, but one of the doctors who works there was a bit of a skeptic. This book is the result of his interviews with family members and staff who shared their experiences with him. Over and over they told Dr. Doza how much the gift of Oscar's presence had meant to them during a very difficult time. Most people who have cats know the comfort they can bring when they curl up next to you in bed and share their warmth. It's as if Oscar's being there normalizes the events and removes some of the fears.

All of the patients on Oscar's floor are in the final stages of dementia, usually due to Alzheimer's. Experience and research have shown that two things are often able to break through the haze that envelops them - music and animals. In the process of telling Oscar's story, Dr. Doza also gives us insight into this very scary disease. If raising a child is about watching them learn skills, living with an Alzheimer's patient is the opposite - they are slowly unlearning them. Each loss is a form of good-bye. While this book doesn't make the disease any less scary, it does offer comfort and hope for those affected by it.

We may never know just how it works - how Oscars knows just the right time to show up. Maybe all we really need to know is just that he does. (M&M, customer review of amazon.com)

For Further Info:

Making Rounds with Oscar: The Extraordinary Gift of an Ordinary Cat

French Cooking Easy Tips - 524 Recipe

 

• Hardcover: 752 pages
• Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf; 13th Printing edition (October 16, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375413405
• ISBN-13: 978-0375413407
• Product Dimensions: 10.3 x 7.5 x 1.7 inches
 

 

This is the classic cookbook, in its entirety—all 524 recipes. “Anyone can cook in the French manner anywhere,” wrote Mesdames Beck, Bertholle, and Child, “with the right instruction.” And here is the book that, for more than forty years, has been teaching Americans how.

Mastering the Art of French Cooking -- as amazon.com review, is for both seasoned cooks and beginners who love good food and long to reproduce at home the savory delights of the classic cuisine, from the historic Gallic masterpieces to the seemingly artless perfection of a dish of spring-green peas. This beautiful book, with more than 100 instructive illustrations, is revolutionary in its approach because:

• it leads the cook infallibly from the buying and handling of raw ingredients, through each essential step of a recipe, to the final creation of a delicate confection;

• it breaks down the classic cuisine into a logical sequence of themes and variations rather than presenting an endless and diffuse catalogue of recipes; the focus is on key recipes that form the backbone of French cookery and lend themselves to an infinite number of elaborations—bound to increase anyone’s culinary repertoire;

• it adapts classical techniques, wherever possible, to modern American conveniences;

• it shows Americans how to buy products, from any supermarket in the United States, that reproduce the exact taste and texture of the French ingredients, for example, equivalent meat cuts, the right beans for a cassoulet, or the appropriate fish and seafood for a bouillabaisse;

• it offers suggestions for just the right accompaniment to each dish, including proper wines. Since there has never been a book as instructive and as workable as Mastering the Art of French Cooking, the techniques learned here can be applied to recipes in all other French cookbooks, making them infinitely more usable. In compiling the secrets of famous cordons bleus, the authors have produced a magnificent volume that is sure to find the place of honor in every kitchen in America. Bon appétit!

For Further Info:

Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Vol. 1

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Harper; 1 edition (December 29, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0061583251
• ISBN-13: 978-0061583254
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.3 x 1.3 inches

This book is part memoir, part thinking person's self-help book. I like the fact that it draws not only on recent research in the new field of positive psychology, such as the work of Martin Seligman, but on the wisdom of thinkers as disparate as Samuel Butler and the ancient Stoic philosopher, Seneca.

Many wonderful and wise quotations are included in the text. Gretchen Rubin has done a lot of research and reading, and distilled it all here, attempting to answer some vital questions. Is it possible to become a happier person? Is happiness a meaningful and worthwhile goal? She comes to the conclusion that while we may have a happiness set point, and a great deal of our mood is--researchers believe-- determined by heredity (50% or so), to some degree it is under own control (perhaps 30%). It may seem that someone who is not suffering from a painful mood disorder should be focused on other (more worthwhile?) goals than mood elevation. But happiness, after all, is something just about every human being wants, the goal that motivates much of our day to day striving. And rather than suggesting a life of self-centered hedonism, research indicates that the very factors that make for a meaningful life--good relationships, acting in a loving and generous way, engaging creatively with the world--contribute to happiness.

Will revamping your life and taking a systematic approach to seeking happiness work? Research indicates that it may. "I really am happier," says Rubin after a year of following through on her own personal happiness plan. She goes into enough specific detail here about how she got to her more happy state that I have no trouble believing her.

Very responsibly, Rubin points out that her intent is to help people who are well become happier, not to treat a medical condition, i.e., depression. I can imagine her book, however, being an aid for those who are mildly depressed, perhaps as an adjunct to medical treatment, though perhaps they need to be a bit easy on themselves and not follow the plan in a perfectionist, pressured way.

I'm with Rubin when she says that even though we are all very different, learning about someone else's successes and failures can be a better catalyst for change than studying ideas in the abstract. She is generous about revealing the details of her own life--her own "happiness project." What is most transferable is not the specifics--particular actions she decided to experiment with in order to become more happy--but the idea of identifying potential sources of joy, designing steps to take to become happier, making monthly resolutions, carrying through and being accountable--i.e., quantifying the results. The average reader is not going to be as thorough and focused as Rubin was--but in my view that does not negate the value of this book. I'm into progress, I guess, and I believe that even a couple of changes modeled on the plan could make a difference in people's lives.

The book is written in an open, engaging, often humorous style. There is no posturing--Rubin is if anything self-deprecating-- but the writing crackles with intelligence. I found the THE HAPPINESS PROJECT a pleasure to read, and I can imagine people reading it with enjoyment even if they are already happy as clams and have no desire to get with the program. Rubin includes a specific guide for those who want to construct their own happiness plans, and also directs the reader to tools on her web site--nice helpful touches. All in all, a terrific book.(Phyllis T. Smith, costumer of amazon)

Further Info:
The Happiness Project: Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun ~ Gretchen Rubin :

Guidance Manual For Writer, Editors, Students, Educators in Social and Behavioral Sciences

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA); 6th edition (July 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1433805618
• ISBN-13: 978-1433805615
• Product Dimensions: 9.9 x 6.9 x 0.6 inches

The Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association is the style manual of choice for writers, editors, students, and educators in the social and behavioral sciences. It provides invaluable guidance on all aspects of the writing process, from the ethics of authorship to the word choice that best reduces bias in language.

Well-known for its authoritative and easy-to-use reference and citation system, the Publication Manual also offers guidance on choosing the headings, tables, figures, and tone that will result in strong, simple, and elegant scientific communication.

The sixth edition offers new and expanded instruction on publication ethics, statistics, journal article reporting standards, electronic reference formats, and the construction of tables and figures. The sixth edition has been revised and updated to include: new ethics guidance on such topics as determining authorship and terms of collaboration, duplicate publication, plagiarism and self-plagiarism, disguising of participants, validity of instrumentation, and making data available to others for verification; new journal article reporting standards to help readers report empirical research with clarity and precision; simplified APA heading style to make it more conducive to electronic publication; updated guidelines for reducing bias in language to reflect current practices and preferences, including a new section on presenting historical language that is inappropriate by present standards; new guidelines for reporting inferential statistics and a significantly revised table of statistical abbreviations; and, new instruction on using supplemental files containing lengthy data sets and other media.

This book includes significantly expanded content on the electronic presentation of data to help readers understand the purpose of each kind of display and choose the best match for communicating the results of the investigation, with new examples for a variety of data displays, including electro physiological and biological data. It offers consolidated information on all aspects of reference citations, with an expanded discussion of electronic sources emphasizing the role of the digital object identifier (DOI) as a reliable way to locate information. It features expanded discussion of the publication process, including the function and process of peer review. It contains a discussion of ethical, legal, and policy requirements in publication; and guidelines on working with the publisher while the article is in press.

Key to this edition of the Publication Manual is an updated and expanded Web presence. Look up additional supplemental material keyed to this book. This book lets you test your knowledge of APA Style with a free tutorial on style basics. It lets you learn about the changes in the sixth edition with a free tutorial reviewing key revisions. Sign up for an on-line course to enrich and enhance your understanding of APA Style. Read the APA Style blog and share your comments on writing and referencing. Consult frequently asked questions to sharpen your understanding of APA Style. This title lets you examine additional resources on such topics as ethics, statistics, and writing. It lets you familiarize yourself with submission standards for APA books and journals. (source: product description of editorial review Amazon)

Costumers Review:
I just received my copy. As a psychology professor, this text is required for my bookshelf--the same is true for students in this field. However, I was upset to learn that APA has already issued 7 typewritten pages of corrections to this manual, and they will not exchange the first printing for a newer print. This is a resource that you will use for years! Wait to purchase until the kinks have been ironed out and they are on a second or third printing of the manual! I am also disappointed that they do not clearly delineate the changes from the 5th edition. It looks to me that there are few important changes (2 spaces between sentences, etc.). Save your money for at least a few more months! (Josie Wags)
---------------------


Easier to read with a lot less pages. The 6th edition is a mere 272 pages vs. a whopping 439 pages in the 5th edition. This improves its portability and lap-use. ( I never could understand why a book that insists on 1 inch margins all around used 1.5 inch margin on the outer margins and left so much wasted unused space on the pages).

Material has been streamlined to reflect more of the electronic resources currently being used and the more obscure material has been consolidated. The newly added chapters on ethics, the publication process and journal article reporting standards are quite helpful. Some reviewers complained about the elimination of the chapters on writing for publication. Since each journal has it's own specific criteria for manuscript submission, I don't consider this a huge loss. Still has lots of sample for various references (and even includes video blog sources like you-tube) and information on how to display data results (Including radiologic and imaging data like MRI images)

So glad I bought the newest version, especially since it's currently half the price of the old version and a lot more user friendly and up to date. If you required to use the APA style, I strongly suggest buying this book. (jessica farrone)

Further Info:
Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, Sixth Edition

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, True Story about Idealism and Faith in Science

• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: Crown; 1 edition (February 2, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1400052173
• ISBN-13: 978-1400052172
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.2 x 1.5 inches

”The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks brings to mind the work of Philip K. Dick and Edgar Allan Poe. But this tale is true. Rebecca Skloot explores the racism and greed, the idealism and faith in science that helped to save thousands of lives but nearly destroyed a family. This is an extraordinary book, haunting and beautifully told.”—ERIC SCHLOSSER, author of Fast Food Nation  

Equal parts history, psychological drama, expose and character study, Rebecca Skloot's gripping debut is a deeply affecting tour de force that effortlessly bridges the gap between science and the mainstream.

Her subject is the multilayered drama behind one of the most important--and in many ways, problematic--advances of modern medicine. Captivated by the story of Henrietta Lacks, a poor African-American woman whose cervical cancer cells (dubbed HeLa) were the first immortalized cells grown in culture and became ubiquitous in laboratories around the world, Skloot set out to learn more about the person whose unwitting "donation" of the cells transformed biomedical research in the last century. Her research ultimately spanned a decade and found her navigating (and to some extent, mediating) more than 50 years of rage over the white scientific establishment's cavalier mistreatment and exploitation of the poor, especially African Americans.

Skloot deftly weaves together an account of Lacks's short life (she died at age 31) and torturous death from an extremely aggressive form of cancer; the parallel narrative concerning her cells; and the sometimes harrowing, sometimes amusing chronicle of Skloots's own interactions with Lacks's surviving (and initially hostile and uncooperative) family members. Moving comfortably back and forth in time, the richly textured story that emerges brings into stark relief the human cost of scientific progress and leaves the reader grappling with many unanswered questions about the ethics of the scientific endeavor, past and present. While the goals of biomedical research may be noble, how they are achieved is not always honorable, particularly where commercialization of new technologies is at stake. Skloot offers a clear-eyed perspective, highlighting the brutal irony of a family whose matriarch was a pivotal figure in everything from the development of Jonas Salk's polio vaccine to AIDS research to cancer drugs, yet cannot afford the very medical care their mother's cells helped facilitate, with predictable consequences.

The LA Times book review section named Skloot one of its four "Faces to Watch in 2010," an honor that, based on "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" is well-deserved.(Daffy Du, Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program)

For Further Info: 

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

Hindu Javanese Tengger and Islam Indonesia: Robert W. Heffner Perspectives

by Alpha Savitri

I am Javanese and often visit Bromo Mountain and the Kampoong of Tengger people. I think, Robert W. Heffner gives worthly contribution for myself and others to know well who is Tengger People, how about the history and how about their culture. Heffner also explains how Tenggerese maintains their tradition in the modern era, how Tenggerese live among different religion people especially the Islam. The last is most interesting topic for me.

Tenggerese are the descendants of the Majapahit princes. Their population of roughly 600,000 is centered in thirty villages in the isolated Tengger mountains (Mount Bromo) within the Bromo Tengger Semeru National Park in East-Central Java.

Some Tengger people believe that they are directly descended from the Majapahit Kingdom, with the name of their tribe having its origin in the legend of legendary Majapahit nobles Roro Anteng and Joko Seger. The legend says that Joko, a young man of the Brahmana priestly caste, and Roro, a lady from a noble family during the reign of the Brawijaya dynasty, got married and opened up a settlement in Tengger area.

The Tenggerese generally profess Hinduism as their religion, although they have incorporated many Buddhist and Animist elements. Like the Balinese, they worship Ida Sang Hyang Widi Wasa (Roughly "Big Almighty Lord") for blessings in addition to other Hindu and Buddhist gods that include the Tri Murti, namely Shiva, Brahma, Vishnu and Buddha. (A. SAVITRI)

How Experts Say About The Book?

The most important study of Javanese religion since Clifford Geertz's Religion of Java (1960). An ethnographically rich and historically detailed portrait of the last Hindu enclave in Muslim Java, Hefner's work is also a compelling account of the symbolic processes involved in religious conversion. . . . This is a brilliant study which is certain to appeal to readers concerned with post-structuralist theory as well as specialists in Asian Studies, Hinduism, and Islam. (Choice )

Elegantly written, convincingly argued, and painstakingly researched, this study of a Javanese mountain people is the most paradigmatic work in the anthropology of religion to appear since Nuer Religion. (E. Valentine Daniel Religious Studies Review )

[T]he description of ritual, the priestly role, and prayer in the contemporary setting is careful, subtle and original. The challenges from and reactions to Islam are well delineated.
(R. H. Barnes Times Literary Supplement ) 


FOR FURTHER INFO PRODUCT:
Hindu Javanese: Tengger Tradition and Islam

The Help: Kathryn Stockett

• Hardcover: 464 pages
• Publisher: Amy Einhorn Books/Putnam; 1 edition (February 10, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0399155341
• ISBN-13: 978-0399155345
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.9 x 1.7 inches

Southern whites' guilt for not expressing gratitude to the black maids who raised them threatens to become a familiar refrain. But don't tell Kathryn Stockett because her first novel is a nuanced variation on the theme that strikes every note with authenticity. In a page-turner that brings new resonance to the moral issues involved, she spins a story of social awakening as seen from both sides of the American racial divide.

Newly graduated from Ole Miss with a degree in English but neither an engagement ring nor a steady boyfriend, Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan returns to her parents' cotton farm in Jackson. Although it's 1962, during the early years of the civil rights movement, she is largely unaware of the tensions gathering around her town.

Skeeter is in some ways an outsider. Her friends, bridge partners and fellow members of the Junior League are married. Most subscribe to the racist attitudes of the era, mistreating and despising the black maids whom they count on to raise their children. Skeeter is not racist, but she is naive and unwittingly patronizing. When her best friend makes a political issue of not allowing the "help" to use the toilets in their employers' houses, she decides to write a book in which the community's maids -- their names disguised -- talk about their experiences.

Fear of discovery and retribution at first keep the maids from complying, but a stalwart woman named Aibileen, who has raised and nurtured 17 white children, and her friend Minny, who keeps losing jobs because she talks back when insulted and abused, sign on with Skeeter's risky project, and eventually 10 others follow.

Aibileen and Minny share the narration with Skeeter, and one of Stockett's accomplishments is reproducing African American vernacular and racy humor without resorting to stilted dialogue. She unsparingly delineates the conditions of black servitude a century after the Civil War.

The murders of Medgar Evers and Martin Luther King Jr. are seen through African American eyes, but go largely unobserved by the white community. Meanwhile, a room "full of cake-eating, Tab-drinking, cigarette-smoking women" pretentiously plan a fundraiser for the "Poor Starving Children of Africa." In general, Stockett doesn't sledgehammer her ironies, though she skirts caricature with a "white trash" woman who has married into an old Jackson family. Yet even this character is portrayed with the compassion and humor that keep the novel levitating above its serious theme. (Source Review: The Washington Post's Book World/washingtonpost.com Reviewed by Sybil Steinberg)

For Further Info: 

The Help: Kathryn Stockett

What does "Committed's Elizabeth Gilbert" Tell about Marriage?

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Viking Adult; First Edition, First Printing edition (January 5, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0670021652
• ISBN-13: 978-0670021659
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.2 inches

Embarking on writing a major work after the spectacular Eat, Pray, Love, must have been no easy feat. However, undaunted and honest as ever, Elizabeth Gilbert provides an eye-opening and thorough account of the colossal entity we call marriage. We have all grown up accepting marriage as a given. It seems to be taken as common place that people simply grow up and get married- and then (of course) live happily ever after. Or is it that easy?

Not so fast, Gilbert warns us. Do we completely know what we are getting into? What happens to us as independent beings when we marry? What makes a marriage more likely to succeed, and what makes it more likely to fail? What are the economic, social, and legal ties that bind us and do we even understand the significance of them? How are we able to somehow throw love in the mix as well? Extremely timely and pertinent questions with serious implications. Some of the most interesting and thought provoking aspects of the book- a glimpse into the lives of the Hmong women in Asia (who view marriage not as a solution to all of life's problems and seem to have no qualms whatsoever about this), how marriage was viewed by different religions throughout the centuries- not always so 'sacred', and the way marriage has been used to secure money, power, and property throughout history. Quite simply, Gilbert explains this institution has been pulled, prodded, and changed for centuries- yet still it remains. There is something, then that draws us still to marry. Gilbert (thrown rather harshy into marriage by the US government) walks away with a brokered peace with marriage and a deeper understanding of what it means to be married- as she embarks on her own marriage. The reader has a deeper understanding as well.

As a final note, what is more important if not the subject of who we spend our lives with? Who we share our faith, time, children, money, and precious moments with? As a new mother who married five years ago at the age of 24 (I know this puts me into the danger zone :), this book has given me fuller understanding of what it means to be married and coming to respect my own marriage as an imperfect, changing, and totally lovable creature- much like my own baby son. (Quite simply, the white gown and endless talks about the church and reception hall didn't really matter- the chats we had about faith, child-rearing, navigating our political differences, and in-laws definitely mattered.) It has once been said that 'The unexamined life is not worth living.' Gilbert's book suggests that perhaps an unexamined marriage is not worth having- and I'd agree. (KimberlyA)

For Further Info:

Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage

Eat, Pray, Love: Do What Makes You Smile and Thankful for Life

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics); Later Printing edition (January 30, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0143038419
• ISBN-13: 978-0143038412
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.4 x 1 inches

I find it so surprising--reading the angry, negative reviews--that the people who hated the book hated it for exactly the reasons why some steer clear away from the the spiritual-journey-memoir genre. Yes, the author is self-absorbed, yes, she seems to think of only trite stuff, yes, she seems self-indulgent with her problems. And yes, she's allowed. It is after all a book that is positioned to address these things in the author's self; who otherwise would not be searching for something more: more meaning and more appreciation in/of her life.

Here is a woman who shows all the possibly-perceived-as-lacking-substance thoughts of hers and we are throwing tomatoes at her. One thing, she obviously wasn't afraid of that. She wasn't aiming to be coming off as some deeply wise woman but a fumbling girl-woman trying to break out of what she felt was imminent disaster (had she had the baby and delayed her need to find out what she truly wants from her life she might have left not only her husband, but their child, or most probably ending up not leaving out of guilt and becoming crazy instead: exposing her family to that for years; not an uncommon reality). She is not one for anti-depressants, remember.

This memoir falls in the same category as the TV show Sex and the City (of which it was compared to in a review here). Both get trampled for being supposedly superficial, covering the silly plights of city girls who don't know what they want and yet have everything. But this book--as the TV show--actually are part of a wider story that is illiciting reactions from the public because it reflects the transition in which women in the modern world are experiencing: now that we have equality with men professionally, now that we are liberated from all the limitations being a woman dictated two generations ago, how does that affect us? From a distance, in a glance, it seems that women have all the cards to play with now. But this book and many other works by women and/or about women of this generation show that having all those cards does not mean Happiness.

There are still things in society--in regards to a woman's role--that grates. And then there are things within our Modernised, Westernized, Individualized, Ambitious selves, that are lacking.
This is what Miss Gilbert's search is about, and what she represents.
On a collective level, much of the modern world is in search of God, Spirituality (one just needs to walk through bookstores in the US and see the plethora of soul searching self help books on the shelves). This is what needs to be observed and understood as a phenomena in the West; the small voices, small cries, here and there by those who come up with the balls to share their journeys and thoughts with us--no matter how trite-sounding, how shallow-seeming--are part of a collective howl for the meaning of life.

Elizabeth Gilbert's voice is just one of many that calls for recognition as part of a chorus for something that firstly, many women are hollering about, and secondly, humanity in general--humanity in the first world--are crying for: some kind of guidance, indication, that the collective paths we fought for and chose (the best education, career ambitions realised, a certain amount of money needed to live that certain kind of magazine-lifestyle life--which is what Liz Gilbert's life is a reflection of, remember--love in the form of marriage and what society dictates) are truly the things that give us peace and happiness in the infinite sense.

Eat, Pray, Love might not be that deep, wise voice representing the deep, wise journey into the deep, wise self. But this book's packaging and tone, hell, its WORDS, never did say it was. It is a fumbling--almost child-like in its guilelessness--show of the ego's awareness and needs, and its attempt at searching for what many people from all walks of life only wish they could go out and find: THEMSELVES. SELF, being the keyword here. And in this memoir, ultimately, God, being in each of our selves.

To the people who were disappointed that the author didn't seem to give a hoot about India's poverty, they must have not read the book through: Miss Gilbert never ventured out of her ashram and the little village it is located in, after making a decision to further develop her meditation skills and thus skipping the rest of India. She also ignored Italy's corruption with her indulging in good food and focus on learning and enjoying the Italian language. Again, the critics missed the point of this memoir. It's a book about a writer, a New Yorker, a recently-divorced-woman-in-her-early-thirties' journey to heal and find spiritual strength through various means: pleasure first to recover (Italy), spiritual examination and purging (India), combining the two for balance (Bali), which would result hopefully in the kind of substance and depth and balance that so many critics mentioned she lacks.
One doesn't pick this book up to: 1. Be exposed to India's poverty and expect the author to discuss that in depth. 2. Be exposed to Italy's corruption and expect the author to discuss that in depth. 3. Be exposed to Balinese wiles and expect the author to discuss that in depth. (which she actually did in the account of the Balinese woman she raised money for to buy the land the woman needed to build a home).

Next time you pick a book up at the bookstore, call up your powers of perception before purchasing it. A book IS pretty much its cover. Did everyone really expect a book titled "Eat, Pray, Love" A Woman's Search for Everything, to be an experience of religious fervor, one that would reveal the secrets of the universe? It's a story about a girl who thought everything she thought she wanted, would bring her happiness. It didn't. It didn't for her, and possibly not for many other women. If it took this one woman to go to Italy, India, and Indonesia, to get away after a difficult and painful divorce to heal and get perspective--instead of festering and turning into a pile of flesh in depression--then by all means. Yes, she financed her travels through her book advance--after giving away the suburban home and NYC apartment to her ex-husband. And if she wrote this book for us, it's really for us to appreciate and enjoy the ride with her. Anybody else who got so upset needed only to put the book down and pick another one to their taste. If anything, that's this book's lesson: Do what makes you smile and thankful for life. (taniam)

For Further Info:

Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia

Dear John The Best Nicholas Sparks

• Mass Market Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing; Mti edition (December 1, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0446567337
• ISBN-13: 978-0446567336
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.1 x 1 inches

Just as I was about to give up on Nicholas Sparks after reading a string of mediocre novels following his first three blockbuster hits, I decided to give him one more chance. I'm glad I did! This is by far the best book he's written--even better than "The Notebook" and the two that followed, "Message in a Bottle" and "A Walk to Remember." I started reading "Dear John" at 8 PM one evening and couldn't put it down until I finished in the wee hours of the morning. Written in the first person by the young male protagonist, John Tyree, he tells the heartwarming story of his romance with the girl of his dreams--Savannah Lynn Curtis, whom he meets by chance one day on the beach. Their background and personalities are strikingly different, but yet they form an unexplainable bond that grows into a powerful love. Savannah is almost too good to be true, and I kept thinking: "Gee, I wish my son (who is John's age) could meet a girl like that!" I won't go into any details to spoil the plot, which turns out to have many twists and turns--not only involving John's relationship with Savannah but also a heartwarming story concerning John's father, John's time in the service, and his thoughts and emotions in general. This is a beautiful story, and frankly when I finished it left me emotionally drained where I wasn't able to get back to sleep just thinking about it. Not only is "Dear John" an entertaining read, but it was very well written and fast paced with a stirring conclusion. Congratulations to Nicholas Sparks on another winner! (Carole Imes)

For Further Info:

Dear John's Nicholas Sparks

On The Brink, Henry M. Paulson, Jr: Still Ignores a Few Important Factors

• Hardcover: 496 pages
• Publisher: Business Plus (February 1, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0446561932
• ISBN-13: 978-0446561938
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.4 x 1.7 inches 

A book like this should be read only along with books like The Failure of Risk Management: Why It's Broken and How to Fix It or The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable. These books are about the much broader topics of risk management and risk in finance, respectively, but they do put On the Brink in context.

Paulson has written a detailed, blow by blow, narrative account of several specific meetings leading up to and during the financial crisis. Less of the book deals with stepping outside of these meetings to analyze other specific causes, but there is some of that. The reader has to be careful of an attempt by Paulson to recast his own role in a more favorable light, but I haven't seen anything detailed enough to specifically contradict him, yet.

Paulson does mention an interesting and almost complete list of players in this crisis - Freddie, Fannie, Bernanke, Bush, etc. But he is almost silent on some of the more subtle players like the mathematical models that underestimated these risks (Taleb and Hubbard do and excellent job of this). He reiterates throughout the book that the events seemed "impossible" and yet they are events that seem to happen once or twice a century (Especially considering some of the relaxed regulation and oversight that preceeeded it).

He does mention the role of Credit Default Swaps in the crisis but not, say, the Gaussian Copula, Options, or Value at Risk. The use of such methods are at least partly to blame.

The reader has to assume Paulson's agenda of getting history to come out the way that casts him the way he would like to see it. But it is still an excellent account. We should like to see the accounts of Bernanke and Geithner someday and compare them side-by-side. (Jim Galt)

Who is Henry M. Paulson, Jr.

Henry M. Paulson, Jr. served under President George W. Bush as the 74th Secretary of the Treasury from June 2006 until January 2009. Before coming to Treasury, Paulson was Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Goldman Sachs since the firm's initial public offering in 1999. He joined Goldman Sachs Chicago Office in 1974 and rose through the ranks holding several positions including, Managing Partner of the firm's Chicago office, Co-head of the firm's investment Banking Division, President and Chief Operating Officer, and Co-Senior partner. Prior to joining Goldman Sachs, Paulson was a member of the White House Domestic Council, serving as Staff Assistant to the President from 1972 to 1973, and as Staff Assistant to the Assistant Secretary of Defense at the Pentagon from 1970 to 1972. Paulson graduated from Dartmouth in 1968, where he majored in English, was a member of Phi Beta Kappa, and an All Ivy, All East football player. He received an M.B.A. from Harvard in 1970.

More Info, here:

On the Brink: Inside the Race to Stop the Collapse of the Global Financial System