change Books

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I recommend this seller for more items. Seller was reliable and shipped product quickly. I would purchase more items from this seller. Plus, cost was low. :)

Unlike other so-called "self-help" books, What You Can Change and What You Can't* surfaces the root of a range of discussed problems ranging from obsessions & compulsions to alcoholism. What makes this book different and thus invaluable as a "self-improvement" book is the inherent honesty, brought about by scientific scrutiny and the author's intention to provide professional, complete and unbiased assessments on what one can change, and what one cannot.

Whilst numerous other books of this category attempts to instil optimism but does nothing more than skim the surface, this book provides clear scientific details to each condition/disease discussed along with the corresponding treatments available, and how well each works.

Unbiased and very specific, the author is very clear on what to conclude on and mark as definitive and what remains unclear based on the most recent studies available, and the data they yield. When the author exerts a professional opinion, he articulates the reason behind it and provides clear data to support it, which comes across as responsible and confident.

For a category of reading so saturated with ideas that do not much more than skim the surface, I see What You Can Change and What You Can't* as a rare breed that gets to the core of the problem, and hence makes it truly useful in facilitating change and accepting what cannot, yet, be changed.

I don't understand how this book received so many good reviews, unless the author has a lot of friends who shop at Amazon.

I'll keep this short. If you're looking for help, you won't find it here. If you like outdated rhetoric, this is the book for you. For example, the author explains that one of the four cures "that work" for depression is electro-shock therapy. The last time I heard of someone actually receiving electro-shock therapy was forty years ago.

In another section, the author spends several pages explaining that depression is more prevalent now than it was fifty years ago. Is there anyone on earth who doesn't know that?

In short, please don't waste your money on this drivel! There's nothing new here, the author can't write a readable sentence, and the print is small and dark and smudgy. A difficult and useless read.

Martin Seligman first came to notice for his introduction of the concept of learned helplessness, which has given birth to the practice of cognitive therapy. Here he addresses psychological problems ranging from unipolar and bipolar depression to phobias and evaluates the merits of several types of treatment for each.

One might expect him always to recommend cognitive therapy for each problem, but he does not. He is consistently objective and humble. Moreover, his prose is clear, concise, and frequently witty, and this book his stimulated me to a great deal of additional thought, both about the things with which I immediately agreed and some things about which I disagree somewhat.

The self-improvement industry spends billions to convince people that their psychological and physical problems are fixable. The magazine covers at the checkout counter extol the latest miracle diet, but most of the people in line with you are overweight. Seasoned mental-health professional and former president of the American Psychological Association, Martin E. P. Seligman, Ph.D., has bad news for the seriously overweight: Diets don't work. Plus, he tells alcoholics and people with deep-seated emotional afflictions, there are no definitive cures for them. He notes, however, that a large minority of alcoholics do recover, though no approach is guaranteed. Seligman, whose views have generated both gratitude and controversy, details which psychological problems are treatable and which are not. His candid attitude is laudable and his advice seems well-informed, if perhaps generalized. If you've gotten thin, you've beaten the odds. Meanwhile, he recommends that people learn to live bravely with daunting emotional issues they cannot completely master - because, he says, mastery probably isn't possible. getAbstract finds this treatise about what is and isn't fixable both sobering and valuable.

First off, this book is very good.
Martin Seligman, ever the excellent research psychologist provides an overview over the big mental diseases and disorders. From everyday anxiety to panic attacks, phobias, obsessive-compulsive disorders to depression, post-traumatic stress disorder to sexual disorders, overweight and alcoholism Seligman has reviewed the literature and provides concise advice on what works for each condition and what does not. In between he mentions VERY interesting research results and historic developments in the treatment of psychological ills. These newest findings have changed his opinions as well. While in his 1993 Bestseller "Learned Optimism" he still supported the more behaviorist approaches of f.e. pessimism - the primary risk factor for later-life depression - being conditioned through "bad role modeling" by parent's dealing with adverse events (which could be UNLEARNED), he now, due to identical-twin studies, attributes virtually all mental disorders to heritability.
In a fascinating account on pages 39ff. ("Your genes and your personality") a picture of the human being as an essentially inflexible biological machine emerges, whose innate mental tendencies towards for instance anger, anxiety or depression can be at most mitigated by therapy and medication, but never cured.
Albeit I - as I'm sure he'd want to - stress that heritability in all twin-studies accounted for at most 50% probability that the personality trait of a parent would be present in the child. Incredible for example is the genetic link for criminal behavior in children and biological parents vs. adoptive parents.

But I have two points of criticism:
What I find very likeable about Seligman is that, as he pointed out in "Learned optimism" as well as this book, he is really a innate pessimist.
As such, I think he, like another reviewer here, paints a too bleak of a picture of the treament efficacies.
For starters I seriously question his claim that depression treatment works only in 2/3 of patients. I'd really guess it's more like ¾.
Second of all, he thinks it's a real disappointment, that drugs and therapy don't cure.

Why did anybody ever think you could DISCONTINUE mental treatments after time.
Why do people pray for divine help 5 times every day and incessantly go to church on Sundays.
Obviously mental issues are deeply engrained into the brain physiology. These disorders are not outside invaders that could be cast out by drugs or therapy. They are construction flaws in one's mind that must be steadily contained through long-term treatment as long as there is no such thing as "psycho-surgery".

Also i got the impression except for alcoholism and overweight he unduly plays down the improvements on many of the treatments. Be it OCD, depression, everyday anxiety or especially PTSD, whose improvements he describes as "marginal" these "marginal" improvements can mean the difference between suicide and a bearable, even content existence in many people. But of course he is right to point out, that whatever of these conditions you have, they're never gonna go completely away, and relapses are common. "But you can still manage", I would add to that.

Bottom line is, if you got any of the above disorders this is a good book. If you want more of as the title suggests a "successful guide to self-improvement" go with "Three-minute therapy" by Michael Edelstein. He covers also less pathological issues like money problems, dealing with overeating and smoking, depression, anger, panic, (social) anxieties, chronic worrying and even procrastination. Very good self-help book.
Seligman's is more like a reference book.

Book received in excellent condition and in timely manner. I would recommend using this site to other parents buying textbooks.

In this clarion call to arms, eminent scientist James Lovelock warns us cogently and eloquently of the impending doom that we have forced upon our planet by global warming. Lovelock is well-qualified to offer such gloomy predictions; it was this extremely versatile scientist who in the 1960s and 70s proposed the idea of Gaia, the notion that the earth is a self-regulating organism whose regulatory mechanisms are intimately coupled to the activities of species in its biosphere. One species- man- has tilted the balance of these mechanisms and thrown them into disarray. The species that will pay the biggest price for this deed is also man himself. Through careful speculation and excellent scientific arguments about details, he rationalized this notion until it has now become widely accepted.

Lovelock's premier argument is that global warming (which he amusingly always refers to as "global heating") has already rendered our planet incapable of the self-regulation that it has admirably demonstrated for millennia. The temperature rises which global warming are going to bring about are beyond those which the earth can endure in a homeostatic manner, and its catastrophic effects are likely going to manifest within decades. There is a horrific precedent for believing this; the same kinds of temperature rises fifty five million years ago led to catastrophic mass extinctions and sea-level rises, inducing an ice age that lasted 200,000 years. We are in danger of inducing such a global pandemic by our efforts right now. The most serious manifestation of man-made global warming is in positive feedback. Two examples suffice; the well-known melting of ice which leads to less reflection of sunlight which leads to more melting, and the heating of the upper layers of the ocean that kills algae. These algae are crucial players in maintaining cooling by the emission of sulfur compounds that serve to reflect sunlight from clouds. Lovelock documents both these effects well as well as others that are resulting from the 'double whammy' that we are serving our planet; simultaneously emitting CO2 and depriving the earth of biomass that normally absorbs it.

While the first part of the book describes Gaia and how it's been affected irreversibly by global warming, the second part basically deals with the muddle headed perceptions of energy, food sources and environmentalism that affect many in the political establishment and media, most prominently environmentalists themselves.

There is clearly a rift between environmentalists that threatens to slow down action against climate change. One section, unfortunately the bigger one, is the more vocal one consisting of organizations like Greenpeace, who have a wrong-headed and irrational perception of environmentalism. They tout phrases like "sustainable development" and "renewables" without really understanding their limitations. They participate in emotion-laden protests and demonstrations just to prove their point. Their environmentalism mainly deals with trying to save cuddly creatures and colorful birds in remote parts of the world, while there are organisms much more in need of saving, including the microorganisms and algae which play extremely crucial roles in maintaining the homeostasis of Gaia.

The second group of environmentalists is a minority, and Lovelock is one of them. They understand that global warming has already done its damage and our goal now should not be mainly "sustainable development" but "sustainable retreat". They understand that much more important than saving a few endangered species in New Guinea is to prevent deforestation and use of more landmass even in developing countries. They know that debate about saving the environment cannot be dictated by emotion. Most importantly they understand that nuclear energy is the best short-term and perhaps long-term solution for our energy needs.

When it comes to energy sources that we should pursue, Lovelock's thesis is clear and rational. Renewables (solar, wind, biofuels) may sometime make a dent in the energy equation, but renewables are not going to save us soon enough. The phrase soon enough is important here. Lovelock is a reasonable man and does not discard renewables entirely. The problem is in trying to find good energy sources as fast as we can. But each one of the renewables is currently fraught with problems of inefficiency, environmental unfriendliness and lack of scale-up plans. Solar panels are expensive and inefficient. Wind farms consume huge tracts of land, land on which forestation usually soaks up carbon dioxide, and in addition need back up from fossil fuel generators when the wind is not blowing. Biofuels struggle with maintaining energy balances and pose similar land-use problems. It will be at least 50 years before renewables make a significant contribution to our energy needs and their use becomes cheap and widespread. But by that time it will be too late. The single-most important factor here is time.

The answer is clear and rational; especially for the short term future, nuclear power is the most efficient, readily available, widely-implementable, environment-friendly and safe source of power. Even if the problem of waste disposal is not trivial, it pales in comparison with the benefits we will incur, and especially the catastrophe that we will find ourselves in if we don't do it.

While Lovelock hopes fusion will become important soon, fission is currently our best bet. We already have the technology unlike that for renewables. Its efficiency is marvelous- a good numerical argument to keep in mind is this; global CO2 emissions for a year make up a mountain that is a mile in diameter and sixteen miles in height, a behemoth. In contrast all the nuclear fuel providing power for a year will constitute a cube that is sixteen meters on a side. It was Lovelock's espousal for nuclear power that represented a break from the 'green' party line. But now, nuclear is going to be as green as we can think of. To stave off fears of nuclear waste, Lovelock has even offered to bury the waste from a nuclear reactor in his backyard and use its energy for heating his house. In addition to these facts, Lovelock also clearly describes the paranoia that the public has for nuclear power, while all the time they face risks and dangers much more damaging and insidious.

One very cogent point that Lovelock makes is about how religious faith has caused problems in enabling our stewardship of the planet. He correctly points out that all religious texts were written at a time when man and his life were the focus. At very few places in the Bible or the Koran or even the Eastern texts is there an emphasis on the planet. None of the major world religions put nature before man. Now however, emphasizing man is going to be meaningless unless we emphasize Gaia, because without Gaia we won't be around. There need to be new "religious" principles, infusing the care and stewardship of the planet into children's minds, instead of the narrow self-serving interests of man that will become irrelevant once the sea-levels rise or the North Atlantic current slows down.

The same factor- time- that makes a good argument against renewables, also makes the strongest argument against libertarian "solutions" to climate change. Libertarians argue that the free market will eventually find solutions to the climate change problem without government intervention. But even if this solution might work in principle, 'eventually' is not going to be soon enough, good enough for us. We may have a little more than 20 years to beat a respectable retreat. For that we need legislation against carbon emissions, against use of oil for transportation, against land use right now. The libertarian approach may have worked 50 years ago when we had time. Thinking about renewable sources could have saved us if we had begun 200 years ago. But now even if these solutions work, they almost certainly will come too late to save us. As they say, "operation successful, but the patient is dead". To save the patient in time, we are going to inevitably have to make compromises, sacrifice at least some of our freedom to large scale government actions. We have to operate now in a manner reminiscent of how we operate in wartime. In times of legitimate (and in these times I stress the word 'legitimate') war, citizens don't complain about sacrificing freedom because they know their lives depend on it. Now Lovelock says we face a similar scenario.

On the downside. Lovelock makes some statements which I think should be better referenced. For example, I would not completely trust his contention that most of the cancers that we are going to die from are caused by our breathing oxygen. While oxygen certainly can produce free radicals and cause damage, such a significant role should be more firmly supported by evidence.

It is very difficult to find wholesome solutions to climate change. We seem to have now done a good job of recognizing the problem in the first place. But unfortunately it's too late to implement quick fixes that will wake us up from this nightmare when we will find that everything is all right. In an age where politicians are pushing for more oil drilling, rapid action and awareness is essential. We have to beat a retreat and live to fight another day, unlike Napoleon in Russia in 1812. For that we need coherent and rational thinking and global fixes, with all the compromises that they might entail. Going nuclear, and perhaps even indulging in grandiose fixes like "space reflectors" which reflect sunlight from miles-wide arrays, may be possibilities. Lovelock sounds an alarm in his book that is backed up by evidence and grim prognostication. Gaia will do whatever it takes to establish her equilibrium, equilibrium that's inherent in the laws of her physics and chemistry, equilibrium that will be established even if it means the loss of humanity. As a pithy line in an X-Files episode once put it, "You can't turn your back on nature, or nature will turn her back on you". It's simple.

James Lovelock is one of the most brilliant thinkers alive. Yet The Revenge of Gaia is a book of contradiction. If you read it in public, you will look up and around you wondering, "Why is everyone wasting what precious time we have left?" You will also have to stifle the urge to throw the thing, with its poor scholarship, lack of source material, insistent repetition, and gaps in logic, clear across the room.

Lovelock begins, predictably, with a definition of Gaia, and likens the condition of Gaia to that of a sick body. Lovelock is at his most eloquent here and issues a warning: We may have had time to right our wrongs gradually in the past, but now we no longer have time for gradualness. The sickened state of Gaia will seek a new equilibrium if it can no longer abide its current condition. This means, of course, that civilization might have to go the way of a nasty virus.

It is upon this foundation of urgency and illness that Lovelock prescribes his solution. It is a messy, incomplete and irresponsible one: he advocates a replacement of current energy sources with nuclear power, arguing that it is our only viable alternative to destruction.

Lovelock's arguments against other possible energy sources are important in spirit, but not conclusion. His primary problem with renewable energy is that it is "expensive". Given what we are faced with, why does Lovelock defer to such economic trappings? Perhaps the expense adds what he perceives to be a "get real" dimension to his argument. But it is unrealistic to base our future on the make-believe demands of the current economic system which, after all, has contributed much to this mess in the first place.

Furthermore, such a feeble argument distracts from the actual problems with solar panels, wind, and nuclear power. That is, we need oil to build the alternative energy sources, and the oil just isn't there. Oil dependency in production, plastics, transportation, mining, and so forth makes it unlikely that we shall find an exit door to a world powered by other sources of energy anytime soon. It's wishful thinking to believe that industry and government will give up their routines to supply oil for a cleaner, healthier world. Shortly after September 11th, Vice President Dick Cheney said, "The American way of life is non-negotiable." In the context of resource wars and dwindling oil supply, one can see exactly where this desperate stubbornness emerges from. We are unlikely to divert oil to alternative energy sources because to do so would mean depleting oil from, say, Disneyland.

Lovelock's portrayal of nuclear power is sloppy, and leaves out crucial contextual information. He bolsters his case for nuclear power by writing that it is not actually a health risk. Whether this is true or not is difficult to say, since Lovelock does not source much of his basis for stating this. The mining of uranium is conspicuously absent from The Revenge of Gaia, probably because its inclusion would reveal what a wasteful and polluting process it is, since it is dependent on fossil fuels, including oil. Similarly, the construction of nuclear plants is absent.
Even more notably absent is the uranium extraction processes. Lovelock should have responsibly included this in his book. Since most of the uranium on the planet is in low-grade ores (that is, substances that contain small percentages of uranium), and not in the dwindling sources of high-grade ores, a complicated extraction process is needed.

"...162 tons of natural uranium must be extracted from the earth's crust each year to fuel one nuclear power plant. If the uranium is in granite ore, with a low-grade uranium concentration of 4 grams per ton of rock (0.0004%), then 40 million tons of granite will need to be mined. This rock will need to be ground into fine powder and chemically treated with sulphuric acid and other chemicals to extract the uranium from the rock (milling). Assuming an extraction capacity of 50% (an unrealistically high estimate), 80 million tons of granite will therefore need to be treated...The extraction of uranium from this granite rock would consume over thirty times the energy generated in the reactor from the extracted uranium." (p. 7-8, H. Caldicott, Nuclear Power is Not the Answer, New York, 2006. The New Press)

Lovelock's ignorance of context puts him in the Wired magazine crowd - those who optimistically praise technological innovation without acknowledging social, economic, environmental, or political considerations.
Scientists, particularly British ones, are often fond of stating that "is doesn't mean ought." In other words, "this is just the way it is, I wish it weren't this way." But the same scientists that make such is/ought divisions are nearly always proscriptive in the social realm. Lovelock's sense of how things are deeply derails his judgment. He calls "fancy birds and cuddly animals" (i.e. rainforest dwellers) "dandies...doing little of the hard work needed to keep Gaia going." (p. 111) He uses this as an excuse for burying nuclear waste beneath the floor of rainforests! This is a bit like a wealthy congressman accusing single mothers of abusing welfare. These "fancy" plants and animals are expressions of and key players in vital ecosystems. Would that western humanity could say the same. Lovelock has written a grand book of ought, framing it as a book of is. His tone is imperative and pretends to be sober. But we ought not extract uranium, store radioactive waste in the rainforest, or forget that all organisms have their own purposes, lives, and desires separate from our own.

We find in Lovelock's recommendations his Eurocentric, anthropocentric views distilled for us. Basically, people who have caused a grave imbalance in Gaian regulation should stop worrying about the human and non-human beings that can't assist in a technological fix for the problem. Western civilization needs to take care of itself only, because most other beings of the planet (with the exception, perhaps, of bacteria), aren't going to do any work like westerners to rebalance the planet. It's pure utilitarianism.

This view is echoed again and again in Lovelock's ignorance and disregard for non-western cultures. Lovelock happily champions the meadows of England against what appears to me to be his fabricated enemies, the rabid, power-hungry, windpower lobby. If windpower activists and corporations have their way, Lovelock would not be able to take walks in the countryside or manicured yards. One wonders where he thinks uranium will come from. Since over one half of uranium deposits are under Navajo and Pueblo tribal land (H. Caldicott, p. 48), the destruction of indigenous land is guaranteed if Lovelock's advice is followed. Lovelock hasn't thought about or doesn't care about this as much as he does well-trimmed lawns. There are other dark shades here of anti-indigenous sentiment, particularly when Lovelock insists that "tribal behavior is surely written in the language of our genetic code" (p. 9 - evidence, please?), and then immediately makes the not-so-logical jump that tribal behavior is the cause of genocide.

If Lovelock would do more research on indigenous peoples, he would see that many indigenous societies were less destructive and more egalitarian then our own. He hasn't done his research, and speculates toward the end of the book that Australian aboriginies "destroyed the natural forests of the Australian continent". He offers no suggestions as to how the aboriginies are now so adapted to desert living, nor how they survived for tens of thousands of years with an apparently unbroken culture after having so traumatically destroyed their landscape. We have something to learn from these cultures about how to live without destroying our environment and landbase utterly.

Part of the lesson is that we should NOT seek to preserve civilization as it is. No matter what form of power we use, if we continue to consume, dominate, and pollute the world, we are doomed.

Tyler Volk, in his review of The Revenge of Gaia for Nature, griped that Lovelock was pushing the Gaia metaphor too hard, and that doing so wouldn't help us out of our predicament, it would only confuse us and misguide our science. But this criticism strikes me also as woefully misguided. Of all the things to choose from, why did Volk have issue with the idea that the Earth was alive?

Both James Lovelock and Tyler Volk are incorrect in their assessments of Gaia. Volk argues that Lovelock's metaphor has gone too far, and thus becomes not useful for understanding climate change. Lovelock argues that the Gaia metaphor helps us to understand environmental problems on a larger scale. Both are wrong in assuming that Gaia is a metaphor at all. They characterize Gaia is something somehow separate from its parts, and thus fall into an odd monotheism. For them, Gaia is an angry God, detached from its components. But what is Gaia if not the very earthworms and bacteria, birds of paradise and tree kangaroos, algal blooms and granite, westerners and indigenous? Gaia is a hidden awareness that evinces itself through the actions of all its parts, and emerges through weather, climate, salinity, clouds, atmospheric gasses.

It is precisely the intentionality of Gaia that will lead us to better mediation of science and everyday action. Since dull, dead functionalism and reduction has led us down this destructive path, it is a view of the world as animate that will lead us out. It is necessary to understand Gaia by abandoning our reductionism - whether it be a reduction to chemicals, metaphors, or planets - and instead see Gaia present in every living thing. By doing this, we will finally be able to understand both the whole and the parts without reduction. It is also necessary to abandon the fantasy that industrial culture can ever hope to live in accordance with Gaia and to abandon the dream of sustaining unsustainable industrial culture by imposing a hopeless, dangerous, and thoughtless stopgap. We must change our perception of the is. Then, maybe, the ought will change as well.

For all his impressive curriculum, Mr. Lovelock seems much more interested here in vindicating his achievements than in advancing his views on the future of Nature.

He has got some very interesting arguments and reasonings, but the value of the book is terribly depleted by his simplifications and deliberate obscuring of reality, if not worse. Such a well informed scientist must be aware of many of the mendacities he slips in his books (like his gross misinterpretation of mortality due to nuclear radiation statistics) but he seems to chose effect over truth, probably in the name of the greater good of Gaia.

What he doesn't like he rejects peremptorily. (wind mills breaking the verticality of air????) But only an Englishman would suggest to substitute synthetic stuff for real food. We know it doesn't make a hell of a difference in the Islands but what about us, the rest of humans.

The problem with this kind of illuminated scientists is that they are virtual dictators. They know better than the world and anyway, there's no time for discussion, so everybody do like I say. If I was wrong, well, there was nothing to loose, you were all doomed, anyway. And you will be better off with a few simplified facts I'll provide you with than having to think by yourselves.

Considering his shameless bragging about the importance of his doublessly great inventions, one is tempted to think that his pronuclear stance is only his way to be (even) more épatant.

Anyway, the book has rich food for thought and simplification does have some merits, so there go three stars for the short gentleman at the back yes, the one with the white hair.

This book was bought for my husband. He liked it very much. He had borrowed it from the library and wanted his own copy.

Bad science incorrect facts and statistics underpinned by the ludicrous Gaia hypothesis . Luckily I will be around to see that he will be as wrong about the nature , magnitude and likely future impacts of Global Warming as he was in the 1970's about Global Cooling . A complete waste of money !

I had used this book with a course I had taken in college. It is very interesting if you are unfamilair with urban problems. If you are slightly familiar(by living in the city) it is still informative if you have a good teacher.

Took this book due to requirements of a course but found myself very engrossed to finish the book beyond course requirements. Author presents very diverse issues and perspectives to issues in urban life. There is a lot of appreciation to the cityscape in political and economic terms. It just makes you feel like these are things you see everyday in a city but fail to see why before this book. It's like peering into a painting and finally understanding how the artist created it. This is looking at your neighbourhood and realising the forces that shape the way your city look and feels like. Buy it!

I read this book and then let my friends read it. It is a great book full of perspectives contradictory to 21st century American thought. It is full of truths which will bring an individual pathways to peace.

Outstanding work offering insight into some of life's "misconceptions". David Richo not only constructs his work on these insights but also guides us to embrace issues that might previously been seen as "life's disappointments". He portrays his "five givens" as challenges that we will face and introduces the rather radical approach that they are not negatives. He shows that by resisting these "givens" we set ourselves up for sorrow, disappointment, and frustration. He walks us through a process of learning how to truly accept and embrace them as necessary for our personal quest for growth and happiness. He mixes modern psychology and Eastern spirituality in order to teach the reader how to find fulfillment and joy by accepting concepts that we often deny and oppose.

Wish I had read it decades ago. Will definitely improve the quality of decades to come.

I'm not one to read self-help or psychological tomes but I'm going through a very painful surprise divorce and am seeking positive healing wherever I can. Dave Richo's book is one that puts a loving spin on all the challenges of life. Never saying it will be easy but that our higher powers and/or friend support and/or therapists will be there to help us get through to the benefits awaiting on the other side of the pain. The constant suggestions of peaceful, non-retributive, loving and compassionate thoughts and centering beliefs helped me know that I have a better opportunity to be the person I want to be now that this pain has 'pushed me through the door' to actualize my life.

I am buying several copies of the book to share with my friends and adult children so that they too have the chance to be reminded that love, compassion, peace, and caring are the real meaningful gifts we can share with ourselves and others. I hope you'll read this book, too, and find the helpful tools for getting through challenges and turning them into that which makes us stronger and potentially happier.

David Richo is one of the most straightforward and wise writers on self help I've ever read. By combining the timeless wisdom of the East, particularly Buddhism and Taoism, with contemporary Western psychology, he offers wisdom far more valuable, useful and honest than most of the current temporary feel-good fads that offer little in the way of real substance.
For those who want to continue to live in a fantasy world where all their dreams and wishes come true if they only work hard enough and believe hard enough, this book might be a surprising pin prick in their dream world bubble. The good news is, by accepting reality the way it really is rather than how we want it to be, we are in tune with life and thus face far less difficulties than those who continue to struggle against reality.
Reality always wins. Get used to it. This book can help.

I enjoy Joan Anderson's books. I felt A Year by the Seas was the better of these two books.

Joan Anderson shares her wealth of experiences to gain a different lifestyle for one's self.
The book provides many useful stages to work through that sets your life into a pathway that pleases yourself and breaking away from being a people pleaser & forgetting what one's own dreams are.
The book does this in a pleasing gentle way & it is also where many woman are after family have grown & one's life's work seems to be over but we ask what now ...
Loved A Year by The Sea by the same author.

Joan Anderson, the gifted author of "A year by the sea" and "A walk on the beach" has written yet another book that speaks to the heart and soul of every woman who has reached a crossroads in her life.

This book is an outline of her weekend retreats at Cape Cod. In it she shares not only her program and thoughts, but also the experiences of participants and exercises that the reader can do at home. The exercises are more than thought provoking (never ending crossroads), revealing (the calendar exercise), and renewing (The self and others circle). They are indeed the road map back to your true and authentic self.

If you have gone through a divorce, death, loss of job, empty nest, or are just wondering 'what next?' this book is an invaluable compass to aid you in seeing options and new directions. To quote her dear friend Joan Erickson, "We do not receive wisdom - we discover it for ourselves after a journey through the wilderness."

Joan Anderson does not seek to give you the answers, but to help you discover the questions within yourself. Her writing is encouraging, honest and perhaps most important, heartfelt. You can't go wrong buying this book for yourself or as a gift for a friend.

I'm not a big fan of self-help books and am pretty cautious in my response to readings like this. A Weekend to Change Your Life, however is one of the true exceptions I've had the pleasure to read. The author is not preaching or in any way a know-it-all but she challenges very basic feelings and emotions in each and every person, whether we admit to them or not. And in going thru her exercises we are drawn into trying her suggestions and digging deep into our souls to see why we do so many of the things we do. The author has deep, deep respect for the uniqueness and value of every emotion and individual. She doesn't judge or ever try to criticize or downgrade. She teaches us acceptance and deeper understanding of whatever is causing our innermost private thoughts and feelings. It's truly a treasure and one that I highly recommend for every woman, no matter how old. I readily admit that one of the feelings I deal with most often is that "I'm too old; I'm 73 years old; I'd like to do this or that, but I don't have enough time left to start now, etc." Nonsense! Joan Anderson has prompted me to try, even at this ripe old age to at the very least try and to live each day left to maximum fullillment and satisfaction. !

It is a sad reality that so many people have their identities molded by the wants and needs of others. And I think that few would dispute that this is more likely to happen to women. There are powerful social and perhaps biological reasons why this might be. But the important point is that there are millions of people who are not fulfilling their potential. And there are many men who are stuck in the same bind.

We are all combinations not just of male and female biology but also of a set of identities that together form our sense of self. There is very good evidence that the female sense of self is closely related to her relationships, while the male sense of self is usually more closely linked to achievement. Though there are clearly personal and cultural variations, the implication is that most men and most women will likely find different techniques of healing and integration to be effective for each of them.

This is a terrific book in which Joan Anderson shares some of the exercises and activities that she has developed to encourage change and growth. One of her models is based on the work of the German-born psychoanalyst Erik Erikson, who delineated eight stages of life from infancy to old age. Joan suggests listing the gains and losses from each phase in order to help us identify our personal strengths. This is a fine example of drawing strength from the natural reversals that we all experience and using them to develop resilience. She also guides us to other exercises and techniques that make very good sense, and some of which I've found very useful, despite having a Y-chromosome!

So while designed to help women, this is also a book for men who want or need to learn more about their feminine nature, and who care about the women in their lives.

This is a book that is practical, wise and compassionate.

Highly recommended.


Richard G. Petty, MD, author of Healing, Meaning and Purpose: The Magical Power of the Emerging Laws of Life

By far the best discussion of the 2004 election, and one of the best books on postwar electoral politics.

Mark Homan is my teacher so I'm a little biased. His book is very straight-forward, easy to read, and funny. It is definitely a must-read if you are going into the Social Services field. A lot of what Mark talks about in his books are common sense, but they are things that people don't generally spend a lot of time thinking about. Mark uses his 25+ years of experience to give us a lot of valuable advise.

I have been an avid follower of David Maister's for over 20 years and he keeps on chugging out gems. This latest work is no exception. Get it, read it, learn from it!

David Maister did it again. For any CEO of a small business make sure you read Chapter 18.

Although Maister is writing for and about professional services companies, I think his ideas about strategy apply to almost any type of business. The "Fat Smoker" analogy is memorable, and it means that we don't always do what we know is good for us, even when it comes to running a business. In order to achieve great results, we have to break the old habits that have kept us in the same old ruts. Most of the book concentrates on ways we can develop the right attitude toward our own work, interact more effectively with co-workers, and build inspired, cohesive organizations. For some people, this book will be like preaching to the converted. But for business leaders and professionals who think the individual is more important that the organization, or who lead by intimidation, it will be a challenging read. Although Maister has an easy to read style, there is nothing easy about his ideas. He shares great wisdom obviously the result of long years grappling with organizational problems at a high level.

David Maister's newest book, Strategy and the Fat Smoker; Doing What's Obvious But Not Easy, is a good one if not a cohesive one. Written in a very engaging style, packed with stories that illustrate the point, it is both an easy read and a thought-provoking collection. While it is not a seamless, chapter-building-on-chapter "how-to-do-it," it is full of individual sections that independently are brilliant. The first section alone (on strategy in general) has several great takeaways. Particularly if you are building a personal services company, this is a very handy resource.

Maister gets a lot right: appeal to an employee's own needs, not the greater corporate good(more work, less support makes for a bad rallying cry); embrace a relationship mentality in business deverlopment not a transaction on(as he bluntly puts it, go for romance and not a one night stand although many talk the first but do the second); understand that all can be rainmakers if you speak to their needs and intererests first with the money a nice side benefit, a consequence and not a motivator. His chapter on law firms is disheartening.He says that they are so different from other PSFs that they need their own chapter. His analysis:"(law firms are made up of)bands of warlords,each with his or her followers,ruling over a group of cowed citizens and acting in temporary alliance---until a better opportunity comes along." Beacuse of billing pressures, he says many partners hoard the work that needs to be pressed down. A final point, and one I disagree with---he seems to suggest that PSFs must only cater to the elite clients and there is no room for commodity work. Yet it is the commodity work which trains newer employees and, at times, fills in the dry periods between the more margin filled engagements.