Factor

Dr. Facchini's new book "The Iron Factor of Aging" (Publ. Fenestra Books, 2002) will surely cause a lot of professionals to rethink what is good dietary advice on how to live a long and healthy life. Facchini asserts--with a huge amount of circumstantial evidence to back him up--that excess iron in the diet from many sources in inadvisable. In fact, his view of the matter would suggest that we ought to be preferably in a state of near iron deficiency all the time. That is not the advice you'd get from most dieticians. Most red-meat based diets contain an abundance of iron. Iron, it seems, is a very effective catalyst for a number of deleterious reactions producing reactive oxygen species, also known as "free radicals." These negatively affect the integrity -and therefore function- of our structural proteins, enzymes, our energy producing centers, our genetic material, and especially the fats and molecules of our cellular membranes. All these attacks almost certainly lead to what people call "aging." What can we do about it? Dr. Facchini makes some strong dietary suggestions that may lead to longer, healthier lives. 1) Eat a lot less red-meat, 2) eat a large variety of uncooked vegetables, 3) eat most fruits sparingly (see page 146-147), 4) drink high tannin containing beverages like red wine and tea, 5) eat soy products, and 6) use olive oil preferably. Whether laymen or scientist, Dr. Facchini has written a very readable book, and makes a credible case for his ideas. I would be surprised if he hasn't hit upon a major explanation of why and how we age, and what we can do to slow it down a pace. An excellent read, and highly recommended.

Before you elect to try human growth hormone or coral calcium or any of those other bogus products that falsely promise to produce longevity and youthfulness, read the compelling work of Dr. Francesco S. Facchini. His book THE IRON FACTOR OF AGING provides the information you need to understand the universal factor that accelerates or slows down aging --- iron. The recommendations in Dr. Facchini's well-documented book are beyond debate. It is unequivocal that females outlive males and have less disease throughout history by virtue of their monthly loss of iron via menstruation. Simply said, rust accumulates in the body and worsens all disease processes and applies the gas pedal to the speed of aging. This book is a quick read and one that will change readers lives. --Bill Sardi, Knowledge of Health, Inc.

When this book was written, the winds of change for companies were just beginning to blow hard. Competition was getting tougher and coming from more places. Customers were becoming harder to please. Rapid changes in business environments created great dislocations. The enormous task of making enterprises more efficient was in its early stages. Many laggard companies were starting to show up.

The prior business concept had been to find a good way to deliver goods and services, gain market share, and make that concept ever more efficient. As business conditions became more turbulent, it became more important to adapt to the conditions than to make the existing concept more refined.

Professor Kotter quickly realized that leadership would be a much more important function in responding to such an environment. In this book, he focused on the new leadership tasks, better ways to get them accomplished, and how to strengthen and deepen leadership.

Although this is a conceptual book, its imaginings are solidly based in empirical research. 150 managers from 40 firms were interviewed about leadership subjects. Over 900 top-level executives reponded to a questionnaire about leadership, and how to make it more effective. Fifteen companies were studied for best practices. Five corporations were used as examples of how to improve in attracting, developing, and retaining leadership.

What does he mean by leadership? "For the purposes of this book, leadership is defined as the process of moving a group (or groups) in some direction through mostly noncoercive means."

What are the pressures that create the need for more leadership? Professor Kotter focuses on globalization of competition, deregulation, maturation of markets, increasing speed of technology changes, more rapid growth of firms, greater diversification in some companies, international expansion, and increased use of advanced technology.

He proposes the roles of effective leaders in complex organizations as being (1) creating an agenda for change that fits the circumstances and (2) building a strong implementation network (which will include having more leaders throughout the organization). He contrasts this with the classic role of the internal entrepreneur in that the effective leader reaches out to integrate with as many aspects of the internal and external environment as possible, while the internal entrepreneur seeks to be shut off from the rest of the organization. Lee Iacocca at Chrysler is used as an example of what he means about effective leadership.

Effective leaders need a lot of capabilities including: broad industry and organizational knowledge, solid relationships throughout the firm and industry, a superb reputation and track record in a variety of roles and activities, strong interpersonal skills, a keen mind, high integrity, and lots of self-motivation and energy. The importance of all these elements is conveyed through examples of those who do poorly because they lack some of these characteristics.

Seeing how difficult it is to acquire these characteristics, Professor Kotter quickly points out that these will mostly need to be developed. And he finds that the companies with the most effective leadership make that an important agenda item (with the CEO's active support) in attracting, developing, retaining, and motivating high potential leadership candidates. Although the book does not talk about G.E. in this regard, the process that G.E. put in under Jack Welch in the last 15 years certainly fits the Kotter concept.

He sees that a company needs a combination of a sophisticated recruiting effort, an attractive work environment, lots of challenging opportunities, early identification of top candidates and their development needs, and providing appropriate development opportunities as equal parts of a successful system.

Although the book is 12 years old, it lacks few elements for being fully up-to-date. The best thinking today would add the importance of aligning leadership candidates and the corporate values and vision. Advanced leaders today have great skills in raising capital inexpensively (which is not mentioned here). The best leaders of tomorrow will be very adept at creating an environment in which business models are constantly transformed into better ones. That too is missing here. I graded the book down for missing these elements.

But do be aware that, in the areas covered, this book is just as timely as when it first came out. Anyone who enjoyed Professor Kotter's book, Leading Change, will get solid benefit from The Leadership Factor, as well.

After you finish this book, I suggest that you consider what will be the critical leadership tasks of tomorrow that are mostly unrecognized today. By identifying those areas for your organization, you can begin to fill the gaps now. That will be an important way to create a continuous advantage for your organization over its competitors in the future. In that search, let me suggest that you think about ways to make leadership easier, because it is getting tougher. That suggests, perhaps, that other aspects of the organization need to take up the slack and do more. Consider the ideas in Zero Time to get you started in this thinking. I have also proposed using a company vision that does not require changes in the company business model. What else can be done? I'm sure you'll come up with even better and more relevant ideas to best fit your organization.

As a young, aggressive manager, this book helped me make breakthrough improvements for my (former) employer, Eastman Kodak Company. As a result I got promotions, raises, etc. It is only 161 pages, made its points consisely and convincingly, and I profited immensely.

The story of Max Factor as he rose from Russian immigrant to Hollywood royalty-the man who brought glamour to the stars and regular folks alike with the invention of pancake makeup, no fade lipstick and the idea that makeup should fit a woman's coloring. (He had rooms in his store for blondes, brownettes, brunettes and redheads-all color coded and enhanced to work with the skin tones of the women in each category!) The star of this book is definitely the photographs, however. Make-up test shots, his early years in Russia, wig making contraptions, print ads of the stars endorsing his products-the pictures tell a better story than the text!

Filled to the brim with glamour shots of some of the Western World's most beautiful women, this book shows us the man beind the mask, the incomparable Max Factor. Almost every shot is shown behind the scenes, how the look was created, etc. . .Truly a masterpiece work.

This is an unusual story--exciting. The characters are well drawn from the 1970's with plenty of action, some violence, some romance. The main character, Sam Lockhart, fights the exploding drug trade--not always in the most orthodox manner. A good read.

I found this jewel on the referral of a friend and thoroughly enjoyed the "edge of your seat" war on drugs theme and the interesting characters. Reminiscent of Don Johnson, J.C. Samson Lockhart is as interesting and colorful a hero as I've read about in a long time. If you have time to pick it up...just make sure you have time to finish it because you won't be able to put it down!

Robert intelligently explains the single underlying principle about the sexes and intelligence. It's both enligtening and liberating for the modern women to learn about why the "glass-ceiling" might never be broken and why the "criminals" and "retards" tends to be associated with men, in turn....

Dr. Lehrke's book documents that the IQ of an average woman is one percent higher than a man, for example. Such scientific observations are currently "politically incorrect." Now that the human genome has been documented, it is only a matter of time before it is decoded and detailed mechanisms are understood. In this process of decoding human DNA, the specific differences between the sexes will be documented in even more detail than what Dr. Lehrke has provided in this seminal work.

The book includes many chapters and concepts and its very helpful for designers and engineers but there are many mistakes in the examples of this book. If writer call me I can send location of mistekes and correct form. er107@superonline.com thank you

C & S Trading Compan

Recently there seems to be a lot of books being released on how to increase one's intelligence, this book seemed to be the only one that actually gave a method that worked. Image Streaming works, there's no doubt about it, but one thing that I cannot stress enough - if you want to become a genius or become more intelligent you need to put in the effort. The book suggests 15 minutes of Image Streaming a day but if you really want results you should practice for at least an hour. The reason is, according to the book and other studies* one's IQ raises 0.9 pts for every hour put in, if you put in 15 minutes a day your IQ will raise gradually of course but best results are achieved through more practice.

The reason this book is called the Einstein Factor is because of the notion of how Einstein developed his intelligence. Einstein as many people have heard was dyslectic. People who knew him as a child assumed he would never amount to anything. At the age of 16, while he was sitting in class, he thought about what it would be like to ride on a beam of light. He then pondered what would happen if he put a mirror in front of his face - would he see a reflection? This thought/idea is what apparently accelerated Einstein into his genius. Over the next 10 years Einstein contemplated this idea using methods apparently such as Image Streaming. He was heralded as a genius when he was 26 so the process wasn't overnight, but going from a dyslecsic/"retarded" state of mind to genius is quite a leap and that is what Dr. Wenger is trying to show the reader. When Einstein died in 1955 his brain was disected, researches found that he had a significantly larger number of neurotransmitters/neuroconnections, especially in what seemed to be an extremely well developed corpus callosum (the nerves that bind the hemispheres of the brain). Image Streaming is about arousing new areas of the brain and having the hemispheres of the brain work together.

The reason I gave this book 4 stars was because of the "photo reading" section of the book. I tried to go into it with an open mind, but the simple concept of reading at 32,000 words per minute is somewhat absurd, regardless of the claims that Dr. Wenger makes. He says that you're supposed to view the pages with your subconscious and the information will come to you when you need it. That's not very reassuring when one needs to ensure that he/she knows the information, for instance if someone has a test he/she needs to study for. If you are interested in speed reading I suggest picking up Power Reading - ISBN: 0960170618. It is an excellent book on how to accelerate one's reading capabilities.

Looking at Einstein as a model, it took Einstein 10 years to shift into a "genius" - testimonial to this method's validility based upon his contributions to physics, and impact on society. Intertwined with the tutorials, Dr. Wenger provides insight into some of the most recognized minds, detailing on how each person recognized their gift and utilized it to their advantage.

*Mind Accelerator (ISBN: 0973197102) is another book that seems to demonstrate the method of Image Streaming. More information can be found about this book at http://www.themindaccelerator.com/

This book describes itself as a proven new method for increasing your intelligence. There have certainly been many years of experimentation, research and teaching behind the methods presented. If you like learning, then you'll probably love a book about learning, and this is no disappointment: plenty of practical techniques to try out and a guarantee, I would say, that even if your intelligence doesn't change, your intuition will definitely have improved for practising these methods.
Central to the book is the technique of "image streaming". The main idea behind this is that we all have a constant stream of images flowing out from our subconscious minds, but traditional education and upbringing has generally taught us to screen out these images. So successful has our screening become, many of us believe that we don't have such images at all, and cannot "visualise" with eyes closed. The authors however reassure us that everybody has these images. Image streaming is the way to kick-start and develop our awareness of them. One particularly effective part of this technique is to use your own voice as a kind of feedback loop to reinforce and solidify the process of visualisation. I was surprised at how well a rich, sensory, and vocal description added to the vividness of my images.
Having laid the foundations with this basic technique, it can them be put to practical use is all sorts of ways: re-examining your own past, solving problems, answering questions intuitively for yourself and others. The research behind the book shows in the scientific theorising behind these and other techniques although, very often, the authors have to conclude that they don't really know why these intuitive techniques work; they just do!
There are plenty more goodies to try too: borrowing identities from your greatest heroes, modelling musical genius, photoreading at lightening speed, freenoting, achieving flow, and boosting brain power through oxygenation.
This book has an upbeat energetic style, which is probably a benefit of being co-written. It gave me a lot of new ideas, and I feel confident that the benefits will continue well beyond the simple enjoyment of reading.

This thing really works. I tried the exercises and noticed HUGE improvement in my memory and the ability to visualize things in a way I had never dreamed before.

Susan Susanka presents her ideas on how to build a better home. Half way through the book she presents her trinity of compromises that the architect, builder & home-owner have to make...price, quanity & quality of the proposed home. I think this is the gem in the book. As many have noted, this is definitely not a book for a "small" or "cheap" home; and this should be obvious as nobody who is limited to building a "small" or "cheap" home would hire an architect to design it! Though she never states it, I estimate that the houses she designs cost over $500,000 to build so consider that when you read this book.

I value this book for the ideas it presents; however, it is definitely a coffee-table book rather than a reference for an architect or home-builder. Not until the last two super-homes does Susan even mention a number. Nowhere in the book does it actually talk about the square feet, total price, price for materials, cost/square foot, material trade-off possibilities, building codes, or anything that is actually needed to design or build a house (or even remodel). The lack of details and thoroughness was disappointing and the reason I only gave her three stars. I suppose this book can be considered a "theory" book rather than a "practical" book, but it seems to me that a well-written book could contain both.

On the plus side, the pictures were very nice; there were floor-plans for each of the houses and Susan has a very nice and clear writing style.

I enjoy reading and re-reading this book, so I think there's a lot of useful content here. I bought this book shortly after remodeling my house, and found that the book expressed many of the ideas and goals of my house remodel. I find myself disagreeing with most of the criticisms I have read, save that many of the photographs are examples of the same "style." I think the author's intended audience is people who are planning to build a new house (or substantially remodel an existing one), and obviously as an architect she is encouraging people to find and work with an architect, to value the importance of design, and to spend money on qualitative aspects of a house rather than raw square footage.

I would note that many ideas in the book are neither original to the author nor to this book; the fact that the book seems to be a big success indicates however that previous efforts to put forth these ideas had not reached many people. An example of a good book in a similar vein (and written in 1985) is: "Modest Mansions: design ideas for luxurious living in less space" by Donald Prowler (now out of print but Amazon might get it for you used, or try the library).

I have a dream house in my head, and a lot of the examples in Susanka's book resemble it: it doesn't have too many rooms, it doesn't have "cathedral ceilings," the rooms aren't so big that they create echos....but every space is on a human scale, and EVERY detail is thoughtful.

She shows wonderful use of built-in spaces (I must have those bookcases someday!). She is very thoughtful about how improving the traffic flow and the sightlines from room to room (and from inside to outside) makes every square foot of space count. I find her argument that it makes more ecological sense to put the money into details than into natural-resource-grubbing VOLUME very compelling.

So, for me, this book is like a box of my favorite mixed chocolates: it's delectable to go through and savor. The pictures are beautiful and detailed. You will got lots of ideas for your own dream house.

However, this book is really about NEW houses. If you are looking for information about how to make your existing small house more livable *today* it will be of less use to you. And her ideas are not cheap....but we can all dream, can't we?

James Howard Kunstler would perfectly understand Dorothy's wish to return to simpler days and a happier life. He argues here that pre-WWII small-town America with it's sense of community represents all that was good about urban living. In contrast to that what we now have is THE GEOGRAPHY OF NOWHERE which is large central-city and suburban conglomerations incessantly spreading outwards, all interconnected by a network of freeways. Or as Kunstler's says "the whole destructive, wasteful, toxic, agoraphobia-inducing spectacle". This brings up my problem with the book - it's overly angry tone and the hyperbole that is used throughout.

The book starts off well enough with a brief description of early colonial settlement patterns and the planning and design elements that governed our first towns and cities. There was a connection with community and an appreciation for space. Also a recognition that there can even be romantic and spiritual elements in how and where we lived. Kunstler then goes on to briefly mention architectural schools of thought and how changes in thinking have been reflected in our urban landscape. This is a pastel-shaded description of the first few chapters but if it's purple-prose you wish there is more than enough of that here. Also some of Kunstler descriptions of the more blighted aspects of our landscape are scarlet with anger. After describing Modernism and Postmodern approaches in architecture (and overly simplifying the differences between them) Kunstler is flowery yet dismissive: "Worshipping the machine and industrial methods as ends in themselves, they became the servants of an economy that plundered the future in order to power the engines of production and consumption for the present." As for the architects, far from being motivated by belief in their work or some element of professionalism, Kunstler says they are only interested because it was "the huge, out-of-scale, inhuman, corporate glass boxes that put paychecks on their desks every Friday." There is too much of this anger here and contrary to his publishers who describe it as "elegant and often hilarious" it's actually tedious and sometimes misplaced. In describing the silliness of Tomorrowland's vision of the future, Kunstler comes up with an inappropriate metaphor using dead and thus defenseless Walt Disney himself: "Walt's spiritual life must have been a torment." And after reading the following paragraph I completely lost track of what this book was about. It's about urban blight, right? "Families crack under the pressure. Fathers unable to cope take off for good. Mothers slip into public assistance, depression, obesity, alcoholism. Yet they keep having babies. There are parasitical boyfriends and a heightened incidence of child abuse..."

There are some good points and the first part of the book before Kunstler got really upset is not bad. His enthusiasm for the subject and his passion in wanting a better urban America is obvious. If he were to put forward his recommendations for change in a less strident tone then maybe more would be done. Overall though there is too much histrionics and we shouldn't blame Dorothy if she said "Come on Toto let's go home, but leave the book behind".

Kunstler throws alot of punches in this book, many of which are on the mark.

The general idea is one thats as old as humanity: that things are going to hell. In this case, the built environment.

Modernists, Highways, the automobile, suburban sprawl- all these get a chapter of scathing criticism. As an architecture student, I thoroughly enjoyed his blasting architectural critiques, which were occasionally hilarious- of Venturi and Denise Scott Brown's Learning from Las Vegas, he says: "They were like stoned graduate students on a road trip, critical faculties up in smoke!" (saying that they should have been MUCH more critical of Vegas).

I read this book before I read Jacob's Death and Life of Great American Cities, and I found Jacobs to be a heck of a lot more restrained and academic (yet also very funny at some points). Also, Jacobs would probably condemn some things that Kunstler advocates- things like Seaside, Florida, which to me seem to be simply more exclusive and better-designed sprawl. Sprawl is still sprawl, pretty or not. The solution lies in bringing life back to cities, not more Seasides. Kunstler is from a small New York town, so perhaps he has a fondness for small towns (which certainly have their place), but re-invigorating cities or lessening automobile dependance isn't going to be achieved by a thousand Seasides.

Anyhow; pretty good book. Give her a read if you're concerned about the built environment. Jacobs says alot of the same things though, and she said them what, 30+ years before? Kunstler adds a sense of desperate, almost angry urgency to it. Understandably- all the perscriptions for curing cities laid out by Jacobs weren't followed at all- the only thing that will change the way Americans build will be massive economic changes.

The _Geography of Nowhere_ is a scathing attack on post-WWII (sub-)urban planning. Kunstler had no formal training at the time he wrote the book and channels his anger and cynicism towards his surroundings into an effective - yet readable - analysis of our cities. People are beginning once again to champion 'living downtown' and walking and using public transit. Kunstler did it ten years ago - at a time when very few of us were thinking about it. Unfortunately, as is common with many critiques, Kunstler does not have very many solutions to urban planning problems - he leaves those for his next book, _Home from Nowhere_.

How we rate a book depends primarily on what we are induced to expect from it. The title suggested that this book would offer ways to increase one's range of thinking styles.

Instead, what I found to my disappointment, were trivial exercises that aim to change routine habits. Most of it is about deliberately changing the way we perfrom our routines and mundane daily activities - like closing your eyes and opening your bathroom tap, taking a new route to a familiar destination, getting exposed to strong and unusual smells etc. This might be of help to those who have considerably aged and require any sort of mental stimulation to activate their brain cells. For someone like me, working as a bank clerk at the age of 30, brimming with ideas on creativity and imagination techniques, these exercises really do not make much of a difference.

I think what the younger population needs for brain development (not in the physiological sense) is a solid exposure to the different ways of thinking - analytical, logical, creative, lateral, absrtact, visual, holistic, intuitive, pattern-based thinking etc and ways to improve memory. The more tools you have to choose from the more ways you have to tackle and solve a problem. This book doesn't do a thing towards this objective.

If you feel what I mentioned in the last paragraph is what you're really looking for, I would whole-heartedly suggest Karl Albrecht's "Brain Power". That book really deserves to move up in the sales ranking. ("Brain Power" focuses on thinking methods. For memory improvement the only book you need to read, in my opinion, is "Your Memory" by Kenneth Higbee).

What follows might be an unkind comment, but I should mention it because the title does not suggest it, "Save this title for the time when you are old and senile".

Keep Your Brain Alive By Lawrence C. Katz,Ph.D and Manning Rubin

Reviewed by Nancy Newman whose novel "Disturbing The Peace" is to be published by Avon Books this fall

If you've been suffering periodic memory lapses lately and are worried a your middle-aged brain is turning to mush, take heart. Help is here in the form of a terrific little book called Keep Your Brain Alive by Lawrence C. Katz,Ph.D. and Manning Rubin. Based on the latest scientific research from around the world, the book offers a short explanation of how the brain functions, then goes on to describe a unique program called neurobics (aerobics for the brain) which can keep your mind healthy and agile even as you and your brain age

The balance of science and exercises is organized and written in a way that let's you understand enough about what's happening in the brain without bogging you down with technical explanations. Basically the system uses the brain's ability to produce it's own nutrients that strengthen and preserve brain cells and applies that to the discovery that nerve cells in adult brains can be stimulated to grow dendrites with these nutrients. As we age our lives tend to become so routinized that we rely too heavily on only one or two senses and many pathways in the brain's circuits become inactive. As a result there is a thinning out of dendrites. Since these threadlike tendrils receive and process information from nerve cell to nerve cell, our minds can begin to feel sluggish.

But according to the authors, this situation can be vastly improved by presenting the brain with unexpected combinations of the senses in novel ways, thereby stimulating it to increase the health and complexity of its dendrites and thus giving memory and mental agility a boost.

The eighty-three exercises offered in the book are simple, fun and easy to integrate into daily life. Try brushing your teeth or buttoning your shirt in the morning with your less dominant hand. Scramble the location of familiar objects in your office. Take a whiff of pungent spices at an ethnic market. Make your way through your bedroom without turning on a light. You're giving your neural pathways a workout. Soon you'll be thinking up your own neurobic exercises. Growing older doesn't have to mean growing dimmer, say Katz and Rubin, not if you start living neurobically.

"83 Neurobic Exercise to help prevent memory
loss and increase mental fitness" is the sub headline.
This short 148 page book is a must for everyone over
50 years of age. Those under that age that want to
start early are also advised to read this book and
try some of the simple ways to stimulate your
brain, create fun and new challenges to the
way it stores information. Neurobics simply uses
the five senses in unexpected ways and shakes up
everyday routines. It is also fun. I hope it works.