Factor

The author needs to determine who his audience is. The book seems to be aimed at young people seeking to achieve and maintain 'super mind power'. The title (anti-aging) appeals to those of us who are experiencing 'brain fog' and want it to stop. While the tests will confirm or rebut our suspicions that something is wrong, the author suggests only the same-old home remedies - diet, vitamins and herbs, destress - that I have been using for years already. The mental excersizes are a bad joke - things I used to love doing when my mind was functional are now proposed as excersizes - which I couldn't do if my life depended upon it. There is nothing suggested in the way of medical treatment or what to tell a doctor to convince them that 'something is wrong'. Many things I have read about, found to be helpful and consider somewhat more cutting-edge - like oxygen therapy or the debate regarding the danger in dental fillings - are not even mentioned. Human growth hormone is dismissed in one sentance. If I believed this book, I would give up all hope.

The book quality is somewhat erratic from chapter to chapter. But, there is a lot of valuable information in it. This is especially true regarding all the micro nutrients, vitamins, herbal supplements that are good to maintain your cognitive skills. Through the years I find myself referring to this book very often. Although the book was written a few years ago, it appears very current.

As more and more research suggests, there are ways that, by altering your lifestyle and intake, as well as your basic brain activity, you can possibly curtail what we traditionally think of as an "inevitable" aging process of the brain and its function. Dr. Goldman reviews many of these tools available, a number of which in fact, (despite other reviewer comments to the contrary), DO have peer-reviewed scientific studies to back them up. May I suggest "The Care and Feeding of Your Brain" as a companion guide to Goldman's book to provide another perspective on how you can affect brain aging, and for a more general view of brain optimization right now, before aging...My congratulations to Dr. Goldman and colleagues on a book well done and easy to read!...All the best...Kenneth Giuffre'MD, author, "The Care and Feeding of Your Brain"

I think everyone has their own idea of "small" I would like to see a book that has actual measurements of some of these rooms. I'm sure the cameras are angled to make the rooms look more spacious. On the otherhand, I like color so I enjoyed seeing how other people have used color in their small spaces so you don't feel you have to paint everything white.

This book's primary appeal to me is the large quantity of very nice photos for ideas of how to design for small spaces. Think of it as the equivalent of a dozen very good "home" magazines all focused on small spaces.

Unfortuantely, this is not the type of book that's easy to buy online. You need to browse. I can tell you that I spent over an hour at a bookstore and this was the one I walked away with. Most of the others were horribly technical books about how to build and use all these storage containers to hide/organize your stuff. Frankly, if you have a tiny space, you should throw away most of the stuff you don't use regularly. I'm more interterested in lighting and arrangement and color to give the illusion of more space... not organizing all my junk in neat tupperware containers.

This is my favourite book (and I have a big collection as a graduate of Interior Design course).
You will definetely benefit from a variety of styles and ideas (different colour-shcemes), shown on pages of this book. Superb quality of photographs makes reading enjoyable. The author won't tell you 'how to make it' (as it's not a DIY book), but I found comments on each room layout very helpful. It inspires and develops your taste. Dylan Landis, well-done!

This book was a great disappointment. It contains nothing new, provocative or even interesting in the world of financial planning.

It is painfully obvious that there was no real purpose in writing this book other than for the author to cash in on the hot "personal finance" category in book sales. Moreover, while the author does not quite stoop to the level of shameless self-promotion of the likes of, say, Wade Cook, he does nonetheless use the book to promote his new money management service as a way to achieve ones financial goals. Shame on you, Mr. Sheard!

The "advice" in the book can be summarized in a few sentences: 1. Keep saving and investing until you have an amount saved up equal to 20 times your annual needs. (I.e., if you need $50,000 per year to live on, you need to save $1 million.)

2. Keep it all in the stock market and withdraw 5% a year to live on.

3. Quit working and do what you want. Unless you want to keep working, in which case you are free to continue doing so.

4. Oh, yeah. Make sure you make 15% a year on your stock market investments otherwise you'll run out of money.

Of course, it's numbers 1 and 4 that may be a little difficult to acheive. Not to worry, though, the author recommends that you max out on your 401(k) and IRA contributions, and save 10% of the rest of your paycheck every month. (What novel concepts!) As the the 15% annual rate of return, the author conveniently ignores the nasty little fact that the long run return on stocks (up until the last decade) is about 10.5% a year and says you only need to follow a consistent strategy, like the Dogs of the Dow (which the author admits he himself doesn't follow) to make the magic 15% annual rate of return. And if you can't do it yourself, you can always hire his money management firm (for an annual fee of 1.5% of your assets, which means he will need to make 16.5% on your money annually for you to get 15%).

Other than that, the book says to make sure you're adequately insured and lists few discount brokers (Brown & Co., Ameritrade) and well known web sites (Yahoo, Motley Fool) that you might want to check out to help with your stock selection and purchases.

And that's it! Like I said, all in all the book is pretty worthless.

There are far better personal finance books out there. (The one by Jane Bryant Quinn is one of the best.) Don't waste your money on this one.

This is a one-idea book, and that idea was probably just about adequate to justify an article in a money-magazine: To figure out how much money you need to save to achieve financial independence, figure out how much you need to live on annually right now, and multiply that number by 20.

The more intriguing promise of the book, to provide a plan to achieve this level of wealth while still relatively young, is a complete non-starter. The reader is offered such old chestnuts as "pay yourself first" and stash ten percent of your income annually. Gee, we haven't heard those tidbits before, have we? And please, for about 99.9% of the population, that advice might add up to a comfortable retirement at a ripe old age, but it certainly isn't going to get you to financial independence any time soon. The advice about investing is similarly a rehash of ideas we've heard a thousand times before.

There is almost nothing new here. If you're a total newcomer to financial planning, this book might be an okay place to start, since it offers advice that has been around from many sources for a long time. But if you're looking for new insights, look somewhere else.

Money for Life is an outstanding book for those who wish to achieve financial independence by living indefinitely off investment gains. A basic stock market investment plan is outlined in addition to sound financial tips relating to IRAs, insurance, wills and debt management. Although the concepts of "paying yourself first," setting aside 10% of your pre-tax income and engaging in mechanical, unemotional stock market investing to beat the S&P 500 are not entirely new, this book presents them in an entertaining, fresh, new (and unbiased) light. It has motivated me to reexamine my own finances and plan for a future free from monetary worry.

It's my opinion that authors should be inspired by other fields of knowledge than their conventional one (in this case by other sources than marketing and branding). I believe that Mr. Linn has done a great job for the hole field of branding by combining those thoughts with biology and the theories of evolution.

It's my opinon that more authors should find inspiration in knowledge sources outside their own field (in this case of marketing, and branding). I love the way Mr. Linn combines thoughts from biology and evolution theories with branding. By his contribution a deeper level of understanding might be reached!

It is not often an author allows himselt that in such a brief and vigorous way explain an issue or concept.

I have been searching information about brand management and consider that Brand Dynamics has given me an additional approach and angle in this topic.

I consider that Mr Linn in an excellent way makes this topic clear and let me understand a new approach of buyer appreciated values. An understanding that is of great importance for every organisation that wants to be successful.

I wanted to give this book a chance, and wish I hadn't bothered. It reads like an acid ramble -- cosmic assertions tumble over startling insights, with no notion sustained beyond two sentences, properly connected to others, or backed by evidence. I kept waiting for him to settle down and present out some facts and build his case, but he just keeps laying bricks on air. I researched some of the more checkable facts, and found him generally wrong: for example, Isamu Noguchi's "The Sculpture to be Seen From Mars" looks nothing like the "face on Mars" (which was an illusion anyway), which he says shocked him into realizing the transmission of universal information. The irony is that despite savaging Western science as unable to understand the Maya, he is so absorbed in his own insights and revelations and discoveries that he never tries to see the Maya through their own eyes, as any good scientist would, and so fails to truly respect the subject he supposedly exalts.

Mr. Argulles gives a concise and easy-to-understand analysis of the Mayan Calendar, and then proceeds to leap into unique and interestingly odd interpretations of this calendar and what it means for humanity (based on his interpretation). Although I question his New Age terminology, the ideas as presented are certainly worth having a look at if you're interested in this subject and have a tolerance for the mathematical complexity that this calendar can present. Argulles has apparently amassed quite a little following by charging people for "further information," but this book really is all one needs to understand his bizarre interpretations of Mayan spirituality. Nonetheless, it is a strangely good read.

Jose Arguelles presents a harmonic balance of the nature of Energy and Mayan spirituality in "The Mayan Factor." Although some of the concepts can seem intimidating at first, Arguelles' masterful use of language allows the reader peel away the layers of traditional Western thought on the subject of Energy to reveal a core of Mayan philosophy steeped in spirtuality. This book is what I call a "long lingering lesson," meaning the longer you allow Arguelles' message to linger in your thoughts, the more poignant the lesson becomes! For me reading the Mayan Facor was like sipping a glass of 1996 Bordeaux; when I was done I was refreshed, yet thirsted for more, and the world didn't quite look the same anymore! I highly recommend this book to anyone with an interest in Mayan culture, energy, or anyone looking for a unique perspective on humanity's place in the grand scheme of things!

It's an easy-to-understand handbook that can put you on track to a heart-healthy lifestyle. Both my wife and I are following this book's simple guidelines. I'm sure that the indispensible advice we learned will add years to our lives.

This easy to read primer is full of solid information that I'm finding very helpful as I adopt a healthier lifestyle. The quizzes were real eye openers and pointed up areas where I needed to pay attention. As follow-up, the author offers manageable ways to improve diet and exercise that are very easy to implement into my daily routine. I haven't tried all the recipes yet, but I really loved the Broiled Orange Roughy. At first I felt a little silly doing some of the stretches at work, but they really make a difference in the way I feel. This is a good common sense book.

Self-Help books are often a dime a dozen, with as many coming at you as there are day in the year. But what is different about Contented Hearts is that it is very readable to someone who is not well versed in self help books. A book that does not bombard you with technical terms but does actually inform you on the subject is a good buy, especially when the information could just prolong your life.

It's obvious from the reviews here that this book brings out strong emotion in readers. They either see it as a life saver or are furious at the authors for suggesting a connection between wearing a bra and getting breast cancer. While I agree with the people who say the book makes sense, I'd also like to add that for me it was great to see something posItive in print about going braless. Personally, I have always hated wearing a bra and the first thing I do when I get home from work is to take off my bra. On days when I am home all day, I don't wear one. I put one on when I'm wearing clothes that would make it too obvious that there was no bra underneath if I didn't wear one, but I also heavily avoid such clothing. I do not do this because I'm trying to avoid cancer, but because bras are uncomfortable and (in my estimation) they serve no purpose.

The problem for me in more than 30 years of trying to avoid wearing a bra is the many conflicting ways other people interpret my behavior. In my younger years, my husband used to call it "the no-bra look" and that always made me angry. I would reply that it is not "a look" -- I am not trying to "look" like anything, I am merely trying to be comfortable. If I sometimes "jiggle' that can be interpreted as some kind of moral evil. Why? Are breasts evil? You might think so if you consider the fuss made over Janet Jackson's breast at the 2004 Super Bowl! To other people I suppose I just look like an uneducated slob -- after all, where do you see women without bras? In poor countries, in the pages of National Geographic magazine. Don't "civilized" women all wear bras? The authors point out that the bra is a fairly recent invention. For thousands of years of history, women got by without wearing bras.

These authors are not the first to believe in a connection between bra-wearing and cancer. In 1983, I was in the hospital and the woman in the bed next to mine had cancer. She told me she got the disease from wearing a bra. Apparently, her doctor thought so. I have read of this in other sources as well. But since the cancer industry brings in Big Bucks for many institutions and individuals, this simplistic idea -- that taking off your bra will decrease your risk of getting breast cancer -- will not appeal to any of them. I found most poignant of all the authors' statement that not one of the organizations or individuals to whom they sent their research replied. This is just too emotional an issue for any of those organizations to even comment.

The authors mention that one of the reasons that's been given for wearing a bra is the belief that your breasts will get saggy over the years if you don't wear one. I heard that argument many years ago too and now I've been avoiding bras long enough to have an answer to that by looking in the mirror. Nope, they don't sag!

I won't go on a crusade to tell other women to quit wearing a bra, but I hope more women will think about why they wear one and if they find their bra uncomfortable, try taking it off. Believe me, not having anything cutting into your shoulders and mid-section is really wonderful. And it's nice to know I have been reducing my risk of breast cancer by doing what feels good.

As a longtime sufferer of fibrocystic breast disease--and a very devoted bra wearer--I was thrilled to discover this book. Not wearing a bra is a frightening prospect in some ways, and I do sympathize with women even larger than I am (36C). Nevertheless, I tried the authors' suggestion to try going bra-free and within two days the shooting pains in my left breast that got me in for an emergency mammogram were gone. It is possible that the claim in the subtitle that there is a connection between bras and breast cancer is premature, but my own experience convinced me of the connection between bras, lymphatic congestion, and fibrocystic disease. For this reason alone, I think this book is well worth reading. Breast pain and tenderness, although not common symptoms of breast cancer, are still treated as possible indices of cancer, with all the anxiety that entails. If something as simple as wearing a camisole instead of a bra (and not looking as young and shapely, I'll grant you) can be an effective symptomatic treatment for this condition that is in some women precancerous, why not? It's not a substitute for medical care, cutting out alcohol and caffeine, eating a low-fat diet, and supplementing with vitamins E and A; it may, however, be a very useful adjunct.

This book was both informative and affirming...and a reminder of the endless ways our societal values control women's bodies. It made me recall back to my teen years when my mother and I had an ongoing battle about my refusal to wear a bra. My mom saw in my actions rebelliousness and promiscuity. My real reasons? What a ridiculous thing to do to my body! How uncomfortable and unatural! I hated the way people would stare at my braless chest, but hated the loathsome binding feeling even more. This book is yet another argument for listening to our intuition and natural common (as opposed to culturally conditioned) sense.

I very much enjoyed reading "The Hinge Factor" and so I bought this book hoping to find more similar reading material. Chapter 1 raised my doubts and after finishing Chapter 2 I was really disappointed by this book. The episodes are really lenghty and somewhat hard to read/follow - the book is not well written. The most disappointing fact, however, is that this book has not very much to do with military history but focuses almost entirely on political history. The influence of the weather, as the title of the book suggests, seems almost constructed and bears almost no meaning to the events described.

My local library had this book filed under 551, i.e., in the meteorology section, which I think is an error. This book is more of a military history focusing on how weather has influenced the outcome of battles and therefore of history. The science of weather plays a small part.

That being said, it's an interesting read. It's divided into chapters, each devoted to a specific incident. Some are reasonably well-known, such as the battle at Teutoburger Wald that cost Rome three legions (included here due to a thunderstorm that bogged down the Romans and led the Germanic "barbarians" to think that their gods were on their side), the typhoon that destroyed Kublai Khan's fleet heading to invade Japan, and Napoleon's disastrous march on Russia that was devastated by the legendary Russian winter. Others were (to me, at least) more obscure: the thunderstorm that scattered the mobs in Paris and thereby cost Robespierre his supporters, the weather during the Battle of the Bulge that first protected the Germans from air attack and then cleared to leave them vulnerable to the Allies' unchallenged fighters and bombers, and the typhoon that devastated the American Pacific fleet in World War II.

The one non-battle chapter focuses on the Irish potato famine, which was facilitated by a cool, rainy summer that allowed the potato-killing fungus to flourish.

The penultimate chapter, about fighting in the Mekong delta during the Vietnam War, provides a change since it's written in the first person. The author, a war correspondent, was actually there, and gives a personal view of what it's like to fight natives in the muggy misery of a tropical jungle.

The final chapter addresses the possibility of manipulating the weather in the future to provide better prospects for one's own forces or worse prospects for the enemies'. This has apparently already been tried, with American forces trying to get it to rain on the Ho Chi Minh trail in order to bog down Viet Cong supplies.

The book is readable enough, though with one strange quirk: footnotes that provide additional information rather than references. These quickly become distracting, and I think some should have just been incorporated into the regular text while the rest should either have been eliminated or moved to the back. It's a strange affectation and not at all helpful.

So, overall it's an interesting book even if not what I expected.

This book has received mixed reviews;therefore my expectations were not high when I started it.The first couple of events didn't excite me too much,but then they happened so long ago and I am not too familiar with those times. The more I got into the book ,the better I found it.The author gives very good summaries of events that in most cases were very complicated.This is not simple,but coming from a background of a journalist he does an excellent job.I find most history writing is too detailed even to the point of being an exercise in drudgery.The author is crisp and only drags out the story enough to set the scene.Then he goes into a good description of the weather condition and how it impacted the event.He shows in these events that the weather conditions had much more impact on the outcome of the event than the skills or the weapons of the forces involved.
I have read extensively about The Great Potato Famine and was impressed how well he covered this massive event which was very complicated,extended over several years,and did it in only 18 pages.In addition ,he really brought out the effect the weather had;a factor that is not usually as well emphasized.
A book of these shortened historys also reminded me of somewhat "corresponding"(in want of a better word) events.For instance I had never given it much thought that The Red Army launched it's defense of Moscow on Dec 6,1941 the day before Japan attacked Pearl Harbor.Another thing was that at the same time that Napoleon was trying to take Moscow the British and the Americans were fighting the War of 1812 in North America.

The book has many other little gems:
The Potato Famine in Ireland may have had it's roots in the American Potato Blight of 1844.However;this may be of some question as I believe the blight also occurred in several other european countries.The effect elsewhere was nowhere as disasterous as the other food supplies were not shipped out of those countries by the landowners as happened in Ireland.
Two other cities ,Kokura and Niigata were ahead of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as targets;but were by-passed because of weather conditions.
The author also tries to make one think of how future events,particularly wars will be influenced by weather.
Finally he reminds us that...
"Man has managed to harnass almost everything.
But God still controls the elements."
By the way there is an excellent Bibliography and Index at the end of the book.
Durschmied also mentions that he's working on a new book "The Snow Owl"--I'm looking forward to it.

This is not a bad book, but is not the book it claims to be. Lee combines two favorite ideas in a story of alien contact during WWII. But the alien is really just a McGuffin, and the reader is treated to a tale of Allies, Nazis, Communists, spies and resistance all trying to outfox one another and protect their own ideas. The alien could easily be replaced with a munitions dump, secret weapon, or other typical WWII target without changing the story very much. Good war story but a lousy alien tale.

The idea of Stan Lee authoring a book had me hesitant to buy this book, but Stan Timmon's name sold me. I have read and enjoyed many of Timmon's previous works, and figured if anyone could make Lee sound like an author instead of a comic book dialouge man, he could do it. We all know that co-authors end up doing most of the work anyway, so really this book should say Stan Timmons AND Stan Lee, not the other way around.
Needless to say, I was not disappointed. Timmon shines in this book, with his colorful characters and and descriptive prose. And even if you aren't a sci-fi fan, the story draws you in like a vortex. A good read all around, even if Lee is getting all the kudos for it. Maybe it's time we give credit where credit is due, and pat Timmons on the back for a job exceptionally well done.

Forget just for the whole book that Stan Lee has created just about every character in the Marvel Universe and is a god to many. Do that and you'll be fine for the whole book.
Alien Factor tells the sci-fi story set in WWII about an alien ship crashing in Germany and who can get there first to claim it: The US or the Germans. We take the role of Joe Logan and his squad Logan's Losers as they try to get to the ship. We soon learn that the Germans got their first and have it in the "Forbidden Zone." The trek to get the ship now becomes a trek to destroy it before the Germans are able to use the ship. We also get the side story of a young French boy who saw one of the aliens and believes it to be god.(it makes sense in the book)
Stan the man Lee packs so much action into this book it puts some of his superheroes to shame. There is also a comparison between this book and Saving Private Ryan because of how tightly knit Logan's Losers become in the process of their operation. Although some of Lee's war information used in the book is inaccurate it is easily overlooked by how fast the plot moves, character development and excellent dialog between the characters. A great read not only for the comic buffs but also for the sci fi fans.

If this is your first ADD book, you'll get a lot out of it. But otherwise you'll find yourself thinking you'd seen the topics put better elsewhere.

For my needs, I think Weiss spends WAY too much time dwelling on the frustration and "abuse" that ADDers have. I'm a newly diagnosed adult, but don't have a lot of emotional baggage like that, that I feel a need to dump. But if you're a "hurtin' pup" in terms of feeling dumped on for your short memory, inability to stick to things, and the like, you could get a lot of support from this book. I think Weiss considers ADDers more fragile that we are, so I felt somewhat talked down to in this book.

I will finish it, just because I don't want to miss anything. And some of the tips for helping you complete projects and stick to your schedule have merit. But most have been covered elsewhere.

BTW, my favorite ADD book so far is Thom Hartmann's "ADD Success Stories". I like the tone, I like his "Hunter/Farmer" theory/metaphor, I like the clinical explanations, and I LOVE the personal stories and tips on how to deal with ADD.

Grown-ups have ADD too. Lynn Weiss was the first to tell us so, and she brought the concept to national awareness.

Her title, "Attention Deficit Disorder In Adults" mises the pizzazz enjoyed by flashier titled books, but the content is succinct and superb. The much larger "Driven to Distraction" is more thorough, by far, but it also has 100 more pages. Weiss' gives the reader just enough to start the reader exploring ADD seriously for the first time.

Kenneth A. Bonnet Ph. D. is promoted with her, as he penned the introduction. Feel free to skip it; there is nothing useful there.

Just as anecdotal as any other psychology-related popularly written book, the reader will see several case studies to which he or she might relate.

Weiss lists and describes the emotional pain felt by most ADD sufferers, from self-esteem to anger and more.

She presents the positives of ADD, and how having it isn't a condemnation to a life of rags and sad frustrations.

Unlike some other books, Weiss isn't playing the game that ADD is a blessing, but she objectively acknowledges what it is, and what can be done about it. She discusses with candor romantic relationships. There is an excellent question-answer section for friends and family.

The best value comes from the chapter on restructuring. At a certain point, someone with ADD knows what's going on, but what they want to know is how to deal with it. Weiss shows the way with example charts that can realistically applied.

The singular drawback to this book is its need for an update. Research has been exploding with new ideas in medication, diagnoses and management. Weiss tackles all of this in a 60+ page Appendices section, with contact information for support groups, organizations, and sample official letters to interested parties. Year to year, these lists can quickly become out of date.

I'm a big fan of Weiss for the reason that through every one of her books, she's a pragmatist. No silly games of "I think I can, I think I can," but good old-fashioned how-tos.

Other helpful books in the ADD reader's library will be "Driven to Distraction" by Hallowell and Ratey, "Uncommon Gifts" by James Evans (very encouraging, especially for men), and "Managing Attention & Learning Disorders: Super Survival Strategies" by Elaine K. McEwan.

I fully recommend "Attention Deficit Disorder in Adults" by Lynn Weiss.

Anthony Trendl

This book was great for me! It was as though the author had been living inside my brain. Some of the issues in this particular book did not particularly pertain to me, but most of them did. I have purchased several of these books and given them to people who have been diagnosed adult ADD or ADHD telling them to return it if they did not like it. If they did like it then they could reimburse me for it. So far 6 of 6 people have sent me a thank you note with a check for repayment. I have just ordered another copy of this book for my fiance to have for his own referance since this book does a much better job of explaining how I think, feel, act etc than I can!

Another book that I read just after being diagnosed and medicated for ADHD is "Safe People" by Cloud and Townsend. It helped me to re-set limits, re-define boundaries, and fine tune my interactions. It is also available on audio!