Open

How To Start a Home-Based Catering Business is a wonderful paperback for someone like myself. This book cintained the information I needed to get me on my way. It also confirmed information that I had, but was unsure of .

The book is clear, concise and well organized from start to finish. I felt confident enough, once reading it, to actually start my business. I often refer to the book as a reference manual to see if I am on the right track. I appreciate Denise for sharing many of her techniques and styles which helped me to upscale my business. She also taught me ways to seek out those who could help make my business great.

My inhibiton in starting my business was that my work would be ordinary. Using this book as my guide, along with my imagination, I went immediately from ordinary to extraordinary. So far my customers have been very pleased.

This book is definitely addresses the nuts and bolts of starting a home-based catering business. From applying for various state and federal licenses/IDs to menu planning, this book covers all the bases in getting started. I would highly recommend this book to anyone wanting to start a catering business. It has definitely built my confidence level. I'm on my way! Thanks Denise!

Because of this uneasy economy I have started to do small catering events on the weekends for some extra income. I needed a "how to" book and looked at many until finally choosing this one. The selling point for me was the 50 easy to follow catering recipes inside!These kind of recipes are usually only found in reference style books that cost way too much. This useful book is clear,to the point, and the experienced Ms Vivaldo's writing style makes it a joy to read! The ultimate caterer's handbook!

I found this book really helpful, and wished that I had discovered it sooner. Besides just being a good primer on open adoption, it has very useful sections about "Readiness for Open Adoption", "Choosing Each Other", "Getting to Know Each Other" and parts titled "Birth and Placement" and "The Relationship Grows and Changes" - which discusses what to expect during the first year, and as the relationship grows and changes over time. It also discusses how open adoption affects the children in the families - adopted or otherwise. It also includes what to do/how to handle the situation when the Birthmom cancels the adoption plan. Overall, I thought it was a great book, as it had a good balance between the birth parents' perspective and that of the adoptive parents.

Good Book. Helped me understand open adoption better but did not change my mind

If I were adopting today and had read this thoughtful book, I would jump at the opportunity for an open adoption. The information on pre-adoption and placement aspects is persuasive for both adoptive and birth parents, especially since the author is non-judgmental. When you think about it, open adoption seems ideal for both parties involved. Really a utopia. I get goose bumps thinking about it. And yet. . . yet. . . The U.S. has gone from one extreme of adoption practice (secrecy) to another, openness. Unfortunately, the adversarial relationship between advocates and critics of openness in adoption is exacerbated by lack of empirical research. It is this lack of empirical evidence that should caution prospective adoptive parents about this new extreme practice. Lois Ruskai Melina's book was published in 1993, but we have now at least one large longitudinal study on openness. Harold D. Grotevant and Ruth G. McRoy report in their study, Openness in Adoption, Exploring Family Connections (Sage 1998): 'The clearest policy implication of our work is that no single type of adoption is best for everyone.' These authors warn that the long-term impact of openness for all parties in the adoptive kinship network is not known and longitudinal research is necessary to answer this question. We now have a generation of children who grew up in open adoptions, and we need to find out from them, now that they are adults, how they perceived the practice in their lives. We do not have such a comprehensive study of their experiences, but only anecdotal records. Even if some adoptive and birth parents like openness, this does not mean that the practice is good for the children. Some research also indicates that birthmothers who see their children suffer more than those who do not see them.
I am an adoptive mother of a secret adoption and was always opposed to secrecy, but since we met our wonderful birthmother 29 years later (she found us) I'm even more opposed to it, seeing what secrecy has done to her. I think I would have loved to have had an open arrangement with her, yet she says that she could not have coped with openness. It would have driven her insane to visit her baby and not be able to take her home. She would greatly have preferred a semi-open practice over a secret one. Incredible to me, our daughter, now age 34, would again have wanted a closed adoption because she does not want to think about the confusion her loving birthmother would have created in her child's mind and heart. This issue drives one to distraction because one wants a clear answer to what practice is best, and there isn't one.
Gisela Gasper Fitzgerald, author of ADOPTION: An Open, Semi-Open or Closed Practice?

I really enjoy Dick Francis' novels, but this one left me with some concerns. There are, first of all, some really nice things here--the hero is pleasant and smart,as are all of Frnacis' engaging male characters, and the hero's house and children are great. It is an interesting twist to have children as fairly major characters.

However, I was concerned with a couple things here. First of all, the villains here are so nasty and one-dimensionable that they end up being cartoonish, and I think that detracts from the strength of the rest of the plt, which is pretty good. Also, I am concerned with the hero's wife, who apparently is rather consistently unhappy and does not appreciate him as a husband and father, both of which he seems to be pretty admirable at. She is a frustrating character. I also found it rather frustrating and somewhat demeaning that Francis felt the need to come up with another romantic interest here, when I think his main character has quite enough issues to resolve already with wife and family. The romantic interest here, in apperance a younger version of the wife, is superfluous.

Please don't get me all wrong here--I genuinely love Dick Francis, and this read well and is fun, but I expect and usually get more from him!

Following closely to his usual formula (likeable, 30ish hero facing dangers undreamed of in his prior life but facing them with courage and humor), Francis has crafted another extremely readable suspense novel. This time, his hero is an architect who specializes in restored crumbling buildings, who also happens to have 6 sons who tag along with him through many of his adventures.

When our hero is forced to become involved in the affairs of a racecourse that he owns 8% of, and thus is ensnared in the VERY unpleasant lives of the Stratton family, who own most of the rest of the course, he finds himself in repeated mortal danger.

The book is a bit more "cinematic" than most, with big explosions and some fires, rather than Francis' usual knock on the back of the head into unconsciousness. The book has further charm because this hero is the parent of young children, something Francis has seldom offered us before, and never in such generous quantities. As always, his character is well-versed in his chosen profession, showing that Francis has done his homework well.

The plot is a humdinger, but I find that the Stratton family is SO full of truly VILE people that they become too 1 dimensional, like villains in an old-fashioned melodrama. Their actions are often so violent and hate-riddled that they are a bit difficult to believe.

But that being said, this is another fine, quick, enjoyable read in the amazingly large and outstanding body of work produced by Dick Francis. I recommend it to fans and newbies alike!

Architect Lee Morris has six sons, a disaffected wife, and an eight percent ownership in Stratton Park Racecourse. Seems his late mother was once married to the recently deceased Lord Stratton's handsome but violent second son, Keith, and when she divorced him after an episode of marital rape, the shares were given to her by Lord Stratton. With the old lord dead, the family is feuding over the racecourse, and Lee is asked to intervene. But the aging but still choleric Keith is not the only foe he will have to face . . .

An ambitious book. With eight Strattons, six Morris kids, and a host of other characters, Francis is generally successful in creating individual characters (though some of the younger Strattons tend to blend as hostile faces in your mind)

A few quibbles. To a certain extent, Francis stuck to his formula in this book. In almost all of Francis later books, Francis's hero (always a pleasant fellow in his thirties whom people just love to talk to) gets beat up about halfway through the book, and, in the climactic scene, would do credit to the hero of an action movie.

Quite good, but not as good as his early books.

I'm not sure why everyone else has rated this book so highly--I've found it to be quite banal, and sometimes down-right painful to read. Johnson comes across as a bland, naive and gullable girl who tries to play up to Kerouac in order to win his dubious affection. Her letters are written in a most childish and lame manner, and I can't believe that she was published a few years later. I hate to say such a thing, but it's true. Needless to say, their affair--calling it a love affir is streaching it a tad--eventually ends, and now forty years later she's decided to publish their exchange of letters in order to assure her fifteen minutes of fame. The fact that this book does provide a little insight into Kerouac keeps it from being two stars.

Jack Kerouac warned Joyce Johnson, nee Glassman, on the first night they spent together, back in 1957, "I don't like blondes." In spite of their inauspicious beginning, Kerouac kept returning to Glassman over a period of two years, during which time he restlessly wandered the US and Mexico. They met on a blind date set up by poet Allen Ginsberg, almost a year before Kerouac's name became a household word with the publication of "On The Road." She was an intelligent, talented, independent twenty-one year-old, and he was thirty-five, "pop-culture's guy's guy," "The King of the Beats," on the brink of enormous success.

This collection of letters, poems and postcards, between Kerouac and Ms. Glassman, written over a two-year period, are interspersed with Glassman's elegant, focused writing, as she poignantly comments on their relationship and the times. Glassman-Johnson wrote in her Beat Generation memoir, "Minor Characters," "If time were like a passage of music, you could keep going back to it till you got it right." This sense of sadness and longing permeates the book. She gives an insightful view of what it was like to be a "liberated woman" and an aspiring author back in the late 1950s. Her crowd may have been Beat Generation icons, but a double standard was still the norm. Glassman's struggle to be a writer of consequence, and her battle against the mores of the day, "illustrate the disparity between the myth and reality of the Beat experience." She really shows what it was like to be young, female and Beat during the Eisenhower years.

Kerouac's correspondence, filled with his spontaneous prose and 50s slang, gives the reader an amazing portrait of his struggle with fame and the attacks by his critics against his subsequent works. Throughout his travels, he tried, in a limited way, to balance this important relationship with a woman who truly understood him more than most people ever would. He did show a capacity for tenderness, as he formed a bond with Glassman, who shared his passion for writing. Yet Glassman wanted a more lasting relationship, which eventually caused their break-up. "You're nothing but a big bag of wind," she informed Kerouac before she left him. Eventually they did form a friendship. Most of the text is dominated by their romantic relationship. However, there are wonderful glimpses of the "beatnik scene," Greenwich Village in the 50s, Allen Ginsberg, the Orlovskys, Elise Cowan, and Neal Cassidy.

This is as much the story of Joyce Glassman Johnson's growth as a woman and writer, as it is about Jack Kerouac and the Beat generation. "Door Wide Open" is an extraordinarily sensitive portrayal of a man, a woman, a relationship and a time that strongly influenced, (and still does), the arts, literature and culture in the US - a wonderful book!
JANA

Joyce Johnson's reminisence of her love affair with Jack Kerouac is a bittersweet tale of her passion for Kerouac, the insecurities involving the relationship, the interaction with many of the beat generation characters, such as Allen Ginsberg, the saga of the Orlovsky brothers, the end of Elise Cowen often mentioned in beatnik reviews. Particularly touching is her description of the last time she saw her lover and his coming back into her life and memories, through the package of letters delivered by Kerouac's estate.

Through this book we get to know more about Kerouac the man, the son, the struggling writer and the fascination of a young woman living alone in New York in love with the persona and gloomy side of the writer. It is highly recommendable

I lived through this era, but I was a young man and had no idea of the amazing changes the women's movement caused. Now I understand the women in my life much better. I recommend this book to all men who want to understand how the world has changed and how they fit into it.

Rosen, a historian, professor, activist and journalist brings the wisdoms of her personal and professional experiences to bear upon the modern Women's Movement. The result is a refreshing, candid, almost conversational accounting and chronicle, as well as an astute and careful analysis of the many impacts and consequences of the movement for American life. The numerous interviews with both known and unknown leaders of the movement are captured with such precision that at times you feel you are there. When Rosen then moves toward grounding these voices in the larger social-cultural-political contexts of the times, we begin to really experience the extent and depth of the Movement not only for American life but for life as we know it.

This is a must read for anyone wanting to better understand not only the modern Women's Movement, but themselves. As a psychotherapist, educator and social worker at the University of Michigan, I work daily with those struggling with their roles and identities. I think this is an excellent resource for helping women (and men) understand their personal struggles in context, which as Rosen's title so aptly puts it, makes "The World Split Open", and thus the personal truly political.

With great insight in text and pictures, this book is a must read for every woman in our world today. The American women's movement shows how rights were won for women in a democracy. This book is a guide for others who seek these same rights. America has come so far and women need to know of the sacrifices that were made by many women (and men) to achieve this freedom for their lives. Professor Rosen makes sure all who read this book will know, and be given the opportunity to return something for this wonderful gift American women have been given.

I enjoyed the stories in Chicken Soup for the Father's Soul. Some make you laugh and some come pretty close to making you cry. I bought the book because I enjoy reading out loud to my husband and though it's not a book he would buy for himself, I thought it was one he would like. He did. If you are looking for a "feel good" book for the dad in your life, you can't go wrong with this book. Another great book for dads is 15 Reasons I Love My Dad. It's a fill-in-the-blank book that you fill with loving words and pictures. With Father's Day just around the corner, both of these books are guaranteed to please.

I decided to buy my oldest son a copy of "Chicken Soup for the Father's Soul" for Fathers Day. I like to find thoughtful gifts for my children...the amount of money that I spend on a gift is not as important as the thought behind it. I was pleased with the variety of the short stories in the book. I think a busy man like my son is much more likely to read a couple of short stories at a time, and I like to think he would be getting some positive encouragement at the same time. He is a great father, and I love him very much.

I picked up "Chicken Soup for the Father's Soul" in an airport bookshop as I departed for a four-day business trip. At the time I traveled very frequently, and I had planned to read a story only occasionally, saving them for those times when my thoughts wandered upon my two sons at home and refused to be redirected elsewhere. However, I found myself reading story after story, and by the time I had returned home, I had finished the book and was giving some of the stories a second read.

In the enclosed quarters of an airplane cabin, I found myself unsuccessfully struggling to contain my laughter, nonchalantly wiping tears from my eyes, and silently reflecting upon my own relationships as father and son.

Do yourself a favor and pick up a copy sometime. These stories will move you.

tpm
July 10, 2002

This latest book by the Dalai Lama is a compilation of speeches he gave in NYC in the past. It lists the main traits one should practice to fulfill a healthy lifestyle: compassion, empathy, wisdom, and so on. If you have already read 'Ethics For The New Millenium' or 'The Art of Happiness' you will find that this book repeats much of the material in those books. The main difference I see in this edition is that some basic meditation techniques are covered. Overall, it is a book that reminds us of the most important qualities one should practice to create a centered life. I also recommend "Open Your Mind, Open Your Life: A Little Book of Eastern Wisdom" by Taro Gold which is filled with hundreds of thought-provoking and inspirational quotations.

Timeless wisdom but hard to implement....Combine this with Confucius and Marcus Aurelius, and you have a pretty good philosophy to live by.

Freedom of religion, as practiced in the United States of America, is an awful and illogical liberty. In our quest to be inoffensive, we act as if multiple, mutually exclusive, truth claims can all be valid at the same time, and religious preference is merely a matter of personal taste. As a consequence of our corporate irresponsibility, many are left free to follow lies and the path to eternal corruption.

I am a conservative Christian, who believes that the only path to truth lies through God's grace as presented to us in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, whom Christians confess to be the Messiah. I, personally, believe that Buddhists and followers of non-Christian religions are wrong.

BUT... My personal faith claims do not undermine the wisdom of His Holiness, the Dalai Lama's teachings on meditation and compassion. In his little book, the Dalai Lama lays out for us a path to a more inhabitable planet. Demonstrating that he fully comprehends the flawed, sinful nature of all people, His Holiness goes on to show us how all creatures can live together in a more peaceful world. He gives us a practical method by which to change ourselves for the good of all.

AND... He even warmed this grumpy, old Lutheran's heart.

Read the book.

I have to agree with the reviewers that find Bolger refreshing and candid as well as knowledgeable to a fault. This book is eminently readable and rereadable. There is no doubt that there are many thought provoking ideas here. There are some handsome boats here as well but frankly many are aesthetic eyesores. I have an interest in a build-it-yourself cruising sailboat in the 25-35' range and the most attractive boats here from a practical usable/buildable sense are really pretty hard to look at. On one hand Bolger complains about concessions to style suggesting that to make them you admit that you are ashamed of the boat - on another page he suggests painting a mural on the slab side of one of the larger sharpies - a concession to their huge billboard bland shape. This book is practically an icon of good sense/ideas but as a guide to a boat building/aquisition it leaves one a bit frustrated. As for the plans they are of course hard to read - like every designer the author is entitled to sell his designs (not that that is the point of the book). A failing is that the book does not give any guidance to where plans could be purchased. Even it they don't please this readers eye the bigger sharpies have to be considered!

OK, I admit it, I am enthralled with the genius of this boat designer, Phil Bolger. He has designed more boats than any person alive, 750+. This book reveals his thought process giving a window into his remarkably creative mind.

I especially enjoy how he chooses to draw upon the vast tradition and the history of boats designed throughout history, and then updates and synthesizes these boat designs to reflect modern materials and his new ideas. Bolger reveals that in many cases; the modern school of boat design is a 'The King has No Clothes' proposition. Bolger repeatedly questions the conventional wisdom, much in a similar way to how Buckminster Fuller questioned 20th Century architectural and industrial design ideas.

I simply can't wait for the next book by Phil Bolger! In the mean time I will re-read this one, and read his frequent articles in the magazine _Messing About In Boats_.

Open mind - you bet. A broad range of boats here. I wanted to build a light displacement, shallow draft, plus open ocean cruiser, 6 out of eight builders said it can't be done. Bolger gives you three designes from 30 to 90 feet, timber or steel plus a lot more smaller boats. I took the plans, which I enlarger on a photocopier from A5 book page, to A3, to the Tasmanian Wooden Boat festival in Tasmania Australia and had a wonderful response fron two 70+ year old ship wrights who thought the designs were very usefull, practical and seaworthy. I guess the best review you could get is a "build it" from a veteran ship wright who understands everone wants something unique or has a special need in their design. This book will give you ideas and solutions, if not exact plans, to overcome many unique problems you may have. I have a shallow bay to tie up in but I wanted to let the boat sit on the beach at low tide and I also have a thirty foot bridge between me and the sea and I want to sail to New Zealand, a tough design brief. I got all the answeres from Boats with an open mind. Only problem with this book is, "is your mind open enough?" If not, go buy a white plastic boat and miss the charm of a personal, warm, wonderful boat that meets your every requirement.

If you have ever looked for an illustrated AT&T manual on Unix internals you have just found one. Authors should be praised for the quality and accuracy of the information presented in the book. Very nice chapter on STREAMS. However, it can not be compared with one very fine text such as Bach's book on Unix internals.This one lacks the lucidity and sophistication to qualify as an outstanding reference on the subject . Poor paper and print quality a big minus. Overall, I do recommend this text as your second book on Unix.

Excellent book on UNIX internals. Somewhat confusing at places. But still a good read for any CS student or programmer.

Needing to delve into crash dumps? Want to write robust device drivers? Do you *really* like kernel hacking? Does having a complete understanding of an operating system give you a competitive advantage? The Magic Garden Explained gives the how's and why's of SVR4 architecture in detail that I have found no-where else. Complete algorithms (in pseudo code) provide a glimpse into the elegance of the OS. This book should be read cover to cover once, then referenced countless times by any aspiring "guru".

Richard Lischer's "Open Secrets" is a charming book detailing his three years as a pastor of a small Lutheran church in New Cana, Illinois. This was Lischer's first assignment as a pastor fresh from divinity school (he's now a teacher at Duke's Divinity School) and contains many candid, poignant looks at his experience.

Lischer writes eloquently and honestly about his experiences in divinity school (very little of the book is spent on those experiences, and this is unfortunate because what glimpses we do get are both humorous and insightful) and his time learning how to be an effective pastor at a small church in a rural midwest town. He's honest in his approach as he portrays his feelings of nervousness, disappointment in his assignment, and his occasionally blunt/occasionally amusing opinions of those who make up this congregation. He discusses baptisms, visits to hospitals, talks with confused church members, wooing new potential members, funerals, and the interesting interpersonal relationships that develop between a pastor's family and the congregation.

Overall this is an enjoyable, quick read, but I feel it could have been far more interesting if the author had spent some more time discussing his ministry (and his approach to it) and less time on the personal stories of those in the congregation. Nevertheless, a worthwhile read if not a typical glimpse into beginning life as a pastor in a small midwestern town. Recommended.

This was another one of those books that I really couldn't put down. I'm about to enter the seminary and a pastor loaned this book to me because it accurately reflected the life of a minister--especially a minister in a small town. It was fascinating to say the least. One aspect of this book which I found particularly interesing was the bredth of the problems that Rev. Lischer had to deal with: a teenager who is pregnant and fears telling her father because he'll beat her; a seventeen-year-old girl who's having an affair with a thirty-five-year-old man and doesn't understand why people are against it; advice to the man who is considering quitting his job at a factory to concentrate on farming full time; should contemporary songs be introduced to an extremely traditional congregation?; a young, frightened woman who is about to undergo emergency surgeory and her husband. I found myself asking myself what I would say in these situations as I may very well be facing them some day soon.

One piece of advice that Lischer points out once, but occurs more that he realizes is that reflecting the love and compassion that God has for you in your dealing with others tends to work. When Lischer treated people with respect and love, as God would have us treat others, things turned out pretty good for him; when he attempted to impose his own personal political feelings, things tended not to work out as well. Lischer does attempt to impose his own views quite often in the book--from the time he tried to have the American flag removed from the sanctuary of the church to his own biases concerning against "restrictive" tradition in the modern Lutheran church.

In sum, this has been an incredibly helpful book for me as I went about making my decision to enter the ministry. Although this book is well worth the read, I did have problems as an ordained minister tended to write against traditional religion and I was disappointed to find that Lischer wrote little about the domestic ups and downs of pastoral work (he briefly mentions a fight he and his wife had concerning the amount of time spent working versus the amount of time spend with his family). Recommended.

This book is good for a laid back look at a small country church in the "sticks". The reading is easy, entertaining and informative.

Although the author's religious background (Lutheran) is different from mine (Reformed, Christian Reformed Church), I never felt slighted (well, except for the one time he referred to us "Calvinists").

I was a little nervous about the lack of his references to God and God's leading. However, I gave the benefit of the doubt that it was the intent of the author to not throw "religion" in the face of the reader. That has pros and cons. I would have liked to have read more about his personal religious journey with God, not just with other people.

Overall, an enjoyable book, especially for someone like me who is usually more heavily into non-fiction.