J Books

This is a well written, knock your socks book. If you like suspense, then this is the book for you. I highly reccomend it. It's a story of torture and murder that puts you right in the middle of all the action. Bobbie Pfeifer knows exactly what to do to grab you and take you for the ride of your life.

I love it when I read a book or watch a movie and am not able to figure out the ending. This book was so interesting and suspenceful. I really enjoyed it through and through. It truly was something I couldn't put down. I hope there are more books like this in the future.

From the moment I started reading I felt I was there with Jessie. I couldn't put the book down. I will recommend this book to everyone. Bobbie you did a wonderful job.

What a great book. It was recommended to me by my co-worker who was a school chum and friend of Mrs. Pfeifer's. I started to read it out of curosity and ended up devouring each and every word. I recommend this book to anyone who loves an "on the edge" suspense story. I liked the clean cut way in which it's written yet keeps the descriptions accurate. What a great book! I appreciate the non-wordy, not-over discriptive, right to-the-point style of writing you have. The suspense kept me racing through the chapters to very the end! I'm looking forward to your next book. Great Job!

This is a great book that keeps you reading. My mom loaned it to me and I finished reading it in 24 hours! I usually don't read suspence books but this story is told so very well. I love the way it ends! I will recommend to all of my friends!

I purchased this expecting some advice on legal issues, but this book is so much more. It talks you through the whole process of producing a film from start to finish, including valuable information on finding investors, attaching stars, behind the scene terminology, production advice, sample legal forms and what do with your film once you've made a cut. All of the advice is indispensable. This is a must have for any independent film producer, especially those new to the industry. It should be taught as a textbook in film schools. The most helpful book on producing I've stumbled upon yet.

I highly recommend this book. As a first time amateur independent film producer, with about 30 film books resting on my shelf, I believe I was constantly thumbing through this one the most during preproduction. This book contains so much useful information and helpful insights, it's almost like having an industry consultant right there with you. Unlike other books, there weren't a lot of sections where they seemed to rush on to the next chapter without exploring the present topic in some depth.

If it's not already, this book will soon become the industry standard for substantive knowledge of the film business for independent filmmakers. Deal points, standard contract provisions, the often technical and confusing jargon, and the historical context for many industry practices are all covered here in comprehensive yet concise fashion. Topics of interest that are covered in depth include standard talent and producer agreements, developing a screen play, financing, and digital distribution. The book was a tremendous asset to me when I had to help an independent filmmaker comply with complicated federal securities laws in order to raise $200,000. Highly recommended.

jeffbrownlegal@gmail.com

It was a book with that gave you a good background on how film production works from a legal perspective. So you should read it if that is your concern. The authors are lawyers, not producers.

This book is a serious but very readable approach to educating filmmakers on the maze of legal hoops that must be jumped through in order to create a film. Indispensable resource to have.

The past is prologue so they say and it couldn't be more true than in the case of Elias, Ian and Jill. A few short summer days, an accident, and what brought Jill into the world of Elias and Ian took her away.

Ian Hamlin grew up to be a tough FBI agent, Jill became a meteorologist and Elias a spoiled rich man. Ian and Elias lost their friendship after reaching adulthood to become bitter enemies while Jill put them out of her mind.

That is, except for Ian. Her memory of a boy could still stir her senses as a woman. Because of him, she never found any man she wanted to stay with. Until Elias came back into her life and she thought maybe he could be the 'one'.

But fate played with their lives again. Eight dead women with the same name as Jill, brought Ian back into her life as an investigator intent on protecting her and catching a serial killer. And Jill was back to square one romantically.

Talented J. D. Tynan has a surprise in store for the reader as the story unwinds and the plot thickens. Like a magician, who has you looking at one hand while another pulls a coin from your ear, she points your focus on a possible killer, but lurking in the background is a shadow that moves into the foreground as the story moves along.

Recommended for any fan of suspense or romance. A well told tale with interesting characters who move the plot along. Enjoy. I sure did.

This book has it all! Jill is being stalked, but around every turn, you come up with a different bad guy. It's almost like the author did that on purpose!! Great job with this first novel. I'm really looking forward to her next book, Charlie Ford Meets Secret Agent Man!

Very few authors can pull off putting that much sexual tension and intense heat into a GREAT suspense novel! This author's style is refreshing in a world of repetitive romance novels. I highly recommend this book to anyone who loves a great gripping plot with a side of steamy sex! Five stars...plus two more for making me blush! Buy this book today!

When my friend suggested this new author, I had doubts because I love to read Lilian Jackson Brown and Susan Elizabeth Phillips. I have to say that J. D. Tynan far exceeded my expectations and I highly enjoyed her wit and humor. The dialogue itself was incredibly real. I felt as if I were in the room with these characters. The detailing was not overly done like a lot of new authors tend to do. It was subtle, yet again, I felt as if I were in the same room with these people.
The story itself was GREAT! A love triangle with the twist the author threw in. Who would have thought? I give this my best rating of five stars because I want this author to succeed. I want to read every word she has ever written. Buy one today, you won't be sorry.

Jill has been targeted, but by whom? Oh boy, what fun you will have figuring it out...Or trying to figure it out. I was shocked that this new author did such an amazing job with misleading the reader.
When you are finished, you will be sad because the great characters stay with you and you just want them to go on and on. Someone convince this woman that a sequel is in order. Don't plan on putting it down after the 3rd chapter as it gets way too good! I give it my highest thumbs up.

I very much recommend this book to anyone who faces the challenge of making judgment calls--which, as this book points out, is everyone. This book is inspiring, to the point, and well organized. However, it's most attractive feature is that the methods it suggests are proven through many examples. I think the other reviewers have said it best: this is simply the best framework for decision making on the market.

"With good judgment, little else matters. Without it, nothing else matters."

That's one reason why Noel Tichy and Warren Bennis wrote Judgment: How Winning Leaders Make Great Calls. The other belief is that the study and literature of judgment don't offer much helpful guidance for business leaders.

In thirteen chapters, the authors set out to remedy the lack. They come to the task with two important qualifications. Both are students of the subject and they offer us a blend of research from a variety of disciplines. Both have spent a lot of time "hanging out" with leaders and they bring us the stories of what they've seen.

The first chapter, Judgment and Leadership drives their stakes firmly into the ground. They tell us that making judgment calls is the essential job of a leader.

They also set long term success as the sole measure of good judgment. This is a bit of a problem because several of their examples have only recently gone through their decision process. Jeff Immelt's judgments may be great, for example, but it's too soon to tell if they meet the test of long term success.

This is also the chapter where the authors identify execution as part of the decision process. Most other writers on business decision making take us only up to the point of decision and leave execution as if were foreordained by a good decision.

Other writers see decision making as the work of the leader and execution as the work of his or her subordinates. Making follow-up and follow-through a part of the judgment process makes this book truly valuable.

Because they see the process as including execution and adaptation they avoid the overly rational, straight-line models of other writers. This gives us an understanding of judgment more likely to work in the real world.

The second chapter, Framework for Leadership Judgment, defines judgment as a process, not an event. The process involves recognizing the need for a decision, "naming and framing" the call, and execution and adjustment.

The authors also define the three critical domains where a leader will make decisions. They are people, strategy, and crisis. Effective judgments in people often prevent poor strategy judgments and the need for crisis judgments.

Having a Storyline is a chapter about what the authors call "Teachable Points of View," inevitably shortened to TPOV. We're told to imagine the better future and develop compelling and practical storylines to help others understand the issues and decision.

Chapter 4 is about how a leader must have Character and Courage. That means having clear standards and the strength to maintain those standards in the face of pressure and the challenge of obstacles. They tell us that "Character without courage is meaningless. Courage without good character is dangerous."

With a clear idea of the process and the importance of storylines and character, the authors are ready to start devoting chapters to judgment calls in the three domains. They start with People Judgment Calls because they see them as the platform for good strategic and crisis judgments.

Selecting a CEO is the most important judgment call and we're told that hiring from outside signals a failed process. There are plenty of good and bad examples of CEO Succession processes.

A lot of time is spent on the GE succession processes for both Jack Welch and Jeff Immelt. The authors point out that at GE there are lots of people doing lots of assessments which helps make succession effective throughout the organization. They also note that the board is only involved in the succession process for CEO, adding another level of assessment that includes outsiders.

Chapter 7 is devoted to Strategy Judgments. Strategy judgments constantly evolve and should be made by the CEO, not some corporate planning staff. The authors make a key point that's often overlooked, that the best strategic judgments are a mix of logic and feel, of left brain and right brain.

If you ever wondered where Noel Tichy has spent most of his time, all the references to GE in this book will give you the answer. Chapter 8 is entirely devoted to Jeff Immelt's Strategy Judgments at GE.

There are three key insights in Chapter 9, Crisis Judgments. Bad judgments in people or strategy are a common cause of crises. Leaders need to take personal responsibility for handling crises. And, a common mistake is to lose sight of your overall mission. Once a crisis happens, teamwork and focus make the difference.

Bennis and Tichy suggest that we see Crisis as a Leadership Development Opportunity in chapter 10. The basic points they make in this chapter are good ones. You should prepare in advance for crises because when they happen it's too late for thoughtful decision-making. And the crisis can provide you with a wonderful opportunity to use meeting the challenge as a form of leadership development.

This chapter also illustrates a weakness in the book. The authors were involved in many of the processes they describe. That's good. It gives them first hand experience.

The problem is that it leads them to write about situations that simply haven't played out enough to meet their test for long term success. Jeff Immelt's strategic judgments are one example. Another is Circuit City which gets lots of ink in this chapter.

Circuit City also illustrates the willingness of the authors to take what client top management tells them at face value. How else to describe the way they deal with Circuit City's layoffs of their top sales staff in the stores to replace them with less expensive (and less knowledgeable) people.

The authors tell us "The judgment to make cuts was good. The PR was not so good." In reality more than the PR was not so good.

The layoffs were ham-handed at best. They removed knowledgeable sales staff from the stores, resulting in far lower add-on business.

The way things were handled was also completely at odds with the CEO's TPOV that "what is good for associates is also what helps customers." In fact, Circuit City fired the very associates who could help customers the most and replaced them with low-wage "tag readers."

Chapter 11 builds on the Knowledge Creation theme. There are three key points. Leaders should critique their own performance. Knowledge creation for all levels should be an explicit goal. And frontline employees are the new knowledge workers. The authors identify four kinds of knowledge that leaders need to make effective judgments: self-knowledge, social network knowledge, organizational knowledge, and contextual knowledge.

Then we come to chapter 12 which is the story of the New York City Leadership Academy. On the one hand, this is a good, comprehensive case that is well rendered. But it's also a very different leadership situation for everything else in the book. A comprehensive business case would have been better. So would eliminating this chapter entirely.

After a short (2 page) Conclusion, the book is filled out with a Handbook for Leadership Judgment. It covers the same ground as the main book, but with lots of questions and charts. It's a good addition because it gives you a way to consolidate personal lessons.

This is a superbly-written business book by two experts in the field who share both research and excellent teaching stories. Their core insight (that execution is part of judgment) is powerful and different from other business authors. Their simple process will be usable by all business leaders.

If you are in business and make decisions, you should read this book.

Here's a quick summary of my thoughts.

How this book is different:

The authors write about a process of judgment that includes preparation (including naming and framing the issue), the decision, and execution and adaptation. This is virtually unique among writers on business judgment, most of whom treat decision as something the leader does and execution as something followers do.

This process is much more real world than I've seen elsewhere. Unlike overly rational models, it stresses the need for both logic and "feel." Unlike straight-line, one-time-through models it includes adaptation and re-do loops.

This is a comprehensive approach. The authors see the process in time as one dimension of judgment. Others are domains (people, strategy, and crisis), and constituencies. They also say that a leader needs four kinds of knowledge to be effective: self-knowledge, social network knowledge, organizational knowledge, and contextual knowledge.

Strengths:

A simple, yet sophisticated and easy to understand and implement process for making judgment calls. It identifies long term success as the sole measure of good judgment. You can use this process in any kind of organization.

Excellent writing that combines research from a number of fields with good storytelling. The stories are long enough to make several points. They include stories where things didn't work right the first time.

A "Handbook for Leadership Judgment" that follows the main book and gives you a way to apply the insights in your own situation.

There are excellent descriptions of workshop and learning processes that you can take and modify to suit.

Warnings:

The authors write mostly about organizations that they've been involved with and that leads to two problems. They include judgments that haven't met their own test of long term success. And, they've often drunk their own Kool-Aid and present things as seen from the executive suite and not from either the front line or the outside.

There's a lot of GE here because Tichy's been involved with GE since the 60s. Sometimes that means he settles for an easy to find GE example instead of digging out a better example from elsewhere.

There's no discussion of how a CEO gets information or sorts wheat from chaff. Those are important parts of decision making.

This book, like too many others, is written as if the reader is a big company CEO. While the points are all good, the perspective means you will have to do some adapting.

Bottom Line:

This is a must-read for business leaders.

I throughly enjoyed reading this book. I have studied Warren Bennis extensively within my Doctorate program in Organization Development. Tichy and Bennis are throughly enjoyable to read.

The audio book CD version of "Judgment" is excellent. Tichey & Bennis offer a thorough and practical framework- framing & naming the issue, making the call, and execution- for considering and making business judgments. Tichey is highly regarded in the field and provided many useful examples from his tenure running GE's famed Crotonville Leadership Center. Unlike some other business books, Tichey & Bennis were not afraid to say when bad judgments and mistakes were made, such as HP's Board's hiring Carly Fiorina along with numerous bad judgments made during Fiorina's tenure as CEO. It's an excellent guide to the judgment process.

If you are a manager who wants to develop the skills of executive management, this book is for you. The authors provide a methodology that is not simple, but still quite understandable. It would be ideal for a course of MBA or Executive MBA students wanting to get a framework for decision making.

The book has 13 chapters and then a handbook. The handbook is designed to help you take the material learned in the book and apply it to your personal situation. The chapters start by showing you the connection between judgment and leadership. They then provide a framework (a matrix) for "leadership judgment". This process is used heavily throughout the book, so pay attention to this chapter.

Chapters 3 through 6 are key to understanding the personal aspect to leadership and judgment. The authors want you to have a story line that you can not only communicate, but teach to others and in that way lead. The connection between character and courage is explored including where courage becomes foolhardy and takes you off the rails. The two chapters on the importance of people judgment are very important and you should pay close attention to them.

Chapters 7 and 8 focus on judgments regarding strategy while chapters 9 and 10 deal with judgments in times of crisis (and how to prepare for it and how to prevent most of it). Chapter 11 shows the connection between good judgment and continuous learning and chapter 12 talks about teaching leadership. I wasn't particularly wowed by this material.

The concluding chapter is a two page summary of the book and notes that the dimensions in which the complex process of judgment unfolds are time, domain (people, strategy, crisis), and constituencies (being aware of your audience, who is and needs to be involved, and how to interact effectively). Tichy and Bennis also reiterate the four types of knowledge a leader must have to make good judgments: Self-knlowedge. Social Network Knowledge, Organizational Knowledge, and Contextual Knowledge.

The book is full of great examples from real companies and real people. They illustrate the points of the text quite aptly. However, they are the one bone I would pick with the authors. It is easy to intentionally or unintentionally mislead readers with stories of success and say that these successes were the results of this method or demonstrate that our principles work because they worked in these instances. However, the positive connection to them is not proven beyond the sheer number of them. But leaders with good judgment also fail at times because a certain amount of randomness is built into the system.

Jack Welch is quoted as saying that he gets his people decisions right about 80% of the time. OK, I don't want to argue with him about his perceptions, but what exactly does "getting it right" mean? Jeff Immelt is heralded in the book, but recent events show him able to make huge mistakes as well. Does this mean he wasn't prepared to lead? Or that he turned stupid? Or is it that sometimes reality overtakes even the best preparations and plans? You can make your own judgments. However, I would love to see the book where the authors look at current events at the time they are writing the book and make strong and precise PREDICTIONS as the do in analysis of past events. If they can get those right, I will trust their analyses more.

Still, quite a good and useful book.

Reviewed by Craig Matteson, Ann Arbor, MI

I knew Shirley Wolf before the murder.

I witnessed some of the events written in the book and would state that the author got it at about 90% but not every assumption nor portrayal was correct.

For instance, Merriam wrote the accounts of Shirley's little brother having his head shaved was done as a punishment by Mr. Wolf was false. I recall the circumstances surrounding that and know for a fact that he wanted his head shaved and made up the story when he was teased at school. The reason he wanted his head buzzed was because another boy in the 4th grade, in fact the little brother of the girl named Cindy whom Shirley desperately wanted to imitate, had his hair buzzed first and that was why the other kids teased him.

While attending Sacramento State University myself, I even took the time one afternoon to go down into the lower level of the library to study the Merriam's Masters thesis that centered around Wolf. It was very well written and made a great suppliment to what I had read.

A year with Shirley in the 6th grade, where do I begin ? First of all while a lot of incidents did occur that centered around Shirley, it would be easy to imagine the past as her being the center of it. Well, she was not the center of everything that year nor the central focus of everything. Merriam did a wonderful job of portraying Shirley's personality. I recall Shirley as being a sweet and pleasant person but one who always seemed to be under attack for one reason or another. Our teacher was always moving our seating around and at one point I was directly next to shirley elbow to elbow and cannot say the experience even brings back a memory either pleasant or unpleasant.

But I do recall some things that occured during the year. I was new at Gold Trail and waiting for the teacher to arrive the very first day of school and there was this boy "T" arguing with Shirley. Actually, he started in on her right away for no reason. I don't really recall the entire dialogue but only at one point Shirley said, "F--k you !!" at which point "T" said, "I would but it is against my religion." That is my first memory of Shirley.

Near the end of the year, Shirley and a girl, "A" were really at each other, for what ? I didn't even know at the time. But one morning a storm of kids crowded into the classroom just before school was to begin and yelling erupted. What I recall was that something had happened at the bus stop and "A" was really upset and Shirley had threatened she ws going to bring a knife and stab "A" to death. The next day Sr. Wolf intercepted "A" in front of the school and threatened her with his cane. Sr. Wolf was scarry and all the kids who witnessed this were frightened to death. Sr. Wolf had been scheduled to come in that day to show our class a tiger skin he claimed to have killed in Africa. That was cancelled. I recall a boy in the class that crazy morning telling Shirley the tiger story was "b------t !". To this day I am convinced that while Shirley was murdering that lady emblazened in her mind was "A".

Another thing I recall I was little more personally involved with. Me and Shirley were supposed to trade desks one day- but on the day we were supposed to do it I was absent. When I came in before school I noticed that Shirley had left my stuff in the desk but had put her stuff in it and left mine in. I was taking my stuff out when I found Shirley's diary. It was nothing fancy, just one of those paper folders that you remember from school that kids do their writing assingments in and she had written on the cover, "My Diary". Well, I opened it and descovered a section entitled, "How to Have Sex". She drew a diagram with two figures with arrows pointing at them giving titles for herself and a boy I knew from the other sixth grade class. I won't go into detail on the diagram. I went out onto the playground and found the boy with some of his friends and told him what I had discovered. This boy had danced with Shirley at a dance and had gotten hell for it ever since and his annoyance at Shirley spilled into outrage as he stormed into the classroom and Shirley's desk to retrieve that diary whom he charged up to his own teacher with and demanded justice. The teacher, to his disbelief, discarded the diary and never brought it up again. By this time Shirley was on scene, silent and hunched. Yes, after all these years I really regret the whole thing. Things are perceived a bit differently as an adult in hindsight.

My last memory of Shirley was on the last day of school at the same exact spot where I had seen her for the first time. Shirley, a boy named Keven, and myself were sitting on the ground in front of the classroom just chatting about the upcoming summer and stuff. It is a really pleasant nostalgic memory. In no way at that moment of time could I have ever imagined that two years later I would wake up to see Shirley's face exploded on the front page of the Sacramento Bee.

The author does an excellent job of explaining what brought two girls to a point where they could commit an act of unspeakable evil, without apologizing for their actions or portraying them as victims.

These were two little girls that had been abandoned by their mothers, physically and sexually abused by their fathers, stepfathers and other male caretakers. Sadly, when these two became old enough and strong enough to fight back, it was an innocent old woman they chose as their victim.

The laws in California have since been changed, but in 1983, the only option available to law enforcement was to charge Collier and Wolf as juveniles. Little Girl Lost is a most appropriate title for this true crime story. By the time Cindy Collier and Shirley Wolf crossed paths with their elderly victim, the system had already failed and abandoned them. In one instant, they were moved from the column marked victim to the one marked criminal defendant, and one has to marvel not at the brutality of these two girls, but at the fact that it doesn't happen more often.

Had one adult stepped forward in time, perhaps a tragedy could have been averted. The best true stories of personal redemption and juveniles involve some adult stepping forward and doing something, anything to reach out to save a lost child's life. By the time a juvenile who has been an abused child commits a crime of violence against someone else, it's too late. They are indeed little girls and little boys lost.

i just want to say i know the book is a true story because shiley curdit formely shirley wolf is living in our basement

This is the most haunting book I've ever read. The author did an excellent job of humanizing these cold blooded killers and making the reader sympathetic to their plights. The abuse these two kids endured is unimaginable. Reading of what they lived through, what they suffered at the hands of those who should have loved and protected them, breaks my heart.
Although my heart goes out the family of the murdered victim, I am not untouched by the girls who carried out this crime. They haunt my dreams and my waking thoughts. Their stories are so tragic, so sad.

Joan Merriam's LITTLE GIRL LOST recounts the 1983 murder of 85 year old Anna Brackett by teenagers Cindy Collier, 15, and Shirley Wolfe, 14, for no other reason than that they wanted to kill someone. After a few unsuccessful attempts at finding a victim, they found and brutally killed Ms. Brackett.
This book has many positives. The research is outstanding with Merriam providing a continuing detailed account of the lives of the girls, both of whom were victims of mental and physical abuse and of incest, Cindy by her brother and Shirley, over a period of 10 or more years by her particularly sickening father. As a rare and totally interesting bonus which helps the reader to understand the degraded home lives led by the girls and ultimately the intense anger which led to the murder, Merriam even details in some depth the childhoods of the girls' parents, a wholly welcome and relatively rare occurence in the genre.

Merriam's writing is strange in that it improves markedly in part two which is titled "Pilgrimage to Hell" and which is the beginning of the aforementioned family histories. The writing in this section - and through the remainder of the book - is fast paced, literate, and intelligent, and from that point - page 77 to the end of this 370 page book - LITTLE GIRL LOST is hard to put down.
The writing in the first section is a different. In that section, Merriam seems to flounder about trying to "be a writer" rather than just writing straightforwardly as she does later on, and her attempts to re-create dialog are particularly weak. For example, when the EMTs respond to a 911 call reporting a dead or dying Ms. Brackett, Merriam has them knock on the door and say, "Open up please - it's the ambulance company." I can guarantee you that no EMTs arriving at an emergency call, ever said those words.
And she quotes a young girl, Donna, who witnessed the girls running from the scene as discussing "...those two girls we seen off the balcony..." though in the next paragraph she says "We saw them..." The witness is also quoted as reporting the girls as "bangin'" on doors, "hollerin'", and "runnin'" Merriam wasn't there and she has NO way of knowing how that girl talked. In that light her decision to have the witness talk as I have described is irritating and not believable. And does Donna say "saw" or "seen"? As a final bow to the nonsensical, Merriam quotes Donna as saying about Cindy and Shirley, "They looked real suspiciouslike." Yes. She really did. There is NO way a girl in California in the 1980s said this unless she was practicing for her audition in "The Stereotypical Hillbilly Follies".
I came close to quitting reading this book during this section, but I'm very glad I didn't, because the story is great and the writing - as noted - does a 180 degree turn.

The book continues with the arrest and trial of the girls. Merriam in an epilogue reports a jailhouse interview with Shirley. This is very welcome and quite good as far as it goes, but it reports almost exclusively how
she is dealing with her current situation and the changes she's gone through since her incarceration. I would have like to hear - in her own words - her thoughts on her upbringing, her horrible life as a child, and her incestuous love-hate relationship with her father. And there is no closing interview with Cindy at all. I feel that the expansion of the epilogue section would have helped create a considerably stronger book.

Taken as a whole, LITTLE GIRL LOST is a well done true crime effort. Merriam states in her introduction that she too was a victim of incest and a dysfunctional family; and that she is able to write in a "warm" and understanding style which she manages to prevent from becoming melodrama, is commendable. I strongly recommend this book to lovers of true crime, even if you have to fight through some of section one.

After taking Patrick's meditation workshop on applying "The Secret" to your own life, and having it be my 1st meditation experience ever, I was hungry for more and asked Patrick specifically if he could recommend a book with a cd for follow up on meditation practice. He grinned and produced a book without even telling me it was his own. The book is a great read, and has a meditation cd on the back cover.
I truly believe the soul is magical and is working round the clock in ways we don't often notice. When we open our hearts, we will see manifestation of just what we wish for appear at just the right time, before our very eyes. Patrick's work is truly inspirational. Bought them as gifts for my soul circle of friends. Highly recommend.

The CD alone is worth the price of the book! Patrick's soothing voice, eloquent words and spiritual wisdom are truly a rich blessing.
Ed Rockey, Ph.D.
Professor and Department Chair
Pepperdine University

I highly recommend this book wherever you are on your spiritual path. "The Magic of the Soul" is loaded with practical tools you can use everyday. Patrick's personal experiences, inner journeys and spiritual studies culminate in this book and are shared as gifts for the reader. The book comes with a remarkable CD full of guided meditations. I especially love the guided visualizations where Patrick's voice is an enchanting journey to our own inner wisdom and love. Author Patrick Harbula is the consumate teacher that you can experience for yourself through his classes, workshops, retreats and certifications at the Life Purpose Institute. I encourage you to experience the magic of the message with Patrick.

Patrick has ascended elegantly so far in this life. He is a gracious, kind and unconditionally loving soul and this comes through brilliantly in his "The Magic of the Soul." I encourage people interested in their own spiritual and practical self development to experience his words, thoughts and meditations. We are blessed to have this wonderful man in our time. Read, enjoy, ascend...

Patrick Harbula's "Magic of the Soul" is one of those rare books that I picked up and could not put down, and that I have revisited many times as a source of inspiration and enlightenment. As a child, I loved watching magic acts and was mesmerized as I observed magicians seemingly pulling things out of nothing and transforming objects. Throughout this book, Patrick reminds us that our spiritual nature enables us to perform this "magical process" of calling forth greater goodness into our lives and our world than we have ever known. I particularly appreciated his practical insights on how we can transform our life challenges into something good and meaningful without denying the pain or discomfort we experience as we move through them. I cannot thank Patrick enough for the ways that his work has enriched my life, and how it has supported me in my work as a minister and spiritual counselor.

This book has been a life changer for me. Another great book is- No Soul Left Behind. Hope you enjoy these book as much as I did.

This is one of those books that, once you pick it up, you can't put it down. It is filled with entertaining and intriguing stories. You read of one person after another whose present life circumstances are connected with the cause of those experiences in various past lives.

Reincarnation is a topic close to my heart. A dream about a past life first brought me to Edgar Cayce. Where else could I find an explanation for the challenges in my present life presented in the dream except in Cayce's understand of how previous incarnations influence our present life?

Gina Cerminara thoroughly researched Cayce's trance readings given for many individuals for many types of life challenges. Cayce gave two types of readings. The first type were mainly to diagnose and suggest cures for diseases. The second type offered solutions and suggestions for dealing with life problems based on astrological impulses and the karmic results of past lives. These were the life readings.

Cerminara not only researched the Cayce life readings, she also grouped the lessons learned from these readings into categories. They are organized under chapter headings such as "Some Types of Physical Karma," "Infidelity and Divorce," and "Personality Dynamics."

I referred to a selection in her chapter on the "Mockery of Karma" in my book, When We Were Gods: Insights on Atlantis, Past Lives, Angelic Beings of Light and Spiritual Awakening, in which hypnotherapy sessions for weight control revealed a previous lifetime in which I had ridiculed my obese husband of an arranged marriage. In Many Mansions, Cerminara refers to a Cayce reading for a young woman afflicted with obesity attributed to a previous lifetime. The young woman had been a beauty and an athlete but she had derided people who were overweight. She was now "meeting herself" by having to suffer with the very characteristic she had scorned in others.

I like that Cerminara categorizes different types of karma as being either retributive, such as the karma of mockery, and continuitive, in which a person becomes accustomed to a certain attitude to life over a series of lifetimes. I too had an experience of continuitive karma because I had had a number of lifetimes in which, because of starvation or a bony body type, I had actually wished to be fatter. This attitude led to my present lifetime in which I gained weight easily but lived in a society in which a fleshy body is not preferred.

Many Mansions is a great book. It is many people's first introduction to Cayce. There's a lot to learn about the subject of reincarnation. For me, probably the best result is compassion for humanity's weaknesses and foibles.

It's a great book. Very highly recommended for anyone interested in Edgar Cayce, reincarnation, or the mystery of life.

By Carol Chapman, award-winning photographer of the ONLY Edgar Cayce calendar Divine in Nature: With Quotes from Edgar Cayce and author of When We Were Gods: Insights on Atlantis, Past Lives, Angelic Beings of Light and Spiritual Awakening.

I admire this man and wish his work would have been known to more people.

A fabulous book, extremely well written. This is one of the few books that has impacted my way of thinking. After reading this I find it easier to accept a lot of depressing things I see in this world.

I liked the book well enough, but I think Cerminara added too much of her own thoughts on the subject of reincarnation, almost reshaping the message Cayce brought to us through his "channeling". I would have liked to have read more of Cayce's words and less of Cerminara's "interpretations" of Cayce's readings.

This revised edition is a great resource for both beginners and more advanced users. The illustrations and instructions are very clear and easy to follow and the allover design is very good.

I bought this book when I decided it was time to get back to some of my needlework projects after many, many years. The book is very helpful, showing detailed, clear drawings of stitches. There are also color photos of completed work so you can see what the stitches look like in color, etc. Highly recommend this book.

What everyone says here is TRUE! Mary Thomas wrote the first classic encyclopedia of stitches and it has been lovingly updated. It is the PERFECT embroidery overview ever created for both total beginners and advanced. Clearly written with illustrated instructions, expect to be inspired and prepare to succeed!!

I was trying to find a good basic embroidery book and had no luck. Though found all kinds of needlepoint, or machine embroidery books or expensive software but it was really hard to find a good hand-embroidery book. I couldn't believe my good fortune when I found this. It is a total treasure! If the publishers could come up with a spiral bound version, that would be even better.

Have fun!!

This is simply the best embroidery stitch book I have ever read. An excellent buy. The pictures, instructions and phots all correlate with colour to make learning a new stitch a breeze. I have found the instructions straight forward and clear. Recommend this book to anybody working in textiles.

I hadn't touched embroidery for about 40 years and this book is so detailed with TONS of photos that I had no trouble learning lots of new stitches. I took it to work and shared it with two very experienced embroiders and both were very impressed with the variety of stitches presented and the detailed images.

I thought the book was well written. It was a pleasure to read. I hope to see more of the authors works, soon.

The book was great, could not put it down. Good horror novel that brings some nightmares. Future readers beware.

I only have 1000 words to explain how much I enjoyed this book. That may not be enough. I think this is a great book that is well deserving of the 5 star rating given by me and many others. I ordered the book through the authors website to give support to a selfpublished author. I had no IDEA it would affect me as it did, scary as heck yet its fast and keeps hungry for more. The gore can be nauseating at times, but that will not stop you from getting to the end. I pulled it out at work, in the bathroom, getting dressed, I took this book everywhere for four days! Somone needs to put this on the "Big Screen", my opinion is that it will do well if the story line is maintained.
With all the dud horror movies coming out, I know this book can make it. Good luck Maasi and continue writing!

WT

This one is hard to swallow. My group and I could not help to concede that eventhough the author is nuts he is an extremely talented. We thoroughly enjoyed his use of the english language as far as descriptions. Some of the scenes made our skin crawl but in a sick sort of way we couldn't wait to see who would get slaughtered next. Our first meeting after we had all read Mischiefmakers was comical and creepy as each member felt compelled to act out and read their favorite scenes. Our rating is 5 of 5 stars. If you enjoy horror/suspence you WILL enjoy Mischiefmakers

I have to say I really was not impressed and am having a very hard time understanding what people saw in this book. The story is definitely imaginative, but I found the writing itself to be flat and uninteresting. I wasn't scared and furthermore, at no point was I persuaded that I should actually care about any of the characters. And the thing with the eyes? Too hokey. The imagery was indeed vivid but the language used to describe it could have been much more compelling.

I've used this book extensively in the last 3 months. It helped me construct a great resume, coached me on interview techniques and etiquette, advised me about salary negotiations, and just centered me in general when I was feeling adrift after a recent, unexpected layoff. I gave this book to a friend in the same situation and she has also found it incredibly helpful. I got my first offer yesterday and I know that I will keep this book as a resource long after I land my next job!

I found "How to Land the Job of Your Life" to be the most valuable resource I used in my job search. I also felt that it would be invaluable for my college aged children to keep as they begin their future job searches. The book kept me motivated during the difficult times and helped to keep me focused. I think everyone should read this book and make it part of their permanent library!

Few people know more about finding the right job than Jeff Taylor, founder of Monster, the world's leading career Web site. Taylor leaves no contact unused in this comprehensive guide, discussing every step of finding a new job, from writing a winning resume to avoiding mistakes during salary negotiations to building a productive network. In addition to his experience, he presents advice from recruiters, human resource professionals and Monster employees. So if he directs you to Monster's Web site a little too insistently, you can forgive him, because his book is so well written, easy to read and full of good advice. It includes a good resource list of books, Web sites and services, as well as useful exercises. We recommend this 400-page monster especially to first-time job seekers, although experienced employees seeking more money, prestige or career satisfaction may also find its tips helpful.

I highly recommend this book for anyone in a job search. The exercises in part 2 "Preparing Your Search" have given me so much more confidence by helping me understand my own accommplishments and value to employers.

It's a little annoying that the book refers to worksheets online that don't appear to actually be available.

I found this book very good in getting me up to speed with today's job market. I would recommend it to anyone who is looking.