Works Books

Choose Your Life! is an amazing testament to our natural capabilities as human beings. Jim illustrates through facts as well as personal testimony the ways in which we can create the extraordinary life that we all want and deserve.

One of the most important aspects of this book is that it forces you to reflect on the life that you are living, and inspires you to take consistent action to improve upon it. Make sure you use the worksheets located in the back of the book, as these tools make it easier for you to anchor Mr. Huling's knowledge and insight. This unique feature helps us truly understand that we have the ability to choose the life we want.

If you want to be a better employer, employee, parent, or friend, this book is a must. As a soon-to-be father, this book has put into perspective the person I want to be in my personal and professional life. It really helps me prioritize my needs and the needs of those around me. This is the type of book I would want my employer, employees, parents, and child to read, so that they can have the same extraordinary life I am creating for myself.


Jesse Norton
Anthony Robbins Companies

Choose Your Life is the real deal and a must read for anyone who wants to improve their life. This is not a book of mere "feel good" platitudes. Instead, Choose Your Life is the first book I have read that effectively combines a number of truly inspirational messages combined with very practical, detailed and effective strategies and exercises. Jim Huling methodically explains his extraordinary vision of how to achieve true work-life meaning and balance. He also provides a holistic, very practical and achievable method of living a life of great meaning, joy, love and satisfaction. Jim's Business of Life Articles (many of which are reproduced in this book) are written from a real world perspective and are both poignant and helpful reminders of truly important issues. Choose Your Life combines these meaningful stories and presents an achievable strategy for self improvement with real world techniques that can work for any reader. Merely follow the detailed step-by-step process Jim Huling outlines, and a more meaning and enriched life is possible. This book is easy to read and enjoyable. While no one is too old to start using Jim Huling's effective strategies, this book also makes an excellent gift for college students and young adults who are prepared to start the process of living their lives to their full potential.

Choose Your Life! is a road map to living a great life balanced among the things that matter most to you filled with rich memories. It is generously sprinkled with what Huling calls "BFOs"--Blinding Flashes of the Obvious--morsels of Hulings insight, which kept me turning the pages. For me, the biggest BFO was in realizing that the tools and techniques of my own profession, the financial planning process, can be applied to my life and interpersonal relationships in order to achieve rewards on a human plane far greater than just financial goals--a deep sense of peace and fulfillment. Huling's `Life Planning Process' melds the logical decisions we make in our head by means of analysis with the creative choices we make in our heart, based on emotion. He embraces and integrates these two seemingly disparate perspectives into a remarkable synthesis of thinking, feeling, perceiving, and judging. Choose Your Life! is a touchy-feely book that will appeal to the pragmatist. Best of all, it provides a practical step by step guide and offers helpful examples and worksheets, which if followed, will assure success in the whole of your life.

Bruce A. Roth, author of No Time To Kill No Time To Kill

Inspiring! All too often we drive ourselves to do more both professionally and personally. Often we set a frantic, unhealthy pace for ourselves. This book reminds us that it is necessary to stop and look at the life we have created and see if it at all resembles the life we want. Jim Huling's book "Choose Your Life!" offers practical and inspirational advice for examining your life and for creating a path to the life you want for yourself - rather than what others choose for you. The author provides excellent worksheets to help readers keep track of their goals and to help readers chart a course for positive growth and change. The worksheets are an essential element of this book's impact.

This book is excellent at reminding you that you have the choice everyday of how you want to live. After all, we all have only one life and it's up to you to make it meaningful and happy for yourself.

Highly recommended for anyone who wants to make positive changes to their life.

Change starts from the moment of decision. So if you are undecided this book is probably not for you. I received this book as a Christmas gift and read it in a weekend. The author also has the worksheets downloadable on his website. This book is for so many of us who have read the gambit of books that promise us the "Secret" formula to the life we want. Mr. Huling simply offers us a formula for finding out what we want, what we are willing to do to get what we want and how to overcome the fear(s) associated with the journey. Excellent book for those who have read a lot of the other books out there and squeezed the useful information in those books and are now ready to do something about it in 5 steps you really can Choose Your Life! There are basically three categories of living: (1) Survival (2) Success and (3) Significant. If you are ready to Choose your Life Read this Book! I highly recommend this book!

I have had acne since I was 12 (I am now 21), and I have to say that following the regimen prescribed in this book has made the most significant change in my skin in comparison to anything else I have tried, including more 'serious' approaches and medications such as accutane.

I'll be honest, using as much benzoyl peroxide as Dan recommends sucks, mostly because of the mild to moderate burning sensation and the dry skin that it leaves after applying the cream for about 20 minutes afterward. But it is worth it if you have struggled as much as I have with my moderate acne. According to Dan, the burning sensation is not that bad for most people, and I have found that after the initial few weeks on the regimen, the buring became more mild every day and easier to handle, as well as the dry skin. Benzoyl Peroxide also stains clothing a little, though I have not had much of a problem with it. It can also stain or bleach hair, but it is very minimal, and I have only experienced a few of my eyebrow hairs going from dark brown to blond, and even then it can only be noticed when scrutinizing them a few inces from a mirror.

I have found a couple of things that have helped: find a mild cleanser, really moisturizing lotion, and be as gentle with your skin as possible! (I like cetaphil, but experiment to find your own, and Dan sells his own 2.5% benzoyl peroxide cream online for a great price. he is not out to make huge amounts of money like others claiming to cure acne, such as ProActiv!) The difference between this acne regimen and others, such as Proactiv, is essentially the amount of benzoyld peroxide cream used and the elimination of manual and chemical exfoliation with AHA/BHA or salicylic acid products. Dan recommends applying about an ounce of bp cream each time, while most systems recommend only about a dime sized amount. (trust me, this is a drastic change!)

He explains exactly the reasoning and how to follow his guidelines in the book, so please(!) follow Dan's advice! Another point to keep in mind is almost everything in this book is online at acne.org for free, so please check out the site and it's great recommendations first before ordering the book! While this book and Dan's regimen offer relief for most acne sufferers, this is not a cure for acne but a way to manage it on a daily basis, and once under control, acne will most likely reappear if you stop the regimen and doing exactly what Dan tells you to do.

With that said, this regimen has helped to keep my skin clearer than anything that I have tried. I have been on almost every acne medication that can be prescribed, including accutane, and while they helped clear my skin to a degree, you can't stay on drugs indefinitely, and once I stopped them my acne would either immediately or eventually reappear just as badly or worse than it was before I was on the medications. This system is what is helping me keep my skin under control on a long term basis without the side effects of oral drugs.

Dan's skin care regimen is the only thing that has worked for my acne - I tried everything from Proactiv to oral medications like Acutane. I've been caking on makeup for most of my life, since age 13, but now I finally can leave the house without it. Yes, I still break out a little before my monthly period, but otherwise, I'm all clear.
Dan Kern should win an award for his method, he is truly helping people, and not one of these Guthy Renker infomercial companies out for money. No celebrity endorsements needed; the clear skin regimen just works. I wish I had found it years ago.

Happily, Dan Kern is not a corporation looking for profit: he's just a guy who had bad skin and found a way to manage it. [...] I bought the book as a small thank you to Kern for being nice enough to provide the info for free. If you buy products thru his site, he gets a kick-back -- and if you don't, that's ok, too. For this reason, he deserves the support. Kind of like shareware for books. And his easy if not always fun regimen has been working so far, so kudos.

Dan's info is the only thing that has helped me get rid of my acne. Nothing else, incl. Proactiv, worked except the info in this book and it is very simple and easy to do what he suggests. But the previous reveiwer was write you can get all the info in this book on his website.

I didn't read the whole book. I just went to web site acne.org and followed the program. Acne is now gone. I suffered from Acne for over 20 years and tried many treatment programs from Accutane, Retin-A, Microdermabrasion and a few others. Dan Kern's treatment program was the first treatment program that actually work for me in the long run.

The cheapest and fastest way I know how to check out the program is to order 1 tube of the 2.5% Benzoyl Peroxide (from Dan's Web Site) and try it for 1 week following Dan's instructions. Yes, if you goto the web site, Dan also wants you to get a Cleanser and a Moisturizer. All products are needed but I believe the key product is 2.5% benzoyl peroxide gel from his web site Acne.org.

I strongly believe if you have Ance, using the 2.5% benzoyl peroxide gel with Dan's instruction, you will have a 95% chance of seeing improvement in less than a week.

"A late rose ravages the casual eye," writes Roethke in A Walk in Late Summer, "a blaze of being on a central stem." In such images we see the symbols of nature fully tapped in modern poetry -- and tapped in American English, in fresh, vivid language that overpowers the reader with its grace and presence. The poetry of Theodore Roethke is written by a man profoundly alive -- skirting the edge of suicide, losing his voice in the awe of love, reeling wildly in the throes of "the pure fury," and looking at last with calm eyes into infinity and his own undoing in the Far Field. Roethke was a true descendent of Whitman where the latter wrote "This is no book / Who touches this touches a man." But Roethke's poetry moves us as much by its lyrical language as by the power and wisdom of its experience. Roethke himself was, as represented by his art alone, a "blaze of being."

Among Roethke's contributions to literature are his poems that treat depression. Far from letting his manic episodes paralyze him, he used them to write some his most intense poetry. "In a Dark Time" is one of the immortal poems of the 20th century, worthy to be set aside a Van Gogh painting. Roethke was not alone in treating these subjects: two other Pulitzer Prize-winning poets of his time, Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton, learned from him and wrote about similar themes. But Roethke's writing stands out in two ways from these poets and other poets the 50's and 60's.

One is the unity of his work and vision -- this Collected Poems traces a single spiritual journey beginning with his childhood memories of the greenhouse, and ending somewhere among "the windy cliffs of forever", last visions tragically cut short by his early death. Between those points are rendered all of the experiences of his life -- as he wrote in his first poem, "my heart keeps open-house." But he never fails to interpret these experiences and understand their significance in the larger picture of his life and poetry. Unlike so much of the poetry of Sylvia Plath and other Confessional poets, Roethke never demands that you read his biography to understand his symbolism. Rather, his symbols develop among his poems to form a kind of mythology: his recurring symbols include stones, fire, light, "the small," and the spirit.

The other difference between Roethke and other poets of his time is his technique. Roethke is never obscure; he always writes in fresh language, avoiding cliches, although his symbols are indeed personal and take time to understand. Roethke's craft is "strict and pure," such that even the staunchest defenders of Sylvia Plath have confessed that Roethke's writing is more disciplined. The Deep Image movement of poets like Robert Bly and James Wright is influenced by the kind of symbolism found throughout Roethke's poetry, and those writers have acknowledged their debt to him. Roethke retained rhyme and meter in a time when all the conventions of poetry were being ripped apart; and he did so with a consummate technical skill not to be found in the Beatniks or in the Black Mountain poets. Roethke's ear for poetry is much more sensitive than that of other poets of his time. We are gagged by the lyricism in lines like

"She came toward me in the flowing air,
A shape of change, encircled by its fire."
("The Dream")

"When all
My waterfall
Fancies sway away
From me, in the sea's silence..."
("Her Time")

"O love, you who hear
The slow tick of time
In your sea-buried ear..."
("Song")


The most exhilarating of all these are Roethke's love poems in "Words for the Wind", which justly won the Bollingen Prize and the National Book Award. These poems are unmatched for eloquence and spiritual intensity -- and it's a damn shame that modern anthologies do not reprint them, aside from the famous "I Knew a Woman." For it is in these love poems that Roethke's soul soars, and his poetic power is fully realized.

"She knew the grammar of least motion."
("The Dream")

"Light listened when she sang."
("Light Listened")

"I measure time by how a body sways."
("I Knew a Woman").


Theodore Roethke achieved greatness in art by having the courage to confront the most intense human experiences and the skill to craft them into some of the most eloquent poems of his time. If there is ONE modern poet you will read, let it be Roethke. His "Collected Poems" is a must for every poet and every lover of poetry.

I relished Roethke when I first read him in high school, along with Hart Crane, e.e. cummings, and the Beats. I still admired him in college, when I wrote poetry myself, and regarded most other "living" poets with suspicious disdain. Many poets I loved then have lost some of their charm for me (my loss, not theirs) but, forty five years later, I still read Roethke. Does that speak to you?

To My Sister; The Heron; No Bird; Elegy for Jane; She; Her Reticence; The Meadow Mouse; and of course, My Papa's Waltz--these are all some of the great poems that Theodore Roethke wrote. Roethke is one of our American masters. I found that when he was on his game (as he was in the poems above, among others) his poetry was phenomenal, but when he wasn't, his poetry could be awful. His earlier work is better than his later work, though he seems to have gotten most of his recognition for his later work. Still, for the poetry lover this is pretty much a required volume for your shelves.

At first, I was heitant to delve into this author's work simply because I'd never heard of him in all my wide readings of poetry, both modern and old.

Don't make the same mistake I did. Roethke WILL NOT disappoint you. "The Lost Son" has become my new favourite poem, and this book goes with me perpetually, and will until I finish every line in it.

Exquisite.

I love Roethke and I can't stop loving him. His words, phrases, rhythms, thoughts, feelings and meditations stick with me. I will go a year or two without reading his work, but he is still there shaping the way I see the world. His poetry occupies the same space in my mind as Brian Eno's transcendent work On Land. It's meditative, quiet, and joyful and yet, sweaty, ominous, and alarming, all at the same time.

The Far Field (North American Sequence) incarnates this feeling for me. Roethke meditates on his own mortality (don't all poets?) and finds a vast encompassing love for life. A love not only for the "growing rose," but also, seemingly for the summer heat and the stench of dead buffalo, "their damp fur drying in the sun." He sees beauty in nature but also "redolent disorder" and he calls life "This ambush, this silence."

I agree with him.

Roethke proclaims a love for life which is similar to Nietzsche's concept of the Eternal Recurring. That is, he has learned to love life, the good and the evil, to such an extent that he would have it recur again and again, eternally. This kind of love is not a love for evil, rather it is a willingness to sit behind the window of one's pain and still look out and see the beauty. This takes great courage.

Roethke's influences are obvious. What American poet could escape Whitman and his lineage, Thoreau, Henry Miller, etc.? I'm sure he read his fair share of Nietzsche. I also note, Roethke's style seems to have changed drastically towards the end of his life. I believe this was probably partly in reaction to the Beats. However, in my opinion he swallows the Beats whole and makes something new of them. Roethke's verse also periodically has the ring of Wallace Stevens, and sometimes Robert Frost. Some of his verses sound like bad seventies self-help schtick; "I long for the imperishable quiet at the heart of form," etc.

I only go into these criticisms so I can make a larger point. Roethke's metaphors are sometimes, seemingly, larger than their implication, sometimes they are derivative, sometimes clunky. But, his work, for me, has an almost Biblical air to it. By this I mean his work resonates on a mythological level. His ideas are broad and go to the heart without ignoring the blood and stench of life. At the same time, yes, his ideas are broad, however, his details, while often being merely enumerative, are true. By this I mean, they come from a real eye roving across a real landscape. He is, at once, strange and familiar.

I would hope that Academia would catch up with Roethke. It seems that he is being unfairly ignored.

In The Confessions of Saint Augustine, Augustine concentrates on his powerful and zealous ongoing spiritual questions. His dairy- type book tells of the history of one man's struggle to obtain and maintain a close spiritual walk with God. John K. Ryan translated the book in an attempt to make Augustine's work more reader friendly.
John K. Ryan's translation of "The Confessions of Saint Augustine" is a very easy book to read. His 22-page introduction and notes with Bible scriptures at the back of the book help the reader understand and tie together St. Augustine's work. The scriptures that Ryan provided the reader appeared to come from the King James Bible. With this in mind, I examined the possibility that Ryan was Protestant and not Catholic in his own spiritual ideology. I than questioned if that had tainted his translation. Therefore, I read parts of other translations of the Confession found on the Internet and discovered them all to be like-minded. I concluded that Ryan's translation didn't show any bias, but tried to relay to the reader that Saint Augustine's true desire was to understand God's "Will". Therefore, Augustine was portrayed as a sinner turned saint. The book was organized in a chronological manner, taking the reader from the beginning of Augustine's spiritual journey to being known as a saint and a church father. Ryan's approach to translating "The Confession of Saint Augustine" was a social history because his translations were geared toward the aspects of civil society that show the evolution of social norms, behaviors, and more.
"The Confessions of Saint Augustine" is a valuable read because it offers a first hand look at how Augustine struggled to understand God's divine power and aspiration for his life, and to be of assistance to others in the future. He raised questions that men and women since time began have questioned during their sacred walk with the Supreme Being known as God. His personal thirst for righteousness consumed his life, and he is known as one of the great Christian thinkers.
The Confession was not what I thought it would be. I truly thought it would be a book full of confessions from a saint that was "suppose" to be a prefect person that had fallen by the spiritual wayside. Instead, the Confession was like an autobiographical journal, which did included doctrine, scriptures, studies, praise, memories, and confessions. I was impressed by his ability to swing from scriptures to his own thoughts, but had you not read the scriptures prior to reading the book you may not have realized the source of this information.
Augustine was a wonderful philosopher/thinker and his writings have been the subject of many discussions throughout history since it was written in 397 A.D. However, the Confession was written in a prayer-like manner addressing various issues making it difficult to focus on the subject for long periods of time.
Some of the things Augustine questioned to the "simple-minded" or should I say "non-philosopher type" is somewhat of a given. For example: in The Infant Augustine, he wrote, "I myself do not remember this. Therefore, the comfort of human milk nourished me, but neither my mother nor my nurse filled their own breast. Rather, through them you gave me as an infant's food in accordance with your law and out of the riches that you have distributed even down to the lowest level of thing." (7) Why did he question such things? Female animals of all types feed their young from the breast. This is natural. He apparently was so far above me as a thinker that where he was going with this is beyond my comprehension, unless, he was just saying, "Thank you Lord for supplying my needs even as a child, when I knew you not." He almost said these same words in the next few sentences but to go back so far and question every aspect is as I said before, beyond my comprehension.
As you can tell I have never read a book of this nature before unless you count the King James Bible, but I did try to keep an open mind. I was surprised that he didn't appear to be a happy Christian in all his efforts to be "Christ like". This disappointed me. However, there were times while reading the book I could relate to Augustine and many of his questions. This book reminded me that no matter what God a person chooses to serve, as human beings we want to become the best we can be spiritually.
During my reading I realized that Augustine through his quest for righteousness must have gone through many of the same stages that persons in earlier cultures and time periods have. For example: he questioned what pleased God, how should he praise and show his thankfulness to God, and in what way did he want to serve God. Throughout world history these same questions have been asked at one time or another.
Ryan did a wonderful job of translating the Confession. Augustine's book written like a diary made the confessions more personal. He was one of the greatest thinkers and Christian fathers of his era. His spiritual struggles were genuine; his desire for righteousness was obvious in his writing. I sit in awe at his wisdom and his pursuit of knowledge. This book was a good read and I will study it again someday. It gave me insight to what other cultures throughout history underwent to comprehend and to determine what path of Christianity they would embrace.

Any edition of Confessions of Saint Augustine is "must" reading for anyone who has traveled a road of self-examination about right/wrong, good/evil and finding truth. Augustine surely dissected his own belief system and came to terms with the meaning and purpose of life. I have read several translations of Confessions and have found them all worthwhile reading. I shall yet, read them again.

Let me just begin by saying that this book is brilliant. Augustine is one of the greatest thinkers that the world has ever known, and it shines through in this book. In this book, Augustine manages to cover an amazing number of topics, and does so in a beautiful way, filled with prayers to God.

I am not sure what the reviewer from June 10, 2005 is talking about. I think that they were reviewing the wrong book. This book is 400 some pages, not 90, and it is the complete version, not an introduction or abridgement.

Normally when I read books I underline quotes or passages that I think are especially good, or that I think I will be able to use in papers in the future. I then write the page numbers of the pages that have underlining on the back page. In this book, however, I ended up writing the pages numbers of pages I DIDN'T underline in on the back, since I underlined something on nearly every page. This book is absolutely filled with wisdom and knowledge of God and how He and the world He created works. This book inspired me to find a copy of The City of God, which I am now just beginning. If it is one-tenth as good as the Confessions, it will be well worth the money.

This is a beautiful book even if you aren't familiar with the Saints. It opens like a flower as you read. It is completely about this wonderful man's own thoughtful analysis of his own emotional experiences. He reflects on his early life when he was actually a pagan worshipper, and then focuses on his conversion to the Christian faith. Once he converted Saint Augustine returned to Africa and set up a monastic community. What makes this book so special is that is told with the utmost candor and he holds nothing back. It is also a beautiful book in praise of God and how he changed Saint Augustine's life. Although religious in tenure, this is not a totally religious work. So many observations and thoughts that this man had in his lifetime (354 AD is when he was born). It is a book about friendships (both true and false), faith, celibacy and love.

This book is a Roman Empire era classic, but not for the reader in a hurry. The translation appears to attempt to faithfully follow the original Latin long sentences and has therefore had to deploy advanced literary English to deal with the frequent multiple midsentence clauses. This is one of the reasons I found it slow going from a time perspective, but worth persisting with. One really good addition to the book is the notes section with all the Bible references; this is where having a cleric as the translator is clearly a bonus.

As other reviewers have pointed out, the book is a combination of St Augustine's personal life and his discussion of theology and philosophy. His personal life details include petty theft of fruit from an orchard, sitting around unemployed, youthful indiscretions, living a few years with his girlfriend until they split up, and his personal spiritual realignment from a heretical sect to the Catholic tradition. The Biblical references are mainly letters from the Apostle Paul, the Genesis story of the creation, and the Psalms, and there is nothing much from the Gospels or the Prophets. The philosophy component includes a review of his personal experiences with sense of time and memory which was no doubt drawn from his experience as a professional teacher of rhetoric and philosophy.

What one gains from all this is a great snapshot of what someone of religious conviction in the fading days of the Roman Empire saw and thought, including the experience of just scraping by to make a living. Overall, recommended for the patient reader!

i just started (well just INCORPORATED) my catering business. i found this book to be written in an accessible and unintimidating style. Fishman goes to great lengths to give examples, cite external sources for additional information, and generally uncomplicates the IRS jargon. now only if i had read this 6 months ago, i would really be ahead of the game!

This book has the information I have been looking for. It is the most detailed (and clearly written) of any books that I've purchased to help me know what is allowable (and not) as deductions for my small business. Helps in planning as well.
SUPERB!

This book is a must small business owners because it can improve their bottom line. Although it provides fairly good overview of tax deudctions, it should not be used as a comprehensive reference for tax professionals.

The book is a relatively light read in a highly readable format. Each tax deduction has a good overview and a case example to boot. It isn't, however, an answer to complex tax questions which the book willingly acknowledges should be taken to a tax professional. For most business owners, this book should be sufficient for most of the tax deduction questions they may have. This book certainly answered all of mine.

The book provides valuable information on the probability of an IRS audit (don't form sole proprietorship if you want to avoid an audit) and how one can minimize one's chances of an audit.

I read this book after forming a C-Corp in California (using the Nolo guide). Although I am familiar with many biz deductions, this book walks you through many examples of deductions you can take if you plan ahead. I really like the "Day in the Life of..." examples of how you can maximize legal deductions pertaining to mileage. There's an excellent section on home office deductions. My husband, a self-admitted dummy when it comes to expense reports, taxes, etc., picked up the book after I was done, and even he understands the concepts. Already he has found deductions for his sole proprietorship and non-reimbursed employee biz expenses. Great value and so easy to understand. Highly recommend.

Great book. Just one comment. A lot of the text in this book is identical to the text in Tax Deductions for Professionals. You don't need both books; choose one.

This is the ultimate book on Disneyland. It's more than a postcard book, it traces the history of the park & combines descriptive text with some of the best pictures you'll ever see of the park as well as the attractions, past & present. I have most every coffee table photograph book on Disneyland that has been released over the years, & this one is definitely the E-Ticket of the bunch. If you have the excellent 'Disneyland: Then, Now & Forever' (also Bruce Gordon), you have a taste of what you will find here.
The 2nd Edition is also the better of the 2 editions, with added material (1st Edition was 1995, 2nd Edition updates to 2000). I would take the 2nd Edition over the 1st Edition if they were both offered at the same price for this reason. This book is out of print... permanently since the unfortunate passing of Bruce Gordon in November 2007, there will not be any future updated editions.
Speaking of price, this book retailed for $75.00 when it was released. With some patience, this book CAN be found for around $150.00-$200.00 despite what you see here. These copies have been sitting for at least a few years at an inflated value. The book itself is spectacular, the fact that anyone would try to sell the book at $300 & up is shameful.

Let me start this review with the following statement: This is the most prized book in my collection. I'll try not to be too biased. It is also the most expensive and one of the hardest to come by. In the Afterwords section of Walt's Time, Bruce explains how The Nickel Tour came to be:

"We talked to every publisher we could find, and heard the same story, word for word. No Commercial Potential. No audience. No Market. No Deal."

They put the book together themselves: Scanned all of the cards, did the layout of every page and had it printed in Italy. They lugged the books to every convention and sold them through mail-order.

"And guess what: we sold every book we printed". --p. 241, Bruce Gordon, Walt's Time - From Before to Beyond

Disneyland, the Nickel Tour is a look at the first 45 years of Disneyland's history seen through the postcards of the park. In addition to Randy Bright's wonderful Disneyland the Inside Story, The Nickel Tour stands as one of the two most comprehensive books about Disneyland's history. Where it edges out Mr. Bright' work is that The Nickel Tour does cover the past 20 years. Unfortunately, Mr. Bright passed away in 1990 and a second edition is not forthcoming. Bruce Gordon, the primary writer of The Nickel Tour, was an Imagineer and started with the Company in 1980. Mr. Gordon co-authored many books about Disney and there are several that will be published posthumously later this year. Mr. Gordon passed away in November 2007. As it stands, the second edition of The Nickel Tour will probably be the last.

The Nickel Tour is an amazing work on so many different levels: the postcard images, the photographs of attractions that weren't released in postcard form, the historical information and the writing. They begin by sharing pre-opening cards and work their way through the history of Disneyland. One of Gordon and Mumford's strengths is that they write well and can take something as simple as post cards and turn it into an epic look at a theme park. The writing never gets technical and is always filled with reverence, love and a little remorse. Occasionally, they slip in some humor. It is always fitting and they obvious love word-play. The following paragraph could have been presented as just a litany of facts, but they went a different way with it.

"On the left hand side of Main Street, we encounter the Sunkist Citrus House. Long before this view was taken, the Citrus House had actually been two separate stores, one housing "Sunny View Jams and Jellies" and the other housing the "Puffin Bake Shop." By October of 1958, Disneyland had canned the jam and jelly shop and opened a candy store in its place. It was a sweet deal until June of 1960, when the Puffin Bake Shop went stale. (It seems they just weren't making enough dough to stay in business.) And even worse, it wasn't long before everyone was beginning to sour on the candy shop next door. So the two shops were joined together, and in a dedication ceremony held with Walt on July 31, they finally became the home of the Sunkist Citrus Shop. Things were calm until 1990, when the time was ripe to spin around in a circle once more - only to find the Sunkist moving out and the Bakery moving back in! Well, that story certainly had a peel. Orange you glad we wasted all this time? Meanwhile, here's the scoop on the Carnation Ice Cream parlor: in 1997 they split from their original parlor and (having lost their Carnation along the way) floated into the home of the bakery. Then, with perfect Disneyland logic, the bakery moved into - the ice cream parlor! If that doesn't get a rise out of you, nothing will!" p. 121

The sense of history that you get from The Nickel Tour, through the postcards and photographs, has not been presented in any other form. Besides being a reference work for postcards, it is almost a wish book--one you can flip open to any page and see a favorite or long-gone attraction and dream about visiting or re-experiencing. The images are stellar and your appreciation of postcards as art and history will grow.

Bottom Line: This work was obviously a labor of love for Gordon and Mumford. It is hard to stress how important this work is in the Disney Literature. Beside being one of two major historical works about Disneyland, you get a feel for how Disneyland evolved, how Walt plussed the park and how the Disney Company moved forward after Walt. It is the most cherished book in my entire collection. If you are lucky enough to find a copy, get it. I know that many people will dismiss this book because it is about Disneyland, but without Disneyland, there would be no Walt Disney World. The history of Disneyland offers a lot of insight into the growth of Walt Disney World as well.

This book is simply amazing!

www.imaginerding.com

For an excellent crash-course on Disneyland, this book can't be beat. Excellent photos, commentary, and fun back-stage stories. Learn about the park from the idea stage to execution. Truly the best resource book on Disneyland available. Besides photos of every postcard released, there are a number of historic photos as well, and indepth information about each attraction. There are no "tear-out" postcards in this book. Get your hands on it while you can!

What memories this brings back! Not only are the postcards wonderful, but the narrative is very entertaining - much more than I had hoped for - and the postcards are supplemented with some wonderful photos to fill in some of the gaps. A great way for us (we?) older Disney fans to share our memories of Disneyland with our children (and later grandchildren), too. I know I will get many hours of enjoyment from this book over the years to come. I am so glad I decided it might be worth the price - it's worth many times over! 2007 update - Wow, the price I was referring to was $52.50, not the $189 I see it going for now.

I've read "The Art of Walt Disney", "Walt Disney Imagineering", "Disneyland:The Inside Story", and several other books about the Magic Kingdom, and this book is by far the most detailed and enjoyable of them all. Every store that's ever had an address on Main Street...every sponsor that's ever had an exhibit in Tommorowland...IT'S ALL HERE. My only complaint is that I wish some of the illustrations were larger so you could take in more detail...but considering that every postcard ever issued by Disneyland is included, in addition to behind-the-scenes photos and concept art, this is an understandable compromise. Absolutely the best book ever printed on Disneyland.

This Book is not only regiments history and a lott of beautiful accurate illustrated uniforms, is history alive. The only thing this book lack off is sound but thanks to the hands of Don Troiani the paintings are so full of live you can hear it in the back of your mind. Art by Don Troiani, text by Brian C. Pohanka. This book presents in a beautiful landscape format his unique view of the war and the men who fought it. Each painting is accompanied by an extensive background text by noted historian Brian Pohanka The good thing about this book is that if you consider yourself a Civil War historian or reenactorss a just a fan beginning to study the civil war, you won't find the typical error of other authors, this would help you enjoy the painting one by one so you can understand better who and how was this War fought. One last thing DO NOT PUT THIS BOOK ON YOUR COFFEE TABLE people fall in love with this book so fast that they can even stole from you, believe me this is the third time I buy this book. If you enjoy this book you would love Don Troiani's Soldiers In America, 1754 - 1865.

If you are any kind of amateur Civil War historian than you probably grew up looking at the American Heritage or Golden books about the civil war. They were chock full of illustrations from the Harper's Weekly sketches to the bursting with color lithographs of Kurtz & Allison. Yes, these images were full of fully uniformed boys in blue and gray gathered in massive lines firing point blank at each other. And even as a child gazing at these...you wondered...was it really like that?

Then you glimpse your first Troiani painting and you know you are in the presence of the real deal. Don Troiani sweats the details and doesn't just throw something on the canvas and attach a name to it. The event depicted is so vividly and realistically portrayed that you almost know what moment in the American Civil War you are seeing without having to be told.

This wonderful book finally brings together in one place some of Troiani's greatest Civil War paintings. It is a book that no Civil War library is complete without. This is perhaps as close to witnessing the actual event as we are ever likely to achieve.

I only wish the Ken Burns had taken advantage of these paintings and used them in his series on the Civil War. His insistence on utilizing contemporary images reduced his otherwise wonderful documentary to a rehash of what I had already seen a thousand times in my Golden book. Imagine how much richer the story telling as his camera zoomed into a Troiani painting.

It's time to see the Civil War as it was. Trust Don Troiani to show you.

Every Civil War enthusiast should have this book. It's beautiful, enjoyable, as well as educational. Troiani's attention to detail and historical accuracy is astounding. Most of Troiani's work is of active battle scenes with anonomous characters, unlike John Paul Strain's work which focuses on specific leaders in non-battle situations. I recommend both books.

What a nice book, both to the artistic and literary eye. I am fortunate enough to own three Don Troiani signed Civil War prints. This book is dessert, providing a thorough if not complete collection of all the Civil War art I will never own but can now enjoy. Troiani, an avid collector of Civil War uniforms and gear, provides perhaps the most accurate representation of soldiers, regiments and engagements normally limited to what the mind's eye can conjur from words on a page. Troiani not only excells at the equipment's detail, but paints a vivid image of the topography and climate as well as the determination, anguish, fear, and heroism of the soldiers. These are not charactures but the images of people who seem to walk off the page and out of your imagination. Pohanka's commentary complements the art by placing the action within the broader context of the battle and the war. I made this book a gift to myself and, if you appreciate art - either in a historical context or for arts sake - you should as well.

A quick glance of the customer reviews tells one that this book is something special. Page after page of astounding paintings complemented by capable text. The detail of Don Troiani's artwork is such that you can literally spend hours examining them, and if you let others look at the book you can grow impatient trying to get it back!

Drugs for Less should be on anyone's book shelf who is a user of prescription drugs. Michael Cecil, M.D., first of all explains drug pricing for name brand and generic drugs. He then offers seven strategies for lowering your drug costs.

* Learn prices
* Comparison shop
* Buy generic medications
* Slice medications
* Consider other medications in the same class
* Put your government to work for you
* Use pharmaceutical assistance programs

All are helpful and could immediately lower your prescription drugs bills, but two that you may be under-utilizing are the last two. Some states have pharmaceutical assistance programs with income limits much higher than poverty level and most drug companies have assistance programs. It's worth seeing if you qualify.

More than 600 of the most commonly prescribed medications are included. Part II, the Drugs for Less Listing, has nearly 100 medications with their alternatives and the manufacturer's contact number for their assistance program. A number of comparison charts on costs for other medications are also included. The books is loaded with resources; Dr. Cecil provides numerous Web sites and contact information throughout the book.

This is one resource you do not want to be without.

This is a one of a kind book. In today's health mire this gives concrete ways to assist family members and friends who struggle with affordable prescriptions. Every doctor, nurse, healthcare facility, social worker, and individual who needs a prescription should have a copy. I am buying several and giving as gifts. Thank you Dr. Cecil for this invaluable resource.

As a hospitalist, It's frustrating to see patients return to the hospital because they could not afford their medications. This book attacks that problem in a new and exciting way, by empowering patients. It educates and then provides numerous tools for getting affordable medications, like using generics, pill splitting, enrolling in assistance programs, just to name a few. Physicians also should read this book. The easy to read tables make it simple to compare medications within a class and prescribe the least expensive. I'm recommending this to all my patients and colleagues.

This is a wonderful resource for patients who have trouble affording their medications. As a nurse, I see this situation daily. I purchased this book for my father for Father's Day. He had already spent several hours on the internet trying to find this type of information and now it is right at his fingertips! This is a must have for people who need help affording their medications and for those who have family members who need help affording their medications.

This book is AMAZING!!! I had no idea there are such different prices for the SAME DRUG! Even common drugs like birth control pills - can differ in price - by a bazillion dollars. (Rough Estimate) DRUGS FOR LESS shows actual PRICE DIFFERENCES and saves you money. And because it is written by famous physicians - known for their common sense - you can trust it! This book tells you how to get your prescriptions for FREE if you make a certain amount of money or less...heelllloooo...as a Flight Attendant who just took a 40% pay cut due to airline woes...I am telling every Flight Attendant about this book! And my mother and father inlaw who use over $700.00 every month for prescription drugs also need to know about this book! This book should be in every library of every "SUN CITY" residential community in the world! And should be purchased by every Business in America for their EMPLOYEE HEALTH program. I heard about this book when I was doing a television interview for my new Flight Attendant tell-all FLYING BY THE SEAT OF MY PANTS - I was riveted by what DRUGS FOR LESS reveals! Now I can't stop telling everyone about this book. What a fantastic resource! I wish I could make a PA on every flight advertising DRUGS FOR LESS. (But, they don't allow us to sell drugs or books on board.) GET THIS BOOK TODAY and start saving money and living healthier TOMORROW! Then come fly with me!

Marsha Marks

The breadth and scope of this book is staggering. It's an exhaustive tome on pretty much all the genre fiction of the Victorian age, and not limited to the UK fiction of the period either. It's a must read for fans of steampunk, Victorian science fiction, the pulps... But what it really is is an unbelievable gift to writers - the story concepts stuffed into every page of this tome are unbelievable. There is years and years of amazing inspiration here. The book is sold out, but track down a copy however you can.

Where is this book? Why is it sold out? Is it being reissued? Does anyone know?

This thing is a brick. Hardbound, weighing in at just over a thousand pages, this book could stop a bullet or cause serious damage if dropped on the toes. And all those pages are crammed full of entries describing Victorian era novels. All of my favorites are here, plus hundreds of books I've never heard of. All nations and genres are represented, not just
Sci Fi and the Brits. Better still, Nevins is not afraid to editorialize. It's shocking, but not altogether untrue, when he claims that The Wizard of Oz "can easily be interpreted as a horror novel" or that Ivanhoe is superior to Sir Walter Scott's other works in that it "is readable." If you like Victorian fiction, but find its offerings uneven, Nevins can be an invaluable guide. My only complaint about this amusing and informative tome is that it's all but useless as an actual reference work. Entries are organized alphabetically by the names of central characters or settings, rather than by title or by author. To find the works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, you would have to look under Sherlock Holmes or Sir Nigel. There are decent see-also references, but no index. Still, I am mostly content to browse its oddly organized pages, in search of the good stuff. This book represents a serious investment in both money and shelf space, but if you enjoy Victorian era fiction, you can't really afford to be without it.

This was given as a gift. The person who received the book enjoyed it very much. It is a good reference resource for writers and artists.

I love this book. It is very comprehensive and I cannot wait for the release of Mr. Nevins next book on Pulp Heroes. We need more books like this.

I had the second edition of this book, published in 2001. There are so far 3 editions, First edition 1984; second edition 2001; third edition 2006. This review is under the second edition. The latest edition was published by Oxford University, in the end of 2006. The price is much lower than this second edition. I am not sure why amazon.com lists the expensive second edition first, not the latest third edition.

I checked the 3rd editon, and it seems to me there are lots of update. Almost all the chapter titles have been changed ..

I bought the second edition for my kids from Borders under 10 bucks in the bargain section. My kids like it very much.

The best book about mammals....

If you cann't find a good bargain, buy the latest edition published by Oxford University Press, not this 3-volume second edition. It's way over priced..

I have an older edition of this book, just found this 2001 edition (new) at a book sale at Barnes & Noble for only $20.00! As a Docent at a local wildlife facility, this is an excellent resource book, as well as good reading material. Super illustrations, with easy-to-understand text makes this a "must-have" for anyone interested in the Mammal world.

Both high school and public library reference holdings strong in animal science will find the second updated edition of the three-volume set The Encyclopedia of Mammals to be an excellent survey of the latest developments in mammal science. A team of editors have produced volumes which lend to both serious study and leisure browsing with a blend of color photos and drawings and articles newly revised to reflect the latest research and trends. From maps demonstrating species distribution patterns to articles that survey conservation issues and mammal natural history, the set seeks to clarify scientific terms and perspectives and will prove a delightful resource for any student of natural history.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

I bought the hardcover 931 page 2001 edition that is no longer avail. from Barnes and Nobel on the UK website for 55 USD with shipping included. this is Tons less than the 2001 edition is selling for used or on ebay for that matter!

"The Encyclopedia Of Mammals" is a wonderful book. BN offered a one-volume edition with over 930 pages until sometime in 2003 for under $50. The book covers all the mammals in the world in full color with comprehensive text and weighs about 12 lbs. The current offering is a 3-volume edition by Facts On File Natural Science Library at about $300.

Biology (BN 357/2)