A. Merritt Books

It is the turn of the twentieth century and science promises to explain many of the wonders of the world. Walter T. Goodwin is an eminent scientist who has just finished a field study of the flora of the volcanic islands of the South Pacific. At Port Moresby, in Papua New Guinea, he boards a ship headed for Melbourne, in Australia. From there he intends to travel further to his home in New York. Having boarded the ship he finds to his surprise that his old friend Dr. David Throckmartin is also a passenger. But Throckmartin seems strangely distant and changed. His face wears an expression of both extreme ecstasy and horror weirdly co-existing. Throckmartin tells Goodwin that he has discovered the ruins of an extremely ancient city on an island of the coast of Papua. In these ruins he discovered a strange door, which led to an underground pool. From this pool, during the rising of the full moon, an apparently supernatural creature emerges. This creature steals away people, turning them into zombie like creatures who then disappear underground never to be seen again. Throckmartin's wife Edith has been taken as well as two other members of the scientific party. Throckmatin, however, has a plan to travel to Melbourne, collect some necessary scientific equipment and return to the 'moon pool' to rescue his wife. All this of course seems too much to believe, but then the 'creature', the "Dweller", arrives and steals away Throckmartin before Goodwin's very eyes. Goodwin decides the only thing he can do is to try to compete Throckmartin's rescue plan.

Just about everything in this story is given a 'scientific' explanation by Goodwin, the die-hard-rationalist narrator of the tale. The story is thus technically science fiction, however, these 'explanations', at least to the modern reader's mind, seem so thin that the tale in fact has the feel of fantasy. Merritt seems particularly taken with the then new field of nuclear physics and this gives the story interesting depth. Merritt is aware of the possibility of nuclear science promising great benefit, but also great harm. The luminous "Dweller" is thus a predecessor of Godzilla, the radioactive movie monster that destroyed Tokyo, though Merritt, of course, wrote well before the bombs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were dropped.

Of course this book, like all others, takes its place in the history of literature and owes some of its details to earlier novels. The phosphorescent walls of an underground kingdom is highly reminiscent of Jules Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth (Unabridged Classics) (1864). The discovery of a lost civilization which is ruled by a totally amoral, iron willed woman is straight from Rider Haggard's She (Oxford World's Classics) (1887).

I must warn that this is not an easy book to read because of the complex writing style. Merritt uses long and winding sentences that are difficult to keep track of. I found myself sometimes going back and rereading what I had just read to understand it. Also Merritt at times uses a super-profusion of adjectives, most of which are little used in common language. I at first ran to the dictionary, but soon gave up, letting the worlds roll over me in a strange, hypnotic, half-understood, poetic spell that added to the weird atmosphere of the book.

I don't mean to be overcritical of the book. is in fact a rip-roaring read full of high adventure. Merritt certainly manages to keep you turning the pages. The ending is great, keeping you on the edge to the last page. No anticlimaxes here.

Question: What happens when you combine radium and moonlight?
Answer: 1930's super science.
Inside the Earth resides a fantastic civilization on the verge of attacking us. Will we be saved or lost? A little like the Wizard of Oz meets Buck Rogers.

Bought this as a gift for a girl (10 yrs.) who was having a "sewing party." She seemed to enjoy it, especially the pictures.

Sometimes people are afraid of progress, and it might be hard for young history students to believe, but the earliest sewing machines caused tailors in France to tear down the doors of a small factory, grab the sewing machines and throw them all out the window! Professional hand-sewers feared that they would be put out of business, but for millions of people through the years, that hand sewing represented hours and hours of endless drudgery to create all the garments they and their families needed. That included sheets, towels, curtains, etc. Can you imagine how long that must take? The fastest hand stitcher couldn't match the one thousand stitches per minute produced by a machine! No wonder some people feared the sewing machine, but this "Queen of Inventions" was destined to revolutionize the lives of ordinary people of every social class.

Wonderful old photographs and drawings bring the historical data to life, and the book also includes a list of suggested reading, websites, and bibliography.

This book is so poisonously criticized by another reviewer that one questions the motives. When Joseph Greenberg published his research on African languages in the early 60s, in which he identified only four macro-families, it was treated with the same type of scorn as displayed here. Yet his classification is now generally accepted. As for Amerind, there are some very solid supra-liguistic arguments in favour of classifying the American languages into 3 macro-families: (1) Christy Turner's dental studies show 3 distinct shapes of teeth in the native peoples of the Americas, corresponding with Greenberg's classification. (2) Genetic studies of native Americans also indicate the same 3 groups (Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza). (3) Most archaeologists believe that humans entered the Amricas about 12 000 years ago. If this is so, the "splitter" linguists must explain how so many (up to 200 according to them) language families arose in such a short time. Science will speak for itself and does not need self-appointed champions to foolishly charge against anybody who dares to propose a new theory or express a different opinion. Ruhlen's scholarship is impeccable, he's a great writer and there is an extensive bibliography for every chapter. This well-written book presents compelling evidence for a common origin for all the world's language families. It will in time achieve a place of honour in the fields of historical linguistics, history and archaeology.

To read this book is to be a witness to the middle of a brawl that started long ago and will long continue -- the battle beween the Lumpers and the Splitters. Of course, the Great Lumper is the brilliant Joseph Greenberg, and the author of this book, Merritt Ruhlen, is one of his key disciples.

The essays in the book are of varying levels of interest. Half the essays are detailed defenses of Greenberg's Amerind hypothesis. Here, Ruhlen is preaching only to the choir, for Greenberg's detractors, incredibly, take great pride in not having read his work.

Greenberg's methodology is inductive, attempting to discover global truths by comparing word lists from many languages at once. The conventional methodology is deductive, charting the phonetic differences between related languages and running them backwards to reconstruct a parent language.

Languages change so fast that the conventional methodology does not work beyond about a 6000-year horizon. Many linguists therefore refuse to consider earlier stages of language. Greenberg's methods offer a hope of penetrating this veil -- yet like most inductive methods, they are subjective and error-prone.

Future generations no doubt will figure this all out. Until then, those of us who are not active participants in the battle would be well advised to stand clear of the stuff that is being thrown.

Ruhlen is a good writer, with interesting ideas, and this book should be better than it is. Even so, it may be worth a read.

In these 13 studies, the author presents compelling evidence for one common origin for all the world's languages. The book is certain to accelerate research towards the ultimate reconstruction of the proto-language and to cast more light on mankind's unknown past, although much needs to be done. In this regard the work of Alan Bomhard (Nostratic) and Joseph Greenberg (Eurasiatic)is also of great value. Because this work challenges the current orthodoxy it has elicited much venomous criticism from those linguists who claim that genetic relationship cannot be demonstrated after a certain lapse of time. But this is disproved by the 27 global etymologies so thoroughly documented here in the form of a phonetic/semantic gloss followed by current examples from many different language families. It is statistically impossible for this to be the result of chance. When looking at the Nostratic/Eurasiatic or Dene-Sino-Caucasic reconstructions, the correspondences become more and more obvious. In other words, the further back in time one reconstructs, the clearer the similarities become. Recent advances in biological taxonomy (Cavalli-Sforza) serve to confirm this author's classifications of macro-families, and by implication, monogenesis of all languages. This is a well-written book demonstrating impeccable scholarship and is an exciting read. Readers interested in Ruhlen's work may also want to investigate the title "Sprung From Some Common Source," edited by Sydney M. Lamb, available here on amazon.com

After having written the review below, I noticed the card catalog description, and its table of contents, and my eyes widened in disbelief: those contents were nothing, nothing at all, like those of my copy of Ruhlen's book. I checked the ISBN number, I checked the publication date, and yes, that is the same book which I was asked to review for Anthropos two years ago. Here are the true titles of the first four chapters: An Overview of Genetic Classification. The Basis of Linguistic Classification. Khoisan Etymologies. Proto-Yeniseian Reconstructions, with Extra-Yeniseian Comparisons. The rest is more of the same. The card catalog description is also a complete misrepresentation of the book. This hefty hardback has fourteen chapters totalling 328 pages and a five-page index. Those chapters are disconnected adaptations of past articles or talks by Ruhlen, each with its own bibliography, overlapping one another (there is no general bibliography). Although its dust jacket salutes in this book "a series of illuminating studies which conclusively demonstrates that the prevailing conception of historical linguistics is deeply flawed", there is nothing there beyond wild claims grounded in an incoherent methodology applied to unverifiable data. There is not a single map, not even a gazetteer, of where the hundreds of languages mentioned are or were spoken. Nor are you likely to find them in the index, which contains only 48 languages and language families (so that none of the 13 families and 81 languages listed p.315 are found in it). Although subtitled "studies in linguistic taxonomy" and making reference to Sokal, a numerical taxonomist, this book is silent on numerical taxonomy and the many attempts at applying it to historical linguistics by Chretien, Kroeber, Swadesh, Gudschinsky, Dyen and many more. Although its subject is comparative linguistics, major authors are nowhere mentioned (thus Dahl, Dyen and Haudricourt for Austronesian alone), and there is not one table of sound correspondences, not one attempt at diachronic phonology. Ruhlen, at any rate, does not believe in using sound correspondences for reconstruction: "sound correspondences are discovered only after a linguistic family has been identified, for the simple reason that sound correspondences are properties of particular linguistic families. They are not - and could not be - a technique for discovering families." (Chapter 14, co-authored with Bengtson, p.286, lines 25-27). You may wonder, if a language family is not discovered by observing that some sounds seem to correspond regularly between certain languages (thus English t = German z, as in ten = zehn, twenty = zwanzig), then how is it done? Thus: "one can only begin reconstructing a proto-language after one has decided which languages belong to the putative family. Until one has delineated a set of seemingly related languages, collectively distinct from all others, by the methods outlined at the outset of this chapter, there is simply nothing to reconstruct." (p.286, lines 6-10). Scurrying back to the beginning of Chapter 14, eagerly searching and searching for the methods announced, you find this for all explanation: "Obviously the only way to begin is by the comparison of basic lexical items and grammatical formatives in all the languages, which inevitably leads to a classification of the languages into a certain number of groups defined by recurring similarities." (p.285, lines 11-15). You are again left wondering how to carry out "the comparison of basic lexical items and grammatical formatives" since Ruhlen has sternly ruled out looking for sound correspondences. Innate knowledge? Divine revelation? Tea leaves? No. Mere surface resemblances, with unbounded semantic shifts allowed and metathesis amounting to anagramming. Thus Santiam milk 'to swallow', Santa Cruz akmil 'drink', Faai mekeli 'nape of neck', Irish bligim 'to milk' are claimed cognate (Chapter 11, p.244, second last line, p.245 lines 7, 23, p.246, 5th last line). The semantic shift from 'drink' to 'nape of neck' goes: drink - swallow - throat - neck - nape of neck. By this kind of sleight of hand anything goes, and 'Hitler' is cognate with 'Lothar', 'halter' and 'herald' by metathesis and with 'sausage' by semantic shift (Hitler - crematory oven - oven - bake - sizzle - sausage). Linguistic data is presented in a manner hostile to verification. It occupies a total of some 77 pages scattered throughout, in mixed lists of word-meanings and reconstructions, each word-meaning or reconstruction followed by a list of words from various languages and protolanguages, seldom the same, not always in the same order, looking as superficially alike as Faai mekeli and Irish bligim. Chapter 7 consists entirely of an "index to the 2,003 Amerind etymologies contained in Greenberg's [Language in the Americas, 1987]". Here is a sample: ABLE, TO BE nako AK1. ALL2 pa AN2, cf. P86. ABLE, TO BE tama P1. ALL2 taki E3. ABLE, TO BE wan MP1. ALL3 kwet AK4; cf. P3. ABOVE hawi H1. ALL3 mal P5. That goes on for 28 pages. The rest of the book consists of essays, some with data, some without, all without method. Chapter 6 stands out, a vitriolic account of a wrangle between Michelson, Sapir, Kroeber and others about an obscure point in the classification of Algonquian. Short on data, long on polemical quotes, its conclusion begins: "The outrageously vituperative attack on the Amerind phylum by the Diffusionists reflects their blind prejudice, their basic ignorance...".

You must be aware, when you purchase this book, that you are getting a fringe viewpoint. As someone has pointed out, Ruhlen's methodology and conclusions are akin to those of the "Chariots of Gods" infamy, or, I might add, the creationists in biology. They're out there, but they find their audience mostly among laymen and popular TV producers -- those with no patience for the science of it but with eagerness for the catchy conclusions. The scientific community rejects their work, and for good reasons.

This is not to say that this book is entirely without value -- there is a synthesis of a lot of research from various fields, like archealogy and genetics. Creationists also have interesting things to say. But you must be wary when reading zealots -- they are prone to including only the favorable evidence.

The problem, briefly, with the Greenberg method that Ruhlen defends, is that it is too indiscrimating. Thus it will sometimes yield correct results (in essence, this is how Jones arrived at the PIE hypothesis, and Greenberg held this up as a justification for his work), but will also suffer from false positives. Thus Jones went on to propose a relationship between Malay and Arabic, and later linguists have classified Armenian with the Iranian languages.

These failures are due to but one of several flaws of the method:
words may be borrowed from unrelated languages, sometimes wholesale. Others include chance similarity, nursery rhyme similarity, arbitrary standards for establishing similarity, relationships obscured by sound change, etc. Mainstream linguists, therefore, use methods relying on *regularity* of sound correspondences and shared grammatical innovations. This requires meticulous examination of data which is much more careful (and mundane!) than simple eyeballing short lists for what you think are sort of similar items. And because of how language change really works, the results it yields will likely never be as dramatic.

In short, no, this is not a breakthrough, but a vigorous defense of what most experts regard as a hopeless direction.

This book is NOT about self-directed IRAs (investing in real estate, businesses, etc., through an IRA custodian). It is about traditional investment IRAs (SIMPLE, SEP, traditional, ROTH). If you are looking for a book on self-directed IRAs look elsewhere.

All About Self-Directed IRA Investing provides even the most novice wage earner with effective, practical, "user friendly" step-by-step instructions on how to go about setting up an IRA account, make contributions, select investments, and choose distribution methods. All the pros and cons of combining IRA's with individual investor situations are surveyed and illustrated with real-life examples on how to get top IRA account performance. Very highly recommended for anyone undertaking their own financial planning, All About Self-Directed IRA Investing shows how to roll a retirement plan into an IRA; choose between a Roth and a traditional IRA, and convert a traditional IRA to a Roth -- and when to do it.

From the back cover:

CATCH A FALLING ANGEL by Carole Nelson Douglas
To prove he's bad enough for hell, a devilish rogue becomes a rock star out to ruin an innocent young girl--unless he gets foiled by some Yuletide magic.

BRUSH OF ANGEL WINGS by Emma Merritt
A little girl prays to her special angel for a daddy, and a Texas Ranger returns to his hometown for the holidays in hopes of rekindling the passion he once shared with her mother--his first love.

THE TROUBLE WITH ANGELINA by Marilyn Campbell
It takes a little angel mischief to unite a handsome young major and a fiery widow by Christmas.

TIN ANGEL by Patricia Rice
A goodhearted, though skeptical, hero learns the joy of Christmas when he falls in love with an angel sent to make him believe in miracles.

GUARDED BY ANGELS by Mary Balogh
When a mysterious old lady and her young grandson offer their cottage to an estranged couple who got lost during a blizzard, it's a gift that will last a lifetime.

And my review:

The anthology is linked by the common theme of falling in love at Christams time, with a little help from angels. Apart from that, the stories are vastly different. Some are historical, some are contemporary. Some involve the angel falling in love; in other stories, the angels are merely helpers to bring others together. Since the back cover descriptions are very brief, I'll also include a basic plot synposis along with my own personal thoughts.

CATCH A FALLING ANGEL is a story a bit on the darker side. It spans both historical and contemporary time periods. The hero (from historical times) has died and is unworthy of heaven, but is also not evil enough to get into hell. To gain acceptance into hell (heaven is out of the question by this point), the hero is sent back to earth (into modern times) with a chance to (un)redeem himself by ruining a virgin. However, he ends up falling in love with the woman he is supposed to ruin.

I didn't really like the darker aspect of this story, and some parts of it didn't flow well. It was to the point when I ended up having to reread several pages to make sense of what was going on. That shouldn't happen. I managed to finish this novella, but it isn't one I'd bother to read again. Three stars.

BRUSH OF ANGEL WINGS is a contemporary that had a lot going for it. I love reconcilliation stories. In this one, the couple broke up when she wanted him to make a commitment to her. He wanted to chase his dream of being in the rodeo. By the time he realized that she was worth more to him, she'd gotten engaged to his cousin. Now she is a widow, and her daughter wants a new daddy for Christmas, and the hero wants the only woman he's ever loved back.

Unfortunately, this one needed better editing. The writing did not flow well. The point of view was all over the place. I had a hard time sorting out which thoughts belonged to which character. I think there was a good story in there trying to get out, but the writing made it very difficult to read or get drawn into. Two stars.

THE TROUBLE WITH ANGELINA is a contemporary with a dash of comedy. It is an offbeat story about a deceased grandfather, who is now a guardian angel, trying to secure a wife for his grandson. Hi-jinks ensue as this angel uses unorthodox methods (including sending a forklift tire flying across several lanes of traffic to crush the heroine's bike) to throw the two prospective lovebirds together.

This was another good story that was marred by the writing style. Again, it didn't flow well, and I often had to reread sections to make sense of them. Also, there was so much dialogue without prose that sometimes I had a hard time figuring out who was talking. I had to go back and count the lines of type to sort it all out. Also, there were a lot of basic grammar mistakes, and that's something that really gets under my skin. For instance, two women are in the same scene, yet the writer uses "her" without making it clear which woman is being referred to. Maybe I should blame the editor for not catching that one, but even so, this was not a story I could get into. Two stars.

TIN ANGEL by Patricia Rice is a historical. This is a story of an angel falling in love with a human. A plot that's been done before, but one that remains very popular.

Again, I didn't like the writing style with this one. There were a lot of big sections of history that read like a textbook. I read romance for the relationship, not for a history lesson. That's what textbooks are for. This story also suffered from an inbalance between prose and dialogue, but this time, the problem was too much prose. There were big sections without any dialogue, and the story was slow going. Not that I have a problem with prose, but it needs to move the story along. Unfortunately, here is just dragged. I was unable to get drawn into the story and unable to force myself to finish it. Two stars.

GUARDED BY ANGELS by Mary Balogh is another historical, and the best story in the book. In it, an estranged husband and wife end up stranded in a snowstorm. They are taken in by a woman and her grandson, and learn to resolve their differences and fall in love again.

I never know what to expect with Mary Balogh. I have adored some of her stories and hated others. But this one was a winner. The paranormal aspect of it was beautifully done. It was never too heavy-handed, yet you really felt the presence of the angels. The issues that had estranged the husband and wife were way more than just silly misunderstandings. They were real issues, and were resolved well, not just rushed through. It's difficult to deal with real relationship obstacles in a full-length novel, let alone in less than 80 pages, yet Mary Balogh manages it, and does so beautifully. I can see why she is called a master of the genre.

I loved the characters, and was really rooting for them. Again, I was amazed that the author could create such well-rounded characters in so little space, but she did. They had just enough flaws to make them real people, yet they weren't so overly flawed as to make them unlikeable. That's a difficult balance to achieve, but this author does so with ease.

I can't say enough good about GUARDED BY ANGELS. I loved it! This is a story I will be keeping to read over and over again. Five stars!

While most of the stories were not very absorbing or memorable, Mary Balogh's more than makes up for it. Recommended for her story alone.

This Angel Romance Anthology was interesting-I would have given it more stars if they would have stuck to one genre or time period in which to have the angels stories.

1-Carole Nelson Douglas-known more now for her fiction and mysteries than romance-her romance was original and well written-a amalgamation of Angel, Time Travel and Regency and Modern day-I found this story easy to read and enjoyable.

2-Emma Merritt-this story is set in modern day American west-I tried to read a bit but frankly I'm not a fan of Western Romance so I skipped it as it seemed a bit to formulaic and "series romance" for my tastes. Others may enjoy it though.

3-Marilyn Campbell-I was hopeful to see a story by this author-as she's written several paranormal or futuristic romances-sadly this was also set in modern day American and reads like a "Harlequin".

4-Patricia Rice-this story set in the 1850's was just too dark for my tastes. The hero talks about suicide and is very depressed.

5-Mary Balogh-I've hardly ever read anything not enjoyable of Miss Balogh's and this is no exception. "Guarded by Angels" is another heartwarming short story of forgiveness and redemption set in Regency England. Balogh's seems to have written several short stories like this of a married, but estranged couple who though family, and in this case, Angels, are brought together to try to save their marriage. This one was a bit of a tearjerker-and if you are like me and love the "wounded war hero/soldier" storyline then I think you'll enjoy this one. Very sensual but in a mature and beautiful way as well.

So, all in all-two exceptional, and three average or a bit below average. I would recommend this book for Baloghs fans specifically-others may want to skip it.

3 stars

The basic premise (cf. Len Sperry) stated in the first few pages of this book is not the premise or ethic held by myself or my peer executive coaches: "coaching does not require a deep level of self-disclosure on the part of the executive nor is there a need for a close personal bond coupled with confidentiality."

Confidentiality is the primary ethic to which we subscribe and is what allows the necessary self-disclosure.

Another flaw of this book is that it wavers between coaching as a peer relationship and a professional (external professional) one. No doubt one peer could provide support and expert advice to another, but that is not the essence of executive coaching.

This book also uses and renames models developed by others without credit to those others. eg. the Johari window and Situational Leadership.

On the positive side, Appreciative Inquiry is a valid way to approach coaching, and not utilized often enough. We coaches have traditionally tended toward assessments which seek to identify flaws and deficits.

I would be concerned if this book were seen as a guide to executive coaching, especially for executive coach wannabes (and they are numerous these days). It is, at best, a very abridged primer or collection of readings for OD (Organization Development). OD skills are prerequisite to executive coaching, but only part of the skill equation. Psychological training and business experience are the others.

There is much controversy among coaching professionals today about executive coaching, and numerous "certification" programs that have none of the above prerequisites.

For another view of executive coaching ethics and practices, email me for our (Executive Coaching Forum of Boston) handbook available electronically at no cost. Given the concerns about qualifications, ethics, and practices of executive coaches, our group wrote and distributes this handbook as a service for executive coaches and clients alike. judyotto@mindspring.com

Whether you are an executive with a Fortune 500 company, a Human Resource manager, or an entrepreneur, you have become aware of executive coaching. It is nearly impossible to go to a conference or any business meeting and not come across some discussion of coaching. Many consider coaching as the helping relationship for management in the postmodern corporate and business world.

Executive Coaching: An Appreciative Approach, is more than a book about the methodology of coaching with executives. Although it is that, too, it is about being a coach almost as a way of being. It is not quite the Zen of coaching that John Whitmore speaks of in his book, Coaching for Performance, but, note the less, it is a philosophy about how to approach the coaching experience with executives. Even though it is basically written for the "want-to-be" executive coach, its depth will add important new material for experienced coaches as well. Most importantly it provides for coaches, leaders, managers, or supervisors, a way of relating to their colleagues and clients who want a coaching relationship.

The authors look at how adults learn and emphasize that coaching focuses on developing awareness through questioning. Questions compel attention for an answer and focus attention for reflection and feedback. Instruction does none of these. The coaches' use of questions are to raise awareness and responsibility for transformational change. Coaching becomes one of the more formal ways that learning can take place along with counseling and consulting. The authors differentiate between coaching, consulting, and counseling in providing learning experiences for the executive. Although there is a great deal in common between the three disciplines, the key differences are made explicit, one of which is that in coaching you can easily switch places the your colleague or client whereas in counseling and consulting that role shift cannot take place.

In difference from other books on coaching (Whitmore, 1997; Stowell and Starcevich, 1998) they emphasize that an "appreciative perspective" must undergird any executive coaching program. They state that in essence an "appreciative perspective" concerns a willingness to engage in dialogue with another person from an assumption of mutual respect and the mutual search for the discovery of distinctive competencies and strengths. This becomes the theme of the entire book and is imbedded in their three models for coaching. A manager who has not become familiar with Appreciative Inquiry, or has not developed an appreciative approach my find their models too non-directive. Traditional models of management, where confrontation and feedback directed at deficits are the basis of learning, would be antithetical to this approach. The quote David Cooperider's suggestion, "People and organizations do not need to be fixed. They need constant reaffirmation." In this approach, compassion and real caring for a colleague are expressed within the appreciation of their values, goals and intentions. This does not imply a loss of discipline nor a loss of boundaries between one's own problems and perspectives and those of another. Every counselor is familiar with the dangers of over identification and enabling the avoidance of responsibility, and every coach needs to be aware of this as well.

In this book readers will not only learn about three models of coaching but also about a model for viewing executives and organizations. The writers present four executive styles and organizational cultures that provide the coach with a frame of reference from which to examine executive functioning. These four styles of executive functioning (assertive, inspiring, thoughtful and participating) are said to "...represent quite different notions about the purposes, functions and values associated with executive functioning in today's organizations." These are based on assumptions about ways in which executives can be effective in leading an organization. They suggest that each can be effective in certain situations and ineffective in others. Their illustrations suggest that for a style to be effective the executive must have the ability to relinquish his "home base" or preferred style and assume a less comfortable style in order to succeed. A preferred style might be considered a strength but if exaggerated it becomes a weakness. It is clear that no one style fits all situations and it behooves the coach to be aware and assist the executive in developing the options and choices necessary for effectiveness. The appreciative approach again comes to the rescue as the coach uses inquiry to assist the executive toward increased awareness through self-reflection and responsibility. The book provides some "preliminary guidelines" for helping the executive discover his/her "preferred style." Strengths in each of the non-preferred styles are needed for the multiple contexts that the executive might find himself or herself dealing with. The reader will find explanations of appropriate and inappropriate uses of the strengths of each style. It is important that the coach be as nimble and flexible as the "coachee" in order to move from one style to another, and be willing and able to engage another colleague who has the appropriate style needed for change.

The formulation of the executive styles and the offering of models for coaching is unique to this work and offers the "budding coach" as well as the experienced one a new and exciting perspectives on executive coaching. Within the context of their three models, Reflective Coaching, Instrumental Coaching, and Observational Coaching, the work guides the reader through basic skills and the obstacles that block the process. There is a great deal more to this book than the outlining of skills and methods because it offers a way of being a coach and a philosophy of leadership. Even though their discussion of the models contained familiar material, some of which can be found in other books on coaching, much of the material is new and will enlighten the most experienced coach. This work is a must read for anyone entering the field and equally so for the experienced coach.

I was extremely dissappointed by this book. The heroine was ridiculous and annoying. I loved Zane and felt he deserved someone better than an ungrateful, suspicious woman. Unfortunately, you'll have to read it to conclude the baby snatching mystery. (Wrapped up too neatly in my opinion.)

This book was a classic Cinderella story. Poor widow with three kids falls in love with the rich handsome Fortune. She of course doesn't want to love him believing they are too different. She of course gets some advice (and his determination), she feels better about their love. Its the classic fairy tale ending for all of the Fortunes.

This book is painful to read.

The heroine is one dimensional and difficult to empathize with in her constant baseless and ludicrous fights over nothing.

And in all my life, living around America, I've never heard anyone speak like she does. The colloquialisms intended to lend flavor and accent to the country western character were cartoon-like and unbelievable. It's as though the author created her heroine after watching Doris Day's portrayal of Calamity Jane, not realizing it was intended to be an amusing caricature for a 1950s audience.

Yosemite Sam in a dress would have seemed more authentic as a contemporary American woman.

Come to think of it, the author *did* describe how short the character was. Sufferin succotash! It *was* Yosemite Sam!

Favorite scene with Maddie-
Putting a stop to Nurse Connie Adams.

Favorite scene with Noah-
Being asked to join the hospital board.

Together-
The ending after Maddie puts a stop to Nurse Connie Adams.

What did you like about Maddie-
Her love for her horse.

What didn't you like about Maddie-
Her selfishness. Only thinking about herself and taking stupid risks.

What did you like about Noah-
Putting up with someone like Maddie, although I did question why.

What didn't you like about Noah-
Not telling Maddie about Felicia, at least not yet. Being a loner and complaining about having to check up on Maddie.

Actually, this is a wonderful book. While yes, stating several obvious, key ideas through out the book, some people actually need to be told that 'duh' stuff (hello, have you seen the state of our children recently?). And this book is about believing in the power of words... NOT using them as a cure-all for everything but rather believing your attitude and your outlook on life has a huge impact on what happens in it.(And for the record the child in the book with the flu merely used an affirmation for good health and noticed a decrease in symptoms and seemed to be rid of the bug quicker than normal). The reason it's broken down into a more simplistic dialogue is because we're using it as a tool to communicate to our kids and help them communicate for themselves, and having it in a simple language makes it that much easier to put into practice. Quite frankly, this book speaks to me and I wish a parent of mine would have cared enough to have picked it up when I was young (I'm sure many parents out there aren't as in tune with their children and their feelings as others... and maybe their kids are the ones who will wish their parents would have given a book like this a chance some day)

If you've ever seen Stuart Smalley ("I'm smart, I'm good, and damnit--people like me") on Saturday Night Live, then you know all there is to know about this book. The authors do nothing but state the obvious by saying that we shouldn't tell our kids things we might have heard growing up, like "You're a loser." Thank you, Captain Obvious. There is some comedy here, though I don't think they intended for readers to laugh. For instance, he says that when he starts feeling sick (eg, with the flu!) he just says "My flu bug is gone. I am healthy and well." Mr. Bloch gave this advice to a twelve-year-old, never mentioning the value of a flu shot. Even worse, the authors carry this simplistic theme throughout the book. They actually believe that kids need only repeat positive statements in their heads to solve complex problems, like making new friends. Apparently, by saying things like, "I can make new friends" over and over in one's head will bring instant popularity. The underlying complexity of the social fabric and the individual characteristics are never discussed. I did learn one thing from this book, though--anyone with time and money can get a master's degree.

When Abraham Merritt died of a heart attack on August 21, 1943, at the age of 59, the world lost one of the greatest writers of adventure fantasy of all time. He left behind a number of novels in various stages of completion, including the first quarter of "The Black Wheel." Hannes Bok, an artist and illustrator who did almost 150 covers for assorted pulp magazines, starting with the December 1939 issue of "Weird Tales," took on the formidable task of completing Merritt's story. Bok was the first artist, by the way, to win a Hugo award, and went on to pen several other novels of his own. I must say that he does a rather good job at pastiching Merritt's style; were it not for the copyright lines at the front of the book, one would never know that Merritt's writing concludes at the end of Chapter 7, and that Bok then added Chapters 8-27. He admirably copies the densely written, hyperadjectival purple prose of Merritt's early period. Unfortunately, what he fails to do is get Merritt's feel for pace and suspense. Much of this novel is overwritten, wordy and slow moving. The story is a fascinating one, but somehow Bok, despite all his $2 words and flair for language, doesn't give the tale a sense of immediacy and creeping dread. Still, the reader's interest IS engaged, for the most part, and the book's final 50 pages or so are quite thrilling.
The story concerns a young doctor, Ross Fenimore, who tells us of his adventures after he signs on for a trip on the Susan Ann. This sailing ship is owned by a millionaire lawyer who has gathered an oddball assortment of friends and crew for a Caribbean pleasure trip. A hurricane maroons the lot on a deserted isle, where the wreck of a 200-year-old ship is discovered. The ship contains the mummified remains of a white man and half a dozen Africans, and before long, their spirits are (seemingly) inhabiting the various members of the Susan Ann. I say "seemingly" only because, despite the reader's certainty that the strange occurrences have a supernatural origin, Fenimore insists on rationalizing everything away materialistically. These unwanted explanations eventually become tiresome (for this reader, anyway); like Dr. Lowell in Merritt's "Burn, Witch, Burn" and Alan Caranac in "Creep, Shadow, Creep," Fenimore refuses to accept anything that hints of the otherworldly, even when the evidence is overwhelming. The entire middle section of the book is taken up with the various characters telling of their dreams and visions, and Fenimore explaining them away. There are some other problems that the reader will face, also. The eye color of one of the characters keeps changing from violet to blue and then back to violet. A Scottish woman on board speaks the pure Scot to the extent that a reader will need a good, UNabridged dictionary to follow her. Worse still is the inclusion of a Stepin Fetchit-like character, with all the embarrassing black stereotypes that one can imagine. I might also add that the McTeague character in the book, an Irishman with the gift of second sight, is a wee bit too much like the fey Irishman Larry O'Keefe in Merritt's first novel, "The Moon Pool," but that may be carping. Fortunately for "The Black Wheel," things really DO pick up during those final 50 pages, which include another monster storm, a lost race of albino cannibals, and the deaths of most of the book's characters (that last is NOT a spoiler; it's mentioned on page 1!). But I still feel that this book, the longest of any Merritt novel, could have been edited down by at least 50 pages. There is one seemingly endless section, for example, in which Bok needlessly gives us what seems to be every bit of historical and cultural lore regarding the mystical uses of wheels and circles, from the Egyptians to the Druids to the Buddhists, all of which, despite its interest, will probably make most readers want to scream "get on with it!" Still, "The Black Wheel" IS an interesting read, and certainly a must for all Merritt completists.