S Books

Much like Gary Hamel's book The Future of Management, one needs to read this book with an open mind. It is an exceptional book and one that I am giving away to my clients this coming Holiday. It is thought provoking and enlightening. Above all it stresses that companies have a need above profit. That profit is the score, not the game itself. Perhaps had the management of Enron and others of that ilk truly believed in a purpose beyond profit, corporate America would not being wearing SOX today.

There's a difference when you fly Southwest vs. United. You feel different shopping at Costco than you feel shopping at Wal-mart. Why? That question is explored and answered in the book Firms of Endearment: How World-Class Companies Profit from Passion and Purpose by Raj Sisodia, Jag Sheth, and David B. Wolfe. This is one of those books that will cause you to think about why you feel as you do towards certain companies, and how those feelings translate into real profits.



Contents: A Whole New World; It's Not Share of Wallet Anymore - It's Share of Heart; New Age, New Rules, New Capitalism; The Chaotic Interregnum; Employees - The Decline and Fall of Human Resources; Customers - The Power of Love; Investors - Reaping What FoEs Sow; Partners - Elegant Harmonies; Society - The Ultimate Stakeholder; Culture - The Secret Ingredient; Lessons Learned; Crossing Over to the Other Side; Acknowledgements



On Wall Street, companies are usually judged on their profit. Squeeze as much out of your business as you can, cut costs wherever possible, and make sure you meet your numbers. To be sure, plenty of companies are successful under those rules (such as Wal-mart). But when you look at their performance over the last few years on the stock market, returns have been stagnant or have trailed the field. The alternative way to run a business is as a "firm of endearment" (FoE). These companies have a passion for what they do/sell, they have a strongly defined purpose for what they want to accomplish, and they look to contribute to society in more ways than just the quarterly dividend to shareholders. These FoEs, like Costco, Whole Foods, Harley-Davidson, and others, include stakeholders to mean all parts of society that they touch... shareholders, employees, the community, etc. The focus isn't on pure profit, but instead on contributing to the well-being of all the stakeholders. That's why a company like Costco can afford to pay their employees a living wage, have low turnover, and *still* turn a substantial profit. They have captured the hearts of their customer base, and that base will go out of their way to shop at Costco whenever possible. That's also why a company like Ikea can propose a new location and have nearly universal acceptance in the community, while a new Wal-mart location brings out protesters in force. There's obviously a lot more that differentiates FoEs from their counterparts in the marketplace, but once you recognize an FoE, you'll understand why they are successful by *not* following the same formula as everyone else.



It's tempting to think that all the FoEs covered in this book can do no wrong. That's not the case. JetBlue was/is an FoE that badly damaged their reputation during the winter when storms caused massive cancellations. It even led to the resignation of the CEO. Like other business books of this genre (In Search Of Excellence, From Good To Great), only time will tell how these companies will fare over the long term. It may well be that a decade from now, the stars of this book will have all fallen to the wayside. But I would venture to guess that the companies covered here will have a much larger margin of forgiveness than would other companies that are just focused on the next quarter...



This is a book that is highly recommended for anyone running a business. It should cause you to rethink the factors of success for your company, as well as point you in directions that could lead you to become an FoE in your niche.

This book identifies a batch of companies that have oriented their business model to providing a superior feeling in the minds of their customers. In many cases I absolutely agree with them.

Wegman's supermarkets for instance presents an excellent shopping experience. I particularly love their cheese department where knowledge people stand ready to discuss their magnificant array of choices and even to giving you samples to taste seemingly without end or sales pressure. In turn I buy far more cheeses than I would otherwise. We both win.

But then they turn to Wal-Mart and repeat a litany of alleged problems with employees, suppliers, and communities. My own experience with Wal-Mart is limited to one store in the small town where I live. But my experience doesn't match the alleged problems. I go there, the people, from the greeter at the door to the most junor sales clerk are friendly and willing to walk halfway across the store to help me find something. I talk to people who work there (away from the store) and they universally say that it is the best job they've ever had. Does the Wal-Mart experience depend on the store? Are the alledged problems just that, allegations? And for that matter, does every Wegman's have such an excellent cheese department? And what about Microsoft? Everyone (nearly) uses their products and most people hate the company. What does this say about their future? I guess we'll just have to watch and see.

This is a book that describes one way of doing business that has worked for a lot of companies. It provides a good insight into what these companies do.

What is a Firm of Endearment? The authors argue that their example companies share a common set of core values, policies, and operating attributes which include:

1. aligning the interests of all stakeholder groups (customers, employees, partners, investors, and society) rather than seeking profit optimization

2. below-average executive compensation

3. open-door policies

4. employee compensation and benefits are above average for their industry

5. above-average employee training

6. empower employees to satisfy customers

7. hire employees who are passionate about the company's purpose

8. humanize customer and employee experiences

9. enjoy below-average marketing costs

10. honor the spirit as well as the letter of laws

11. focus on corporate culture as a competitive advantage

12. are often innovative in their industries

Companies identified include extensive examples drawn from Commerce Bank, Container Store, Costco, Harley-Davidson, Honda, IDEO, IKEA, jetBlue, Johnson & Johnson, Jordan's Furniture, New Balance, Patagonia, Southwest Airlines, Starbucks, Timberland, Toyota, Trader Joe's, UPS, Wegmans, and Whole Foods.

These companies are often contrasted with Wal-Mart and the Good to Great Companies identified by Jim Collins in 2001 in terms of stock price growth.

The authors argue that there is a new level of consciousness emerging that rewards those who do good while doing well. The implication is that all firms should shift to stakeholder optimization and the cultural values identified in the example companies.

While they don't make this argument, it's clear that the authors have identified many of the mindsets that lead a company to seek optimizing results for all stakeholders.

Before you assume total cause and effect, I would like to raise some issues not fully addressed in the book:

1. This is an after-the-fact evaluation. As such, (like Good to Great), we may mostly be seeing what the leaders are proud of . . . rather than what caused their success. For example, Southwest's success is focused on their corporate culture. But the company also has a better business model than almost any other airline (Ryanair's is better) and does a better job of fuel cost hedging than any other U.S. airline. Those factors aren't mentioned.

2. These companies are almost all in consumer products or services. A class of socially conscious consumers has sprung up who look hard for such firms. It's not clear that OEM and industrial buyers have evolved their preferences nearly to the same extent. So many of the lessons may only apply consumer goods and services (except for those validated by Gallup for having a motivated and effective group of people working for you).

3. Almost all of these firms are highly effective business model innovators who have gained enormous advantages over competitors who seldom innovate their business models. As a result, they can afford practices that may or may not pay off in profit without incurring any negative reaction. The next business model innovation will pay for the cost.

I was surprised that this book didn't look at the study I made from 1992-2001 that identified continuing business model innovation as the single best factor for explaining high levels of corporate performance (see The Ultimate Competitive Advantage). The books share some examples in common (including Jordan's Furniture and Timberland), but many of FoE's examples are also superior business model innovators (Amazon, BMW, CarMax, Caterpillar, Container Store, Costco, eBay, Google, Harley-Davidson, IDEO, IKEA, jetBlue, Patagonia, Starbucks, Trader Joe's, UPS, Wegmans, and Whole Food).

4. It often pays better to serve stakeholder interests than to ignore them. Why? Because ignoring stakeholders often burdens both the company and the stakeholder with costs and experiences that neither want. This economic case for stakeholder focus isn't fully developed outside of the customer arena.

5. The book emphasizes sustainability, but much of that argument is built around companies disappearing from the Fortune 500 (something that happens whenever a merger happens . . . which doesn't mean that the organization goes away, just the corporate headquarters in most cases). In the research of my students on environmental sustainability (see Hiroshi Fukushi's work, A Strategic Approach to the Environmentally Sustainable Business, for example), it's apparent that making the environment cleaner than when you touched it is economically advantaged in most situations. The idea of sustainability is based on the outmoded notion of not doing too much damage rather than finding profits in making the world better than you found it.

But it's a good book that creates more questions than it answers. This one will probably stimulate some more careful thinking in the area of where seeking to be more considerate of others is going to create better results as well as better sleep.

In the Prologue, when discussing The Age of Transcendence through which the contemporary business world is now proceeding, the co-authors (Rajendra S. Sisodia, David B. Wolfe, and Jagdish N. Sheth) suggest that it is "a cultural movement in which physical (materialistic) influences that dominated culture in the twentieth-century are ebbing while metaphysical (experiential) influences become stronger. This is helping to drive a shift in the foundations of culture from an objective base to a subjective base: People are increasingly relying on their own counsel to decide what the truth is...That shift acknowledges a long-suppressed idea in a world largely guided by Newtonian certainty that chemistry Nobel laureate Ilya Prigogine says is scattering to the winds: Ultimately, everything is personal."

Thus do the authors establish a frame-of-reference for the thesis of their book: That each stakeholder in an organization tends to thrive best when all stakeholders thrive. That is, no stakeholder group is more important than any other. "It is disciplined dedication to the well-being of all stakeholders that separates firms of endearment from their competition." Stakeholder relationship management (SRM), the authors suggest, can achieve and then sustain superior business performance that, in turn, will create n a decisive competitive advantage. They are convinced that SRM business models will increasingly be seen "as the most efficacious way to achieve sustained superior business performance in years to come" but only if (huge "if") the interests of all stakeholder groups are brought into strategic alignment.

Two Questions: Are all stakeholder groups of equal importance and do they have the same interests? Also, are all members of a stakeholder group (e.g. shareholders) of equal importance and do they have the same interests? These questions occurred to me as I read the first chapter, especially the brief discussion of the "distinctive" core values, policies, and attributes that firms of endearment (FoEs) share in common. Eventually, Sisodia, Wolfe, and Sheth provide answers to these questions, answers best revealed within the narrative.

If indeed "endearing companies tend to be enduring companies," how do the 28 FoEs that "made the final cut" for this book compare with the 11 companies praised by Jim Collins in Good to Great? "Over a 10-year horizon, FoEs outperformed the Good to Great companies by 1,026 percent to 331 percent (a 3.1-to-1 ratio). Over five years, FoEs outperformed the Good to Great companies by 128 percent to 77 percent (a 1.7-to-1 ratio). Over three years, FoEs performed on par the Good to Great companies: 73 percent to 75 percent." (FYI, there are no duplicates on the two lists.) As with the exemplary companies discussed by Thomas J. Peters in Robert H. Waterman, Jr. in In Search of Excellence, not all companies on any such list continue to meet the criteria that were the basis of their initial selection.

For me, some of the most interesting material is presented in Chapter 11, "Crossing Over to the Other Side." At one point, the authors cite Oliver Wendell Holmes's observation "I would not give a fig for the simplicity this side of complexity but I would give my life for the simplicity on the other side of complexity." They then quote one of my favorite passages in James O'Toole's The Executive's Compass:

"To move beyond the confusion of complexity, executives must abandon their constant search for the immediately practice and, paradoxically, seek to understand the underlying ideas and values that have shaped the world they work in. Managers who clamor for how-to instruction are, by definition, stuck on the near side of complexity."

According to Sisodia, Wolfe, and Sheth, the big challenge of the times is to transcend the zero-sum mindset because, given the profusion of new opportunities, absolutes (by nature limiting) are found everywhere on the near side of complexity. "They emerge from people's perennial quest for pat solutions, or `silver bullets,' as they are sometimes described. This is a key point because, as Sisodia, Wolfe, and Sheth explain, a zero sum mindset leads to the conclusion that one stakeholder group can only benefit at the expense of the other stakeholder groups...However, opportunities increase by an order of magnitude when the mind breaks free of zero-sum thinking."

There are specific reasons why endearing companies tend to be enduring companies and one of the most important is their having "the ability to transcend ruthless competition and embrace the fruits of cooperation [which is] the essence of evolved humanness."

Those who share my high regard for this book are urged to check out Bill George's Authentic Leadership: Rediscovering the Secrets to Creating Lasting Value and his later book, True North: Discover Your Authentic Leadership, co-authored with Peter Sims. Also Michael Ray's The Highest Goal, Adrian J. Slywotzky's The Upside: The 7 Strategies for Turning Big Threats into Growth Breakthroughs, Enterprise Architecture As Strategy: Creating a Foundation for Business Execution by Jeanne W. Ross, Peter Weill, and David Robertson as well as Ram Charan's Know-How: The 8 Skills That Separate People Who Perform from Those Who Don't, Lynda Gratton's Hot Spots: Why Some Teams, Workplaces, and Organizations Buzz with Energy - And Others Don't, Robert J. Herbold's Seduced by Success: How the Best Companies Survive the 9 Traps of Winning, Jack Alexander's Performance Dashboards and Analysis for Value Creation, and Michael Useem's The Go Point: When It's Time to Decide--Knowing What to Do and When to Do It.

This book is a perfect introduction into the liturgy of prayer. It is basically a simplified version of the Liturgy of the Hours (simplified in complexity, not content). Each day of the week has morning and evening prayer. There are also prayers for mid-morning, noon, afternoon and evening. Also included is a very nice selection of traditional prayers (the Creed, Act of Contrition, etc.) as well as prayers for various occasions. At the end of the book there is a selection of quotes from the Rules of St. Benedict.

This prayer book is put out by the Benedictine community of Glenstal Abbey in Ireland. The book is a slim volume and is easily carried around. It is perfect for someone (like myself) who wants to develop the habit of prayer and needs a nice introduction to it. There is only one ribbon to move around and it just goes from one day of the week to another. The prayers and liturgies are fairly short and can be done in five or ten minutes. The prayers for mid-morning, etc., are perfect for doing in your car before or after lunch (in the parking lot, not propped up on your steering wheel).

If you are looking for a great tool to help you develop the habit of prayer and that is easy to incorporate into your home and work life, this is it.

Simple reverant prayers in the Benedictine tradition that brings the holy to the every day. A wonderful book to bring along whenever one is seeking a practice to remember the art of spiritual surrender.

I consider this a very meaningful addition to my collection of prayer books. It would make a wonderful gift for anyone on the Benedictine path.

The secular prayerful person may find in this prayer book a schema of prayer accessible to and useful for the person who cannot give up their day job for contemplative purposes. I keep a copy on my prayer table at all times, and find it very useful for constant prayer.

Unlike other such Books of Common Prayer or Monastic Diurnals, it is not overwhelming in its requirements. It gently and lightly suggests a system of prayer for every day of the week, and for the holidays, morning and evening, following the traditional monastic format which dates back before Saint Benedict. No wonder as Glenstal is a Benedictine Abbey.

It also includes much of the traditional prayers once so well known but now difficult to locate, in a very useful and handy lay out. Many of those traditional prayers heard at your grandmother-s knee and not heard since but cherished in memory are represented here, as well as suggestions for prayers at every occassion of the day.

Highly recommended for anyone wishing to introduce regular prayer into their lives (or the life which God has so generously lent to us) as a centering worship of recollection and peace in God-s love. An urgently necessary element of any prayerful life.

I have been looking for a good benedictine prayer book that is easy to follow, and practical for my Oblate studies, and the Glenstal book fits the bill. The monks of Glenstal really put clever thought in putting together this book of prayer for non-monks. Thank you for an excellent tool for lay-monastics, and anyone interested in a solid book of christian prayer.

Even though Eliot's stock had dropped somewhat among academics in recent years this text will long be remembered for centuries to come. It is through this poem that Eliot heals the "soul disease" of the Wasteland. In our own hectic life where there is so little time for pause, so little time for reflection, Eliot reminds us of the experience had, but the meaning missed or misunderstood. Those isolated moments:the moment in the garden, the moment at the beach, or in a secluded chapel at nightfall, restore to us our spiritual humanity. Those who regard Eliot simply as a bitter and misanthropic poet should revise this opinion of him by reading Four Quartets to see that he was a very real man, a flawed man, struggling with the deformities of his soul.

The Four Quartets by TS Eliot is a classic and should not be missed. It is of the type of poetry that evokes meanings from their hidden places in us through the use of word trails that are only partially logical. Our own emotions connect things, so when it is read, don't approach it with the usual straining to decipher the meaning. The ring of a gong lingers after it is struck, something of a parallel to how the poem works. Fascinating, too, is its approach to understanding the elusive sense of time, but it is couched more in the sensibilities of the East than the West.

Among all these reviews, not one comes to terms with the very title of this opus: Four Quartets. When was Eliot anything but precise in his choice of word?

The inspiration for these poems -- or reflections -- are the late string quartets of Beethoven, those numbered from 12 through 16. It is the 5-movement No.15 in A Minor,Op.132, that seems to have exerted the strongest influence, with it's famous adagio movement, which Beethoven inscribed as the thanksgiving song of a convalescent.

Actually, No.15 was the 13th in order, but the Quartets were published out of sequence, which was not uncommon in Beethoven's time. The Late Quartets progress from the classic 4-movement No.12 and add a movement to each work up to the 7-movement Op.131 in C-sharp Minor. The 16th and final quartet returns to the classic 4-movement form. There is an expansion of form concluding with a contraction and return over the course of 5 works.

Like Eliot's Four Quartets, Beethoven's Late Quartets reflect upon time and faith -- and the 'speech' is often plain: repeated phrases that appear stuck in a groove, hammered chords, cheap tunes that seem to be lifted from a band in a local inn; from long-breathed melodies that look beyond what Wagner and Mahler will eventually bring to music, to cell-like motivs not heard again till Bartok and Webern.

The 'learned' aspect of Eliot's verse can lead us astray, so that we are forever parsing the meaning of the lines. I am taken with the sounds he makes as I read the poems aloud, and the sounds he chose to convey what the poems mean are, in a sense, the essence of meaning. From the first I was struck by the sheer sound of 'time' in the context of these Quartets, which are Eliot's swan song.

I am a deeply religious Sikh living in America. The Four Quartets is to me a shining example of a man of deep understanding of God and reality. I have read this poem many times since I first read it back in college. It speaks directly to my soul. There is no passage, no phrase, which does not work for me.

I read some sections to my wife when we were first married, and she thought that it was an English translation of the Sikh holy texts.

"We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time"

There is no better explanation of Eastern religion than this. I am eternally grateful for this work.

This is a tiny book, more like a pamphlet, only 58 pages long with large print and some blank pages as part of the design. But it is mighty in its impact. These "four quartets" are four of T. S. Eliot's poems meditating (among other things) on the nature of time - time past, time present, time future...If you are of my generation and have read the poems before, you might love carrying this little book around just to dip into it for a line or two, and maybe understand something you never understood before. (T. S. Eliot is not always an easy read.) If you have never read them before, I envy you!

To say that Roy Neuberger's book entitled "From Central Park to Sinai" was a real page turner, is a definite understatement. This most engrossing and captivating book details the story of a personal transformation of a man searching for spiritual meaning and purpose in his life. The grandson of a great rabbi and founder of the "Mussar" movement in Judaism, Rabbi Yisroel Salanter, Roy Neuberger's life couldn't be further apart from that of his grandfather. Educated in the traditions of ethical culturalism, Mr. Neuberger felt an ever present spiritual vacuum in his life and as such he embarked on a personal quest for truth, via the study of Catholicism, Protestantism and a whole host of other religions and value systems. He even wrote a book detailing why these other religions and their credos were superior to that of Judaism and why Judaism held no meaning.

Accompanying Mr. Neuberger on his trajectory towards spiritual fulfillment was that of his beloved wife, Linda, also a student of ethical culturalism. The fear and uncertainty that plagued Mr. Neuberger throughout his life could be simply termed as a man living through a perpetual anxiety attack with no relief in sight.

It would seem that G-d heard the inner cry and pain of Mr. Neuberger, and as destiny would have it, he was guided in the direction of Rebbetzen Esther Jungreis. That night in Neuburgh, NY changed the course of an entire generation of Neubergers. Mr. Neuberger was deeply impressed with Rebbetzen Jungreis' Torah message and he began to attend her classes on a weekly basis, despite the hardship of traveling such a long distance during a fuel crisis. Rebbetzen Jungreis served as a conduit to bring the message of G-d's love and compassion to a man who hungered and thirsted for spiritual guidance and meaning. In essence, Mr. Neuberger began to fall in love with G-d, embracing His Torah and commandments.

Since that time, Mr. Neuberger and his wife have raised a beautiful family steeped in Torah values and has spread his joy and understanding of spiritual truth with hundreds of people who he has invited to his home to enjoy the uplifting experience of Shabbos.

Mr. Neuberger's story will not only inspire, but will captivate the heart and soul of the reader. It is a must read for anyone searching for guidance and truth and even for those who are not searching for anything in particular. It is a welcome addition to any library and will remain within the recesses of the soul for posterity.

Roy Neuberger's journey to find himself is extremely inspiring. It goes to show you that a man can have all the money in the world,but without a some spiritual guidance, what is he really living for? In some ways his wealthy background was a great hinderance to him. His parents did not give Roy all the proper attention and guidance as the Ethical Cultural Schools merely confused his thinking.

Finally after 31 years, a colleague woke him up to the fact that he is a Jew whether he realizes it or not. Mr. Neuberger finally realized that he was not giving his own heritage a chance. Finally he asked to visit a synagogue with a friend and it so happened the Rebbetzin Jungeris was speaking there that night. At that point a chain reaction fo events triggered in Mr. Neuberger's brain that this was answer he was looking for.

The rest of the book consists of many powerful miracles based on prayer and faith in G_d. Although many of the stories are repeated from Esther Jungeris' The Committed Life, it is still a pleasure read about people turning their lives around by believing the Power of the Jewish Religion. Judaism encourages its followers to be strong and persist towards acheiving happiness and overcoming obstacles.

This book will make you believe in miracles even if you are not Jewish. An inspiration to us all.

Mr. Neuberger is a very enthusiastic and sincere man of faith, and these qualities shine through in his book.

This book has the power of spiritual elevation reinforced by a sense of personal discovery.

I would highly recommend this book to anyone with an interest in religion, who can appreciate religion as an experience where personal growth and community involvement are not contradictory; but, parallel and mutually reinforcing.

Roy Neuberger's personal story has a strong message even for non-Jews and for people who are not religious. His personal search for God is very moving and is written in a charming, conversational style. I was especially taken with his numerous stories about he and his wife, Leah, helping so many people from various walks of life. There are important messages in this book that will help all of us to live better and more enriching lives.

This was a heartfelt story of a mensch who was dissatisfied with the lack of spirituality in bland liberal universalist culture in which he was raised. Eventually, he found true joy in Jewish orthodoxy. However, if you're pondering deep metaphysical issues, you'll find assertions here, but not deep abstract notions of different "isms" and why they are true or not. I was also uncomfortable with the assertion that Jewish assimilation caused the Holocaust.

This is the best book (other than the Bible) I have ever read. It is wonderful. Life lesson and terrific, easy read. I mean it is EASY to read and fast. You will not want to put it down once you get into the characters, you will be on the egde of your seat to find out what happens next. READ IT! and then pass it on the EVERYONE you know. The world needs to read and learn from this book and then we can all live in a better place.

This book is excellent. Easy to read and full of great gems. It is in a story fashion that is very entertaining with lots of reminders about being successful and generous.

You can read this book on a two-hour flight, even if you stop to mark up the pages and underline key quotes --- which you will! This well-told tale by Ken Blanchard and Truett Cathy is one of the most inspiring books you'll read this year or any future year. A fictional parallel to the recent "Why Good Things Happen to Good People" this book shows you why giving matters --- and then motivates you to become a giver --- for life. Extremely well done!

Dr. David & Lisa Frisbie
The Center for Marriage & Family Studies
Authors of Raising Great Kids on Your Own: A Guide and Companion for Every Single Parent

This book has the potential to change the world as we know it by changing how we treat each other. I loved it, and my entire company is now dedicated to changing the world by doing the right thing.

This book is a delightful tale that can easily be read in one sitting. It is written by Ken Blanchard and takes the format of a parable, though it is based on the life of S. Truett Cathy who founded Chick-Fil-A. It is written in a similar style to many of Patrick Lencioni's leadership books, and I have found this format to be quite engaging.

The basic premise revolves around the imagined life of a young, driven, materialistic broker and a relationship that he develops with an older, successful, generous executive. Throughout the story, the executive takes great pains to teach the general life principle to the broker that significance is infitely more worthwhile than success, and he suggests that the only way to truly achieve significance is to generously give away time, talent, treasure, and touch. It is hard to argue with this notion, especially when presented so effectively.

One aspect of the book that was particularly appealing to me is its insistence on giving God priority and primary ownership over all of our things. Both Blanchard and Cathy are committed Christians, and this reality bleeds right into the text of the book. However, they were not overbearing with this theme, to the extent that some key principles would probably ring true to those outside the Christian community. Still, I appreciated their reference to God as the creator and owner of all, and they seem to suggest, quite compellingly, that it is ultimately impossible to embrace the generosity factor without an appropriate view and reference of God.

Ultimately, the "conversion" of the broker by the end of the story was a bit contrived and saccharine, but such can easily be the nature of parables. This book isn't particularly profound or earthshattering, but it is certainly accessible and helpful. Blanchard and Cathy offer some great ideas, a few that will probably shake some readers who come to the book without a heart of generosity. I have certainly been impacted, and I would recommend this book to anyone with a willingness to more fully understand the generous lives to which God has called us.

This is a memoir of how a middle-aged woman becomes an ordained Methodist minister, but it's so much more-- it's about how a girl raised on an island in Lake Erie ends up in divinity school at Duke; how a wary, twice-divorced mother of two with little reason to believe in relationships meets the love of her life; how a dedicated, feminist, driven-by-the-Holy-Spirit new minister copes with being placed into a struggling South Carolina Methodist church; how God can enter a life; how the Holy Spirit relates to pianos. It's an extraordinarily poetic, yet earthy and fluent, account of a life that's extremely full, and I swallowed it whole, while I both laughed and cried. This is a wonderful book for anyone interested in women's lives, the church, spirituality, relationships, or personal growth. It touches on all of them without slighting any. The author's belief in God and faith in her calling infuses this book so that it almost glows with the Holy Spirit she's so sure is leading her.

The premise of the book, namely why would a 42 yr old woman, twice divorced with 2 teenage kids, turn her life upside down and go to divinity school and pastor a church, hooked me right away, and so I eagerly dove into the book.

Mary Cartledgehayes' "Grace" (293 pages) can roughly be divided up in 2 equal parts: her life up to and including going through divinity school at Duke, and then the three years of being a pastor for a United Methodist church somewhere in South Carolina. While somewhat surprisingly self-admiited rational thinker Cartledgehayes writes that her calling became obvious and inevitable after a singular incident (the roof of her car became "transparent" and the Lord engulfed her), it's the second part of the book that is by far the most fascinating part. The particular church she lands at had not had a female pastor before, and was also not doing very well as a congregation. Cartledgehayes gives a great insight of what it's like to try and do a job that is far more than a "9 to 5" job. She makes the comparison of being at her first church pastoring as it being "your first baby". Cartledgehayes ultimately stays there for only three years, and even though the author doesn't attribute it to burn-out, it is very clear that that was a part of it. Frustratingly, we are not told what the author ended up doing after she left pastoring in 1998.

All that aside, I must say that (i) I had no idea that the United Methodist church held such liberal believes, and (ii) I just cannot phantom any pastor dropping the "F" bomb at all, let alone as frequently as Cartledgehayes does in this book. While it's clear that Cartledgehayes has a deep faith in the Lord, that aspect was simply very off-putting for me. Reader beware!

It was early August here in Northeastern Ohio when I was introduced to this book and author by a friend. I have read and re-read and re-read this book and shared it with others as well. I am an instructor at a Christian College here in Stark County, Ohio, and I found this book inspiring and challenging and extremely motivating. As a life so far is retraced, the power of God and the importance of love and joy and music are acknowledge, affirmed, and celebrated. Too often individuals, lacking confidence in their own dreams, enter into someone else's and a precious gift is lost or at least in Mary Jo's case deferred. I am so thankful that Mary Jo accepted God's will for her and entered into ministry and authorship. The power of a God
centered personhood can not be overestimated. I heartily recommend this book!

It was early August here in northeastern Ohio when I was introduced to this book and this author by a friend. The Wooster Daily Record carried a feature article about the author who was returning to Ohio for a high school reunion and about her book,
Grace:A Memoir.
The joy I have experienced as I've read and re-read and re-read this work is wonderous! The life that is shared by this author is both inspiring and entertaining. I believe many people experience the fact of making life choices that center upon pursuing someone else's dream when lacking confidence in pursuing their own. I feel that Mary reminds me and other readers through laughter and tears that God will keep calling each person to be the person he or she was created to be. I am so glad that Mary answered God's call to ministry and to authorship of this memoir. I look forward to sharing this book with many in the days ahead in my teaching at Malone College in Canton, Ohio, at my church in Massillon, Ohio, and by e-mail, letters, conversations, and purchases of many copies to share with friends and family. Be prepared for many surprises as you enjoy this volume.

I was't sure I wanted to read one more spiritual journey book. But the first paragraph hooked me and I laughed and cried my way through "Grace." The stories of her childhood, with the Episcopal priest in a long black dress with a white lace overdress, who came once a month with the "smells and bells" that transformed the schoolroom into a holy space, were delightful. The isolated life on the island, which her parents tried to make as normal as possible, shaped Mary Jo in ways even she cannot articulate.

What I loved the most, though, was following this incredibly articulate, incredibly outrageous woman as she followed the call to ministry she did not want but couldn't avoid. I don't think she was sweet but she was tender, most of the time, when she could draw it up from that deep place inside where the holy is.

Especially the book moved me because I too went to seminary, a little older than she was, with only one divorce and no kids, finding a little more support for women--there were more women than men in my class. We were smarter, outtalked them in class and more or less ignored their sexism. The men were, for the most part, also in their twenties. The top ten students in my graduating class of about thirty were women. But the men in their twenties mostly found churches first (we find our own calls to a church, and can't be ordained until we find one, not appointed as Methodists are). That was a bummer, and some of us got mad. I learned a lot about current Methodist polity from her book, which was interesting too.

I loved how she fell in love with her parishoners, and ached when it hurt her. The picture of what life in the parish is like is so precisely true. Most people think it's just Sunday morning, but remember how upset they got when she and Fred were gone for two weeks? They subliminally thought she belonged to them 24/7. Mary Jo was right to stick with her church, even if it led her right out of the church. But why do churches do this to their pastors? This is a really heavy topic in all denominations right now, as pastor burnout is a huge issue. I'm not pastoring a church now either, due to disability, but as I watch my pastor and all she has to juggle, I don't know if I could go back to it.

But that's all beside the point. This is an honest, passionate,funny, wonderful, sexy book, full of human emotion most people in the pew, or outside the church, never expected to hear from a minister. My only issue with it is the implicit admission on the blurb on the back that indeed Fred died of his cancer. But she has already shown us how she would deal with that loss--with grace, and with music.

I am in the process of trying to open my own company. This book gives a pretty good general overview on what you will need to get started, and hopefully to be succesfull.

Ever since my husband and I started our business about two years ago, we are constantly in search of good books on small business management. Having read many of the books out there, Tom's is by far the best of its kind! Tom walks you through the life cycle of a small business, alerting you to the possible pitfalls and giving you advice along the way. Almost the entire book has been directly applicable to our small business, and has steered us in the right direction many times. Whether it's financial management, IRS questions or employees problems, Tom's book can help advise almost any small business owner today. Thanks, Tom!

It offers reinforcement for those things that I already knew I should be doing and insight into ideas that I had not thought of. One of the best things about the book is that it explains that even though you have problems as you go, its normal, but YOU NEED TO recognize them and FIX'em. I intend on keeping it at my desk with my other favorite: THINK AND GROW RICH.

SOMETIMES I FEEL RIPPED OFF AFTER BUYING A BOOK. THIS DEFINATELY WAS NOT ONE OF THOSE TIMES.

This book is a must for business owners, but as the name implies, it's not about venture capitol, it's about business sense. Nevertheless, it's a great book to have and refer to time and time again. It's timeless

There is no story it's equal. When I think of a man truly loving a woman, this book comes to mind. It's the most deeply intimate telling of one man's heart, mind and soul. Is it possible love like this is possible by a man or a woman for the other? The story is to be nestled and protected for its lofty ideology. I view the Harvesters love for the woman as many saintly priests and nuns have loved God...deeply beyond what most of us can grasps with our worldliness. I might buy this book for my teenage nieces--they should read this story. Why? I wonder if they could, in their wildest fantasies, imagine a young man loving them similarily. Perhaps they may be more choosy in whom they date.

Gene Stratton-Porter is an excellent author. His books hold your interest and take you to a time where stress is far less an issue. His characters are fully developed and richly represented. An excellen book for peaceful reading.

I loved this book, although it definitely did not compare to The Girl of the Limberlost which is my all-time favorite.

I first read this book 37 years ago. It was the original book published in 1911 and belonged to my 1st husbands grandmother. It was written of a quieter time, the slower paced, clean living and was very inspirational. I loved all the information about the nature and plants. I started out trying to recreate the "Yellow Garden" several years ago. I now have a gorgeous garden with many of the same perennials and herbs listed in the book. The garden has certainly evolved from just yellow to every color in nature. I have passed down the love of gardening to my daughters by sharing the flowers and herbs from my own garden. I have thoroughly enjoyed this book.

I can't count the number of times I've read and re-read this book. Pretty sentimental by today's standards, but the basic story tells of a country man of character who falls deeply in love with a city girl who has issues. That description doesn't do justice to Gene Stratton-Porter's touching romance, but if I had to pare my library down to just 20 books, this one would be in the "keepers."

The first time I read this book, I was a young teenager. I thought the author really captured the essence of a teenager and what kind of pressures they face. I highly recomend this book... It was very well written.

Great book for early teens, even pre-teens. Kids at risk identify with the main charactor, love the animals, wish for someone like the old man to be there for them.

Imagine having a mother who doesn't seem to know you exist. Unless she needs money or someone to take her frustrations out on. Imagine having a father who hasn't had contact with you in two years, even though he lives only a couple of hours away. A father who kept taking you back to an abusive mother until he became too busy to even come see you at all.

Sean just plain doesn't care anymore. So he's been suspended yet again for fighting - big deal. It'll be just another vacation. That is, until he's assigned community service at a local ranch. Starting immediately.

Mr. Hassler, the old geezer ranch owner, puts Sean to work cleaning out stalls, spreading manure, and unloading feed. Things change when he helps deliver a colt that imprints Sean, instead of its mother. Their bond helps him explore his tangle of emotions about his parents and Mr. Hassler.

HERO is a heartwarming story about a young man in search of someone to love and respect, including himself. Rottman leaves the reader wanting more as Sean faces a new future with his dad and the ranch.

Reviewed by: Cana Rensberger

Now here's a book that clearly defines the meaning of "hero". Rottman's books always have a good message for us. They often deal with mature subjects, drugs and alcohol, but never glorified. His books are great for mature readers. A clear look into what life is like for many young adults today.

I think this is a good book. I like all the characters and I like how this book is setup. This book is good for all ages. Good classroom book for teachers. I read this book in my reading class. I got into the book really fast and I couldn't put the book down. My favorite character in this book was Sean. He was a nice kid inside and it shows you in the book. At first he seemed like a trouble maker and later he shows you the real him. With a farmers help (Mr. Hassler). I really don't read books. It's not my thing but when I read this one it had me going for another one.

There's nothing I love more than Klingons heading into battle. Even the phrase, "It is a good day to die," makes me smile whenever I read or hear it.

Another great book that deals with the Klingons.
Years ago I had quit reading Star Trek, but now I am back.
This is very original work and very interesting to read.
You have a long running space battle and an equally long running ground battle, and every crew member is important and well developed by the author. Very fun to read.
Worf and Martok make a very brief appearance, but that is what I like about this series, it is wholly original with very good characters and both the men and women have equal parts.

With all of the proper introductions taken care of in "A Good Day To Die," Keith R.A. DeCandido's second I.K.S. Gorkon book, "Honor Bound," wastes little time on catching up the reader and dives right into the battle between Captain Klag and his allies in the Order of the Bat'leth and the honorless General Talak and his legion. With so much fighting going on (superbly illustrated in DeCandido's written word), you'd think that there would be little room left for character development. However, the reader gets to learn even more about Klag, Dorrek, Kurak, Leskit, Toq, B'Oraq, Goran, and even a few of the Children of San-Tarah as the battle on land and in the stars gets more violent and savage.

DeCandido cleverly intertwines combat sequences with flashbacks (especially in the mind of Kurak) and keeps the action at a quick pace. The bulk of the story is the actual battle, but DeCandido ties up everything nicely in the end and leaves the reader hungry for more in the third installment of the Gorkon trilogy, "Enemy Territory."

For anyone interested in "Star Trek" and especially those who love the Klingons, I highly recommend the I.K.S. Gorkon book series. Be sure to read "A Good Day To Die" in order to get a solid basis for the entire trilogy.

Brad R.A. DeCandido should write every novel focusing on Klingons from here on out. He not only incorporates characters from the televised Star Trek Series (TNG and DS9), but creates his own characters that are thoroughly Klingon and very intriging. I believe KRAD has a better feel for Klingons than any other Star Trek novelist.

Captain Klag has just lost San Tarah though honorable combat after judging the Children of San Tarah as honorable foes in the previous novel "A Good Day to Die." However, the PetaQ General Talak has ordered Klag and his crew to violate their word and surrender their honor as Klingons. Klag decides to call on the Order of the Bat'leth, the age old association that Chancellor Martok has once again commissioned to be the champions of honor within the empire. The resulting battle is one that Klingons will sing operas of for at least a generation.

The writing in this work is of high calibre. The battle scenes are described so vividly, you can picture the ships and subspace eddies in your mind. The San Tarah are developed as a fascinating species who not only have a strong warrior ethic and are highly effective fighters of their own, but as the denoument of this story will show, they also place a very high premium on honor and integrity.

This was a great read and I can't wait to get to installment three "Enemy Territory."

The first two books in Kieth R.A. Decandido's new Star Trek series, The I.K.S. Gorkon, are, in reality, one story. These two novels follow the adventures of the Klingon Defense Force ship Gorkon and her captain and crew as they embark on a new mission:


"to explore strange new worlds...
to seek out new life and new civilizations...
...and to conquer them for the greater glory of the Klingon Empire!"

In the beginning, the reader finds himself witnessing the honoring of a ship's captain and the rebirth of an Order. That captain, called Klag son of M'Raq, is being inducted into the esteemed Order of the Bat'leth, an Order devoted to honor and duty and the precepts of the greatest Klingon to ever live: the Emperor Khaless, who created the Klingon sword, the bat'leth, from a lock of his own hair after throwing that lock into a volcano.

More than this, though, Klag and several other captains are ordered to enter a system called Kavrot to find worthy planets on which to plant the Empire's flag. Klag and his crew find such a planet, but then things take quite a change. The natives of this world, called San-Tarah, wish to compete in contests to decide their fate. Should the Klingons win, the San-Tarahns would willingly cede themselves to the Empire. Should they lose, Klag leaves and no Klingon will ever set foot on the planet again.

Of course, nothing is ever so simple as this. Inevitably, there is treachery afoot. Klag's superior does not think much at all of this contest or of the captain himself. What happens to Klag and the San-Tarahns? Read and find out.

This reviewer found the first two books of the I.K.S. Gorkon series to be fast-paced, fun, and very funny at times. It was also very "real", which is not always easy to portray in a sci-fi setting. The characters and their motivations, for the most part, were believable and this reader shouted "'Qapla!" with every success and consigned the villains to Gre'thor every time the crew of the Gorkon met any kind of defeat. The writing was wonderful, with very few editorial mistakes. The settings were vivid, to the point that the reader could feel the grass and smell the blood, hear the battle and taste the smoke and fire in the air, could almost feel the touch of a bat'leth or mik'leth handle wrapped around his fingers. If you like sci-fi novels, and specifically Star Trek novels, pick these two up. You'll be in for a rare treat