Organizations Books


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Organizations Books sorted by Average customer review: high to low .

Organizations
The Science Explorer: Family Experiments from the World's Favorite Hands-On Science Museum (Science Explorer Series)
Published in Paperback by Owl Publishing Company (1996-11)
Authors: Pat Murphy, Ellen Klages, Linda Shore, and Exploratorium (Organization)
List price: $14.00
New price: $13.70
Used price: $1.58
Collectible price: $14.00

Average review score:

The best and easiest book of its kind!
Helpful Votes: 16 out of 16 total.
Review Date: 1999-09-18
I am an elementary school teacher and the mother of three young children so I have read a lot of books that say they are filled with easy-to-do science experiments but this is by far the best of its kind that I have read. Within the first two hours my kids and I did three of the experiments AND had a great time together AND learned something!

Good Fun and Good Science!
Helpful Votes: 5 out of 5 total.
Review Date: 2003-04-08
Many science experiment books out there either have bad science in them, poorly designed experiments, or unclear directions (or, unfortunately, all three). This book has great experiments that are easy and fun to do. And, the science behind the experiments is accurate and clearly explained. As a scientist, science teacher, and parent, this book is the first one my list of recommendations!

Experiments for "Bring Your Kids to Work" Day
Helpful Votes: 5 out of 5 total.
Review Date: 2000-03-28
I ordered several books to prepare for the experiments I wanted to present for the "Bring Your Kids to Work" Day. This was, by far, the most useful and most interesting book I received. You can use the experiments listed in the book, and tailor them for younger or older children very easily. I'm going to order the sequel, "Science Explorer, Out and About," today!

Organizations
Scientology 8-8008
Published in Unknown Binding by Church of Scientology of California, Publications Organization U.S (1967)
Author: L. Ron Hubbard
List price:
Used price: $35.00

Average review score:

Life changing book
Helpful Votes: 3 out of 8 total.
Review Date: 2003-08-16
I loved this book. To be able to understand how the physical universe works and how I relate to it, makes me more able. Simple as that. It has made me a much more causitive person, and made my life much easier and happier.

a very good book
Helpful Votes: 5 out of 11 total.
Review Date: 2001-08-09
that is one of the best book a man can get . the knowledge in this book can save you from sad and very bad life. here you can find the knoledge you need for a better future for yourself.

Operating Manual for an Immortal Spiritual Being
Helpful Votes: 6 out of 9 total.
Review Date: 2002-01-15
What are the qualities and attributes and capabilities of the Human Spirit? What exactly is the Physical Universe? You were immensely powerful once, so what happened? How can you rise to greater heights of awareness and ability and once again become the YOU that you actually are? This book by L. Ron Hubbard embraces the essence of Scientology. You need this information.

Scientology 8-8008 was originally written by Hubbard in London in October 1952 as the textbook for an upcoming series of lectures which he delivered to students in Philadelphia in December of that year.

The title of this book, "Scientology 8-8008" is actually a formulaic/symbolic statement of the Goal of Scientology. Translated it means: "The attainment of Infinity by reducing the apparent infinity of the Physical Universe to "0" and then taking the apparent "0" value of one's own universe and increasing it to Infinity". (An "8" laid on its side is the symbol for infinity).

Scientology 8-8008 is the best book you will ever read on Spirituality and your Native Abilities. It really does contain the Truth that will set you Free.

Organizations
The Seduction Theory in Its Second Century: Trauma, Fantasy, and Reality Today (Committee of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapeutic Publications and Organizations Monograph)
Published in Paperback by International Universities Press (2006-05-30)
Author:
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Here and Now in Lieu of Early Seduction
Helpful Votes: 1 out of 1 total.
Review Date: 2007-06-07
This excellent book begins with a comprehensive new, needed and fascinatingly pregnant restatement by Michael I. Good of the history of the Seduction Theory, well after the importantly unsettling 1984 contribution by Jeffrey Masson. A many-voiced chorus of distinguished contributors brings forward (among other things) the psychoanalytically fertile distinction between "abuse" (in which the victim may be utterly passive and wholly noncontributory, from the perspective of the Law), and the "seduction" which has the specific deferred effect peculiar to psychoanalytic inquiry. This distinction (among other elements of the book) leads to an illumination of "the Freudian thing" (in the words of Lacan) with its innovative departure from the "whodunnit" type of explanation the police seek, and also from a physician's investigation into "what brought it on" and -- most importantly -- from the "interrogation" of Nature which began with Francis Bacon's 17th "Novum Organum." That notion of Science is exemplified by Freud's early Seduction Theory itself. In abandoning the Seduction Theory which psychoanalytic evidence cannot verify (according to contributor Robert Michels), the reader may conclude that Freud adopted a psychoanalytic "Novum Organum," a new kind of inquiry into the phenomena, neither Science nor Law nor a police investigation into abuse or trauma (bringing to mind the image of Sherlock Holmes with his big magnifying glass), but what Theodor Reik called "Listening with the Third Ear," (bringing to mind an intent listener with a large ear horn), initiated by a seductive invitation by the analyst to "say what comes to mind," a seduction which itself sets up one of the subjects of the psychoanalytic working-through. Louis H. Hamel, Jr., Esq.

Table of Contents
Helpful Votes: 3 out of 3 total.
Review Date: 2006-06-28
THE SEDUCTION THEORY IN ITS SECOND CENTURY:
TRAUMA, FANTASY, AND REALITY TODAY

Edited with an Introduction and Postscript by Michael I. Good, M.D.

Committee of Pychoanalytic Psychotherapeutic Publications and Organizations,
Monograph I

Arnold D. Richards, M.D.
Book Series Editor

CONTENTS:

Series Editor's Foreword
Arnold D. Richards, M.D.

Preface and Acknowledgments

Contributors

Editor's Introduction:
The Roots of the Seduction Theory: A Perspective from Genesis to Scientia Sexualis
Michael I. Good, M.D.

Part I: WHAT IS THE SEDUCTION HYPOTHESIS? WHY ARE WE TALKING ABOUT IT TODAY?

Introduction
Chair: Owen Renik, M.D.

1. The Seductions of History: Sexual Trauma in Freud's Theory and
Historiography
George J. Makari, M.D.
2. The Ambiguity of Seduction in the Development of Freud's Thinking
Jay Greenberg, Ph.D.

Discussion of "What is the Seduction Hypothesis? Why Are We Talking about it Today?"
Helen C. Meyers, M.D.
On Literal Misreadings and Reconstructed Truths
Henry F. Smith, M.D.

General Discussion and Audience Questions

Part II: ANALYSTS AT WORK WITH PATIENTS WHOSE LIVES ARE CHARACTERIZED BY THE TRAUMAS OF EVERYDAY LIFE

Introduction
Chair: Arnold M. Cooper, M.D.

3. Trauma and Pathogenesis
Jacob A. Arlow, M.D.
4. Psychological Trauma of Everyday Life
Scott Dowling, M.D.
5. What Happened Matters, and What Really Happened Really Matters
Marylou Lionells, Ph.D.
6. Traumas of Everyday LIfe: A Self Psychological Perspective on the
Neuroses
Anna Ornstein, M.D.

Discussion of Analysts at Work with Patients whose Lives are Characterized by the Traumas of Everyday Life
Robert Michels, M.D.

General Discussion

Part III: ANALYSTS AT WORK WITH SEVERELY TRAUMATIZED PATIENTS

Introduction: The Analytic Aims in the Treatment of Severely Traumatized Patients
Chair: Leon Hoffman

7. Living the Experience of Childhood Seduction: A Brief Account of an Unusual
Psychoanalysis
Peter Fonagy, Ph.D.
8. A View of Severely Traumatized Patients--Soul Murder Victims
Leonard Shengold, M.D.

Discussion of Papers by Fonagy and Shengold
Glen O. Gabbard, M.D.

General Discussion

Part IV: CONCLUDING PAPERS

Introduction
Chair: Arnold Rothstein, M.D.

9. Freud and the Seduction Hypothesis
Steven J. Ellman, Ph.D.
10. The Seduction Hypothesis Axis: What's External, What's Internal, and What's In
Between?
Stephen A. Mitchell, Ph.D.

Postscript
The Seduction Theory: A Leitmotif in the Evolution of Psychoanalytic Theory, But Is It a Testable Hypothesis?
Michael I. Good, M.D.

Name Index
Subject Index

318 pages + xxi

International Universities Press
59 Boston Post Road
Madison, CT 06443
U.S.A.

_____

Review
Helpful Votes: 5 out of 5 total.
Review Date: 2006-07-18
"Not many books can be stamped 'significant' from their inception, but this one can. It has a measure of historic significance by reason of drawing together contributions from the major psychoanalytic groups operating in the United States. Moreover, it achieves a high level of conceptual and clinical significance in the scope of its subject matter and the competence of the respective contributors. The background of the place of seduction in Freud's thinking and the various perspectives of the ensuing controversies swirling around the seduction hypothesis
and its supposed abandonment are thoroughly explored in considerable depth. The major focus is on the theory and treatment of trauma---explored and discussed from the vantage points of a wide range of theoretical perspectives. The degree of openness and willingness to listen and discuss is laudatory. The contributions cast a wide net, focusing at one level on the traumas of everyday life that arguably form the stuff of the clinical experience of everyday analysis, and at another level on
the more severe traumas in seriously disturbed patients that leave their residues of murderous rage and severe personality impairment. The contributions maintain a high level of discourse and provide a remarkable overview of the history and understanding of seduction-trauma in psychopathology and analytic theory. I have not seen a better synthesis of points of view and issues related to the themes of seduction and trauma than this. Analysts treating patients suffering from the effects of seduction and/or trauma will value these well-integrated contributions, and students of the sexual abuse and traumatization of children will encounter a rich mine of theoretical insights and clinical applications that will fully reward their perusal of these pages. The editor and organizers of this conference are to be congratulated!"

-- W. W. Meissner, S.J., M.D., Training and Supervising Analyst, Psychoanalytic Institute of New England, East; University Professor of Psychoanalysis, Boston College; author of The Therapeutic Alliance and Freud and Psychoanalysis, and other books.

Organizations
The Self-Organizing School: Next-Generation Comprehensive School Reforms
Published in Hardcover by Rowman & Littlefield Education (2007-03-28)
Author: Alan Bain
List price: $80.00
New price: $79.92
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Average review score:

Simple ideas-profound implications
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 1 total.
Review Date: 2007-05-03
As a participant in the reform process described in this book, I was anxious to read Dr. Bain's depiction. He has captured the essence of the change process in a very readable format. The strategies for implementing comprehensive reform are laid out in manageable, instructive chunks. The concept of comprehensive school reform takes on a whole new meaning in this book. Every aspect of a school's complexities has been thought of. The core business of schools - teaching and learning - is a central theme that permeates throughout. I recommend the book for anyone interested in learning about the theory behind effective educational reform and how a complete plan for implementing such reform can take place.

Doing less and getting more
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 1 total.
Review Date: 2007-04-28
As schools and school systems continue to look for research-based approaches to school improvement, Alan's book provides the research in a way that is directly tied to proven practice along with examples. Both small and large school systems (along with school departments, teams and grade levels) grapple with how to scale up reform by not doing "more". Alan provides "I can touch it and feel it" examples for doing less and getting more.

The Self-Organizing School expresses its case clearly and is highly readable
Helpful Votes: 1 out of 2 total.
Review Date: 2007-04-17
This book is a must-read for anyone interested in planning, creating, implementing or reforming schools for diverse learners on a large, or small, scale. The author responds to all the commonly identified issues that have emerged from recent literature. The topic of the book fills a gap in current knowledge and makes a very comprehensive contribution - it respects and responds to the challenge of site-based reform with a complete theory-based approach. The author's themes are clearly stated and he puts technology in a meaningful context and includes actual examples. The book gives evidence of a theory into practice approach supported by a longitudinal account of a change process. The author's own perspectives and interests are demonstrated by addressing controversial issues relating to performance evaluation and student feedback, with a new emergent approach to feedback that emphasises the role feedback can have as a basis for collaboration about the learning process.

The Self-Organizing School expresses its case clearly and is highly readable.

Organizations
Shift: Secrets of Positive Change for Organizations and Their Leaders
Published in Paperback by Creative Bound (2001-07)
Author: Janice Calnan
List price: $15.95
New price: $14.19
Used price: $9.00

Average review score:

Keeps you focused on the right things in times of change
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 0 total.
Review Date: 2002-08-30
I picked up Janice Calnan's book mostly out of curiosity since I have a keen interest in the smooth implementation of new projects and ideas. Shortly thereafter, and with very little warning, organizational convulsions suddently started to happen. My department was changed overnight. Some people were let go, others reassigned, new roles were in store for those that remained. "Change" was now very up close, personal and not a lot of fun. The book helped me focus on the right things in order to get through it all.

The "secrets" are a collection of new and simple ideas that caused a shift in my assumptions and behaviours. Once I began to think about and understand the concepts over a period of time, I found it much easier to manage my emotions and produce results.

A superb handbook for personal and organzational change
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 0 total.
Review Date: 2002-06-01
Janice Calnan's book SHIFT was brought to me about a month ago while I was conducting workshops at a government accountability conference in Ottawa. In just the five minutes I had to scan the opening "Letter to the Reader" and Introduction, I knew I was onto something special. I have been involved in the work of quality and organizational improvement for about 20 years. I am a certified "business book junkie," consuming dozens of titles a year. Janice Calnan's SHIFT is a remarkable piece of work. Ms. Calnan offers a simple, clear path for people to begin the process of personal change needed to craft more effective and successful organizations. It is obvious that Janice Calnan has spent a great deal of time working with, and learning from people at all levels of organizational structures. She has distilled the complex and seemingly arcane art of organizational improvement into a clear and transformational process. The book's ideas are set out in a simple, straightforward style, that is likely to appeal to even the most entrenched "old thinking" business practitioner. Janice Calnan's book has earned a top spot on my own reference shelf, along such classics as Peter Scholtes' TEAM Handbook, and the works of Deming, Juran, Townsend, Peters, and Wheatley. If you are engaged in the work of organizational change, I would highly recommend this book.

ABOUT THE REVIEWER: Bruce Waltuck is a 25-year veteran of the United States Department of Labor. In 1989 he was asked by Labor Secretary Elizabeth Dole to "rethink the Department's management system." Together with colleague Jim Armshaw, Bruce co-created the DOL's award-winning Employee Involvement and Quality Improvement System. Bruce has lectured and taught throughout the United States, Canada, Brazil, and Singapore. He is widely known for his expertise with labor-management cooperation for quality improvement, strategic planning, data collection and performance measurement, and Baldrige-based assessment. He has authored book chapters, and published numerous articles in academic journals and magazines. He is currently pursuing his interests in the application of complex adaptive systems science to organizational behavior and improvement. He is listed in both U.S. and international editions of Who's Who. He resides in central New Jersey.

Important beyond the business world
Helpful Votes: 1 out of 1 total.
Review Date: 2003-01-22
The ideas and tools offered up in Janice's book are positioned for business leaders, but are useful for the other half of your waking hours. Janice includes many stories outside the work place that demonstrate how her ideas impact the personal life of her clients and herself. Well read or trained business people will be familiar with a lot of the concepts, what is unique and useful is; the different perspective, the connection of the ideas and the exercises Janice presents to the reader. The understanding of human nature gained as a psychotherapist is clear in each chapter as Janice explains how to change the way people behave in organizations. The ideas and tools are carefully woven into a logical progression throughout the book, however you can get value by starting anywhere or reading a single chapter. At the end of each short chapter you will find some exercises often phrased as questions to the reader. I found the exercises very useful for putting the ideas into action. The saying good things come in small packages applies here, a physically small book with a big impact.

Organizations
Software Reuse: Architecture, Process and Organization for Business Success (ACM Press)
Published in Hardcover by Addison-Wesley Professional (1997-06-01)
Authors: Ivar Jacobson, M. Griss, and P. Jonsson
List price: $69.99
New price: $9.99
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Average review score:

A comprehensive approach to effective Software Reuse
Helpful Votes: 12 out of 13 total.
Review Date: 1998-06-09
Having reviewed this book before and after it's publication, I can say without a doubt that this is the best book to date on how to implement a effective, systematic reuse program. The book addresses all aspects of Software Reuse, from organizational factors to implementation technologies. All the authors have experience with implementing reuse programs in the real world, and they speak from experience as well as from expertise. If you are at all interested in Software Reuse, or with improving software development productivity, you need this book.

Read it, read it, read it!
Helpful Votes: 16 out of 16 total.
Review Date: 1999-08-16
Don't limit yourself to code reusability. This book goes further. Think about reusability from the beginning, put it into your analysis and design models.

The book talks about an _architecture_ and a _process_ to achieve software reusability. I found the book hard to read. Sometimes I felt they did not "hit-the-ground". My problem? I was thinking in code. Don't let that happen to you.

The authors talk about a complete organized process to achieve reusability. The book is a must if you are thinking in reusability.

Read it!

Great place to start
Helpful Votes: 7 out of 8 total.
Review Date: 2001-09-21
This is an excellent book for developers, architects, project managers, and development managers. It clearly explains how to adjust your development practices to achieve reuse at all levels. I found it particularly helpful in diagnosing common management issues that hinder reuse practices. This book has helped me gather the information needed to effectively establish reusability.

Organizations
SOZO, Survival Guide for a Remnant Church
Published in Paperback by Fish House (1995-08)
Author: Ellis H. Skolfield
List price: $12.95
Used price: $90.00

Average review score:

Survivalist
Helpful Votes: 1 out of 1 total.
Review Date: 2008-03-25
Most of what is found in this book is in False Prophet and Islam in the End Times. But there are still little nuggets here and there that are worth reading. I just skipped over the other stuff I already knew. All in all, I would say this is a book worth having. You can never have enough [spiritual] ammunition.

Eye Opening Truth
Helpful Votes: 4 out of 5 total.
Review Date: 2000-09-30
"He who testivies to these things says, 'Yes, I am coming quickly.'" Revelation 22:20

Verses like this in the Bible have plagued me with doubt as long as I can remember. How could the Lord be coming quickly if these words were written 1900 years ago? Throughout the last two millenniums, Christians have always believed the Second Coming was at hand. Doesn't this seem to take away from the validity of the Bible? I struggled with this problem until I read this book.

SOZO by Ellis Skolfield is a must-read to any Bible scholar, skeptic, or student. It is intense reading filled with historical facts backed up by prophetic scripture. From the Islamic mosque, the Dome of the Rock, sitting high on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, to the uncanny victory of Israel in the Six-Day War, this book does what no other book on the market does: its shows us how Bible prophecy is real.

Great Chronological Review of Biblical prophecy
Helpful Votes: 6 out of 7 total.
Review Date: 1997-12-03
This book challenges your beliefs....makes you get into the WORD and question what and why you have been taught the doctrines of your church..... make your minister and friends read it to begin a worthy discussion

Organizations
The Sponsor's Toolkit
Published in Paperback by McGraw-Hill Book Company Australia (2001-09-30)
Authors: Anne-Marie Grey and Kim Skildum-Reid
List price: $33.95
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The Sponsor's Toolkit
Helpful Votes: 1 out of 1 total.
Review Date: 2007-07-11
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. It was packed full of very precise, useful information and the included CD-ROM was a terrific bonus! I especially enjoyed the straight forward approach that the book presents. Sponsorship has evolved and our company's views about sponsorship need to as well. This book provided us with the information and tools that we need to move our corporate sponsorship program into the twenty first century.

Indispensible!
Helpful Votes: 1 out of 1 total.
Review Date: 2007-07-11
This book was indispensable! It helped me understand how wise corporate sponsors determine who gets accepted for a sponsorship! If you are having difficulty obtaining a corporate sponsor, I would highly recommend reading this book. Understanding how businesses make their sponsorship decisions gives you an edge over your competition. I am now better prepared to pitch my presentation and have high hopes of landing a great sponsor! The cards are now stacked in my favor.

My new bible
Helpful Votes: 11 out of 11 total.
Review Date: 2003-02-08
This book is outstanding. It has totally revolutionised the way we approach our investment in sponsorship. I had never realised we were so backward until I read this book and it made so much sense. We are now in the process of renegotiating many of our sponsorships to get better results for the brand, not just put our logo in front of people.

The tools and checklists that are included in the book and on the CD-ROM have made changing our approach much easier. They work on all sizes and types of sponsorship. We have even customised some of them for our regional marketing people so that they can do a better job on the smaller sponsorships that they invest in.

I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in sponsorship.

Organizations
St. Benedict and St. Therese: The Little Rule & the Little Way
Published in Paperback by Our Sunday Visitor (2002-03)
Author: Dwight Longenecker
List price: $11.95
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Average review score:

Great Books
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 5 total.
Review Date: 2005-09-07
Very very good condition, no complaints.
Acctually, I tell all my friends what great deals I get from Amozon! I may just be one of your top advocates.

The Greatness of Littleness
Helpful Votes: 14 out of 14 total.
Review Date: 2002-11-03
Commenting on the communion of saints in heaven and how their various differences of temperament and intellect must ultimately complement one another in some as yet utterly unimaginable variegated whole, St. Therese of Lisieux once said: "Delightful and surprising will be the friendships found there - I am sure of it ... [A] simple little child may be the intimate friend of a patriarch." Dwight Longenecker in his new book, St. Benedict and St. Therese: The Little Rule and the Little Way, sees in this almost casual remark the kernel of a much larger reflection: how the nineteenth-century French Carmelite saint - not much more than a little child herself at the time of her death - might indeed easily be imagined hand-in-hand with the Father of western monasticism, the sixth-century St. Benedict of Nursia; for, despite the apparent incongruence of this unexpected pairing, their "Way" and "Rule" are in essence one. The "little way" of St. Therese of the Child Jesus is really nothing less than an utterly radical faith and dependence on Jesus Christ. "Sanctity," she says in her final days, "does not consist in performing such and such acts; it means being ready at heart to become small and humble in the arms of God, acknowledging our weakness and trusting in his fatherly goodness to the point of audacity." (p. 215) Such conviction, expressed while nearly at the point of death, finds its spiritual complement in St. Benedict's "little Rule for beginners": "Let us then never withdraw from discipleship to him, but persevering in his teachings in the monastery till death, let us share the suffering of Christ through patience, and so deserve also to share in his kingdom." (p. 38)

Longenecker has provided us with the good fruit of his experiment of exploring and interrelating the timeless wisdom of these two immensely influential saints. A Benedictine Oblate himself, he has already shown himself to be an enlightening guide through Benedict's monastic Rule, as applied to family life, in his Listen My Son: St. Benedict for Fathers. Some of his insights are carried over into this new book, but enriched and expanded as they interact with the Carmelite saint's doctrine. (Here, I note in passing, Longenecker summons to mind others of the school of Benedict who have proven themselves able commentators on the writings of great Carmelites: e.g., one thinks of Blessed Columba Marmion's indebtedness to St. Teresa of Avila, and Dom John Chapman's masterful grasp of the concepts of St. John of the Cross.)

Longenecker movingly tells of his own "encounter" with St. Therese while visiting Lisieux; and how later he found that, beneath the conventionally sugary language of her writings, so typical of her place and time and youth, the deceptively sweet "Little Flower" was in actuality a "steel magnolia". Perhaps most worthy of note, as Longenecker stresses, it is really her ordinariness that provided the rich soil for her remarkable holiness, and thus her holiness can be a model for us all. In this she reminds us of the holiness-in-ordinariness implicit to Benedict's Rule. Longenecker writes: "The Benedictine way is a `little way' because, like Therese of Lisieux's little way, it relies on surrender, not superiority; grace, not greatness." (p. 41) Noting how much of the Rule is given to liturgical, disciplinary, and household concerns, he says:

By focusing on the mundane matters of everyday life Benedict points to a deeper truth: that these
details are the stuff of reality, and that by paying attention to the details of ordinary life we will
find our way to heaven. Someone has said the devil is in the details; Benedict thinks the divine is
in the details. (p. 45)

Likewise, St. Therese insists that it is the day to day details in which real, practical sanctity is cultivated. She recognizes this fact as the hidden basis of even the holiest of all earthly homes: "What does me a lot of good when I think of the Holy Family is to imagine a life that was very ordinary ... their life was the same as ours." (p. 214)

Longenecker has also interwoven into the fabric of his own reflections valuable "Thoughts and Prayers" which launch every chapter, as well as the insights of such writers as Chesterton, Balthasar, C.S. Lewis, Tolkien, and others throughout the text. His own thoughts on humility and spiritual childhood are particularly well worth our prayerful pondering, and, though these might conceivably have been presented by a lesser devotional writer in cloying or sentimental fashion, Longenecker keeps before us the nitty-gritty realities and often painful sacrifices such crucial elements of genuine discipleship demand. We are, throughout this valuable little book, never far from the truth that "the Gospel command to become as little children is a call to return to a state of innocence through the excruciating path of experience." (p. 62)

For those searching for solid Catholic spiritual fare, or for an introduction to either of these saints (or, of course, to both), this book is unreservedly recommended.

inspiring and thought provoking
Helpful Votes: 14 out of 14 total.
Review Date: 2002-05-17
St Benedict & St Therese can be read for several reasons and will appeal to a variety of readers. First, it offers an insightful analysis and comparison of the spirituality of Benedict "The Little Rule" and Therese "The Little Way." On another level, it is offers a practical application of their principles for our own spiritual direction. And to add pleasure to delight, it presents both of these in a VERY well-written, sometimes Chestertonian style. Longenecker often surprises you by reaching past the usual spiritual platitudes for the deeper truths. His manner is sometimes humorous, but never trite. His style is often breezy, but never without weight. Here are two examples:

ON MIRACLES: "The main problem for sophisticated people is not that miracles are incredible, but that they are an error in taste. . . . Benedict and Therese call us to follow a little way, and it may be that for humility to begin growing, our grown-up taste must be the first to go. Miracles, relics, sentimentality, pilgrimages, and wonderful answers to prayer lie at the heart of ordinary religion, and since Benedict and Therese are apostles of the ordinary it is fitting that their religion sits happily among the sentimental, the miraculous, and the tasteless." (p.47-48)

ON OBEDIENCE: "Obedience promises freedom, but there is a huge risk because obedience also threatens the most odious form of slavery. Religious people have an unfortunate taste for Pharisaism, and the call to obedience attracts two kinds of Pharisees - those who love to dominate and those who love to be dominated." (p.86)

Anyone who bemoans the meager fare of 90% of what is currently published to inspire and educate the aspiring Christian, should buy this book to ensure that the more worthy 10% will not disappear forever. If you or a friend has a liking for St. Therese or St. Benedict, you don't have to worry that you are buying a repeat of a half dozen other books you've already read. This book contains a fresh and useful approach. I hope to see many titles from this author in the future.

Organizations
Stand Up for Your Gifted Child: How to Make the Most of Kids' Strengths at School and at Home
Published in Paperback by Free Spirit Publishing (2000-10)
Author: Joan Franklin Smutny
List price: $14.95
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Average review score:

Brilliant, Clear, Practical
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 0 total.
Review Date: 2008-05-29
Not a very large book, only 190 pages, but chock-full of crucial advice and helpful perspectives. The layout is friendly on the eye, but I never felt like I was cruising through a bunch of bullet points. The author knows how to write. I am so very happy that I got my hands on this.

The ultimate parents' guide
Helpful Votes: 14 out of 15 total.
Review Date: 2002-12-01
Smutny covers the basic concepts and issues facing the families of gifted kids. Better yet, she provides concrete, detailed strategies for parents as they negotiate the best possible education for their gifted children. Lots of real-life stories, lots of nuts-and-bolts advice, right down to the questions to ask and the things to _avoid_ saying.

One of the best resources to start with....
Helpful Votes: 17 out of 17 total.
Review Date: 2002-09-22
I have read many books on the subject of parenting gifted children and trying to meet their academic needs -- this is one of the better ones, and certainly one of the most practical. It will help parents navigate the school system and advocate for their child's educational needs. Reading this book was like talking to a friend who has "been there." It is full of good reference/resource advice and is easy to read.


Books-Under-Review-->Computers-->Computer Science-->Organizations-->88
Related Subjects: ACM
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