On The Edge Books

Feeling a little down on our times? Can't seem to see the forest for all the little trees picking at your brain? Well I'd suggest you pick up this book and make your month. It is a broad look at the sweep of history from many angles, and they all fit together in surprising ways. Using the ancient chakra system for context, Ms Judith helps us to understand our evolution on a personal, social and planetary level. As we can all see around us the birth of a new age may be painful at times. Thankfully life moves inevitably forward. Our current self-destructive systems rooted in the past are no longer serving us. They will eventually collapse. The good news is that new life-affirming systems are all ready forming and beginning to propel us toward a braver and more human world. This book is a bold and positive vision for the future. We could use more of those.

I began reading this book expecting to find another goddess spirituality book telling us about how we need to go back to the "good old days" when women ruled the world, when we were one with nature in idyllic Roussean bliss, and how the presence of male energy on the planet should be eradicated so that women can create a perfect paradise - just like they once used to.

What I found was something else altogether - a detailed and balanced account of the historical, cultural and philosophical development leading to our current culture. While she uses the metaphor of the chakra system to trace this development, it is perfectly syncronous with Spiral Dynamics and other sophisticated models of human development. In other words, there is a total absence of magical, New Age superstition and a great presence of balance, perspective and wisdom.

The book is a clarion call to action, to understand the context of our emergence, appreciate the gravity of our current situation and take total responsibility for it on the level of our personal lives. This is all done without guilt tripping or demonizing any aspect of our development, while not denying much of its brutality.

Having studied both Ken Wilber's and Don Beck's work, I find this book in perfect alignment and the author another in a growing chorus of voices urging us to evolve at the level of consciousness in service of the entire race.

Elegantly written, full of heart and perspective, this book is a must read for anyone who wants to understand why we're where we're at and what the next step must be.

Waking the Global Heart creates an understandable picture of cultural evolution. More importantly it creates a hope for what humanity can yet become, if we can begin to awaken to what is possible instead of living with what we have come to accept. As a United Methodist pastor, I found Judith's anaylsis of Christian history to be especially helpful for revealing the process of adjusting Christianity to fit political purposes of the Roman Empire. While Judith's summary of this history could not possibly cover all the nuances of that history, her approach reminds us that the heart message Jesus proclaimed and lived was co-opted by the love of power that dominated that time and this. From the perspective of Jesus message of the heart (the power of love), I have long struggled with the use of the word "kingdom"of God to describe Jesus' goal. While Jesus' call is clearly to create a world based on God's love, "kingdom" carries too much of the "love of power" model. I especially appreciated Judith's coining of the word, "kindom" to describe the goal of social evolution. Waking the Global Heart gives us an excellent model as to what the world can be, if we can move past doctrine to discover unity of spirit in the image of the heart chakra. Dana Wimmer

WAKING THE GLOBAL HEART, will be kept were I can refer to it often. Anodea Judith has touched all the right nerves to awaken humanity's sleeping giant. As J. Krishnamurti put it, to produce "A radical mutation of the mind." She describes the human condition as an adolescent emerging with the crushing awareness of adult choices. Like a teen age girl staring in disbelief at the drug store pregnancy test that signals a personal Tsunami, a 9/11 and a New Orleans, humanity stands in the postmodern era with no MAPS and no consensus. Like a deer frozen in the headlights, we trouble in disbelief at the chaos we see rushing at us with hurricane speed. Anodea's book is a welcome new MAP, and her words ring true as I recognize the truth of her message: "Humanity's Rite of Passage from THE LOVE OF POWER to the POWER OF LOVE." At first glance her three-part index seems to over simplify the world problematique, but the depth of this luminary volume soon changes everything. One realizes, even in the preface, when she describes her love of untangling strings in her mother's kitchen drawer, that Anodea manifested early the tenacity and the patience needed to create this master work. Thank God she had the perseverance and the chutzpah to write this book! It is a handbook for navigating the transformations urgently needed to heal a world in crisis. Anodea draws frequently from some of my favorite visionaries, Fr. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Dr. Fritjof Capra, and Ken Wilber. Her depth of understanding spans the ancient wisdom, years of experience as a therapist soothing pains of the soul, and the history of humanity's rise to walk on the moon where we saw island earth as the only home we have. Read it once, read it twice, and then take my advice and simplify your Christmas shopping. Keep it close at hand as you struggle to come of age in the generation needed to save the world from ourselves. Anodea's book reminds me of the famous line from Walt Kelly's cartoon character POGO, "we have met the enemy and he is us." She makes it clear in her passionate hope, "Someday we will be the ancestors that I pray will be remembered with gratitude rather than resentment." and "...the current crisis will call forth global cooperation like nothing ever has before." I pray she is right! If she is it will be because she and thousands like her with compassion, love, and a noble spirit inspired us all to create the world our children's children can love in peace and joy.

I read some of this book, a real study in wishful thinking. One of the reviewers mentioned that the book is 'not new age'. Hmm ... begs the question, what his new age, considering the first page starts off with:

"The great unveiling is approaching, a time when the power structures of the world begin to crumble and people of the heart sing out a new truth. .... [E]ach of you plays a part in bringing forth the new dawn."

If it reads like new age, smells like new age and dances like new age --- it IS new age. In this case, Christian new age.

There is no compelling empirical evidence to suggest that human or global history is on the brink of any significant cultural or biological watershed. If anything it looks like humanity is poised for extinction. And that's not a bad thing.

I really do not understand this desperate urge to save the human race, which has arguably caused more damage to the planet than any other species ever has or ever could. If you want to save the planet, let the human race die off. If you want to save humans and the planet, you have your work cut out for you and even if hundreds of thousands of new-agers contemplate a better future, it is highly unlikely to change the course the human race has set for itself over the last century.

The cds contained are nicely narrated by bob costas and the book has some nice pictures inside. The book covers a wide range of sprorts which should appeal to any sports fan.

An excellent collection of the most exciting sports moments of the 20th century, and it's a collection that will get more valuable over time. While Garner's writing style might be described as simplistic by some, it is entirely appropriate for the subject matter at hand - sports. Here you don't want ivory-tower verbosity, you want simple direct descriptions, and Garner delivers.

Any sports fan will be captivated by Garners descriptions, and will relive the passion we all experienced with those great events when heroes were still heroes. For the sports fan in your family, there is no better gift.

Following up on the one-two punch they delivered in last year's bestselling And the Crowd Goes Wild, Garner and Costas stick to the winning formula: a coffee-table compilation of great moments in sports with a companion two-CD collection of original broadcasts of those events, starring Joe Montana, Mary Lou Retton, Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, and dozens of other champs.

There are a few muffs -- why use an audio clip from 1956 to illustrate Jackie Robinson's historic 1947 debut with the Dodgers? But there's much more to celebrate, such as Lyell Bremser's call of Johnny Rodgers's 72-yard punt return in Nebraska's 1971 victory over rival Oklahoma: "Holy moly! Man, woman and child, did that put 'em in the aisle!"

A true sports paradise. A great gift combo of book and CD audio delights.

This was fun. Highly recommended. I think the audio CDs, could be a bit long winded, but other than that, it's great, especially the book, which is beautiful and nicely written.

It's a good book & great for those who have CD players. BUT it would be great to also offer it on cassette (for those people, like my father, who do not have a CD player, but would LOVE it).

If you are about to build a home...or just enjoy seeing the details that make other structures a "home" then you will love this book...

Very informative...beautifully executed...homerun all the way...

This book is wonderful at capturing the rare beauty of various architectural wonders through vivid photographs and welcoming text. You never get bored flipping through this book and it is incredibly inspiring. It combines several differently designed homes that will appeal to a variety of readers. Reading this book is like daydremaing on paper. Highly recommended.

As a landscape designer, I was consistenly impressed with how these wonderful houses fit into their site, lifting out the critical views and respecting the nature of the place. Having enjoyed the houses that Robert Knight designs, I was pleased to learn why his houses and those selected for his book are so satisfying to see and experience. O'Rourke's photographs are spectacular and with the plans, really help to visualize the structure and the setting and how they fit together. Design professionals and homeowners alike with whom I've shared this book rave about it. A perfect gift for friends and family!

I found this book both educational and handsome in content and in photography. As an architect practicing in different regions of the country, I'm always thankful for having opportunities to do design work in Maine. Maine, as a place to live, is simply wonderful and unique, but the sense of peace in these "Houses on the Water" is elevated creating a noble inspiration for the reader.

I was excited to get this book in the mail, as I thought it would have some real good ideas on how to build a larger home on the water that had some character. I found most of the homes rather odd, homes for people that would name their children Jupiter or Flower. I am back today ordering more books. Also most homes either are RIGHT on the water or set back in rock. Didn't find much in the way of regular 100ft setback from the water, woods, maybe a walkout basement type of MN lakes home. There was one from WI but again, it was right on the water, which you normally can not build now days.

A great story of flying during the transition from the great piston powered aircraft of WW2 to the jet age.

Also a good reminder that the most dangerous words in aviation are often an engineer saying, " I have a great idea." For them the danger of the first flight is that they will choke on their coffee. Such was the case of one project to rid carrier aircraft of their landing gear and to have them land on a rubber "bed" . Somehow I get the feeling that the engineering team never spent any time at sea, certainly not on a dark stormy night.

While it lacks the polish and emotional content of Stranger To the Ground, it packs more of a flying punch. And the author also pulls no punches when it comes to the so called Tailhook incident for which senior naval aviators were punished for simply being at the same hotel. All in the name of political correctness.

Cdr. John Moore gives a unique insight into the life of a naval aviator of the 40's through the 60's. Certainly not an easy life but one filled with its share of challenges and danger. Pretentious in no way, John Moore tells it like it was. And there is the added insight into the life of a naval aviation test pilot. If you have ever tested a plane, or would like to, you can gain some insights from this book. After his naval aviation and test pilot career, Mr. Moore ran operations and testing for the Apollo program and later became mayor of Cocoa Beach (home of Ron Jon's Surf Shop). Not your typical man; not your typical book.

This was a great tale of a pilot coming of age in the early jet days, when engineering had more to do with airplanes, than marketing.

The author is self-effacing, doesn't take himself or his (actually quite impressive) career too seriously.

Loved it!

A friend of mine has praised this book to the skies, so I bought a copy, expecting cover-to-cover laughs and revealations. Instead, what I got was a -very- disorganized, rambling series of partial recollections which were, despite the disclaimer in the introduction, the memoirs of a single pilot. Most of the stories failed to be funny in any way and were only moderately shocking.

Most irritating of all was Chapter Twelve, which dealt with the author's anger at the Tailhook scandal/witchhunt and which had absolutely, positively nothing at all to do with anything else in the book. The chapter didn't belong. It was a distraction. Had any editing been done on the book, it should have been deleted entirely.

There were some good parts, and the first two-thirds of the book would be quite nice with some serious re-arranging and reworking to present a coherent and orderly progression of events. The material about test-flying the Cutlass and the obscenely stupid FlexDeck program are must-reads, but the section on Apollo 1 adds nothing to the reams of material written about that tragedy, and the material on Mr. Moore's training runs hot and cold. As a minor note, the tendency to use technical terms without explaining them to the casual reader makes for difficult reading in some spots.

All in all, if I'd found this in a library first, I never would have bought it; now that I have it, I can't recommend it to others, but I won't be giving my copy away either.

Kris Overstreet

... and many of them have honored places in my library: Colonel Robert Scott's "God Is My Co-Pilot", Heinz Knoke's excellent and sadly unknown "I Flew for the Führer", Bob Hoover's "Forever Flying", Jim Lovell and Jeffrey Kluger's "Lost Moon" (which is as much an autobiography of Lovell as a recounting of the Apollo 13 incident)...

... and then there's this book. If you go into "The Wrong Stuff" expecting another self-congratulatory throttle-jockey memoir (not that there's anything wrong with those :), you'll be sorely disappointed, because John Moore isn't the self-congratulatory throttle-jockey type. He seems frankly surprised that he survived his aviation career, and his tongue-in-cheek delight at being alive permeates the work. Somehow, this man managed to wind up involved in some of the wackiest projects in aviation history, and his wry reminiscences make this the funniest flyboy book in history. I'm just amazed, with his karma, that Moore didn't end up testing the Pogo Planes.

Highly, highly, highly recommended.

While this book is indeed expensive, consider it a wise investment if you need insight into the mindset of this target market. This book covers how they think, why they think the way they do, what they do and predicts future buying behaviors. Brent includes tons of stories and examples and I think by the time I was done I had highlighted just about every page in the book with things worth remembering and acting upon.

This is an interesting, smart and important book, and the writer capably crafts a compelling, informative text that engages the reader. The text exhibits thorough research on baby boomers, and the author answers every question, seemingly, that a reader might have. The text is written in an easy-to-read, easy-to-follow and easy-to-stay interested manner and is organized in a reader-friendly manner, guiding the reading experience with a logical organizational approach to the subject. Brent Green is very skilled and exercises a capacity for tight, focused writing, often employing very vivid descriptions and clever phrases to illustrate key ideas and principles presented in the text. Overall, the book is very well-done and the author should be commended for this accomplishment.

This book achieves a dual purpose that I found extremely gratifying. It helped me understand the leading edge baby boomers in a way that I never have before. It also gave me insights about specific ways to market my services to this group.

I've read many books that give general marketing ideas, but none that goes right to the heart of this unique group of men and women and offers information that I can use to reach them.

As a bonus, the book is enjoyable to read and offers unexpected and interesting insights about the world around us.

From beginning to end we feel the care and humanity of the author and know that marketing means more to him than selling product. It means meeting people where they live and engaging them in such a way that they leave the encounter feeling they were deeply nourished. It means working together with people to make a better world.

This is an exceptional and unusual book which I highly recommend for your consideration. After reading it, I couldn't wait to put many of Brent's insights into practice.

Green develops an interesting approach to cohort marketing by presenting the sociology of the boomer generation. His initial thesis rests on an important observation by a German social psychologist called a "zeitgeist." As Green posits in a stimulating essay near the end of the book: "When a middle-aged individual struggles with aging, it is called an identity crisis. When a generation struggles with the same fact of life, it is called a zeitgeist-a shared feeling for an era, a spirit of the times." Green argues that the leading-edge boomers shared an extraordinary zeitgeist when they became young adults due to the galvanizing influences of the Vietnam War era and the cultural revolution. As a result of this unique passage into adulthood, they share many unique generational life-values. Now that they have become middle-aged adults, boomers are sharing another zeitgeist that will not only change the way they behave in a consumer society, this shared experience of aging by such a large and influential generation will eventually change America's conception of aging ... hopefully for the better. In this context, Green's book also poses a warning about generational discrimination and ageism, a combined concept he calls "genism." The book is crisp but intellectually powerful and raises many interesting ideas that connect social psychology with buying behavior. This book truly stands apart for its insights and how the writer expresses these ideas in clear, easy-to-read prose.

Some new marketing books "catch the wave" and achieve overnight bestseller status, especially those that promise instant success: permission marketing, viral marketing, emotional marketing, and on and on. Green's book does not give pat formulas or suggest easy answers; it reveals insights and proposes strategies. The book is full of anecdotes and case studies from his successful career in marketing. That's a plus. It's refreshing to read a marketing book by someone who has actually been a practitioner and has a track record. Too many marketing books are also way too theoretical or academic. The author admits his own activism during the Vietnam War era and couples the lessons of that time with decades of experience as an advertising executive. He provokes new thinking about social issues often taken for granted (at least by me until I read the book). The book made me aware of what some marketers are doing well and what a larger group is doing wrong when it comes to baby boomer advertising. Green shares interesting insights about boomer history, debunks some myths that crop up in conservative media, and calls for a better conception of aging. If the author is so inclined, however, it would be helpful to see a second edition with more "how-to" information.

...if you want to be touched by a book. I have read multiple books on depression and this one was the most disappointing. It was surprising to see so many favorable, gushing reviews for this book.

This book is advertised as different people telling their story about their depression. Reading it, you get the impression that there are no individual voices in this book. It was edited in such a way that all those that are telling their story sound like they are speaking in the same tone, in the same voice. Even stunningly brillant writers, like William Styron, end up sounding flat and robotic. It is strange.

A lot of the stories were disjointed, and there were random snippets thrown in here and there that were entirely out of context for the subject being discussed.

What I am trying to say is that if you want to have your soul touched, try something else. This book is flat and has little flavor. Depression is such a fascinating and complex subject, and this book does not do it justice. There are MANY better books out there. I suggest "Unholy Ghost".

On the Edge of Darkness fails to capture the essence, the hopelessness, the poignancy of depression. It does not convey any human emotion, but reads like fortune cookie gone wrong. It fails to bring you to the edge.

I have suffered from episodic clinical depression for years. I would never admit it was an illness. Instead, I regarded it as a character flaw or deficiency of will. I suffered in secret, mostly, maintaining an outwardly jovial appearance, although I drank heavily. Finally, I had a second severe bout beginning in 1995, and in 199 I became suicidal, and finally underwent shock treatment. Thereafter, I was unlicensed in my profession, got divorced, and went bankrupt. Because I was too proud to admit that depression is an illness, adangerous illness lke cancer, shared by many persons you'd never even guess have it.

I wish I had had this book ten, or even five years ago. It would have taught things easily that i've learned the hard way.

The book is a compendium of anecdotes, by people such as Mike Wallace, Dick Clark, Joan Rivers, William Styron, etc., all of whom have found that ways to cope with Churchill's so-called "Black Dog". You can too, if you find yourself on the edge of unbearable despair, as I did.

Depression is, above all, a lonely illness. The people in the book make it less lonely, enabling the patient and his or her loved ones to cope with an illness that can't be seen, heard, sensed, or understood. If your life is touched by your own, or someone else's depression. You need this book. I believe it has helped save my life.

Considering how many high-profile people are represented in this book, you would expect the stories to be interesting. Unfortunately, only about half are. The book isn't even interesting enough to be depressing.

I bought the original hardcover edition when it came out, and breathed sighs of recognition and relief as I read it, and read myself into it. I recently ordered five more copies for friends and family who could be helped by it. I admire Ms. Cronkite for coming forth to tell her own story, which I desperately needed to hear. This, and her knowledge of celebrities who also suffer from depression, made me believe I could truly accomplish my own goals in life, and help others who suffer from clinical depression. The most helpful book I have read on the subject.

I found this to be an easy read and somewhat enlightening discussion of depression. The strength of the book probably lies in offering different views about depression. It's not a great book, but worth reading for support if you're depressed or to hear different people describe the experience of being depressed. Avery Z. Conner, author of "Fevers of the Mind".

Overall, I didn't enjoy the cookie-cutter characters... All three women are so cut and dry. There is the slutty, outrageous, vixen. The snobby, type-A, miss perfect. Then the shy, low-self-esteem, battered woman. I felt like they were so set in their "type" that they were unrealistic. The basis of the book is these unlikely women end up coming together and realizing they need to be more like the other to heal and grow. The writer seem to try and really add juicyness to this chicklit but it felt forced or unseasoned. The sex and swears lacked a certain skill. Overall I breezed through this chicklit, it was a little subpar to me.

Accused of murder, Lorelei Taylor goes home to Wisconsin and tries to shed her past and become Vivian again. Unfortunately, the town's not excited at the thought of having her home. Vivian begins to find her place...any place but Mike's arms. Can find a way beyond her defenses?

At times, the story made me laugh...at times it really hit my heart. Wonderfully realistic characters, and a fantastic story made for a great read by an amazing author!

I loved living in this world of women who are young, old and in between and who are not all unrealistically rich and/or ultra skinny and model-beautiful....these woman are very real and very fun. I enjoyed Sharpe's witty, observant, and genuine style. I especially liked the little surprises along the way...a character action or comment or situation I hadn't expected. A previous reviewer made a recommendation I'll second: Get this book for you, but also get copies for your friends. It's a great girlfriend book. Looking forward to Sharpe's next book coming up soon!

One of the best books I've read in a long time. It's definitely a keeper. Set in Kettle, Wisconsin, this is the story of three women's struggles and their strenghts. Written with laugh-out-loud dialogue and clever introspection, these women became so real that I wanted to visit Kettle. Well done, Ms. Sharpe. I'm looking forward to your next book.

Accused of electrocuting her abusive and philandering lover, Lorelei Taylor manages to escape prosecution nearly penniless. In need of some down time, she drops her sex kitten former stripper persona and reverts back to her given name, Vivian Harcourt, to relocate to the small Wisconsin town of her deceased grandmother. She has happy memories of Kettle, Wisconsin, unfortunately, the townspeople aren't excited to have someone who they think got away with murder in their midst.

Vivian unwittingly has quite an effect on the town, from Mike the widower she wants to seduce, to the frigid wives like Sarah, who seemingly has the perfect life, but it's a mask of unfulfilled promise. Former childhood playmate, Erin has been a punching bag for her abusive husband, something a fellow victim is able to detect. As she navigates the small mindedness of her adopted small town, Vivian tries valiantly to live up to her image and maintain control her heart, while Mike slowly chips away at her armor.

Sharpe's novel of female empowerment is at times funny, bittersweet, and cathartic, and a lesson in not believing first impressions or gossip. Unfortunately, an abrupt ending and an all too brief epilogue cheats readers of the action surrounding the outcomes of each woman's life.

As an educator, I found Dr. Kao's discussion on education, and the lack of innovation therein, to be right on target. Innovation starts with our children!

The author's book offers what may be considered by Europeans as a curiously anomalous idea: that the United States's main problems stem from insufficient innovation. Can one describe as lacking in innovation a nation that produces out-of-the-box ideas like community colleges, sending a man to the moon, Borlaug's green revolution, Internet, web browsers, CD ROM and DVD, Amazon.com - including its revolutionary introduction of reader reviews (no, I am not a paid agent for Amazon), Ebay, blogging, Apple products, and endless Nobel prize winners in biology and medicine?

Certainly, the nation's educational problem is dire. But does Kao really believe that innovation is the key to fixing the U.S.'s systematic deterioration in economy (deindustrialization), infrastructure, fiscal soundness, pension security; that clever ideas could deal with our anomalous levels of crime and violence compared with all nations of comparable GDP,political gridlock, or our degraded popular TV and entertainment media?

I might hire Kao to rev up innovation in my company if I were an industrialist, but I would not elect or appoint him to advise on public policy issues. Instead, I suggest that Kao may be a symptom of the fragmentation and willingness to settle for superficiality that has developed in the U.S. over the past 45 years.

The EU is not as flashy and exciting as the U.S. But it has evolved a civilized pattern of cooperation. It leads in environmental policy and acting on (not just writing or yelling about)global climate change. The Dollar is sinking ever lower with respect to the Euro (now trading at 1.55). Most citizens in European nations approaching or exceeding our GDP have greater security for the essentials in their lives than do a large fraction of Americans; and their industries are, by and large, outcompeting us, even buying out what remains in the U.S.

I suggest that innovation is now limited from being applied to critical areas like those I mentioned above because many educated, bright, and influential Americans in academia, politics, and business have short-range focus in their thinking. We don't seem to have much interest in looking at problems holistically, having humility, learning from history or other societies. I'm not sure which author I'd recommend instead of Kao, but I'm looking (and also writing, myself).

Acknowledging the same reality, but offering a glimmer of National hope to Thomas Friedman's "The World is Flat" thesis, John Kao lays the framework for an "Innovation Solution" toward the vision of America becoming: "...accelerant for global innovation by steering the world toward addressing the formidable range of wicked problems we face..." It is a brilliantly written, comprehensive analysis; filled with possibility and promise, even as it accepts the reality of our shortcomings and the enormity of these "Wicked Problems".

Defining innovation as, "the ability of individuals, companies, and entire nations to continuously create their desired future", Kao takes the reader on a quick trip around the globe to demonstrate how the key success factors for innovation are no longer domiciled within the U.S.A. He demonstrates how Talent, Capital, Government Investment, and the Silicon Valley concept are now everywhere - Bangalore to Singapore and Finland to Ireland. It is a shocking view of reality that will be shared by most readers who are regular travelers to countries abroad.

The author then offers his proposal: "...the United States specialize in a more comprehensive, transformational style of innovation, one that allows for placing big bets on the future, deploying its enormous resources, carrying out ambitious and mold-breaking experiments, reinventing the way we educate our young, aligning our federal, state, and local agendas, and recharging the magnetism of openness and opportunity that has historically attracted the world's talent to our shores." And, chapter by chapter he demonstrates how the components of innovation work, and how the U.S. might re-create these components as the foundation for addressing what he has called the wicked problems we face.

His chapter on "Making Talent" - it is leaving us and our educational system is broken - challenges not only the current educational system, but also the marketing of innovation and innovative educating of and to our young people. He argues that we must also continue to "Seduce Talent" from abroad thru offers of opportunities to specialize and the building of a reputation for diversity and tolerance. He shows how openness and trust are part, but only part of the environment for innovation that must be developed, and he suggests a "National Innovation Agenda" that includes the appointment of a National Innovation Advisor to the President. In all, it is a bold, but realistic approach to earn anew, America's, "...status of "indispensable nation" by using our mastery of innovation as a force for good in the world."

The book's offering is far too comprehensive to be reduced to a single review and it will be well worth your time to read the ~ 270 pages. The stories are interesting and informative, and the logic is such that you can do a bit of skimming if you are short on time. I highly recommend this book.

Dennis DeWilde, author of "The Performance Connection"

For a book about Innovation, there is nothing Innovative about this book. The stories about Singapore, Finland and Ireland are well known and can be found in Business Week or Wall Street Journal. Yes, and well read readers will know that we are losing our innovation edge to China and India. No new information there. And, his answers are not new - use the internet, improve our education systems, entice outside talent, better offices, etc. In fact, I would even question his definition of innovation - jazz is innovative but classical music is not? He starts with the assertion that innovation is not just about technology and science and then labors onto technology and science. Further, at the end of this book, he used the "I" word so many times to emphasize his opinion, that I lost count of it. I can go on about this book, but let me leave it with this - this is the worst book on innovation that I have read. A lot of borrowing from others, a lot hype on what he will provide for solutions and then NO delivery. Don't waste your time on this book.

The title of Thomas Friedman's most recently published book, The World Is Flat, is explained by the author in the Introduction: his use of the word "flat" refers to "the flattening forces [that] are empowering more and more individuals today to reach further, faster, deeper, and cheaper than ever before...to connect, compete, and collaborate" innovatively. John Kao has these same forces in mind when suggesting that America is losing its innovative edge in the global marketplace. "Innovation has become the new currency of global competition as one country after another races toward a new high ground where the capacity for innovation is viewed as a hallmark of national success."

Meanwhile, John Kao asserts that in the United States, "our national capacity for innovation is eroding, with deeply troubling implications for our future...In tomorrow's world, even more than today's, innovation will be the engine of progress. So unless we move to rectify this dismal situation, the United States cannot hope to remain a leader. What's at stake is nothing less than the future prosperity and security of our nation...While our competitor nations focus on educating and training engineers and inventors, our schools are turning out youngsters who are better consumers than they are creators."

What to do? Kao proposes that the United States become an "innovation nation" by making a major commitment of resources, both human and financial, to rejuvenate our innovation age. "And the obvious first step is simply to acknowledge the challenges we face at a national level. After which we must develop a compelling vision and a blueprint for action that will reinvent the way we educate our children, marshal our resources, pursue our research projects, communicate and share our discoveries, and conduct ourselves in the world community."

After first identifying the "what," Kao devotes the bulk of his attention to the "how" of achieving these and other objectives. He cites examples in the past when innovation in the U.S. unequalled (e.g. the Manhattan Project, Lockheed's "Skunk Works," and the U.S. space program's "Project Apollo") as well as examples of successful innovation initiatives in other countries, notably in China and India (of course) but also in Brazil, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, New Zealand, Singapore, and Taiwan. There is indeed what Kao characterizes as "the new geography of innovation" in a world that Friedman describes as "flat."

Kao examines the four principal driving factors behind this "global evolution," noting that the globalization of innovation and of the capital to fund it "are, in my estimation, great positives overall for both the United States and the rest of the world. But the United States must begin ratcheting up its own innovation capacity to stay ahead of the curve."

To me, one of Kao's most interesting ideas is what he calls an "Information Hub" such as the one in San Diego that demonstrates "how talent, investment, and creativity flow to places whose culture encourages the pioneer spirit, the search for open spaces, and the hunger to express itself as much by creating value in a place as through the ideas and ventures that are generated by it."

Kao proposes a BHAG for the United States (Big Hairy Audacious Goal is a term introduced by Jim Collins): to establish twenty Innovation Hubs, each devoted to solving one "wicked" problem (e.g. climate change, environmental degradation, communicable diseases, energy sufficiency, water quality and sufficiency), with initial funding of at least $20 billion. One day, he hopes, "the catalytic nature of diversity and the power of innovation on a planetary basis will unleash the full potential of human beings to better themselves and to create a world well worth living in."

Others may perhaps disagree with Kao's estimate of the nature and extent of the challenges that the United States currently faces. They may also disagree with the details of the response to those challenges that Kao recommends. However, there seems to be little doubt that innovation has not as yet become "the new currency" of U.S. participation in global competition nor is capacity for innovation as yet viewed as a "hallmark" of its national success. I agree with Kao that what's now at stake is "nothing less than the future prosperity and security of our nation."

Those who share my regard for this book are urged to check out Friedman's aforementioned book as well as Competing in a Flat World co-authored by Victor Fung, William Fung, and Yoram (Jerry) Wind. Also, Richard Ogle's Smart World, Frans Johansson's The Medici Effect, Henry Chesbrough's Open Innovation and his more recent Open Business Models, and Seeing What's Next co-authored by Clayton Christensen, Scott Anthony, and Erik Roth.

As a resident of a small, dark, cold and remote place in Arctic Alaska, I join many of our 4,200 residents in protesting the demotion of Pluto to dwarf planet status.
This book shows that as we explore the outer regions of the solar system, we are finding so much more than rock-solid, unchanging frozen outposts.
Even before the New Horizons spacecraft reaches Pluto/Charon in 2015, the authors carefully summarize decades of precise science to learn a lot about this dynamic system
We already know that Pluto has an atmosphere, and may resemble Neptune's surprisingly active moon Triton, which has ice geysers, long vapor and dust trails and evidence of a changing surface.
We learn about the hard work, and frequent frustration as astronomers travel around the world to find vantage points when Charon passes in front of Pluto, or Pluto passes in front of a star.
Imagine the challenges of observing such motions of small bodies more than 3 billion miles away!
Get the book, keep it close, and we will all get ready for New Horizons to finally give us a close up view of this fantastic planet and moon

The reviewer below - An.McCracken - is a fake. He reviews countless books each day but he does not read the books, just paraphrases other people's reviews. REPORT THIS TO AMAZON. Click on (Report this) link under the review, next to the voting buttons.

The author and New Horizons Principal Investigator, Alan Stern, is obviously excited (i.e. worse than a creationist zealot) about Pluto and Charon. But he doesn't fairly tackle the other side of the debate: who really cares? Yes, scientists can make up reasons why the American government should waste millions of dollars to send a spacecraft to Pluto, Charon, and the Kuiper Belt, but what startling science will be advanced by two pieces of ice that we already have a pretty good understanding of after Voyager 2's trip past Neptune's moon Triton in 1989? Even if we lack a fundamental understanding of so-called ice dwarf class planets, is the extraordinary cost really worth the benefit? Any scientist will admit that it is extremely unlikely that we will find life on Pluto or Charon. Can we finally solve the debate about whether Pluto is a planet or a KBO? Wow. What a great use of over $700 million. I think that Stern and other Planetary Society members need to focus on more important, and less selfish, world problems, such as genocide and starvation in Somalia or Al Qaeda. Or at the very least, spend the money on a worthy objective, such as sending another craft to Jupiter's moon Europa, a place where we might actually find life.

If you don't know much about the "King of the Kuiper Belt", read this book, and you will have a very clear scientific description of this "massive comet"...

This book is complete, starting from the historic discovery (blind luck, really) of Pluto, the subsequent observations that kept on shrinking the planet, then the suprising discovery of Charon, the fortuitious Pluto/Charon occultation, and the latest HST results.

Easy to read, and yet technical enough, this book will probably make you love this planet, even though it's only a big comet saved from destruction by its orbital resonance with Neptune... and will make you hate NASA (or the US Congress) for not going forward with their Pluto Express probe.

This book is a well-written and enjoyable summary of what we know about Pluto and its relatively huge moon Charon. However, the fact of the matter is we don't know much because we have yet to send a spacecraft to this fascinating double planet! Stern and Mitton do a great job presenting the timeline of our discoveries about Pluto as well as the latest theories on the compositions and origin of these bodies.

I was especially impressed with the discussion of Pluto's atmosphere changing as a result of the planet's greatly elliptical orbit around the Sun. In addition, the authors give a great detailed breakdown of the discoveries gleaned from the mutual occultations in the late 80s. Also, this book was written several years ago but we have since indeed found many more Kuiper Belt objects that lend great credibility to the theory of Pluto simply being one of the largest of that family.

Too much time was spent on describing the birth and continuing struggles of the Pluto Express project. This discussion would have been more appropriate if the spacecraft had even launched, let alone successfully completed its mission. But the fact is that NASA's funding issues have kept the project grounded for now. Hopefully it'll fly in the next couple years. If it doesn't, much of the mission may be compromised because Pluto is getting farther from the Sun each day and as a result its atmospheric activity is dying.

Overall a great effort and worth your time. Don't expect incredible revelations and photographs though, because we still have yet to visit the place!

I read this book and was uplifted by the attitude of the writer to overcome adversity, pain and family health problems. The author gives you a beginning to recovery from many problems with humor and forsight.

I read this book and was uplifted by the attitude of the writer to overcome adversity, pain and family health problems. The author gives you a beginning to recovery from many problems with humor and forsight.

Elizabeth Schreiber takes an inspiring look at motherhood, strength in the eyes of adversity, life experiences and spirituality. It was uplifting to read -- I also loved the humerous undertones. I could not put down this book!

Although some stories are uplifting they tend to take on a "Woe is me" kind of attitude. It amazes me how some people can be so self righteous at times.

It is incredible to see how this mother keeps up the stamina and stays cheerful in the face of life threatening diseases of her child and husband and herself. I feel that she really needed to write this book as it was therapy for her and she will continue to stay relatively happy by getting it all off her chest. It should be encouraging to others to not feel alone and lost.