Berry Books

I couldn't put this book down -- from beginning to end the narrator takes your breath away with her dazzling descriptions of the remote and beautiful Driftwood Valley; the accounts of the valley in dead of winter, covered in twenty feet of snow with wolves singing mournfully and stars and northern lights dancing in the sky, brought tears to my eyes. The physical hardships and hair raising adventures she shares with her husband and their animals, her descriptions of the native people and wildlife, fascinating commentary on wilderness survival, and most of all her heartfelt love of the land itself, are nature and adventure writing at their best.

I read this book after finding it in a box in my parents attic at the age of ten. I have been trying to remember the title or author for years so I could read it again! This book is a magical read for anyone familiar with the ebb and flow of life in the wild. It inspired me to move to the Pacific Northwest and I am now planning my own trip to the Driftwood Valley. I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys spending time outdoors and reading about nature! Top notch!

I am pleased to see this book has recently been reissued. I have an old, but treasured paperback copy. The author is observant of, informative about, and acutely responsive to the environment she describes. Having experienced winters in that region I would say she is especially adept at rendering the harsh, but radiant winters.

This book is an amazing journey into the frontiers of nature, exploration and science in the 1930's.

I have an autographeed copy the ©1946 edition of Driftwood Valley. I had the privilege of growing up in the same rural Pennsylvania town as Ms. Fletcher. When I was a teenager, I was employed by Ms. Fletcher to clean house for her one summer while she was away. She is a very nice woman with a remarkable background. She has set aside a nature conservatory in Northeast Pennsylvania which is open to the public. She has always been active in protecting the environment and wildlife. I re-read Driftwood Valley every couple of years and just love the adventure and challenges of this true-life story. What made it even more exiting for me is that the author was from my hometown.

The Everlasting Sky is a fabulous tale based on the life and times of China's first Empress. I was very impressed with Berry's ability to weave drama, mystery, romance and action with rich historically accurate detail. The book is a page turner and transports you to another world and another time. Very much worth the trip.

One of those "just one more chapter" books. Great story. Interesting historical facts. Many pearls of wisdom about life woven through the adventure. Still amazes me after all these years of women's liberation that a story of a woman who has triumphed can feed, inspire women today. This is one of those stories. Should be right up there with the best on Oprah's list.

I loved this book on several levels.I loved the wild horses, the vivid sense of places I have never been--the Gobi Desert and Pamir Mts.and ancient China.
I love the way in which Talima matured, from a headstrong teenager to the woman who became the power behind the Tang Dynasty throne--patient, insightful--until she became the first Empress, elected in her own right.
I enjoyed the parts about calligraphy. . .when Berry was able to show me the physical pleasure and emotional connection to the long practice of calligraphy, and its honor then as now.
And I thought the romantic episodes were unusually wonderful-- love scenes that were sensual, erotic and moving in a spiritual way.
Yes, Everlasting Sky is a grand adventure during a complicated time of grandeur that was the basis and roots of the China we are beginning to know today.

Wow. What a story! It reads like a Harry Potter for adults. The magic isn't in a parallel universe, it's the magic of a well told story that begins with Talima, the wild daughter of a Pamir mountain chieftain in what is now Iran. It ends with Talima the Empress of all China at the very beginning of the Táng dynasty. Every page is a new adventure or a new peril. The horrible, truly awful villains, and the ways in which they are overcome or meet their fate are hair-raising. I couldn't put this book down.

Read this book for a spectacular story. Read it to experience a historical era actively envisioned. Give this book to those who argue that the contemporary world is the apex of culture. This book details the little known days of the China's most glorious 7th Century Tang Dynasty. Give this book to girls and women who need a push into empowerment or a nudge out of self-loathing funk.
In much contemporary fiction, characters control their lives, act by act enveloped in a personal world. In historical fiction, the main character's life is usually determined by broad, continent-wide, time-sweeping forces beyond an individual's control. For the reader, the thrill of reading historical fiction is to encounter an individual swimming in the global flow of human history. The individual can react, withdraw, but the larger history has its way ultimately.
So it is with Wyn Berry's heroine in Everlasting Sky. She cannot control her life in the face of customs and circumstances. However, as she grows in years, experience, and wisdom, she does learn to react, to anticipate to save herself, to foster family, and finally to rule as the First Empress of China in spite of relentless historical pulses.
Along with the tale's large events and intrigues, Author Berry gives us intimate knowledge of the heroine, as a girl, young woman in love, confidant to the Emperor, wife, mother, and finally Empress.
Sprightly, optimistic, sensual, the narration is dedicated to the plot's unfolding. Scenes are vivid whether they take place on the grand spaces of the Gobi Desert or the private rooms of the Empress. Themes (artistic creativity, motherhood, marriage, power, loyalties)are fully realized, each given its dramatic due. For instance, romance can be true, ennobling, and ecstatic, but also tragic.

There are very few publications on Heliconia's so to get a book that is specific is excellent. The photo's are great with each variety of Haleconia identified by photo, origin etc. I have found it easy to use and have been inspired to learn more about Heliconia's.

I am so excited to finally have a copy of Heliconia an Identification Guide. It was out of print and I waited a long time. I finally emailed the publisher and to my surprised they were reprinting it in July. It is a wealth of knowledge and information, complete with color photosgraph which are in my opinion essential. If you are into gardening and tropicals in peticular you won't be dissapointed.

I've been trying to order this book for over 5 months with continuous delays. I'm not sure that amazon is ever able to
actually procure this book which is excellent.

Excellent book. Great help in cultivating and identifying Heliconia. Wish some commercial growers would read this then label their plants accordingly. One can only hope for a ginger book in the future.

No other book is more explicit on identifying heliconias, It is the best on the subject and should be used as a guide for other to further explain botanical subjects, on this or another species of plants.

Excellent book for the beginning gardener. It goes into a detailed and extensive garden plan from breaking ground to harvesting crops. Because it is so in-depth, the reader can pick and choose what he needs.

Even though I'm an organic gardener, I've fallen in love with this book. In fact, now that I've bought my own copy, I've actually paid less than I've paid to the library in overdue fines for this book. It's just a visually stunning masterpiece in the sense that it inspires me to get out into my own garden and to imagine what it could potentially look like. Of course, the author seems to have unlimited time to garden and an almost unlimited budget. I'll never achieve his masterpiece, but it's nice to dream. I especially love to curl up with this book in January when the seed catalogs are just coming out.

It lost a star for me because it is decidedly NOT an organic gardening book. The author relies heavily on chemical fertilizers and black plastic mulch. Although he does mention compost and soil improvement, I don't recall him even mentioning earthworms, which are a definite indicator of soil health. He does, however, try to use less harsh methods of pest and weed control.

Chapters are arranged by month, detailing the author's gardening chores and schedule during that month, from starting seeds to transplanting out, to weeding, watering, fertilizing, caring for tools, and constructing gardening architecture. Since he gardens in the north, I can't go by his schedule, nor can I grow the same veggies or varieties thereof that he does. If you're looking for a how-to book, this probably isn't it, unless you happen to live just where he does and are willing to use chemicals. But if you're looking for inspiration, this book is well worth it.

This was one of my first gardening books and is still my favorite one. Perfect for the beginning gardener. Why aren't more gardening books organized like this one?

In my opinion, this book needs to be actively published again! I used this book as a guide to grow my first vegetable garden in Richmond, VT. It thoroughly explained EACH step in the process with text and illustrations/photos. My neighbor, whom I hadn't met yet, left a letter in my mailbox around August of that year. It contained a photo of my garden and a note saying that mine was the most beautiful vegetable garden she'd ever seen and thought I would appreciate the picture of it! I have checked this book out of the library each spring since and this year it was listed as "lost!" That's why I'm here on-line: buying an "acceptable" condition copy used rather than do without! BUY THIS BOOK IF YOU CAN!

In my periodic attempts to grow vegetables, this book -- and its predecessor, "Crockett's Victory Garden," have been my constant and favorite companions. It's past time for this 1987 book to be updated and republished.

This is Cadillac gardening as Crockett and his successor Bob Thomson apparently had a large budget, a full toolshed, and endless time to produce a perfect garden. My pitiful efforts never yield much in the way of edible products, but I enjoy reading about how I would grow vegetables if I were not such a lazy and shiftless person.

The book is broken down by months with a long list of vegetables for planting, tending, and harvesting for each month as well as other garden tasks. The monthly labors are for Boston. Being further south, I tend to do things a month earlier in the spring and a month later in the fall than Thomson prescribes. "The New Victory Garden" is full of solid gardening advice for an establishmentarian gardener. If you're into organics or (like me) inclined to low-impact, no inputs type cultivation, you might not like Thomson's reliance on chemical fertilizers -- but he makes up for it with good advice on compost, natural fertilizers, and lots of touchy feely stuff. The pictures are beautiful. Someday, in some future world I'll have a garden like this. Yeah, sure. Dream on! But I like reading the book and I occasionally try to follow the advice.

Smallchief

This book is very cleverly written to make kids love the story and at the same time cram lots of info. about animals and Africa in it. I learned a lot myself, right along with my eight-year-old.

Children have a natural fascination with animals. Now take this fascination a step closer to reality, and you have an engaging tale in the picturesque setting of Africa.

Mac, Sam, and several other family and friends embark on a trip to Africa as part of their camping treat, to learn about various animals living in this country. Several up close encounters with snakes, hyenas, and elephants, delight and scare them all at the same time. At one point the action takes a dangerous turn when their guide is bit by a black mamba and it's up to Max and Sam to get help.

This book along with the rest of the series is one big mystery puzzle. In each book one mysterious letter appears in a map, which will come to a head at one point in an upcoming book. Middle grade readers will enjoy the humor, adventures, and educational tidbits found in each story. Miss Berry's talent in reaching out to this target audience is apparent. The story is easy to read, easy to understand, and the added mystery is the compelling force.

It was a fast and great read and educational even for me. I found out that the stripes on a zebra help to make them less visible to their predator while on a run. So even big kids will discover new things.

As a teacher, I love this new series, and especially this book. What a great way to explore Africa and learn about this interesting continent. The author writes in a fun and entertaining way, and at the same time, throws in educational material. This takes talent that I believe this author truly has.

"Adventure in Africa" is part of a new chapter book series, The Incredible Journey Series, designed for ages seven through nine and is wonderfully done. It focuses on two brothers, Max and Sam, who travel a lot and get into all kinds of adventures along the way. In this book, they travel to Africa, where they go on a safari, see animals like lions, zebras, hyenas, leopards and even encounter some poachers. They also have a mystery to solve - someone has left them a journal and a mysterious map. Each time they take a trip a letter like a "W" or an "I" appears on the map. Max and Sam wonder what letter will turn up on the map during their trip to Africa.

"Adventure in Africa" is a wonderful book that children (and their parents) will enjoy. The book is slim (less than 90 pages) but there are several things going on in the book. The first, of course, is the story of Max and Sam's trip to Africa. Children will enjoy reading about Africa and learning about the different animals there. There are other more subtle lessons in the book, like when school children pull a prank with invisible ink and then feel guilty and try to clean it up. There is also the mysterious map and what the final message will be. Besides the story itself, there are a couple of other things in the book. In the front of the book there are some fun facts about Africa. One is an acrostic about Africa, which is a fun way of showing children what acrostics are. In the book there are a couple of methods of making invisible ink and children will enjoy trying them and writing their own secret messages.

Although "Adventure in Africa" is part of a series, it can be read on its own. However, children will probably want to collect all the books in this fun series.

Max and Sam are on their way to Africa. Actually the book opens in summer camp, where we get to learn a bit about Max and Sam and their friends, then they're late to the airport, miss their plane and have to fly standby. Their parents are working in a village, so Max and Sam are going to be doing a kids safari.

During the safari, their guide, Ms. Sarah, is bitten by a black mamba, not a good thing. The boys, with the help of a wild elephant named Charger, get Ms. Sarah to the nearest village (you'll have to read the book to see how they do that). Then, on their way back to the other children, they hear an elephant cry in the jungle. They know they shouldn't but they go and investigate. Poachers have captured a baby elephant. Can Max and Sam save the calf? That's something else you'll have to find out by reading the book.

This is another Max and Sam adventure that you can read to your child at bedtime . It would also be good for the beginning reader. There is more going on here than the story about their trip to
Africa, there's the ongoing story about the journal they'd discovered in one of their previous adventures and the magic map they found with it and I guess I'm going to have to get the earlier books to understand what that's all about, so you see, you're not the only one who has to read more Max and Sam Adventures to find out what's going on.

Review submitted by Captain Katie Osborne

Anything you can read by Wendell Berry is better than just about anything else. Like a quiet stream or a peaceful day in the country, away from the madness of what has become of our normal daily life.Thank you Wendell for the resting place.

No words are adequate to describe how Mr. Berry writes. He doesn't give you words to read. He takes you by the arm and gently leads you into another time and place, a place some of us remember when we read his words, but otherwise find too little time to recall. In this book, Mr. Berry once again leads us to Port William. It is winter time. Andy Catlett, the young boy, has the opportunity to go and visit his two sets of grandparents, one set still living on the farm. Andy is embraced by all who live and work there, but embraced in a way that is not coddling or spoiling. He knows his place among these older adults and they remind him in various ways of what that place is. When he goes to his other grandparents who live at the edge of the town, he is part of the same world but in a different way. And Mr. Berry shows us again how the affairs of the world affect these wonderful people, but also how they do not allow themselves to be affected to the point that they lose their place. Near the end of the book, Mr. Berry gives us the type of insight into ourselves that makes us examine, which might allow us to consider life changes, but which for most of us is just a lingering itch in our subconcious. He points out that we worry too much about how much love we have been given in life rather than considering to what extent we have appreciated the love we have received and the love we have extended. Please read this book.

This book is another gift from Wendell Berry which urges us in its quiet yet strong way to remember where we came from and stop and think about where we are going. Looking back through the span of his life, Andy Catlett describes a time when family ties were strong and children were given the freedom to be responsible, to learn the value of work and to watch and grow within that family network.

I was delighted to read the section about the button box, as I was lucky enough to endlessly play with my grandmother's button drawer in her old Singer sewing machine. I am still playing with those buttons with my grandchildren.

"I went to the closet..behind Grandma's chair and took out her button box. Every house I visited as a child had a button box. It has disappeared now from every house I know, but then it was a necessary part of household economy. No worn-out garment then was simply thrown away. When it was worn past wearing and patching, all its buttons were snipped off and put into the button box. And then when something old needed a new button, or when something newly made needed a set of buttons, the button box provided. Grandma's was an old shoe box better than half full of buttons of all sorts. It was a pleasure just to run your fingers through, like running your fingers through a bucket of shelled corn. My old game with it was to paw through it in search of matching sets of button, especially the intensely colored glass buttons that had come off dresses. I sat on the floor by Grandma's chair with the box in my lap and fished out a set of shapely black buttons and lined them up on the linoleum beside me.

And then it came to me that I was no longer interested in button boxes. Maybe it was because I was now traveling away from home by bus, by myself, but I knew suddenly and finally that my time of playing with buttons was past,just as one summer evening a year or two later, when I had found a perfect slingshot fork in the top of a tree, it came to me that I was no longer interested in slingshots, and I climbed down and left the perfect fork uncut."

Wendell Berry has created something with the Port William Membership stories that perhaps no other writer has created. While other authors may return to the same character, no other author has crafted a series of tales and novels where the setting is more character than place. Reading the novels and stories of those who inhabit Port William and its environs is like returning home, like reliving your childhood and that of your ancestors, like seeing the world with brand new eyes.

In "Andy Catlett: Early Travels" Berry revisits a character readers familiar with his works have met later on in life. As an old man, Andy Catlett revisits the Christmas he was nine years old and was allowed to travel by himself to visit both sets of grandparents. To him it was the beginning of his manhood, a dividing time between his childhood and his future. He spends two days with his Catlett grandparents, witnesses their sparse economy and the simple life they lead among the encroachments of modernization. He also spends two days with his Feltner grandparents, more well-to-do farmers, but still exemplars of frugality and self-sufficiency. As an older man, he can look back on those few days and realize what he missed along the way and what he gained.

While slim and focused in scope, "Andy Catlett: Early Travels" reaches far and wide. Berry offers insights and observations into today's world without seeming to preach. His knowledge is assured and true and sad, in that through our modernization and our current way of life, we will not know how to provide for ourselves should our current system fail us. In times of economic crisis, these questions seem too obvious to ignore. And while Berry offers the condemnation that the present world may yet have to pay for what it has forsaken, he also offers reassurance and hope.

Andy Catlett, title character, says this of one of his beloved elders, and means it about the entire ensemble of parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, family hires, and others in his close-knit world of childhood, a world that also nurtured him into and through adulthood. Nine-year-old Andy's first solo trip the ten miles to Port William is cause for the boy to ponder how best to navigate the expectations, customs, and burdens of the loved ones he visits after Christmas in 1943. Andy, the boy, is joined in his ruminations by Andy, the man already a father many years and a grandfather too, who seasons his recollections of that rite of his youthful passage with the knowledge and wisdom come from time and the bittersweetness of recollecting kin and kith all gone.

The copyright page carries the disclaimer, "This book is a work of fiction. Nothing is in it that has not been imagined." But as other readers have written, one can also imagine fictional Andy and real Wendell slipping into each others skins with ease. Wendell Berry preserves a slice of World War II rural and very small town life with such loving care and meditative dignity that it is difficult not to think of the slim book as intensely personal.

ANDY CATLETT: EARLY TRAVELS is my first dip into the "Port William series." Thanks to the irresistible thumbnail sketches of so many characters who inhabit the other novels, I'll be dipping into more -- such as HANNAH COULTER and JAYBER CROW. Ironically, because this book serves more as an introduction to the slate of Port William denizens than as a fully rounded novel, it earns from me four and a half stars instead of five. But truthfully, ANDY CATLETT: EARLY TRAVELS is no less a treasure for the absence of high drama. Berry gently sucks at the succulent and nourishing marrow of American values and reminds us all of the truly important things in life. As Andy concludes, "And now, as often before, I am reminded how grateful I am to have been there, in that time, with these I have remembered."

f you like tropical cocktail (and I do) then there is no way you should be without this guide. You should also own it's companion "Sippin' Sarfari." With these two books, you pretty much have tiki and tropical drinks covered. These are the original (and sometimes with modifications) recipes. They can't be beat. I gave it only four stars for the simple reason that the layout of these books leaves (for me) a lot to be desired. It'd not that they're hard to read or anything, they just look like some guy in a print shop threw them together with a box of old clip art that they found. Just ill considered layout. A noted tiki/lowbrow artist laid them out and Mr. Berry should have gone with a professional in this line of work. It's not that particular artist's cup of tea and it shows. That sort of thing is my profession so I may be a little over critical. Alas. Buy them.

We have made quite a few of the drink recipes and they have all been great!!! It was exactly what we were looking for.

A trove of information and backstories behind tiki culture. if you are interested in this era and all it contains, this is a very interesting book.

Fantastic book, just like his first one (Grog Log). Spiral bound to lie flat while you are mixing. Tasty drinks, what more could you want? We have enjoyed "Blood of the Kapu Tiki", "Surf Room Mai Tai" and more. The only downside to Beachbum Berry's books is that you will never want to order a cocktail in a bar again, because you will only want drinks that are as good as the ones in his books.

THANK YOU BEACHBUM BERRY!

This is volume two, and just as good. The only other "tiki" drink books worth buying were printed in the 40s and 50s, and this update is better. You have the current ingredients. Any drink enthusiast needs to have the recipes of the masters on hand.
-Swanky
Organizer of Hukilau - the East coast annual tiki event. ...

Wonderful book for reflections on Christianity. Brings together some of the best religious thinkers in a way that allows one to contemplate one's relationship with God.

After a recommendation from Pastor Harrell at City Church, I purchased this book and have read the first 20 pages and so far love it- it's rich and reflective and a great devotional in light of Lent and Easter. Definitely recommend it!!! And Amazon got it to me in 2 days- great service!

See my review on the other book in the series, "watch for the light: readings for advent and christmas."

I purchased this book as it looked interesting per the Bas Bleu book review. I read it even outside the Lent season; I feel that reading a short essay or two each day keeps me grounded and remembering to pray, and to be thankful every day. I am not a big church goer, and I found this book to be very engrossing. The variety of writers and topics holds the reader's attention; I think anyone who believes in a higher power will find this book very enjoyable.

These 72 brief essays are loaded with inspiring and challenging spiritual insight. The authors are incredibly diverse--Leo Tolstoy, Thomas a Kempis, Meister Eckhart, Martin Luther, Mother Teresa, and John Updike, to name a few. Not every contributor is a household name, but every reflection is moving and powerful...

"Christianity is the only religion on earth that has felt that omnipotence made God incomplete." G.K. Chesterton

"If the ultimate, the hardest, cannot be asked of me; if my fellows hesitate to ask it and turn to someone else, then I know nothing of Calvary love." Amy Carmichael

"The essence of sin is man substituting himself for God, while the essence of salvation is God substituting himself for man." John Scott

"A follower is or strives to be what he admires. An admirer, however, keeps himself personally detached." Soren Kierkegaard

Those thoughts alone might supply forty days-worth of spiritual reflection! For preparation and renewal, this book is can be opened again and again.

I wish the descriptions had told me that it was basically a bird-watching book, since a vast majority of the chapters dealt with birds and that is not what I was interested in.





1

The author, David Kline, is Amish and a farmer, so he lives very close to nature. While the subtitle is, "An Amish Farmer's Journal," this book is not about the Amish. It is about a man's love for God's creation that surrounds him on his farm and his sadness at what has been lost and what we continue to lose.

The introduction by the author is a powerful statement for sustainable, small scale, family farming. Wendell Berry in the foreword notes this with his statement that Kline's life, "informed as it is by the Amish reverence for the natural world and the stewardship everywhere implicit in Amish farming--makes a union of economy and ecology." In the introduction Kline asks, "Should we give up the kind of farming that has been proven to preserve communities and land and is ecologically and spiritually sound for a way that is culturally and environmentally harmful?" This truly summarizes the viewpoint David Kline brings to his journal.

Kline takes us through the year on his farm and lets us see the different plants, birds and animals that migrate through or live on his farm and those around him. He talks about the loss of Chestnut trees, mushrooms, Woodpeckers and a hundred other birds as they appear in his region of Ohio during the year.

This is a `must read' for those who love nature.

Kyle Pratt

This is a wonderful book. I live in an Amish area so was very surprised to discover such rich vocabulary and stunning visual imagery due to the fact that typically the Amish only have an eighth grade education. Reading this book is like spending days walking through the woods following animal tracks or bird watching. Or just lying in the hay and watching the world go by!

"Great Possessions" radiates serenity and joy, but there is an underlying sadness for things lost--American chestnut trees, passenger pigeons, family farms. It is a rare natural history book that doesn't have this poignant undercurrent.

Here is an author who can write knowledgeably about diversified sustainable farming, because he is Old Order Amish and practices what he preaches. In the introduction, Wendell Berry says, "David's life--informed as it is by the Amish reverence for the natural world and the stewardship everywhere implicit in Amish farming--makes a union of economy and ecology."

This particular farmer-naturalist times his hay cutting to permit bobolink fledglings to leave the nest. When he top-seeds his wheat in the spring, his hand-cranked seeder flushes the horned larks and allows him to avoid their nests.

The Ohio Amish practice five-crop rotation so crop-damaging insects don't have time to build up. Horse-worked farms absorb almost seven times more water than conventional no-tilled farms.

Is it any wonder that the Amish in my area of middle Michigan at least, are quietly taking over the farm land that could not be made profitable by gigantic machines, insecticides, herbicides, and major debt?

Most Amish farmers are not pure organic farmers, but their use of herbicides is minute compared to the average non-organic farmer. The Soil Conservation Service (SCS) keeps trying to persuade this author that spraying poisons on his land would free him from tilling. An SCS technician informed him that "If I'd join the no-till crowd I'd be freed from plowing, and then my son or I could work in a factory. He insinuated that the extra income (increased cash flow) would in some way improve the quality of our lives."

The author, thank God, fails to get the point. He asks, "Should we give up the kind of farming that has been proven to preserve communities and land and is ecologically and spiritually sound for a way that is culturally and environmentally harmful?"

In one year, David Kline counted 155 different species of birds on his land.

When I was growing up a few hundred miles north of this author's Ohio farm, it was rare in those DDT-laden days to hear even a sparrow sing. At least we learned a lesson about that particular pesticide, and the birds are making a comeback. I counted 44 different bird species on our ten acres this year.

Maybe that's because I live in a county where the Amish farm.

When I originally received this book, I was really unhappy because I was looking for something by Wendell Berry and he only wrote the 2 page introduction. However, this is a wonderful, beautiful book. You feel as though you were walking with Mr. Kline on a lazy afternoon while he explains the world around you.

PLANNING FOR SUCCESS

Texts, tables and charts that make my CPA's and Attorney's wonder who did my business plan!

Tim Berry has purchased three of my business plans for publishing in his Business Plan Pro software system and this book comes with that plan.

If you buy the software at Staples or Best Buy, you'll find this excellent book inside. It is amazing at helping you develop a concise plan!

I needed to write a business plan for a service organization. Since it was back in 1988 when I wrote my last one, I bought six books on the subject. One was absolutely useless, two were written by people who had obviously never operated a company, which suggests to be careful when buying books on the subject. One was ok, one reasonably good, and Berry's was the best of all of them, though not perfect. At least it caused me to think like an investor who reads the plan before giving his money to people who he doesn't know from Adam.

This book was pretty good. It is currently in its 5th edition, and acts as a marketing tool for the author's software called Business Plans Pro. In fact, this book comes free with the software if you purchase it. Personally, I am not a fan of business plan software because I think it allows the user to think of a business plan as artwork rather than a research paper assignment. But that's just me.

As business plan books go, this is a good one. It is well outlined, well written, and informative. It includes the following six parts:

1. Fundamentals
2. Tell Your Story
3. Gathering Information
4. Forecasting
5. Financial Analysis
6. Strategy and Tactics

It also includes two sample business plans, a workbook for helping to prepare a business plan, and a glossary of business plan terms. I especially liked the price since I found it as a free download off the Internet last week. 3.2 MB in size, but the price was right.

Anyway, I had a few problems with the book. Business plans are supposed to be handbooks that tell entrepreneurs how to turn their business models on paper into business models functioning in the real world. And a business model is a profit model that is a system that allows the business owner to extract cash from her customers while creating a profit that she can live on. Anybody in business knows that if they don't have customers, then they don't have a business. And anybody who stays in business knows that they have to have a sound marketing plan that finds prospects for their business that can be converted into customers. This book is lacking because it does not cover how to research a marketing plan or to write one. For me, this was a BIG problem.

Funny thing is that at Figure 12-1 in the book there is a sample Marketing Expense Budget. Why did the author include this exhibit without explaining somewhere in the book how to write a marketing plan. Since the author included this exhibit it seems clear to me the author knows a marketing plan is necessary and required. At Chapter 17 there is about a page devoted to "promotion strategies." But this was just too little and too late to keep me happy.

The author also asserts at various places in the book that a business plan is not the most important requirement for starting a business. He says customers are. I strongly disagree. What comes first: the business plan or the customer? I assert the plan does! Without the plan there never will be a customer. But overall, I liked the book, and it's better than just OK. 4 stars!

This was a very easy and clear read. The best book on business planning that I have ever read. It's refreshing to know that you don't need a MBA to read and write a clear business plan. Great examples and figures throughout.

This is the most pragmatic, easy to understand, and easy to follow book for creating a business plan I have found yet. "Hurdle" is designed for those that want to benefit from what a business plan can offer their business. The chapter "About Business Numbers" is the best I have read to understand the numbers behind a business and how they relate to the business plan. A quick read, a great resource, and a sound business investment. After reading "Hurdle", I wouldn't plan without it.