John Books

This is a great book and I recommend EVERYONE should read it. Parents, grandparents, and even teens! Too often adults feel they are too old to learn. Children should be taught from an early age to love learning and that learning doesn't just happen 5 days a week from 8 - 3. This book is awesome and I wish my parents had read and followed it when I was a child.

A book for everyone interested in how children learn. It would be of special interest to unschoolers or natural learners. Very eye-opening regarding the way children perceive the world and how they constantly learn from it, even when we interfere with this learning process.

Once I started reading I couldn't put it down. I'm no fan of public school and recently began homeschooling/ unschooling, and I've done a lot of reading on both sides of that coin. Still, something about how John Holt writes about children and how they learn and the little things that can make it or break it... captures my attention, makes me laugh, and continues to enlighten me. I wish there were more passionate people in the world like him.

This is as good as all his other books. Very practical as well. Several other sources are listed in the text, as well as many materials and a wise way of using them.

Once your read this book Holt's ideas will be so obvious and self-evident that you will feel stupid for not realizing them yourself. He truly loves children and has tremendous respect for them and their capacity as human beings.

This book completely changed the way I think about children. It had a domino effect that had me reevaluating my entire worldview.

"The Runaway Pancake" has had an impact on the children in my Kindergarten (five-year old) class for a few years now. When I play the cd, they scream and laugh and have a ball. When I read the story, they recite every word, laugh and clap along. I have them draw pictures of their favorite parts and, believe me, they do a bang-up job. Mr. Lithgow is an amazing talent with a Kindergartener's soul. He relates to these children and their fantasies with a charisma one seldom sees. I have enjoyed him for years on television and in the movies, but seeing him one evening reading this story and singing parts of it, well, he simply enchanted me and I ran out and got the book and cd without hesitation. John Lithgow is simply wonderful and the story of the runaway pancake is exceptional in all areas. I truly love it!

We borrowed this book from the library with the CD and played it for the kids in my preschool class (ages 3 & 4). It was requested again and again and again by the entire class. They absolutely loved it! What a fun book. I took it home for my own kids to hear it (ages 8 & 7) and they adored it too. It's so cute to be in the class while the kids are playing and hear them singing "No, no, no, no, no I'm too fast, you're too slow...." while they're building with Legos or playing with puzzles. I can play with CD without the book and it provides the same amusement. John Lithgow is a talented narrator. It was a wonderful discovery.

I picked this book because of an NPR interview with John Lithgow a couple years ago and these favorable reviews. My 4 year old son loves it! He even wanted to take it in for Show and Tell. He likes the book OR the cd version where John L. reads it, but not both at the same time. He has memorized the whole Pancake song and sings it quite jauntily. Now my 2 year old is starting to recite phrases from it!

My 3 year old son absolutely loves this book and CD. He learned about it at preschool, and has been singing us the song at home. We finally bought him a copy for Christmas, and now that we finally heard the true version, we can see why he loves it so much. The CD is great, as are the illustrations. It's based on the gingerbread man, but is very clever in its adaptation, and definitely captures the attention of preschoolers.

She received this book with the CD for her birthday and loved it so much she had to share it with her pre-school class again and again. I ended up donating it to the class and had to purchase another copy for home.

I was raised in Southern California and now reside in Indiana. I could not be happier that Coach Wooden also called both places his home. Though he clearly is a midwesterner at heart---as am I now---his legend truly grew in Los Angeles.

As my title indicates, we need more coaches like John Wooden here in 2008. Can you imagine what the current crop of college ballers would be like if they had a mentor and role model like Wooden? He had depth, insight, was spiritual, a reader, a thinker, etc. This was not required, but he knew all these attributes were necessary to grow "student athletes" into successful players and adults. Even a hippie like Bill Walton, the antithesis to a noble, mature person like Wooden---respects and admires "Coach." Wooden knew how to reach all. His quotes---taken from other coaches, his father and his own mind---are ones to heed. I have the Pyramid of Success on my wall at work.

He hated dunking, showboating, selfishness, hedonism, etc. He'd loathe the brainwashing and lack of civility rampant on today's college and high school campuses.

This bio spans a wonderful, rich life, leaving no stone or thought unturned; no mind or theory unchallenged or ungrown.

A remarkbale living legend, G-d bless Mr. Wooden (who is still alive at the age of 97) and all he has done for the game and collegians everywhere.

John Wooden has figured out some of the secrets of life. And he passes them on directly, in a way that can be transformational for a reader.

John Wooden is a hero of mine. His own heroes include Abraham Lincoln and Mother Theresa. Like them, he is a treasure for all of us because his life and lessons demonstrate what it means to live to "our personal best" in a way that is simple, profound and so clear.

This book should be required reading in "Human Being 101".

We grow up hearing about the importance of developing " good character", not always knowing what it is, or just how to obtain it. All of Wooden's books give his personal guidelines for developing character and living a decent life, whether we are athletes, musicians, teachers, or anything else.
Wooden's teachings have stood the test of time. His life and those he has influenced are proof of that.
I use his wisdom for myself, and I pass it on to all my students. They all know who John Wooden is. His life blesses us all.

This is a great book to help any coach of any sport get a good feel for the right way to coach young players. Teach them good life lessons and skills. It gives an insight into a great coach and even greater man.

John Wooden is one of my heroes. When I was growing up, his teams were dominant, but more importantly, they made the game beautiful to watch. After he retired at the peak of his game, he quietly stepped off the stage. With the rush of books on leadership in the 1990's through the present, it was inevitable, and overdue, that folks take time to examine Coach Wooden's approach to leadership. This has led to a cottage industry in Wooden books.

This book is short, personal and focuses on life lessons learned from the narrative of Coach's life. It doesn't attempt to be weighty, just a good read, that imparts wisdom without hitting you over the head with it. It touches on each chapter of Coach Wooden's life, and particularly shows the infuence of his father, his high school and college coaches and his growth thru experience

This is a fun, easy read that leaves the reader wiser. Highly recommend

W.O.S. is the writer that so many contemporary writers emulate without even knowing it. I make it a point to re-read his Last and First Men every 3 years to catch up on his accuracy of prediction. Jules Verne had nothing on this man.

Until 2002 Sirius was the only thing by Stapledon I had read. Now with Last and First Men, Star Maker, Nebula Maker and Odd John, plus a good few more years, behind me, it means a lot more to me. Like his author, the dog with an equal-to-human brain is one of a kind, but the main theme is Stapledon's familiar tragic theme of the futile destruction of what intellect, mind and spirit can achieve. This is a Stapledon story with some very unfamiliar ingredients like characters and humour. It may be the strangest love story ever, but it's a love story all right, and a harrowing one. This time Stapledon is not looking directly into the mind of the Creator, but the religious professionals still get it in the neck from him. That strikes a chord with me. At a recent college reunion I attended a service for which 'unctuous and complacently servile' would have been an excellent description. If there is a Creator, to behave to him in this manner seemed to me to be verging on blasphemous, and I was relieved to get out before a thunderbolt struck. 'Find your calling...or be damned' may be the main message of this book, but it seems that the forces of futility may still get to you whether you do or not.

Bertrand Russell has a story that Macaulay never spoke until the age of 6, when hot tea was spilled over him at a children's party and he reassured his fussing hostess with 'Thankyou madam, the agony is abated'. The early story of Odd John Wainwright, the son of slightly eccentric and moderately talented parents, started by reminding me of this, but I knew I would soon have to take it seriously. Odd John is a superhuman and he knows it. He is not cruel or evil, but like Stapledon's Star Maker he has more important priorities than, say, human life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Life will be calmly sacrificed if it interferes with his mission. His 'property-is-theft' attitude to the local tycoon is probably a mask for the kind of early-20th century socialism that appealed to Stapledon, and John's early sexual mores have a touch of Bloomsbury about them -- the activity that dares not speak its name would seem to be obviously incest, except for the fact that it does not appear to create any downstream waves in his later relations with any of his family. The thought crossed my mind that I might be on the wrong track altogether. What could be equally unmentionable, something on which the taboo is almost as much cosmic as human? But on folk-dancing I dare not dwell.

Odd John will not wring your emotions the way Sirius ought to do. It has other virtues. The creativity that conjured such a riveting series of human species in Last and First Men and would later create the planetary civilisations in Star Maker is at work here with the freakish superhumans, including one that is surely the most hellish being in all literature. The book is also obviously the main inspiration for Arthur C Clarke's Childhood's End, in which the writer surpasses himself and achieves a stupendous reinterpretation of the whole legend of God and Satan. In Odd John the supreme being is not showing his hand regarding his ultimate intentions for humanity, but all in a way more reminiscent of the Overmind in Childhood's End than of the terrifying Star Maker. The main difference for me is not the stylistic gulf between the two authors but that in Childhood's End I am always conscious that I am reading a colossal piece of imagination. Stapledon, like his Sirius, upsets me by giving me the uncomfortable sense that he may be sniffing around the truth.

Olaf Stapledon was a visionary philosopher who utilized archetypal science fictional concepts, in the 1930s and 1940s, to comment brilliantly and movingly on the human condition. While Stapledon cannot be easily categorized as "sci-fi," he has had a wide, but currently unappreciated, influence on the field. His profound influence on Arthur C. Clarke and Ray Bradbury is quite obvious, and sci-fi historians will probably recognize Stapledon's wide-ranging influence immediately. This particular volume collects two novels with a related theme - the destruction of intelligence and dignity by an uncomprehending and hostile society. These stories are brilliantly written and astonishingly insightful, and are highly recommended for both sci-fi fans with a historical interest, and lovers of deeply philosophical literature.

"Odd John" (1935) is a fascinating, though sometimes overly talky, tale of a weird misfit kid with strange physical powers and cosmic thought processes. Eventually John learns to harness his powers for great personal achievement, and to communicate telepathically with others of his kind around the world. John and his brethren are not mutant freaks as they appear on the surface, but the next step in human evolution (a premise borrowed directly by Clarke for "Childhood's End"). John organizes his superhumans on an island colony dedicated to scientific and philosophical research for the betterment of society. Unfortunately, the reaction they face from unenlightened old-style humans is both tragically sad and tragically predictable, allowing Stapledon to comment harshly on humanity's hatred of nonconformity and inherent backwardness.

"Sirius" (1944) is the stronger of the two novels here, and its display of writing skill will amaze the reader. The story has a premise that soon became overused - a scientist hopes to engineer an advanced human, and in the course of his research creates a super-intelligent dog. You may find this to be cheesy comic book material, but Stapledon takes this simplistic premise to astonishingly philosophical lengths. With his human intelligence, Sirius faces human emotional challenges while also trying to cope with his wild canine side, finding himself unable to fully fit into either realm. Stapledon works wonders with an intelligent dog's potential thoughts and interests, with highly enjoyable examinations of what a dog would think about things like music, art, and religion. And through the eyes of a dog (the classic "outside observer" method), Stapledon mercilessly skewers the weaknesses of human society, turning a simple tale of a smart dog into a philosophical powerhouse. The conclusion of this story is also tragically predictable, and crushingly sad as well. Olaf Stapledon was a skilled and visionary writer with strengths that will open the minds of fans from any literary genre. [~doomsdayer520~]

The editors of this volume have had a brilliant idea; both stories may be read as a pair of Plutarch's "Parallel Lives".
They have many traits in common. It is very interesting for the reader to see the author's evolution on some considerations about humankind in a 9 years span.

Olaf Stapledon (1886-1950) is believed to be the generational link between H. G. Wells (with whom he corresponded) and more recent British sci-fi authors as Arthur C. Clark (who recognizes Stapledon's influence on his "Childhood's End").

Born in England, spent his infancy at Port Said, absorbing the influence of the multicultural environment. He was a conscientious-objector but served as ambulance driver in WWI. In 1925 he was awarded with a Ph.D. in Philosophy and this is clearly perceptible in his novels.
He had a powerful imagination and humanistic, scientific and philosophical interests that he poured in his four major opus: "Last an First Men" (1930), "Odd John" (1935), "Star Maker" (1937) and "Sirius" (1944).

I'll comment each novel in particular and try to draw a parallel between them.

Odd John.
The present story follows the life and deeds of a Super Human. He is the product of an evolutionary jump and graced with super human intelligence.
This intelligence needs time to evolve and grow, so John maintain infant characteristic by a longer period than normal.
He is in permanent conflict with his surroundings, mastering them is a hard task. In order to receive help he recruits/bewitch a family's friend, who is the narrator in this novel.
John grows up and discovers he is not alone; there are other specimens of Homo Superior around the world. He sets out to search and recruit them for a unique project: establishing a Colony of his kind.

Stapledon use the different anecdotes to illustrate his reflections about human kind, religion, politic, justice, ethic and more, many more subjects of transcendence.

Sirius.
This novel follows the life and deeds of a Super Dog. He is the product of a biological experiment and was gifted with a human equivalent intelligence.
He is raised as a step-son in his creator's family and develops a very intimate relation with Plaxy the younger daughter of Dr. Thomas Trelone.
Sirius' career comprises being a super sheepdog, wild wolf, laboratory subject, farmer and investigator.
There is one central issue that traverses the whole narration: Sirius' uniqueness and solitude. He is a Dog in Man's universe, a Wolf in Monkey-land. He goes from alert inquisitiveness to deep dark depression and back. A melancholic air is always present until the unavoidable tragic ending.

Parallel.
Two extraordinary creatures are examined in detail from birth to death.
Both of them are immersed in an alien environment, no "equals" are around. They are raised by well-meaning people but still not of their "class".
Sirius and John are compelled to kill a human forced by circumstances. Stapledon use these events to generate a deep cogitation about self defense and its limits.
Both characters observe humankind from an outsider's look and pass judgment on many significant issues.
Sirius and in a lesser way John are doomed by loneliness.
The two novels are constructed as a tragedy; no matter what the protagonists do they are doomed.


It is thought provoking double volume and deserves to be present in every sci-fi fan's collection.

Reviewed by Max Yofre.

A story about a superintelligent talking dog? It sounds terrible, like something out of a twee Disney film, but in actual fact Stapledon manages to avoid anything like that, and has written an incredible, touching story. It reminds me of "Call of the Wild" and "White Fang", and doesn't avoid the dark side of Sirius' nature... there are a couple of particularly savage passages where Sirius kills a sadistic farmer, and also "murders" a horse just to indulge his canine instincts.

Sirius ends up seeing the full range of human life, from bad to good, and more. He is also not a true dog, and finds himself not only alienated from human beings who cannot accept him fully (with a handful of exceptions), but other dogs who are like cretins to him especially his "lovers" (as the book puts it). Despite having difficulty speaking and writing (he devises ways to get around that), Sirius has an advantage over other dogs through his intelligence, and over humans in his hearing, sense of smell etc. What we get is not only a satire on English life during WWII, but an almost autistic view of the world, seeing everything but not able to integrate oneself into it.

Of course some of the writing is dated, and Stapledon at times takes a very colonial view of the Welsh and their language (Sirius is originally brought up on a Welsh farm by English academics). Some of the style is very dry and typical of the period (for example when Sirius spots a holy roller farmboy pleasuring himself, Stapledon calls it "something unspeakable". Fortunately Victorian hangovers like these are not common).

Ol' Lady Grizelda by Justin Matott is a fabulous book about when you were a little boy. Ol' Lady Grizelda likes to eat kids stew. Ol' Lady Grizelda lives up on a hill and a little boy lives below Ol' Lady Grizelda. At midnight they see her planting peas and looking for treasure with keys.

This book has a wonderful lesson hidden within a delightfully told story about acceptance. I LOVE THIS BOOK AND HAVE FOR SOME TIME!

Mr. Matott came to my school last week and told us about how he met the lady in this book. It is a cool story and he said he wrote a chapter book about it. I want to read that too. Read all of Mr. Matotts books because HE ROCKS!!!

When I first saw this book i thought the lady was scary and weird. My teacher reads this book again and again now because we like it so much. It is a story about how mean people say things and then they find out they dont even know people. I mean when you read this book you will find out that the old weird lady is nice to kids and she is great. i want everyone to read this book because you will learn something and then you will really enjoy it. okay, that is what I would say about this book anyway.

I have been using this book in my classroom for the past three years. I have to keep buying new copies because the kids wear this book out. If you want to use a book that teaches tolerance, love and ultimately the way all people would like to be viewed, read Ol' Lady Grizelda, you will be glad you did. It has also proven to be a wonderful tool for my slower readers because of the glossary included. The language is challenging enough for my picture book/chapter book straddlers and they love, LOVE, the illustrations!

This is a compelling story of high stakes espionage in the Cold War. The amazing thing is that it is not fiction--it is history. The understanding that the author has about espionage and the intelligence community is right on. If you love history and are interested in the spy game--this is the book for you.

Barron's prose is articulate and well-phrased without wandering into pedantic posturing. We rarely know his opinion of all the goings-on, and what events he describes! We are quickly lost in this real world of espionage and deception, thoughtfully recreated by an author who knows his business and tells it well. An exciting read.

The only thing more incredible than the story of Morris and Jack Childs, brothers who, from the early 1950s through the late 1970s, were FBI assets within the American Communist Party, and who were personal friends of Soviet leaders, is that Hollywood has yet to commit this to celluloid. Here were four brave Americans--to include their intrepid wives, Eva and Roz--who for decades risked their lives to report to the FBI (and from the Bureau to the President) on the thoughts and intentions of Soviet leaders. So trusted by their friends in the Soviet leadership, they served as secret Soviet emissaries to China and Cuba, reporting back to the Soviets the attitudes and positions of Mao and Castro. Thus successive U.S. presidents enjoyed unique intelligence on the thinking of not only the Soviets, but of the Chinese and the Cubans as well. The story told in OPERATION SOLO is spellbinding, frought with tension, occasionally leavened by the earthy humor of its principal players. This is, in short, a terrific story about great Americans--hardworking FBI agents who shied away from the spotlight, and their courageous assets--that demands to be read or, someday, seen on screen.

A couple of points about John Barron's book. It is well written overall and reads quickly. It is not without faults, however. (1) The story is sometimes interrupted to introduce fairly extensive citations of reports written or passed along by the Childs. Without greater historical context, though, these passages are somewhat sterile and dry. Someday, one hopes, a more detailed study will add historical material external to SOLO that would, along with insightful analysis, demonstrate the true value of the SOLO reporting (as another reviewer here has suggested). (2) The section that deals with Martin Luther King is disappointing. For one thing, Barron is historically inaccurate or incomplete when the author states that "No one could have been more sympathetic to King than the Kennedy brothers." See Robert Dallek's excellent book on JFK for a better treatment of the Kennedys' complex relationship with King. Barron also downplays King's true significance as a great civil rights leader in order to discuss Communist ties to his inner circle of advisors. Furthermore, in an egregious departure from journalistic objectivity, Barron appears to excuse FBI's excessive campaign against King, including the infamous hotel wiretaps, on the pretext that King's private behavior was "inconsistent with [that] of a Christian minister and moral exemplar."

These misgivings aside, this is a truly amazing tale. Read the book and then amaze your friends in recounting the story. Are you listening, Hollywood?

This is an incredible story of a courageous couple of brothers and their wives who, while initially being drawn into Communism, were able to see the ugly truth behind it, and use their backgrounds to become the greatest spies in history. The book is written very well and as such it is hard to put down. Aside from a great story of intrigue, the book also offers a unique perspective on what really went on in the Kremlin as well as (parts of) the FBI.

I am the son of the FBI agent Richard Hansen. I can attest to the secrecy of this operation by explaining how I learned about it. In 1997 I was looking through the new arrivals at my local library. I started leafing through this book and did a double take when I saw my dad's name. I checked out the book, rushed home, called my dad. Sure enough, he admitted that he was the agent in the book. It is an amazing testament to his fidelity that he did not speak of this operation(even after he retired), until this book came out.

After seeing the History Channel special on Wake Island, I just had to have more, and this book fit the bill. The Alamo of the Pacific, how true that was. Well researched and written, and a nice hefty work to boot. It is hard to believe that you can find them for under $1. Be sure and go for the hardback edition, as you'll want this one to be a keeper.

How often do you read a history book that's so engrossing you hate to set it down? Only as an exception, and this book is exceptional. The background is so well established that you'll feel like an island resident yourself by the time that first wave of bombers hit. The occasional humor further lends itself to making the book multi-dimensional and realizing the normality of the civilians and servicemen who became Wake heroes. I was also touched by some attention being paid to what a person's first taste of combat is like. 'It's okay to shoot at these guys, right? To actually try and kill them, right?'

It's just an amazing account. Read it - you'll think you lived through the whole thing.

To put it simply, Pacific Alamo: The Battle for Wake Island by John Wukovits is an excellent addition to any library. This well written book is thoroughly researched and filled with first hand accounts of this struggle during the opening days of the war in the pacific.

After the successful Japanese attacks on Pearl Harbor and the Philippines the American people were in shock. Much of the American Pacific fleet was damaged or resting on the bottom at Pearl. Macarthur's command in the Philippines was in retreat and Pacific skies were dominated by pilots of the Imperial Japanese Navy. The Armies and Navies of the United States and Great Britain, were being driven back by what was considered by many, an invincible war machine. The Japanese were riding a wave of victories and America was preparing for the possible invasion of Hawaii or the west coast, with little left to defend either. Moral was low and the American people needed hope.

Wake Island, a tiny atoll half way between Japan and Hawaii, unprepared and manned by civilian contractors and a small force of marine, navy, and army personnel was about to enter the annals of history

I thoroughly enjoyed John Wukovits publication concerning the battle for Wake Island and the post battle information concerning the soldiers and civilians on Wake. One of the best insights into the conflict focused on the propaganda variable used by the United States to rally a nation. Another important trait is the focus on excellent and exciting detail concerning the battles on the island.

The Admiral who left these guys to surrender really did the military a diservice and I felt like a U.S. reinforcement and resupply would have ultimately held off the Japanese. The courage of those who fought at Wake is definitely captured by the author in "The Battle for Wake Island." The Marines and naval aviators were defenitely inspiring with their heroic defense.

It was also an interesting study of life in the prison camps, with wonderful first hand accounts. The Marines in the Pacific accomplished some heroic feats and it all started at Wake Island. If you decide to read this book you will be blessed to learn about some great American heroes. The civilian factor on the island and some of their heroic feats also adds more interest into this incredible account of combat and survival. The book also does a good job in telling the story of the Japanese as conquerers and then being conquered by a mightier moral/military allied nation.

An excellent and recent recounting of the struggles faced by a hopefully never forgotten saga in both American and Marine Corps history.
John Wukovits provides the reader with an assembly of perspectives from the defenders on Wake, the American WWII home front, and the Japanese attackers stitched together with the recent (2002) accounts of the surviving defenders themselves.
Wukovits `s addition to the Wake Island literary anthology is a gripping study of the atoll's most historic moments. The story follows selected men, not just Marines, from their stateside civilian lives to their enlistments or private construction contract jobs on Wake.
Every tale of Wukovits's interviewees will hopefully make the reader value the many freedoms we take for granted.
The book is a fair and noble salute to the men, all the men, who faced off with the Imperial Japanese Navy to lift the United States out of its Pearl Harbor gloom.
REVIEW EVERY BOOK YOU READ-AUTHORS DESERVE YOUR OPINIONS TOO!

This is a very informative, easily read book. I would recommend it those people interested or involved in mediumship

I loved this book! I love John Holland! He explains step by step how to be in touch with your soul and so much more!

Like everyone else, my world seemed to be crashing down upon me. I was turned onto "The Secret" by a friend and into the Hicks/Abraham books. I was amazed to find that I already practiced/believed some things they teach. My mother read Jane Roberts/Seth, but I couldn't get into those books. When I was at a low point, I went into Amazon.com and somehow, I found this book. Thank you Amazon.com! This book has helped me face my demons, change my thought process and become happy. No, it didn't happen overnight, but it has happened. My daily stress headaches have become less often. I'm actually practicing the exercises and moving along slowly. My first impression in some of the sections was "yeah, right, uh-huh". Then I re-read and I'm actually understanding. He writes so you can understand and practice. Some sections I would actually cry during the exercises, but kept going. I plan to purchase the paperback copy just so I will have a copy with me if I start to crash and he indicates this happens. At least he tells us how we can achieve inner peace/harmony and you have to work for it. Sappy, but, I can't explain how important this book has been for me and my life.

this will open your eyes to who we really are it will help you connect to the spirit within it is well written and a must to read if you want to learn about spirit world and were our own power comes from another great read is the calling of your true self elizabeth anne bell mixed together they are speaking a lot of truths both will help you with answers to the spirit and soul within

John Holland is a psychic medium who has authored several books, CDs, lectured, taught, and appeared on several TV shows, including The History Channel, A & E, and Unsolved Mysteries. Put simply, John is able to talk to those who have passed on and to receive and relay messages from them. I absolutely love the books and CDs by John. Although John does tend to repeat material, it's all good stuff and each book or CD expands on the material that has been used in another book or CD. His material is thorough, easy to understand, and right on target. It is also chocked full of useful tips. I have found it all tremendously useful in my own spiritual development. And, if you are listening to a CD of John's, especially one with meditations, you will likely find his voice very soft and very conducive to achieving a relaxed state of consciousness. Put simply, I find it really easy to get into a meditative state with John's CDs and to do it quickly.

"Power of the Soul" is a book about discovering the power deep within you, within your soul and learning how to direct that power in a positive manner. Yes, the book is full of information, meditations, tips, and tools. This is powerful self-discovery, spiritual path stuff. It is NOT a magic book. If you are interested in achieving a more balanced and spiritual life, consider this book. A spiritual pat takes work and it is a continual journey forward.

The 8 chapters of this book are:
1) Understanding the Soul--about the soul, as consciousness, the true essence of a person. This chapter speaks of going inward to discover your true self, dredging up what you have hidden inside, and facing it. It discusses a Buddhist technique "The Mindfulness of Breathing" and the importance of breathing correctly to achieve a state of stillness. John then teaches you exercises to achieve proper breathing. He also talks about achieving your soul's purpose, also discovering the gifts of your soul and using them in your everyday life.
2) Acknowledging the Source--the Source is defined as God, the Universe, or a Higher Consciousness, whatever your preference. He explains the concepts of synchronicities (aka. co-incidences), dream messages, gratitude, believing in the impossible, thoughts manifesting into reality, visualizations, and affirmations.
3) The Unfoldment of Your Soul Senses--learning the language of the soul--how to achieve mindful stillness, meditation, the clairs (what they are and why they are important and possible indicators of each). (Clairsentience, Clairaudience, Clairvoyance) and the Chakras (internal energy vortexes).
4) The Power of Love--the importance of love and kindness from a soul perspective.
5) The Healer Within--healing within yourself, forgiveness, including forgiving yourself.
6) Breaking Free: Turning the Past into a Bridge for the Future--negative thoughts, fear, worry--what they do to us--realizing these syndromes and breaking free of them
7) Journey of the Soul--reincarnation, wounds of the soul, wake-up calls, respecting another individual's path
8) Soul Living--stepping into your personal soul power

John has also included examples and discoveries of people he has met, known, and taught as well as his own experiences. He includes training exercises and meditations. If you want to develop your psychic abilities, John's book can help you and he also has some CD products to teach you more on psychic awareness (check my other reviews). But if you just want to learn more about the beauty within you and develop your spirituality, John can help you with that too. There is good info here. How far you take it, how much you put into developing yourself spiritually, and how far you progress, well, that's up to you. What I have found is simply like anything else--the more effort you put into developing yourself, the more you get back. (Step one--my opinion--if you have any negative junk in you, get rid of it. It makes it so much easier to progress.)

Update: May, 2008. Just saw John in person at a conference in Hershey, PA. He was absolutely wonderful. He provided a lot of useful information. He also did several readings and he had several people in tears with the information he "read" from their deceased friends/relatives/etc. (Tears are good, folks.) I think he really helped some people address some guilt they had stuffed inside themselves for who knows how many years. John was knowledgeable, funny, and very natural. He was very comfortable to talk to. In other words, he was not uppity. And I believe without a doubt that he is a 100% genuine psychic medium.

If you don't learn something about yourself after reading this book, check your pulse.

This book should be required reading for every member of the human race.

This book was my introduction to the spiritual life. A friend gave it to me--with some trepidation, not knowing how I'd take it--but to her relief, I was completely won over. I GOT it. Now that I've read more sophisticated books, Vernon Howard might not speak to me so deeply. But if you know someone who is spinning their wheels, who could lead a more powerful life if they were just shown the way, this is the book to give them. It is simple, easy-to-read, and it works.

I bought this book used for like 1.50 and some change for shipping. If anyone had any idea that the end of suffering could come about by a transformation beginning from a little book on amazon for 1.50, I think they'd laugh at the idea. This man definately knows what he is talking about and although I have already been practicing work on myself, many new ideas are also introduced. 5 stars get the book.

This book is one of the better books on spirituality, not the best but one of the better. It has heaps of good ideas, thoughts and wisdom. every pages is a new insight. The drawback for me was that it was too much on ideas , so many that I could be thinking too much after about it.I cannot be hard on this book because as I say compared to most others on the market these days it is very good.

After reading "Mystic Path to Cosmic Consciousness", and "Esoteric Mind Power", I thought that any other writtings by Vernon Howard would just repeat what I had already read. I can safely recommend this book along with the other two. Some ideas do overlap, but many bring clarification. Just read my reviews on the other two books to get an idea of what this book has to offer.
There may be more sophistocated writtings on the subject of self awakening, but none written in such plain English, squeezing as much insight into one book as there books by Vernon Howard.

I've been studying the life of Lawrence nearly all of my own 50 years, since I was thirteen. I've read and reread all I could find about him, especially his own Seven Pillars of Wisdom. How refreshing it was to read Professor Mack's excellent book which covers so much more than I'd ever found before and with surprisingly brilliant insight. A fresh look at this enigmatic figure with modern eyes and a richer understanding. A great read.

I have now read several books both on T.E. Lawrence, the Middle East, World War I and English governmental history. This is by far the best biography on T.E. Lawrence and the situation in the Middle East that I have read. John Mack did an outstanding job of researching Lawrence for this book. One of the most interesting sections of the book was reading the endnotes. They provide even more information about Mack's research as well as to clarify some previous misstatements about Lawrence.

Although Lawrence suffered greatly from depression and other disorders he was a truly great man. That he was able to be an outstanding friend to so many people while enduring personal suffering is amazing. John Mack portrays Lawrence in an honest light which actually makes Lawrence and his achievements all the more spectacular because of his personal struggles.

John Mack's biography shows us that great people are not perfect nor does their greatness make them happy. He also shows that people who, if truth were know, live outside of societies norms can do world changing things and be loved by society. Lawrence seemed to have been very accepting of all people, other than himself.

To call Lawrence's life tragic in some way diminishes his accomplishments. Was Lawrence a great man because of his problems or in spite of his problems? I think that Lawrence was capable of being a legend because of his problems. The psychological struggles he endured were who he was. Society is so quick to discount a person because of psychological problems, whether they are great people or not. If society were honest with itself, it would realize that everyone has some problem or other. Some, as Lawrence was, are open (relatively) and honest about their problems while most choose to act as if they don't exist.

Winston Churchill, a contemporary of Lawrence's, also suffered greatly from depression and probably some other things as well. Churchill was also hero and a legend and was largely responsible for keeping the world free from Nazi Germany when few noticed the threat or appropriately dealt with it.

It appears to me, that the greater the leader and the more astounding his or her abilities, the more "different" they are from what society believes is normal. A good thought to ponder.

John Mack does an excellent job of providing a well-documented biography of T.E. Lawrence as well as an outline of his psychological makeup. Mack does not claim to understand Lawrence or to explain every behavior. I had expected to read more of a detailed psychological report and was, at first, a bit disappointed. However, the longer I read the more apparent it was that Mack was portraying Lawrence's personality through an accurate telling of his story rather than trying to lecture on "who Lawrence really was" and "why he did everything he did". John Mack also did not fall into the overly Freudian theory that Lawrence did everything because of sex. Sex obviously played a role in his psychology but did not appear to be the overriding theme.

For years, I have studied the life and works of T. E. Lawrence. My research has lead me across the pages of hundreds of books including his own Seven Pillars of Wisdom, but the best biography and analysis of Lawrence I have yet encountered is A Prince of Our Disorder.

Dr. Mack's thorough examination and explanation of the effect of Lawrence's childhood on his adult life and mentality is brilliant. Instead of merely stating his opinions, he touches on those of other biographers as well and then proceeds to state how and why he feels they are accurate or inaccurate, providing quotes from military reports, other Lawrence books, interviews with Lawrence's relatives and friends, and Seven Pillars of Wisdom.

If you read A Prince of Our Disorder, I can almost 100% gaurantee that you will have a better understanding of Lawrence's personal role in the Hejaz Campaign and the lasting effects of his experiences in Arabia on him physically and psychologically. Thankfully, it is beautifully written, and not at all confusing.

From the moment Mack "introduces" you to Lawrence you will have a desire to learn more about him, and as Mack walks you through his troubled life, you will feel pity and awe for this untouchable man.

I think that A Prince of Our Disorder clarifies the line between the legend of the indestructable, hero-Lawrence and the lost, soul-searching man Lawrence really was.

Dr. John Mack's study of Lawrence is one of the most absorbing reads I've ever enjoyed in my lifetime. As Irving Howe wrote, "What finally draws one to Lawrence, making him not merely an exceptional figure, but a representative man of our century, is his courage and vulnerability in bearing the burden of consciousness." The impact that the trial by fire in Arabia appears to have had on his post-war life is shocking, and teaches us once again not to envy our great heroes. Lawrence wrote of General Allenby that great men cannot be judged by ordinary standards, anymore than the sharpness of the bow of an ocean liner can be judged by the sharpness of a razor. After reading "A Prince of Our Disorder," I recognize now that Lawrence was probably thinking of himself while writing those kind words about his former master, asking that he not be be judged by his hidden afflictions, torments, and self-doubts, all the while laying out those same imperfections for all the world to read. Lawrence warned us,"The documents are liars ... No man ever yet tried to write down the entire truth of any action in which he has been engaged." No man is truly capable of understanding his own subconscious motivations, but I doubt that anyone has ever struggled harder than Lawrence to achieve self-understanding. We will have to try to read between the lines, learn what we can, and apply that knowledge to enrich our own poor lives.

So sad for all of us that our leaders are not of the same introspective type. Dr. Mack comments in his introduction that "The destructive leader, and the eagerness of a large segment of the population to identify with him, comprise one of the central threats -- if not the greatest threat -- that faces human society. There is perhaps an increasing unwillingness to entrust our well-being and our lives to individuals and characters we do not understand and whose ultimate purposes we are ignorant of." Let's hope so.

Jeremy Wilson's massive biography "Lawrence of Arabia" may better satisfy military readers interested in extensive contemporary document citations, and includes much more detail on Lawrence's Cairo years. Wilson also has a better set of photographs. The 1922 Oxford full text of "Seven Pillars of Wisdom," edited by Jeremy and Nicole Wilson and available from Castle Hill Press in the UK, is most highly recommended to all who find "T.E.L." fascinating.

While searching for literature on the man in the movie `Lawrence of Arabia', otherwise unknown to me other than knowing him as the brother of D.H. Lawrence, I stumbled across this most authoritative biography on the man who David Lean so magnificently portrayed in his film. He is one of the men who could be placed in par with other great leaders of Britain during the early part of the 20th century.

While Lawrence's autobiography, `Seven Pillars of Wisdom' gives gory picture of his life in the desert and his adventurous war campaigns, Mack's book gives more insight into the man's psyche just as Judith Brown did on Gandhi in her book `Gandhi - A Prisoner of hope'. His many questionable traits (exhibitionism, homosexual tendancies, overemphasis of his achievements) are wonderfully analyzed with information gleaned from tons of historical materials. While the west looked at him as a great war commander (though some question his contributions during the great desert wars), the east, even the people who worked with him, do not consider him as a man who helped Arabs gain their freedom from Turks other than agreeing to the fact that he helped king Faisel in wars.

Lawrence's genius is considered twined with his behavioral disorder, a not so common association among people who have schizophrenic symptoms except may be for rare cases of autistic geniuses like Peter Guthrie (not the Scottish mathematician but a not so well-known artist). There have been debates during his later years as whether Lawrence was in fact an autistic. At any rate, as reflected in one of his most famous quotes, he was a `dangerous' daydreamer who dreamt with open eyes and made things happen unlike night dreamers who dream in their dusty recesses of their minds only to wake up in the morning to see they are vain.

T.E. Lawrence's life and his untimely death (by motorbike accident) left us with lot of questions as who was he and what was he doing in the middle east and what made him to completely depart from the politics of middle east and lead a secluded life of 23 years in the Royal Air Force (not forgetting his contributions to the invention of new types of speed boats). His appearances in Arab's traditional attire in Versailles during 1919 Paris Peace Conference with the King Faisel and with other western dignitaries draw a stark similarity with Gandhi's appearance in loin cloth and shawl during the Round Table Conference at London. Though Faisal trusted him as his benevolent, he did not entrust Lawrence completely as he always thought him as a British spy.

I would suggest anyone who is inquisitive of T.E. Lawrence, also see David Lean's much acclaimed epic motion picture `Lawrence of Arabia'. If the movie `Lawrence of Arabia' captivated me, Mack's biography enthralled me with its abundance of well researched information. As with any other great men, Lawrence's life also is worth researching into. And these biographers are the ones who make legends live and help sustain the new generations' interest on these great people. A great biographical work!

Mere coincidence or not, John E. Mack died of a car accident in New York in 2004.