Nicholson Books

Before I read Joanna's book, people looked down on the way I dressed. To be honest, I was dressing in the same colors that my mother wears (and wearing some clothing cut in an unflattering way). These colors look good on her, but they wash me out, even though at first glance, our complexions look very similar. Now, people are always complimenting me and I get a lot of looks from men, including my husband. In fact, I buy his shirts now based on the color principles. I really don't think that there needed to be a color chart in this book because if you think about what looks really good on you already, that is the first clue to finding other clothes that would look good as well.

Also, the same advice applies to knowing what kinds of clothes to buy in the future. If an outfit makes you look too heavy or otherwise bad, then there is some design element in that outfit that is not working for you. For instance, I am a fairly slim person, but I have wide shoulders and wide hips and large thighs. If I purchase a blouse or other top that is not tapered at all along my trunk (from under the arms to my hips), I look about 10 pounds heavier than if I wear a tapered top. I also do not wear flared pants for this reason. But I discovered this by analyzing what looked good on me and pinpointing why. So now, I kind of have "uniforms" that I wear because I look good in them. The concept of uniforms is discussed in a fantastic book, "Simple Isn't Easy" by Olivia Goldsmith. This book is not in print any more, but I would HIGHLY SUGGEST finding a used copy, because it will complement this book. Many of the world's best dressed designers wear "uniforms" because it is their best look.

Tip: Here is how I determine if a piece of clothing might look good on me. I put my hand on the center of the garment to see how my skin looks next to the fabric. If the skin on my hand looks healthy and my skin and the fabric are not competing against each other for attention, then I will try it on to see how it looks. What I have found is that blues, pinks, purples, and reds that are of a medium tone (not pastel and not dark or bold) look best on me. I don't buy anything that doesn't enhance my skin color. As Joanna says, color is the first accessory, and its free!!!

Also, I have freckles and wavy hair. That is somewhat of a visual distraction, so I normally do not wear blouses/tops that have a print. If I had straight hair with clearer skin, then I would probably look a lot better in prints. Joanna talks about who looks good in prints.

I cannot recommend this book highly enough, along with "Simple Isn't Easy." Good luck to you all!

However, I'm perplexed that a book that focuses so much on clothing styles and colors has not a SINGLE illustration or color panel! Does the author assume I know what an A-line skirt is, or that I can tell the difference between coral and pink-coral in my mind? She places particular emphasis on your skin tone and its color, because that is how you base your entire wardrobe's color system. According to her, it is very important that I know the difference between coral and pink-coral... and that which I choose depends on what my skin tone is. However, aside from listing celebrities with certain skin tones, she never really explains how to judge your own skin tone. A comparison wheel or something -- ANYTHING -- would have been very helpful. The only color you get is the book's cover.

It's not until you read the middle of the book that you discover that the author is a founder of a color consultancy organization that charges people to find out what colors work best for them (the book's cover does not mention this). While I'm sure her certified consultants are quite good (after all, THEY must have that color chart that got left out of the book), after reading the book and visiting her Web site (which she advertises inside her book), I feel like I've just been sold one big infomercial on how to hire one of her consultants. Caveat emptor.

As much as I.V. Dzhugashvili was a notable character, Stalin also was made by the people around him. Lenin, a militant opportunist himself, found in Stalin a kindred spirit of his own extremism. Kamenev and Zinoviev saved Stalin from the fall (after the disclosure of Lenin's Testament) because they needed him in their struggle against Trotsky. Roosevelt and Churchill needed him to fight Hitler and turned a blind eye on what they did not want to see, such as Katyn massacre.

Stalin was the most evil ruler in the history of mankind, he killed over 40 million of his own people (to put it in perspective, Hitler killed 20 million and Saddam less than half a million), and yet Stalin's specter is very much alive today. During the Ribbentrop-Molotov negotiations, Stalin raised a toast to Hitler. In 2000, Putin was drinking to Stalin. After meeting Stalin in Teheran, Roosevelt commented on the "sympathetic quality in his nature". And G.W.Bush, having looked Putin in the eye, liked what he saw. It is interesting how history repeats itself: Russian leaders keep toasting the humankind's worst tyrants and the leaders of the free world keep seeing good souls.

As Conquest himself states, this book is not a "dissection" of Stalin's character, but a sketch. Written just after many Soviet materials on Stalin became newly available, the book feels like a period piece. Not having any source references and the frequent mention of "recent Soviet publications" only strengthen the impression. Unfortunately, Conquest's Stalin still remains fairly impenetrable. What was driving him: megalomania, paranoia, inferiority complex, dogma, self-righteousness, all of the above? Until the late 1920's (and the ripe age of 50) Stalin's persona in the book remains fairly obscure. The narrative does not really elucidate what led him, a good and pious student of theological seminary, become a professional revolutionary. Or how exactly he ingratiated himself with Lenin to the point of becoming one of the top Party functionaries. Or how in the crucial years after Lenin's death he was able to come unscathed from the many factional fights. The linguistic constructions are a bit heavy-handed which, along with the macabre subject of the book, makes for a somewhat strained reading. Rather than painting a portrait, the book reads like the author's struggle to piece it all together and understand its subject. On the other hand, it takes one to know one. So if we do not understand Stalin all that well - maybe, so much for the better.

I confess to being dumb. Although I know and admire the author, who has spoken at my conference, when the book came out I thought--really dumb, but I mention it because others may have made the same mistake--that it was about building a cute clock in the middle of the desert.

Wrong, wrong, wrong (I was). Now, three years late but better late than never, on the recommendation of a very dear person I have read this book in detail and I find it to be one of the most extraordinary books--easily in the top ten of the 300+ books I have reviewed on Amazon.

At it's heart, this book, which reflects the cummulative commitment of not only the author but some other brilliant avant guarde mind including Danny Hillis, Kevin Kelly (WIRED, Out of Control, the Rise of Neo-Biological Civilization), Esther Dyson, Mitch Kapor (Lotus, Electronic Frontier Foundation) and a few others, is about reframing the way people--the entire population of the Earth--think, moving them from the big now toward the Long Here, taking responsibility for acting as it every behavior will impact on the 10,000 year long timeframe.

This book is in the best traditions of our native American forebears (as well as other cultures with a long view), always promoting a feedback-decision loop that carefully considered the impact on the "seventh generation." That's 235 years or so, or more.

The author has done a superb job of drawing on the thinking of others (e.g. Freeman Dyson, Esther's father) in considering the deep deep implications for mankind of thinking in time (a title popularized, brilliantly, by Ernest May and Richard Neustadt of Harvard), while adding his own integrative and expanding ideas.

He joints Lee Kuan Yew, brilliant and decades-long grand-father of Asian prosperity and cohesiveness, in focusing on culture and the long-term importance of culture as the glue for patience and sound long-term decision-making. His focus on the key principles of longevity, maintainability, transparency, evolvability, and scalability harken back to his early days as the editor of the Whole Earth Review (and Catalog) and one comes away from this book feeling that Stewart Brand is indeed the "first pilot" of Spaceship Earth.

It is not possible and would be inappropriate to try to summarize all the brilliant insights in this work. From the ideas of others to his own, from the "Responsibility Record" to using history as a foundation for dealing with rapid change, to the ideas for a millenium library to the experienced comments on how to use scenarios to reach consensus among conflicted parties as to mutual interests in the longer-term future, this is--the word cannot be overused in this case--an extraordinary book from an extraordinary mind.

This book is essential reading for every citizen-voter-taxpayer, and ends with an idea for holding politicians accountable for the impact of their decisions on the future. First class, world class. This is the book that sets the stage for the history of the future.