Spencer Books

I remember when I first read it. Picking it up from a friend's kitchen table, simultaneously made curious and revolted by the insect on the cover. The contents, like from a strange language, I had never been exposed to before. Almost musical, its cadence. One can love a song in another language and not have any idea what it really means. So that's how it started. I have since read and re-read these poems many times, sometimes outloud, often whispered. Discovering the wit, the tempered anxieties, and sentiments dressed-up in detached language play. I am not embarrassed to admit having gone to the dictionary on more than several occasions. The recognition, however seldom, when coming across one of the author's many obscure references or allusions was pure delight.

Even now I can't say that I "speak" Tremolo. My grasp is rudimentary at best. Still, I get by and continually find comfort in these poems. Foreign, yet familiar.

How to solve for X? I was never good at math, anyway. But who cares?

This is a great book of poems. I'm not sure why these other reviewers are offended and make the accusations of plagiarism. They have no understand of how art works -- poets riff off of and steal (Eliot) from each other all the time. That's how the game works. My guess is that most of these other reviewers have some sort of personal grudge with Spencer, as he does have a strong personality. Check out some of his work on-line, and judge for yourself.

Short's prose rides a loud but tiny scooter to your party, dismounts, and removes it's helmet. It goes to the fridge, steals a sixer and at the end of the night, when you discover it lying on the bathroom floor, it tries to kiss your roommate before it finally sets it's way into the night. He's got a good jumpshot, but he's a sore loser, however, he can suggest a nice chardonay if you need. Good work, boy, wheres the Evanoff influence and the Tetzloff swagger that you once had? Wherse the pace and Gocker, and even the Chase? Has New York and it's height had it way with you? This Book Resounds!

I haven't checked in here for a while but did today and saw your review. I liked it. You make some excellent points &, believe it or not, they are criticisms I, myself, have aimed at the book.

It's a shame your friends don't like it, of course. I was in graduate school at the time I wrote it & was writing the poems essentially for a handful of MY close friends (also MFA students). The poems are full of dumb jokes, puns, riffs & references to shared experience with them. No one will ever get most of them. In this sense the book is probably a bit too obscure, hermetic even.

Still, I'm glad you read it.

A quick note, though. It's spelled "Tremolo" not "Tremelo".

For future reference.

There is something startlingly efficient about Spencer Short's poems. For all their ingenuity they seem very cleaned and very crafty, entirely original. But the poems in tremolo do not surprise me; in fact they annoy me, and in this sense at least they achieve something. But who wants to be annoyed?

For example, in a poem aptly titled "Poem," Short writes "The blackbird eclipse reworked as beauty mark." This is the first line of the poem. I read this line to my friends at a party recently and they looked at me as if they suddenly disliked me.

To me the true test of modern poetry is whether my friends can appreciate the poem. They are a rough bunch: rowdy drinkers, professional wrestlers, navy men, marine drop-outs, summer lifeguards, fanatical Jewish converts, football fans, etc. They are also the most un-literary humans alive. They do enjoy poetry, but for the most part Short's poems do not seem to be written for my friends. (I'm not saying they have to be!) But they do seem to be written for those who teach and those who attend MFA programs. To me, tremolo is totally inaccessible. The poems here read as if the author were running through NYC with some fellow MFA grads, turning each corner and shouting to the crowd "Ole!" But the ole! is a special kind of shout, doctored and perfected by the MFA program, and for all it's fist-pumping triumph this ole! does not inspire me; in fact (see above) it annoys me.

This book was a good reading, eassy to get into it. That was also a sad book, why killing Chris Hatton just for money or even worst just for fun??? We don't know what really happen, who really killed Chris. Stephanie or Will, Stephanie blame Will and Will blame Stephanie and they both lies all the time. I didn't like the end of it because it left you with why they really did it and you don't know who really killed Chris.

Readers,
I have just finished the book. I had a hard time reading this book because I remember hearing all this from the news in Austin. I am a good friend of Chris's brother Brian. The killers of his brother are not worth my time talking about. I will just leave the judging of them to God. I will say that in this book they did not come close to explaining what good people the Hatton familly are and how this has hurt Brian. I would say this that i hope Brian attends the parole hearings I think it will be a hard experience for Will to look at Brian. Chris and Brian favor so much they could be twins.
Chris Hatton was a good man he worked hard and loved his fmailly and these people took him from all of us who cared for him. I watched it crush Brian and his grandparents. Brian had to buy his older brother a head stone that is somethng a young boy should never have to do. Those boys had enough bad things happen to them before Will and Stephanie decided they would take his life. I have no doubts that neither is telling a true tale of what happened. I really didn't care to hear there lies, a good man is dead and nothing will change that. I hope have shed some light on how much people respected Chris and cared for him because it is not easy to put in to words.

Part of what made this book so difficult to put down is how real the people are. Suzy Spencer shows how the relationship of lies and games and the day-to-day playing with thoughts of killing numbed the murderers for full-force evil. The killers are not strangers. They are people that one comes into contact with every day. Their familiarity is what makes them most frightening. Suzy Spencer also made the victim real--a young man who had the problems of life and family, and the love of family and friends. He was an innocent man who was killed simply because he was there. Suzy Spencer did a great job of telling this story.

The author must believe we're all dummies. The subtitle on this nook is 'A True Story of Lust, Lies and Cold-Blooded Murder'. Wow, National Enquirer stuff. Problem is, she has no idea how to tell the story. You do not paste 100 articles from the paper willy nilly together and call it a book. How did this woman get to be a New York Times Bestselling Author. Obviously New York Times book buyers ar a sorry lot.

The book has no cohesion, no sense of organization, almost like stream of consciousness story telling. I read about half way through (just past the pictures, there are always pictures in True Crime books) and then gave up.

Rating: a minus star (if that's possible)

This is a well-written true crime book in which the author tells the tale of a grotesque murder and its cover up. The murder victim was twenty-three year old Chris Hatton, a handsome and somewhat shy young man who was just starting out in life. Well liked by his peers, Hatton's life would take a turn for the worse, when he decided that he needed a roommate, and William Busenburg moved into Hatton's apartment. Little did Chris Hatton know what a mistake that would be.

William Busenburg had gone to high school with Chris Hatton, but they had never been close. William Busenburg had many personal issues and demons with which he had to contend throughout his life. An intelligent and nice looking young man, he was a habitual liar who could not be trusted. Then, William met Stephanie Lynn Martin, an exotic dancer in a strip joint, who would fall hard for the fast talking William. Fed a steady diet of lies by him, Stephanie lived in a fantasy world of William's own creation that had her believing that he was a wealthy CIA operative whose mission in life was to kill on orders from the government.

Stephanie, who had been raised as a devout Southern Baptist by her well-to-do parents, was something of a wild child. She liked life in the fast lane and was a disappointment to her parents, who found it difficult to believe that their daughter would not conform to the norms of their community. When Stephanie left home and moved to Texas, they had no idea that she would find work as an exotic dancer. They were not to discover this, until Stephanie, along with William, was arrested for the murder of Chris Hannon, and Stephanie's occupation caught the interest of the media, as it made for lurid headlines.

Stephanie and Chris had not, apparently, liked for each other, and William and Chris were not considered to be close friends, though at one time, they had been superficially friendly. Chris disdained everything about Stephanie, and William had not apparently kept of with his share of his financial obligations as a roommate. This was a situation that was to hurl them all headlong into disaster, given the personalities involved. It was to end with the mutilated and burnt body of Chris Hatton finding itself laid out on a cold campfire in a park.

The author masterfully weaves together the story of these three dissimilar people. She tells the story in a coherent, straightforward fashion, clearly presenting the known facts. While both Stephanie and William were charged with the murder, there is no clear resolution as to who was the actual killer, though it is clear that both Stephanie and William were complicit in the end result. Chris Hatton's family cooperated with the author, as did Stephanie, though she is currently serving a fifty year sentence for her part in the murder. Stephanie's cold-blooded telling of her version of the facts is truly chilling.

This is an intriguing look a senseless murder that may have been nothing more than a thrill kill for the deluded duo of Stephanie Lynn Martin and William Busenburg. The book contains sixteen black and white photographs and will appeal to those readers who enjoy well-written books in the true crime genre.

Frank Mead's "Handbook of Denominations" is indispensable for those exploring the differences between various churches. One can learn that Seventh-Day Adventists and Jehovah's Witnesses have common historical roots, while the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) have many offshoots that exist to this day. One can learn about the differences between the various branches of the Church of God,while Baptists are shown to be a diverse group. It's an excellent reference.

"Handbook of Denominations" is comprehensive in its explanations of the various mainline Protestant denominations. It's incredibly useful for those exploring religion.

It has a few weaknesses. The discussions of Buddhism&Eastern spirituality are quite shallow. Shambhala Buddhism, which has an extensive following,is barely mentioned. Non-denominational churches,a growing movement over the past decade,gets a cameo. A Handbook of Denominations serves a paradoxical purpose in a post-denominational age. "Handbook of Denominations" is a wonderful book;it would be excellent if Mead&Hill summed up the growing&influential non-denominational movement.

Received book in very good condition and very quickly.

I was craving a book that would objectively give me information about the denominations in our country. I wasn't looking for a novel on each denomination, just a solid background sketch, and this book does just that. It really has any denomination you could want info on, and is organized just beautifully. It gives membership statistics of each denomination, and hte historical info as well as theological positions of each denomination is outstanding. Praise God for this book. It will be on my shelf within reach for decades to come.

This is just about the best book of its kind that I have found. I have bought several books in the past and not been very happy with them. The history of each denomination is covered thoroughly. In general, the beliefs of each denomination is covered, but I wish they had included another 1 or 2 paragraphs on the beliefs and practices of each denomination. The only book that MIGHT be better than this is the Encyclopedia of American Religions.

I was also wondering why Hinduism was not covered in this book.

This book is an extremely valuable resource to quickly understand the basic beliefs of a denominations, especially those that set them apart from others. This book covers a vast number of denominations, obviously not complete but close to it. Each one typically has a statistic giving its popularity, followed by a short (typically no longer than 3 or 4 pages, but sometimes shorter) summary of the denominational history and distinctives.

Having used it to look at a few denominations with which I am familiar and many with which I am not, the authors appear to have painstakingly made the summaries as unbiased and fair as possible. Oftentimes, they quote directly from official denominational literature. I also appreciate the appendices which refer the researcher to further information on a particular denomination.

The large denominational categories covered, with many subcategories each are:
1. Adventist
2. Baptist
3. Brethren and Pietist Churches
4. Catholic Churches
5. Christian Church (Stone-Campbell Movement)
6. Congregational Churches
7. Episcopal/Anglican Churches
8. Friends (Quakers)
9. Fundamentalist/Bible Churches
10. Holines Churches
11. Islam
12. Judaism
13. Latter-day Saints (Mormons)
14. Lutherans
15. Mennonite Churches
16. Methodist Churches
17. Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox Churches
18. Pentecostal Churches
19. Presbyterian Churches
20. Reformed Churches
21. Salvation Army
22. Spiritualist and Theosophical Bodies

There are many others that cannot be put under these broad categories that are too numerous to mention here. This book appears to have succeeded in what it set out to accomplish: give a concise but accurate depiction of various church sects throughout the United States.

I found out about this book after Justin's trial in California for the murder of Raphial Noriega. I was a juror and the trial brought us through the whole Texas trial. We heard testimony that conflicted with facts stated in the book. Also found it confusing the way it jumped around. Hope author writes another book on Justin's California trial. Kim got a free ticket, Justin got the sentence he deserved in California. Overall worth a read.

Suzy Spencer's book paints a tale of a woman, Regina, who was an out-of-control drug addict and addictive personality. She falls in love with Kim LeBlanc who uses her for her money. It seems to be the problem with Regina that friends can use you for your money and abandon you when you need them most. I have to say that the book is well-written in terms of crime books. There are lot of lessons to be learned about being young and in love but there are just so many dysfunctional relationships whether it is your own family but also among friends. Regina's drug problems and her obsession with Kim ruled her life in the last year. Why didn't she listen to her friends? Why did she spend so much money on people who didn't appreciate it? I know that I am one of those people that would gladly be generous but not to the point of spending my entire life savings to please them by wining and dining them and setting them up with drugs. The book entitled Wasted is about the life lost and the crime behind Regina's terrible murder and disposal. Sadly, I hope that Regina is with her mother in heaven now.

At one point, Reg was one of my best friends. We were total opposites, and I relished the time we spent together. She was wild and crazy, while I'm somewhat conservative.

Remember that this is a representation of essentially a short amount of time in Regina's life. I never thought of Reg as a "cocaine queen" or "rich lesbian". She was just a person. One who was fun to be with, loved deeply, and who does not deserve this legacy. She died a terrifying, horrible death. It's unimaginable what she went through.

Justin went to prison and Kim is somewhere out there living a free life under some assumed identity. She breathes in and out every day. I think about this all the time and wonder how this can happen?

If there is anything you should take from Regina's story, it is that you shouldn't turn your back on your friends if they get into drugs. You shouldn't ignore it. You shouldn't pretend it isn't happening. Do something about it or you may live to regret it for the rest of your life. Trust your instincts, the red flags that go off in your head. If you don't, you'll be haunted the rest of your life.

It is terribly upsetting when I read how others talk badly of Suzys book. She told the story about a very tragic and unhappy time for alot of people.
Suzy really wanted to let people know how one friend should never let another friend get involved with bad people. We knew that these people where bad, just didn't know how to really stop Regina from the harm they might and did eventually cause.
Take from this book what you may, just never take a friendship lightly and remember most of all, let anyone you love know each and everyday how very much you love them, as it may be the last time you get to let them know. I live with this thought everyday of my life. I miss my friend so very much.

Suzy Spencer writes an interesting story of a little girl lost who's love for the wrong person, gets her killed. You really get a feel for the characters and what they are like. You want to give Regina a hug and tell her everything will be ok. You want to kick Kim in her manipulative butt and you want to lock Justin up, and throw away the key. As for Anita and Jeremy, it seems they were the only two people who really cared for Regina, and they should find peace in knowing what good friends they were. I couldn't put the book down and like another reviewer, I had wished for a different ending. But unfortunately, it was not to be. The true crime in all of this is how one person got away with murder.

Cheese - this is the most intriguing metaphor I've ever seen! I still have no idea why Spencer Johnson used that, but it seems to me that he used Cheese as means of social skills or flexibility. I guess we must get rid of our old cheese to adapt to any changes. Otherwise, we will be likely to be left behind or social loners.
According to this book, 2 mice, Sniff and Scurry were sophisticated enough to get new Cheese. On the other hand, 2 Littlepeople, Hem and Haw got agitated because the Cheese at Cheese Station C, where they felt comfortable, disappeared out of the blue. At first, they gradually ran out of their energies, not knowing what to do next. However, Haw began to think twice as he wrote the messages on each wall for Hem. Therefore, Haw got back on his feet again and found New Cheese at Cheese Station N, where he could be friends with Sniff and Scurry! What happened to Hem? He was so stubborn that he dwelled on Cheese Station C, where no cheese existed.
Unfortunately, nobody can tell whether Hem would change his mind. But everybody in this story would feel happier, if Hem decided to get New Cheese instead of sticking to Old one! Anyway, I'd say no one can promise what you have is always useful forever, because everything changes in the world.

The laborious, trite and utterly useless content in this book really makes one wonder just who ACTUALLY needs things like this. The values, concepts, etc. covered in the book should be known, understood and well accepted by the time one reaches, at the latest, 10 years of age. As for the corporate aspect of things: it is absolutely insulting and doesn't even qualify as "half-truth".

There is a wide variety of thought-provoking, conversation-inspiring and life-changing books out there written on similar topics. However, unlike this book, they are written in an adult, intelligent style. This book treats the reader like a child and provides no real "meat" to think about/discuss.

I would highly recommend reading some other books that ride on a much more foundation of intelligence, but ones that go beyond mere acceptance and discuss some of the psychological and sociological aspects of the world.

Too put it shorty:
There's nothing to learn from this childish trash unless there really is something EXTREMELY wrong with your understanding of the world.

Don't insult yourself.

I have heard about this book for many years but somehow never read it. I went through it recently and think it's a very easy-to-read book. The idea the author wants to express is straightforward and inspirational. It's a tiny story so I finish the book in very short time. But the idea the book talked about remains very clear in my mind. I should say that means the author really did a good job.

I like it and recommend it.

I had forgotten what a great read this book was. I first read this book about nine years ago when I was going through a bad spot financially it had the desired effect and since then it sat on the bookshelf in my study, my eight year old daughter was going through a bad patch at school so, I dusted it off and sat down with both my girls and read them the story. What a reminder of how your mind plays tricks on us and how we can be our own worst enemy by holding on to the baggage of the past and not moving with opportunities. When things change so should we.
So, you feel like you're in a rut grab yourself a coffee find a quite spot and sit down and read Who moved My Cheese.

This book is handed out by corporate scoundrels (drones) to nice people (workers) in yet another heinous, greed-driven, hubristic attempt to repress the American worker.

In fact, that's the very reason for the "popularity" of this egregious handful of pure trash. Corporations buy millions of volumes of this mind-bender to hand out to unsuspecting employees for "training" (brainwashing).

I'll confess that this HAS to be the most shrewdly-written piece of propaganda ever committed to paper. Goebbels would have been proud of such a handbook of Centrist, self-serving, excusado of corporate treachery! *.*

It's all about making decent, hard-working employees manifest a great horror and a personal fear of losing their jobs, therefore requiring an undeserved respect for rotten corporate employers, accepting much less than they're entitled to for their hard work. This thing would have Exxon employees genuflecting to their CEO for his devoted environmental concerns!

I gave this book ONE STAR, only because it's not an option to give it less than ZERO!

NOT RECOMMENDED!

An Excellent book. It contains the information from the original at a much more affordable price.

Never in the field of mathematical endeavour has so much been expressed in so few symbols -- one to be precise, and this is the primary distinction between Spencer-Brown and his peers. He has reduced arithmetic complexity to the point that there is no linguistic entropy in the information system, and this is a bit disconcerting.

I recall first encountering this work about fifteen years ago, and had difficulty digesting the first page. My mind kept trying to relate it to a concept, any concept, with which I was already familiar, and the author deliberately writes in a manner that makes this difficult if not impossible. He does not do this from malice, instead it is the only way to prevent the reader from confusing or identifying the primary arithmetic with its most obvious application -- logical expression.

Many reviewers point out that the author provides an alternate notation for Boolean algebra -- this is certainly true. The difference is that it does not require two symbols, for example "0" and "1," instead, the same concept is expressed operationally as an arrangement of instances of only one symbol.

The remarkable thing of the algebraic aspects of Spencer-Brown's Calculus of Indications, is the manner in which it is able to succinctly express fundamental mathematical concepts such as variance and invariance as a matter of form (or arrangement).

Although it took me years to "get it" (meaning breaking my preconceptions regarding what I wanted the author to indicate, rather than understanding what he was indicating), it was well worth the effort.

The result? A hearty chuckle, and a useful tool for appreciating and discerning in life that which appears complex is quite often ridiculously simple.

Clever, very clever.

I take the key sentences in Spencer-Brown's Laws of Form to be the first two sentences at the beginning of Chapter 1: "We take as given the idea of distinction and the idea of indication, and that one cannot make an indication without drawing a distinction. We take therefore the form of distinction for the form." This book is a carefully crafted and beautifully written account of how the act of imagining a distinction gives rise to worlds of multiplicity from a unity where no distinction is actually possible. The first mathematics that so arises is remarkably close to the boolean mathematics with which all logicians, engineers and philosphers are familiar. Once discovered it is easy to exhibit. Let < > stand for a typographical distinction between outside < inside > outside. Note that in imagining distinctions using linear typography, one must make extra cuts between right and left. Drawing circles in the plane is easier (and C. S. Peirce did this long before Spencer-Brown). Spencer-Brown uses a planar notation that is simple to write and less easy to type. In any case, we make a mathematics from the distinction < >. Think of < > as an "elementary particle" that can interact with itself in two ways. 1. It can interact with itself and produce itself, or it can produce two copies of itself from itself. < > ----- < > < > Read the dotted line in either direction. 2. It can interact with itself to cancel to nothing, or a pair of two copies of the particle can emerge from nothing. < < > > ----- Yes that's nothing on the right hand side, but maybe you would like a symbol for nothing. Ok. Let # stand for nothing. This means that you can erase # or put it in whenever you want to, and that means anywhere. Then we have < < > > ----- # With these modes of particle interaction we have an arithmetic of distinctions. For example < < > < > > -----< < > > ----- # The patterns of this arithmetic have their own algebra, and when one makes the critical distinction between < > as an operator, and < > as a value, this algebra gives rise to the patterns of boolean algebra. There is much more, but the key point is the simplicity of this approach. This simplicity can be applied to many complex systems to locate the key patterns that make them tick. The mark < > is itself an imaginary boolean value. At the outset the mark could be any imagined distinction at all, and the reader will have to ask how those distinctions managed to appear so solid and real. Two marks in a line do not create an inside and an outside. You the reader accomplished that trick. Then again, the mark was not boolean until the context became boolean, and operators separated from operands. This separation is a departure from the beginning. Later considerations in Chapter 11 of Laws of Form about imaginary values are related to this original imaginary state. The temporal interpretation of values i such that < i > = i calls the state of distinction into question, and either returns us to the imaginary source or propels us into temporality. Chapter 11 shows how digital circuitry has the structure of that apparently metaphysical discussion. And the theory of types? Well take a look at your Godel-Bernays set theory and realize that the usual resolution is to imagine sets and classes, with classes a bit more imaginary than sets. (A set is a member of a class. A class is never a member of anything.) The usual technical solution is to introduce imaginaries in the "right" place and to tell the users what they can say and what they cannot say. Spencer-Brown is rude enough and honest enough to admit this situation right in the beginning. There is no need for the theory of types because it is a matter of creativity just how you make your distinctions, and how you want to avoid inconsistency. How will you behave when the next new clever inconsistency in formal mathematics is discovered? A good reader of Laws of Form will be happy and ready to explore the anomaly.

In a way, George Spencer-Brown's "Laws of Form" is an elaborate math puzzle. The author has given you the bare minimum of information to figure out what the heck he is talking about; your assignment ( should you choose to accept it ) is to investigate the fields of logic, symbolic logic, Boolean logic, and set theory, to attempt to reconstruct the mathematics behind the so-called Calculus of Indications presented in the book. In my own case, it took almost seven years of occasional attention to come up with the essential idea behind the math, namely the symmetry between AND-spaces and OR-spaces. It may not take you that long.
Contrary to what some other reviewers have written, Bertrand Russell did not praise this book--he seems to have been just as baffled by it as anyone else. He did praise the ideas presented in the book, but only after Spencer-Brown met with him and explained it to him.
It seems likely that the sections of the book were developed as lecture notes to be handed out in class. Presumably the professor would tell you what he was talking about, and the handouts would be supplemental reading. Unfortunately, all that we get in the book is the supplemental reading.
When you are looking for a tool, you don't want, or need, a math puzzle. This is why the notation and concepts presented in the book have never caught on with philosophers, mathematicians and engineers in spite of their clear superiority over the techniques of syllogism logic, symbolic logic, Boolean logic and set theory.
I have had a lot of fun with this book, but you shouldn't think you're going to get a lot out of it in your first reading.
...

Yes, Spencer-Brown probably got a lot from Peirce, and yes, his "system" is isomorphic to older systems, and yes, it's NOR gates. But his notation is as elegant as you can get to express zeroth order logic, and I think his claim is correct about developing a "natural" arithmetic for logic.

He manages to derive logic from something more primitive (2 rules about how to get the first glimmer of something out of nothingness), and then rightly points out that the derivation had to have logic in it implicitly, that you can't "prove" logic without already using it.

I have to admire the mind that can start from nothingness, and rigorously build up the world from it, even if only a bit of the world. And reminding us that "the universe is constructed in such a manner that it can see itself".

And while some intellectual fads (and a lot of impenetrably bad writing) followed in his wake, I would not be surprised to find some responsible thinkers making better use of this material. I found an unexpected reference to it in Bortoft's monograph "Goethe's Scientific Consciousness", for instance.

Excellent and helpful information. Only down side is that Okinawa is not included in the information.

I have trusted Frommer's for years. I have never been steered wrong by any of heir publications in over 30 years. This Japan volume continuues in that tradition.

It is difficult to get really good uptodate travel books about countries in the far east. This book is good but not excellant. Just too many changes taking place especailly in countries like Japan. We found we could rely on information and data about historical landmarks and areas. Hotel and restaurant iformation changes so quickly you may be better off going to the internet.

This is a great guide book. I used it on my very first trip to Japan and it really helped me experience a lot of things that I would have never been able to find or know about on my own. I traveled with a friend that is Japanese and there were things in this book that they didn't even know about. The maps of the cities are also accurate, which is a big help. My other travel partner had another book from a different publisher and it only listed pictures and locations about things to do. It didn't have maps or directions. I think that is what puts this product ahead of the others.

I had high hopes for this guide given Frommer's reputation for quality guidebooks that are slightly more upmarket than Lonely Planet. But, the paper quality is like cheap paperbacks in checkout aisles, there are no illustations/photographs, and the writers insert too much of their personality and preferences in the writing (at times the guide reads like a feminist critique of Japan). And there are few maps, which were difficult to read (colors would have been nice).

I really enjoyed this book. When I read the description I was thinking Wow! This is going to be a good one & it sure was. The storyline was just incredible. I just can't imagine. My heart went out to all of them. The first half of this book was awesome but then I felt that it was kind of dragged out. I still enjoyed it but it was just a bit slow for me.

This was my 3rd LaVyrle Spencer book & I love her style of writing. I would certainly recommend this book.

A very powerful story - emotionally moving. The characters are well-developed - the emotions realistic. Childhoold sweethearts Laura and Rye face conflicting emotions when they Rye returns from sea after believed to be dead. Laura has married their close childhood friend Dan for the past 4-5 years, believing that Rye is dead. The two lovers struggle to get back together. Laura has borne Rye's son and Dan, her husband fears losing her back to Rye. Laura is conflicted between the two men - duty and gratitude towards Dan, love & passion twds Rye but how to choose between them? This tale is bittersweet. A very good read.

Spencer writes a different story every time--that's what I love about her. Or should I be speaking in past tense--loved about her. She never wrote sequels. What she does is quite unique. She writes a story surrounding the journey of two people's relationship from the time they meet--through the conflict--and on to the ever necessary happy ending.

In this one, the happy ending comes, but not without the tears and pain. How she manages this is heart wrenching. Yes, I was a bit bugged by Laura for not standing up for her feelings and for staying with Dan out of gratitude, but as you read, you tend to put yourself in her position and wonder what you would do and how you would feel. *SPOILER* Her child loved one man as his father. How can you tear apart father and son? But then again, how can you keep another man from ever knowing the love of his child? A painful decision.

This is one to be read again and again and again. How you come to love both men will make you cry out of anquish and joy.

The concept of a husband long suspected lost at sea returning to find his wife married to his best friend is certainly an interesting concept, but ultimately, I feel, this story falls short of its potential. I did not feel sympathy for Laura and felt that her character was weak and did not inspire empathy or compassion. Rye, while I felt sorry and empathized with his situation, was rather annoyed by his lack of respect for the Laura-Dan situation. In the end, I liked Dan best of all and felt that he conducted himself the best given the situation, and actively felt sorry for the man. Not really how you want to end a novel, feeling sorry for a man other than the hero!

I wanted to love this..I really did, but I just COULD NOT STAND Laura. I felt that she was playing both Rye and Dan. I disliked her so much that I didnt think she deserved either of them. The writing was pretty good and I thought that the idea for the story was an interesting one, but I just couldnt connect with the characters. One thing that I really did LOVE about this book though were the flashbacks of Laura and Rye discovering eachother and falling in love when they were young...in my opinion, no one can write sexual tension like Lavyrle Spencer. All in all, not bad, but not to die for either.... for a book by Ms Spencer, I thought this was woefully average.

This book is in poor humor. It is intended to be a comic parody of the book "Who Moved My Cheese." I found it to be gross and disgusting. Buyer Beware!!!

Yes, it is a parody of "Who Moved My Cheese". But buy this book only if you are looking to read juvenile bathroom humor, or worse, humor that is sexist and crass.

a second star is given for the two times it made me chuckle. but if you're trying to decide wether to spend your 13 dollars on this book or in the diner down the street on a cheeseburger and a strawberry shake, opt for the cheeseburger.

unless you are a fan of fart jokes and toilet humor, which i haven't found funny since the age of 9, don't buy this book. there's simply not much there.

Mason Brown's parody only occasionally uses "toilet humor"; vulgarity is used no more than any other literary device in this short volume. Rather, the whole point of Brown's writing is to expose how extended and simple-minded allegories are used to smuggle into a conversation indefensible premises. Flatulence is only one of many unpleasant implications of the WHO STOLE MY CHEESE? allegory. Brown shows what would happen if people in real life fully accepted the premises of American corporate culture: cutthroat competition, the acceptance of any "change" authority hands out, and the cult of the CEO. The painful passages are not about gassy diets but at the end where the references to HEART OF DARKNESS as middle management jerks cut each other down and tear down civilization.

In addition to "vulgarity" and sophistication, there are nice subtle touches, such as sly references to real life corporate disasters like Long Term Capital and Swedish Match Company. Brown is listed as the author of fictional books teaching the same quick fix cutthroat lessons of corporate business for other parts of life; my favorite is: CRY WOLF AND WIN! HOW TO FALSELY ACCUSE RELATIVES OF MOLESTATION AND GAIN ATTENTION AND SYMPATHY. Brown shows us that such immoral tactics are the ultimate meaning of the Jack Welch Way.

WHO CUT THE CHEESE? is, in short, a brilliant morality tale for our times.
By the way, someone should tell Amazon that the Forward's author, Krubenaker, is not a real person.

My boss forced me to read the original, and it practically killed me.

This book took some of the pain away (though not the recurring nightmares).

As for some reviewers charges of "crudeness" and ethnic stereotyping, I found Brown's coarser jokes to be a refreshingly politically incorrect tonic. It's also what I would expect from the managing editor of National Lampoon. Funny and edgy.

I also liked the parallels to "Heart of Darkness," and the progression into madness and death, but maybe that's reading too much into a parody book with a fart pun for a title.

This is a review of the Books On Tape Audio version of Cubicles. The book is narrated by full cast (a different person narrating the three main characters). The narration is spectacular. All three characters, Joyce, Margaret and Faulkner have very separate voices, personalities, and ages. The actresses who do the narration are not listed on the jacket but if you can get a copy of the audio version of this book, you will not be dissapointed.

I would not necessarily have taken this book out of the library (as it is a Griot book which is targeted to an African-American audience, which I am not) but picked it up because the premise was one I could relate to. Once I started listening to the story, I couldn't wait to get back into the car to hear more.

The other reviews summarize the plot very well - 3 different women work for a phone company in Texas - all in customer service. Margaret, an older woman in her 50's, is still in the same job she's held her entire career; Joyce has risen the corporate ladder to executive and Faulkner is a rising star and on her way to take over Joyce's job.

Margaret is actually the most interesting character of the three women. She has health problems and children problems and doesn't really put herself first, which does cause even more problems for her.

Faulkner is bright and likeable and ambitious but in a "good" way - she's not too ambitious - she's not cutthroat or devious. She is a good daughter, a good worker, probably every parent's dream.

Joyce is the villian of the novel - she is portrayed as manipulative, evil, and aggressively bitchy - however, she does have a deep dark secret (that actually is relatively easy to figure out earlier in the book). There is one relationship that comes with Joyce's story that did take me by surprise but the wrap up of her ending is why I've given the book only 4 stars instead of 5. Didn't ring quite true.

If you've not been able to get through the written book, try the audio version. Highly recommended.

Camika Spencer's new book takes us into the world of Faulkner, Joyce & Margaret. All three women work together at Meridian Southwest phone company.

Faulkner is young and ready to climb the corporat ladder, but what price may she have to pay to get to the top?

Joyce and Margaret share a secret that takes them back 20 years. What happened to make them barely even acknowledge one another?

Camika Spencer gives us a look of the personal and professional lives of these three women. She writes a realistic story and I realy felt like I knew these women.

Continued success and blessings to Camika Spencer.

I read another one of Spencer's books and I enjoyed the character Ms. Coleman so much that when I saw her in another book, I couldn't get to the register fast enough. But this book was a little too dreamy for me. It started off with a really strong plot with a woman who was working at a job she didn't enjoy, without the recognition she deserved, a devil for a boss, and some really entertaining co-workers. I even enjoyed the subtle ways that the author told women to do monthly checks for cancer and the doctor's visit, etc. It was useful, whether we wanted to know it or not and it needed to be told. But then after one bad thing happened (that was pretty realistic and caught me offguard a little), then the rest turned into LaLa land. I'm not really enthused when authors write books about people who become writers. It's a little cliche. Then, to become a bestseller with a line around the corner, people getting married, people buying houses, people having children out of nowhere, graduating, and all--it would've been cool if it was two or three things, but the writer went over the top and almost made this book into a fairy tale. I'm not into fairy tales. I'm into real life and in real life, this kinda stuff never works out this squeaky clean. Ms. Coleman was real. Margaret was real. Joyce was real. Teresa was a pleasure to read about. But the main character, the most important character in the whole story, was just way too storybook for me. I like that she didn't give in to certain circumstances, but the ending? If it wasn't for the ending, I probably would've liked the book more. Also, the constant Nino Symone references. We get it! You like the woman. It's no need to point it out fifty times. This is supposed to be fiction, right? Either way, I still like this writer's style; this particular book just wasn't for me.

The beginning of this book was slow and as soon as it caught my attention, the action happened so briefly and suddenly that the book was over not having quenched my curiosity.
Camika C. Spencer left several questions unanswered regarding the characters in this novel. Not as developed as I would have appreciated, Faulkner, Joyce, and Margaret were great central characters, however there was a relationship between the three ladies that was not clearly developed. I could understand the history of the relationships between Joyce and Margaret, and Joyce and Faulkner, however the relationship between Margaret and Faulkner was not clearly developed only stated.
I loved the irony created in the character of Joyce, this character was brilliantly developed, but poorly ended. The great strategist simply gave up without a fight.
Faulkner and Margaret were a predictable characters. I could imagine their ending as soon as Spencer set the plot in place.

The short chapters disrupted the flow of the book. There was one chapter regarding Margaret that was out of sequence that runied the ending. I would have liked for Spencer to have taken more time to complete this book before publishing.

I would like to try more of Spencer's work, hoping that she can expand on a great story line by pulling the reader's deeper into the characters creating a little intrigue and surprise in the endings.

Cubicles is a novel that has a great premise: drama in the workplace. The book focuses on three women at the Meridian Southwest phone company: Faulkner, an ambitious young manager; Joyce, her hard-nosed, power hungry boss; and Margaret, the motherly employee who has nurtured both women as she watched them rise to power -- while standing still herself. What I enjoyed about the novel is that as women, Faulkner, Joyce and Margaret each have their own strengths and weaknesses, and strive to accomplish their own goals. Camika Spencer illustrates that these ladies have personal lives outside the workplace, which definitely have an effect on their workplace demeanor. Faulkner appears to be a pushover; Joyce is battling demons from her past; and Margaret has a lazy, self-absorbed daughter. Although the book can be a little tedious at times and the dialogue a little stilted, Cubicles is definitely an excellent take on workplace fiction.