Wood Books

This author takes the time to not only share the experience of the practical practice of yoga poses, but also shares the deeply spiritual side as well. She advises how to experience yoga in a fuller way with breath and spirit, all the while promoting the splendid side effects that yoga has on day to day life events. I found the book easy to read and instantly developed an intimate, friendly relationship with the author's style. I would recommend this book to novice and proficient yogi's alike -it will wake up your practice in a beneficial way.

This is an easy to read, experiential and practical book. I used many of the practices described in this book in my daily life and have seen positive results. The lay out of the book makes locating what I am interested in easy. I really like all the personal stroies within the context as well as all the educational material. Thank you for this wonderful book.

i have at least 30 yoga books on my book shelf. if i had to take one of them to the proverbial desert island empowering your life would be my pick. its different in a very good way. its not just poses but poses in action in life. the stories of poses in action are very, very inspirations. bliss wood lives the life that she writes about. i just love this book and pick it up any time i need inspiration.

This is a wonderful book. Bliss Wood's writing is at once intimate, down to earth, and practical. For example, throughout the book she has included quotes from both her own journal, and from those of friends, family, and students. Often those quotes really brought home the idea of integrating yoga into one's life, but not in some sterile theoretical way, but rather from the perspective of very real day to day living.

The book is written in two parts. The first part describes what empowered living is, while the second part describes the path to empowered living through Patanjali's eight limbed path of yoga. Again, what I especially liked was Bliss's fresh perspective on this eight limbed path - intimate, down to earth, and practical.

Throughout the book Bliss emphasizes looking within yourself to find what is right for you, rather than trying to live by some arbitrary standard. Also, at the end of each chapter she concludes with an asana, a real life story, a journaling exercise, mantras for daily living, and closing thoughts or questions that really bring the whole chapter home to one's daily life.

One other aspect of the book that I really liked was the emphasis on how one's physical yoga practice (through asanas) provides a guide into other aspects of yoga, and how important it is therefore, to pay attention to your body and listen to it during one's asana practice.

Bottom line is this is an easy to read, wonderful little book that really brings yoga concepts into one's daily life in both an intimate and practical way.

Expand The Pie is a useful and practical book for anyone involved in any kind of negotiation. I've found it to be extremely helpful in both business and personal situations.

.Excellent ...

Over twenty years ago, Roger Fisher and William Ury published a thin volume entitled Getting to YES and immediately and fundamentally changed the field of negotiations. They called their new approach "principled negotiations" and its central tenets are taught and practiced throughout the world, often labeled as "interest-based," "win-win" or "collaborative" negotiations.

In their work, Fisher and Ury recognized that one of the greatest weaknesses in the traditional positional approach to negotiations was that it operated on "... the assumption of a fixed pie" (Getting to YES, p. 58). Negotiators in this setting spent their resources on dividing it.

Fisher and Ury then postulated that if negotiators turned from positions to focusing on the interests of the parties and then worked together to seek creative options to satisfy those interests, negotiations offered an unlimited potential for adding value for all the parties. It was a true break through.

"How you negotiate may determine," Fisher and Ury wrote, "whether the pie is expanded or merely divided" (Getting to YES, p.177). Their approach offered the promise of changing negotiations from a zero-sum game to a collaborative effort to create new value.

When Fisher and Ury published Getting to YES in 1981, it was far more than a theoretical treatise. Their work provided multiple examples of negotiating situations and interactions to illustrate their approach.

In the two decades that have passed since their book appeared, however, author after author has written a primer on how to do collaborative negotiations. Training programs have abounded on the subject.

Why, then, the reader might ask, is yet another book on how to achieve the promise of the collaborative approach important. It is vital because negotiators continue to struggle with practicing the concept.

Expand the Pie uses the experiences of its three authors in consulting, training and coaching to teach the reader "what to say and do" on order to successfully practice collaborative negotiations (Expand, p.2). Two of the authors of this companion piece to Getting to YES, Grande Lum and Irma Tyler-Wood, were students of Professor Fisher. Fisher calls Expand the Pie "...perhaps the most useful book you will find"(Expand the Pie, p.i). This reviewer fully concurs.

At it's core, collaborative negotiating requires careful and thorough preparation, an orchestrated process towards clearly defined objectives during the negotiations and the patience and skill to keep the participants focused on creating value. Expand the Pie provides a tested, clear and easily understandable step-by-step guide to the process. I am convinced you can become truly a successful collaborative negotiating leader by using this complementary volume to Getting to YES.

The key to collaborative negotiating is clear in the Getting to YES and reinforced by the authors of Expand the Pie. "Prepare, then prepare some more, and finally, prepare again" (Expand the Pie, p.185). This said, what do we need to know?

The writers begin by focusing on the key elements of the negotiation and introduce a preparation model they call ICON, standing for Interests, Criteria, Options, and No agreement alternatives. It is these elements that the negotiator must explore in detail to ready themselves for negotiations.

Using their model, the authors clearly define and discuss the importance of each of the elements and offer solid suggestions on how to prepare fully. We follow real negotiating cases, use simple negotiating worksheets and encounter quick summations and review questions at the end of each chapter as we move along. It is a brilliantly constructed self-learning approach.

When the first section is completed, the reader will have identified the interests of all the stakeholders, prioritized them and tagged complementary and opposing interest clusters. Also, the reader will have searched for potential options, identified criteria that might be used to evaluate various options and analyzed their position and alternatives in the event that no agreement is concluded.

Having planned the basic elements of the negotiation, the reader moves to the next section on formulating a strategy for conducting the negotiation in a collaborative manner. The authors present another organizing device for this phase that they call the 4D Process: Design, Dig, Develop and Decide. At this stage, the reader is setting goals for the negotiations, devising methods to probe for interests and brainstorm for creative options and learning to develop decisions through a variety of interim steps.

Once again, the reader examines accounts of actual negotiations, explores clear expositions of the essential steps in each process and employs negotiating worksheets and review questions to reinforce the learning process. It is practical and clear direction that the reader will find absolutely on target.

Finally, recognizing that even the most carefully planned negotiation may go astray, the authors address a litany of "difficult tactics" the negotiator may encounter and offer a strategy for dealing with each of these ploys and tricks. Additionally and importantly, they focus their strategies beyond merely countering these tactics and give the reader some solid ways to redirect the negotiation back to a collaborative format. The redirection advice is particularly valuable.

You will find much more in this book including some valuable observations on the nature of negotiations in general. The authors correctly point out, for example, that "the reality of negotiating is that the parties involved are advocates for their interests or the interests of their organization" (Expand the Pie, p. 142). As advocates, negotiators, of course, owe it to themselves and their organizations to "aim for the best possible agreement" (Expand the Pie, p. 139). Implicit in that need are the two key messages of this book:
"Until you create value, any price is too high," that is, expanding the pie (Expand the Pie, p.64)
"Prepare, then prepare ... (Expand the Pie, p.185).

Expand The Pie will show you how to negotiate, guide you as you do it and pay-off in creating more value in your negotiations. It is not just a follow-on book, but a true companion piece to its intellectual wellspring.

I strongly recommend it.

John D. Baker, Editor
The Negotiator Magazine

Collaboratively written by professional business negotiators Grande Lum, Irma Tyler-Wood and Anthony Wanis-St. John, Expand The Pie: How To Create More Value In Any Negotiation is a straightforward and "user friendly" guide to improving one's skill at negotiation and bargaining. Individual chapters cogently address the importance of abandoning preconceptions and readying oneself before approaching the negotiation table; the 4D process (Design, Dig, Develop and Decide) to see discussion through to closure; using objective standards; and much more. An excellent self-help guide useful in both business and daily life, Expand The Pie is especially recommended for those new to negotiating business contracts.

Collaboratively written by professional business negotiators Grande Lum, Irma Tyler-Wood and Anthony Wanis-St. John, Expand the Pie: How To Create More Value In Any Negotiation is a straightforward and "user friendly" guide to improving one's skill at negotiation and bargaining. Individual chapters cogently address the importance of abandoning preconceptions and readying oneself before approaching the negotiation table; the 4D process (Design, Dig, Develop and Decide) to see discussion through to closure; using objective standards; and much more. An excellent self-help guide useful in both business and daily life, Expand The Pie is especially recommended for those new to negotiating business contracts.

Once the thesis that Santos are art "is established and proved, the word comes alive, the image reveals itself in all its splendor, its meanings and power amplified, and the reader, who now believes in the beauty and expressiveness of the Santos and is able to participate in the enjoyment of them, wants to continue the 'fiesta', to inhabit for a while longer the temple that the book has built for the carvings." (From comments by Antonio Martorell, artist and professor at the University of Puerto Rico, delivered at the Museum of Puerto Rican Art on June 25th, 2003.)

"Is it possible to take advantage of the extraordinary conceptual development of the euro-centric academic disciplines...in order to study...the 'art of the other' (be it in terms of civilizations such as non-european or in socioeconomic terms such as the rural or 'popular')? Irene Curbelo's book represents "the most important Puerto Rican contribution to this incandescent international debate." (From comments by A.G. Quintero Rivera, sociologist and professor at the University of Puerto Rico, delivered at the Museum of Puerto Rican Art on June 25th, 2003).

"In this bilingual edition, with magnificent illustrations, Irene Curbelo questions the way a work of art that obeys canons different from those accepted traditionally in european art is judged and evaluated...In Chapter V, titled Understanding the Santos, this scholar contributes powerfully to increase...the pleasure that contemporary art lovers feel when viewing the Santos...It offers a fascinating account of the whole artistic vocabulary constructed in terms of their function...The reading of this chapter offers an opportunity to observe the Santos more closely as it analyzes the elements that particularize them. It clarifies the ways in which the artists interpreted their world and utilized their artistic materials expressively...As a result, these pieces acquire an expressive value that places them on an artistic plane well beyond the mere artifact." (translated excerpts from the literary review by Carmen Dolores Hernandez published in San Juan by El Nuevo Dia, June 8, 2003, pg. 14).

For anyone interested in art (not only in Puerto Rican art, but in learning to read a work of art in general) this is a marvelous book. The language is straightforward and concise, managing to convey a complicated subject matter with refreshing clarity. The santos -- charming, colorful, whimsical -- make an interesting case study. They also grant us insight into the character, religious and otherwise, of the 18th and 19th century Puerto Rican. The historical background of the santos and the folklore surrounding them make for very engaging reading. The book is well-illustrated by many period photographs.

It sounds crazy, but Carter really did a good job of capturing these horses' feelings. What's more, is that he photographed them so well. This is a must have for horse lovers and for people that are wanting a great coffee table addition.

You'll love this.

iKnow

Whoa! No one can begin to describe Keith Carter's style and vision. You have to experience it. It's not just what he sees, it's how he renders it, making it new and timeless too. This is a book you'll want to open often.

i admit i was skeptic when i first heard about this book, and i had no intentions of buying it. i'm not that crazy about horses. but i got a look at an advanced copy, and i saw the the work was just beautiful and i had to have it. be sure to look at orange tree and nude and arabian, which are my two favorite pictures.

I appreciate a good horse as much as the next guy. Looking at horses through Keith's eyes makes me love them. I'm not going to run out and buy tight pants and a helmet because of this book, but you get the idea. The images are well made and seen. Not all of the pictures have the tilt-shift look which has been overdone so that's good. The layout is great. A square book for a square image. Keith's little ditty about Ezekiel's Horse is a warm piece of writing. If you're a Keith Carter fan, buy the book. If you like horses, buy the book. If your interested in photography, buy the book. If your name is Mr. Ed, look for your portrait on page 29, then call your lawyer.

This is an excellent resource book. In our school, we use Lucy Caulkins Units of Study. First Grade Writers is a great companion book for Caulkins' work. It starts with building a community of writers and pattern books. The children are so successful and it is easily differentiated. This is a book that you will continually revisit throughout years.
A must have for first grade teachers!

I love this book! I have been teaching first grade for eight years, and this book really addresses first grade writers as they truely are. It has some wonderful, concrete ideas for improving their writing. I especially like the suggestions of Read Aloud titles to teach specific writing points.

Stephanie Parsons' book speaks directly to teachers. It explains the thinking behind a writing workshop - what we need to understand in order to set our own goals for our students and to plan and organise successful units of study. I love the way she has provided a consistent framework for the development of each unit of study; this so helps my own planning and then develops each part of the framework giving examples of possible teaching points. I have recommended this book to every First Grade teacher I know.

This is a helpful guide for First Grade teachers who want to incorporate the writing process into their classroom. The information is clear and well-organized and follows the flow of the school year.

Captivating, poetic, descriptions of the fundamental machinery of the green world. Here is a chance to learn to see anew and to reverence this natural world which we have bruised so nearly to death.

Every so often there is a book that is worth reading simply for the pleasure of the words in it, separate from whatever the author is trying to say or tell the reader. This is such a book. The effect is akin to being immersed in the depths of a symphony of words. Otherwise Peattie does an excellent job of explaining the evolution and development of the earths flowering plants. His writing is easily understood and opens botany to the more or less uninformed reader. Read this book for pleasure or for information. You will be pleased you sampled it. This is my second copy. I lent the first out and lost a friend to the book

Another classic from the great writer/naturalist.This is Peattie's non-technical history of flowering plants,beautifuly written and highly educational,but you don't need to have a degree in botany to understand it.Highly recomended for all nature lovers.

In this distinguished history of the plant kingdom, Donald Culross Peattie, botanist and nature writer extraordinaire, imaginatively demonstrates that the fates of all living things are bound together. This is nature writing at its best. In the intervening years since this book was written, scientists have made many new discoveries, but few nature writers have surpassed the stylistic beauty and illuminative insight displayed by the author in Flowering Earth. I recommend it to anyone interested in nature. The thoughts expressed are timeless

This is a beautiful book! It provides ecological information that a child can understand. It has a strong message and is entertaining as well as educational. It has beatiful watercolor paintings and a compelling storyline. Enjoyable for parents and children.

It tells how hard the life of birds can be. I especially liked how it told about the cowbird who came and took one egg away because that tells the way cowbirds are. I liked how the children gaves names to the woodthrushes.

When I began writing Flute's Journey, I was going to put Flute in the woods at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center where I was then artist-in-residence. However, an ornithologist friend said, "put Flute in the Belt Woods!" "What's the Belt woods?" I asked. She told me it was a forest that had been owned by Seton Belt and he had willed it to a church if they agreed to never cut the trees or sell the land. But after he died, the church had the will overturned and put the land up for sale to a developer for $9 million. It's a long story, but many children wrote letters to the bishop of the church asking that they respect Seton Belt's wishes and save the land. And, I'm convinced, that it was their letters that saved Flute's home, the Belt woods. Their letters, like the following one, came from the heart: "Seton Belt trusted you. How can you go against him?" Our campaign to save the woods was covered by CBS Morning News with Charles Osgood and they mentioned Flute's Journey and the children's letters. They asked me what kids could do. I said, "they can write to the church." And so many more letters were sent. Now Belt Woods is preserved forever. Children helped to save Flute's home and children, in many ways, can make a difference in the world. Lynne Cherry

As a fifth grade science teacher in Texas, one of our objectives is for students to understand the difference between learned and inherited behaviors. Flute's Journey accomplishes this goal beautifully. From the beautiful illustrations to the lyrical text, the students are drawn in to the life of a woodthrush. As I read the book to them, they were to write down in one column the learned traits they saw/heard, and the inherited traits in another. They were enthralled with the story, and were amazed at how many examples there were in this one book of each type of behavior. Even though this book is listed for the lower primary grades, I highly recommend it for any science class studying learned and instinctual behaviors.

I found this story to be a nice gentle story of perseverance and friendship. For children facing a lifetime of being "different" on the outside, this story shows how much we all are alike inside.

Everyone should have the opportunity to believe in their own ability to accomplish a dream. With Flying Frog Circus, you not only become a friend of Mona living in the Land of Ican, you identify your own need to go after your dream. It is better to be included and fail, then to be excluded and not given the opportunity.

This is an excellent children's book. Children learn that they can accomplish anything if they have the right attitude. This is a rare and wonderful book about a unique group of children, each child with a disability, who discover that they can succeed if they just believe in themselves. It's a wonderful perspective that every child should see.

It allows disadvantaged children the courage to both look for and find their place in a world which they have felt left out of. In the land of ICAN everything is possible!!!!!! All children need to know this truth. The Flying Frog Circus helps show them the way.

Forbidden Fortune was the June selection for our local book club. It's geared towards young adults, but we (as 30-somethings) all really enjoyed it! Great story and well-written...kind of reminded me of the Hardy Boys series.

Forbidden Fortune is a gripping story that will draw you in and encapsulate your attention, while bringing back the excitement of childhood adventures and imagination. Cleverly written to keep the reader from ever putting it down, Forbidden Fortune will be enjoyed and cherished by readers, both young and old. Highly recommended for a "family read" around the fireplace, the audience will not want the story to end.

Reviewed by Debra Gaynor for ReviewYourBook.com, 3/08
Elk Grove was a small quiet town, but even small towns can have legends. Louis Mattour was part of the Louis and Clark expedition. According to the legend, Mattour hid gold in an unidentified cave. He sent a crude map and description to his sister. No one ever heard from him again. In 1957, three young boys disappeared. It was rumored they had been hunting for the missing treasure.
Years later an eight-year-old boy and two ten year old boys wander into a cave. Rising water and an explosion trapped them threatening their survival.
Forbidden Fortune: The Legend of the Frenchman's Gold by Danny Alvin Chambers is a journey sure to please most young adults. The adventure involves hidden treasure, caves, and skeletons. The relationship between the boys and their grandfather is heartwarming. The story concerning Hank was touching and brought tears to my eyes. Chambers is a gifted author capable of weaving the threads of the plot into a thrilling escapade. Forbidden Fortune: The Legend of the Frenchman's Gold is suitable for children ages 7-14. This would make a great book for high interest/low level students. More books of this caliber are needed. Books should stimulate the student making reading a pleasure not a chore. Well done Mr. Chambers.

Louis Mattour, Frenchman and quartermaster for the famed Lewis and Clark Expedition across the wilderness of the Louisiana Purchase in early nineteenth century, traded with Indians for gold, then hid in it in a cave before vanishing without a trace - or so the legend goes. "Forbidden Fortune: The Legend of the Frenchman's Gold" is the story of how several people, a century and a half after, pursue the mysterious Frenchman's loot, even after people mysteriously vanish searching for it. It's the 1980s, and one stranger rolling into town believes he has the secret for finding the treasure of Mattour - can he find it, or does he wind up like the many who failed before him? "Forbidden Fortune: The Legend of the Frenchman's Gold" is a deftly written adventure story not much like any other - highly recommended for community library fiction collections and anyone looking for a good adventure novel.

I'm not a nurse, but the accounting principles are so well presented that this book would be a useful tool to anyone responsible for a budget. I found this to be true for my own travel agent business.
The novel presentation is fascinating; a really good read!

This textbook novel draws you into the story and makes the subject of budgeting much less intimidating! The story of Angelina and her job is very personal. You feel as though you are in one of her classes! The presentation of the formulas for computing various parts of a budget is nonthreatening and easy to understand. After reading this book, I believe I can apply similar techniques to help other nurse managers understand budgeting. Take it from a from a math-phobe: This is a great book!!

This textbook novel presents essential detailed information for the beginning and experienced nurse leader in management concepts, budgeting principles and structure, and current nursing trends. The format of textbook novel also provides a guide for modeling collaborative and innovative leadership practices. On top of that- it's also a good read. Not to be missed!

This is a Great book for Nurse Managers and Leaders who need education about accounting and budgets. I had no previous experience in the area, but after reading and working through the book I feel I will become a great Nurse Manager. This book makes a usually dull subject interesting because it also tells a story. I highly recommend this book!!