Resources Books

This book, "Dawn After Dark," is a discussion between an acclaimed French art critic, writer and expert on French painting, René Huyghe, a member of the Académie Français, and an international Buddhist leader, Daisaku Ikeda. The dialogue aims at gaining an overall perspective on humanity's current predicaments and the reforms needed to move forward and avert disaster.

To paraphrase Huyghe's introduction, never before has humanity had to face problems on so vast a scale as those confronting us today. Until recent times, human groups had no interest in knowing anything but their own needs, customs and beliefs. Rejecting or ignoring the beliefs of others, they attempted to enforce their own set of values wherever they went. Today, a more universal awareness is emerging. Humanity has come to realize that it is essential to examine the characteristics, causes and effects of current problems and to establish reforms to avert them.

In this book, Huyghe and Ikeda bring together and compare ways of thought from opposite sides of the world, France and Japan. Through an objective comparison of traditions, cultures, and religions from East and West, they provide us with a global view of problems at hand.

Their discussion is divided into five parts. In the first, the nature of the varous dilemma we confront is exposed and shown to be first and foremost a moral crisis. The second part points to its historical roots, and the third investigates the changes that humanity is now undergoing, the social tasks before us and what is needed from within ourselves to build a new, more peaceful society.

The fourth part turns to solutions - the key to harmony in life and the means to reform the inner lives of human beings. Part five discusses major resources for peace that are uniquely human, art and religion, which are linked by a sense of the sacred. With their distinct but complementary viewpoints, Huyghe and Ikeda take different paths that eventually converge to illuminate the increasingly complex world in which we live with clarity and profound optimism.

Tina Turner is the reason I found this book, and all others by Daisaku Ikeda, president of the Soka Gakkai International. After hearing Tina Turner speak about her Buddhist practice in interviews, and hearing her give credit to Buddhism for her happiness and in life, I decided to look further into it myself.

Tina mentioned Daisaku Ikeda as the person who brought Nichiren Daishonin's Buddhism, the practice of Nam-myoho-renge-kyo, to America. This is the Buddhist practice to which Tina attributes her spiritual fulfillment and strength. Thanks to Tina's explanations, I was able to locate the Soka Gakkai International and from there I discovered many profound, inspirational and educational writings by Daisaku Ikeda. This book is just one of Mr. Ikeda's many contributions to further the understanding of Buddhist principles and their application in every day life.

I highly recommend that anyone interested in the Buddhist practice of Nam-myoho-renge-kyo read the writings of Daisaku Ikeda to learn more about Nichiren Daishonin's Buddhism.

In this book, Rene Huyghe, writer of dozens of books on Art, Art History and Collections, one of Europe's great intellectual masters of the Art World, meets with Daisaku Ikeda, writer of dozens of books on philosophy and Buddhism, one of the world's great Buddhist leaders.

Throught their exchanges, we learn not only about each man and his fields of expertise, but about the wisdom each has gained by their keen observations of life itself - through their fields of expertise, and well as their incredibly rich and diverse sets of experiences. Both men have lived through the untold horrors of war, both know that Art and Culture holds keys to leading humanity toward a new "Dawn After Dark."

In this book, Rene Huyghe, writer of dozens of books on Art, Art History and Collections, one of Europe's great intellectual masters of the Art World, meets with Daisaku Ikeda, writer of dozens of books on philosophy and Buddhism, one of the world's great Buddhist leaders. Throught their exchanges, we learn not only about each man and his fields of expertise, but about the wisdom each has gained by their keen observations of life itself - through their fields of expertise, and well as their incredibly rich and diverse sets of experiences. Both men have lived through the untold horrors of war, both know that Art and Culture holds keys to leading humanity toward a new "Dawn After Dark."

Minister Redd has done a superb job breaking down a subject that is not often taught or preached in our churches. This book is filled with the Word of God and it will allow you to search the Scriptures for yourself. It is imperative that leaders and layman alike get this book and read it personnally and then use it to glean information that can be taught in small or large groups. Well done!

This book will change your life forever. For new revelation knowledge it's a must read.

This book is very informing. It may be used a great tool for bible study and discussion. It has plenty of scripture to support the statements of the author, which is GREAT because it keeps you in God's Word. Unlike other books of this genre, it is less opinionated but presents the truth in an interesting manner. A MUST READ!!

If you are looking for a book that will provide you with nothing but the truth, then this is the one. There are a lot of books out there written by many people that are good, but this is one written by someone on the ground (so to speak). Min. Redd is a true man of God who holds nothing back when it comes to what thus sayeth the Lord.

I like the book because it isn't written in the typical format of spoon feeding you the material, in his book he provides you with the scriptual emphasis, giving you the referrence so you can open up the Word of God and see it for yourself.

Yes, Robert Finch writes with an intensity that comes with his passion for his life on the Cape Cod peninsula. But many of these essays describe creatures and natural phenomena that take place in other locales as well -- it's just that we're too busy or too apathetic to observe them. He sees. And then he tells us about his encounters, just as easily as if we're sitting across the table from him at a casual eatery.

My favorite passage is beach-oriented and describes a old cottage being overcome by natural forces: "Sand sifts slowly, like age, over everything, softening, obscuring, and finally obliterating each distinct thing into a semblance of itself and the next thing. In this sense, sand is the ultimate progressive poet, whispering, 'This chair is like this table, is like this bed, is like this sink -- and each thing is, more and more, like all the others, until finally they are all -- like me'." (p. 153) Of course! Why didn't any of the rest of us think to say or write that?

Save this volume for a time in your life when you need the peace of Nature to drape itself over you and slow down your blood pressure. These stories are worth savoring. Then go out and "see" for yourself.

Robert Finch's words not only portray the flora and fauna and geography of Cape Cod, he shows the reader what the Cape really is. Those of us who've only visited during the season and thought we "knew" the place should be ashamed. Mr. Finch is a part of the Cape, and the Cape is a part of him, and this reader can only stare in wonder at the majesty and beauty of the world he describes.

What a remarkable year this has been for writing about nature in New England. First the dazzling debut Bullough's Pond, now this thoughtful collection of essays. Can't wait to see what the fall lists have in store.

This is Robert Finch's finest work yet. His rich, visual observations of everyday nature enlighten and entertain us--- from the tiniest observation of a spider's web to the adventure of saving beached whales off the seashore. Each piece shows the how nature can connect to our often busy, technical lives and how we can not and should not ever try to break that connection.

This engaging and practical book can serve as a guide not only for trainers, but also for consultants and vendors who may lack the organizational savvy needed to navigate complex organizations. The author's emphasis on easing the entry process, building a partnership, soliciting ongoing feedback, and developing a clear evaluation plan provides a very useful framework for ongoing collaboration. The section on how to conduct interviews with potential consultants and vendors fills an important need in the field, and will undoubtedly help both trainers and contractors assess the potential for their work together and develop more meaningful and effective contracts over time.

This comprehensive handbook on outsourcing offers important prinicples and practical advice and includes a full toolkit of worksheets, checklists and charts. There is plenty of contextual background material and insightful vignettes to illustrate key ideas. The book is well organized and easy to read and follow. It is a valuable professional development resource to anyone in the training field -- novice and experienced alike.

Because of the title, Demystifying Outsourcing, I incorrectly assumed that this was a book narrowly targeted to Corporate Training Directors who are replacing in-house staff with contractors. In actuality, this book is about high level collaboration in the increasingly virtual world of business. It is equally about the art of exercising influence both internally and externally, without over-reliance on power associated with purchasing clout.

The book is logically structured so that it is both an easy read as well as a ready resource book. The author has included short, compelling case studies to illustrate her points, and the book is loaded with sample forms, checklists, and exercises such that it is a packed toolkit. As an author, Friedman shows her true colors as training professional. She ends each chapter with a review of key concepts and then encourages reflection and application through a series of prompting questions.

This book should be required reading for any professional in the HR Development industry, whether on the client or consulting side. My OD consulting career has spanned 15 years with numerous Fortune 500 companies. As I reflect on those select few client relationships where my contributions were most highly utilized, and I was most invested in my client's success, it was because of the collaborative partnership that I was able to cultivate with the client. Friedman clearly defines all aspects of such client-consulting relationships in a way that is clear and actionable. If I ever end up teaching a graduate program in HR Development, I will build around two books: Friedman's Outsourcing and Block's Flawless Consulting.

Whether you're a new Training Director - or a salty, experienced pro doesn't really matter. This is a "must have" in every Training Director's library. It clearly documents step-by-step processes associated with identifying, interviewing, contracting, and building outsource relationships. Great worksheets, thoughtful and detailed checklists - everything you need. Eliminates overlooking important details. The CD-ROM enables you to create your own tables and spreadsheets - great time saver!

This book is designed and written for higher education institutions which are considering or are engaged in distance education as a new education communications channel. The book's greatest strength is that it contains perspectives from many different individuals who are actively involved in distance education. The topics cover many different areas such as: defining distance education, implications for higher education, attraction of online distance education, future of distance education, faculty perceptions of distance education, teaching effectiveness, strategies for success, service providers for distance education, quality assurance issues, success factors, and many others.

Those in higher education will often adopt a new technology without fully investigating the potential and cost of the technology. This book has an excellent section on the benefits and disadvantages of using distance education. It is noted that distance education is not a panacea but it is another useful technology that can be used to enhance learning and meet needs of students who are not able to attend a traditional class-learning environment.

The reader was very impressed by the excellent end of chapter references. This will allow anyone who desires to investigate more fully the issues raised in the book to do so. The chapters dealing with various distance education delivery models and implementation will be useful to those who wish to move forward with this technology in their organization.

The reader highly recommends that those interested in distant education take the time to read this book before they embark on distance education. The book will help to minimize "re-inventing the wheel" and thus save time, money and effort.

This book provides an outstanding range of ideas, research, and insights into distance learning programs. The book is enlightening about how to improve distance teaching and learning, the design of these programs, their successes and failures, and how they are impacting institutions of higher education,

This is a great book for anyone considering setting up a distance learning program. The authors are even-handed in their treatment of issues that must be dealt with and provide practical advice for implementing a distance learning program.

The eyes of University Presidents and Vice-Chancellors all around the world light up as they think of those hundreds of millions of potential students out there, just waiting to pay money to study at their Universities - "If just 1% of them came here.... $$$$!!! Information Technology via the Internet and on-line delivery of our courses - will that provide the answer?" As Universities (and other educational institutions) rush to establish a presence in the "virtual" education market, often building Internet classrooms that in many cases resemble the "Field of Dreams" model - "build it and they will come" (they don't, and won't, of course) this book is a welcome steadying contribution.

Let me declare an interest before going any further - I am the author of a chapter in this book. That said, the book provides a serious collection of research articles aimed at making some early sense out of this fast-growing area. It is important to remember it is early days yet and much of the research conducted to date, and the practice, is preliminary - a problem compounded by the rapidly changing technology.

While most of the chapters in the book paint a generally optimistic picture, there are many problems, pitfalls and dilemmas identified. These range from restrictions and difficulties involved in state financing of education, through the difficulty of authenticating student work and testing of students, technological limitations, special dedication and skill attributes required in students, the suitability of some courses to remote delivery, to library strategies. This suggests that at least in the eyes of these practitioners (and most of them are) it will be far from plain sailing. Somebody needs to tell those Presidents!

There are several chapters that provide guidance in (very early) "best practice" and these present a useful if somewhat disjointed guide for those considering running such courses. Perhaps a future work could attempt to establish a "best practice" manual, although as the courses come to conform to a standard blueprint the competitive edge will blur.

For academics the book identifies many areas for additional research. These include further work in the potential take up of on-line education by both students and Universities, the influence of the isolation effect, measurement of learning achievements, and interaction of students with the technology.

Overall the book offers a very good collection of experience and research. There is much more work to be done and many more experiences to be had. Uninversity management (and many academics ) will push to move ahead - there could be a lot of fallout, but in the end is it just possible this could be the University of the future? For a small percentage of students - maybe.

I discovered Designing Powerful Training in 1999 in a graduate program on instructional design. I was a good designer before I began using this book...and it totally transformed my design ability for the better. In fact, it gave me the confidence to become a full-time instructional designer, which I have been doing ever since, and an instructional design coach.

The book focuses, in great detail, on HOW to think about design. It gives a step-by-step process for doing this. Instructional design requires discipline and this book hands it to you on a silver platter. It does NOT address in any detail how to conduct a needs assessment, how to evaluate training, how to work with graphic design, or how to create learning materials. What it focuses on, though, is superb and it has been one of the primary influences on my career today.

This book is exactly what I was looking for to design a more impactful training. I reccomend it if you are looking for a step-by-step approach to get you started.

I have been designing and presenting workshops for many years but "Designing Powerful Training: The Sequential-Iterative Model" by Michael Milano and Diane Ullius is the most crisp, clear, and concise "how to" and "why" book that I've read on the subject. Theory and practice are consistently presented hand-in-hand. I particularly like the way Milano and Ullius honor all varieties of learning styles. They do this in the design process as well as in their explanations. The result is that I felt included as a colleague and as a co-learner. The book has actually motivated me to redouble my own commitment to design training events with the same sensitivity. But what I like most is the presentation of a process that is both sequential and iterative. To me that means a process that is both disciplined and flexible, invariant yet creative. The five point model helped me recommit to the importance of paying attention up-front to writing ! out complete goals and objectives. The authors do a great job of demonstrating why this is so essential. For me, the book functions like a disciplined and experienced teacher. The method demands discipline but within that discipline there is space for spontaneity and fun.

I have been in the training profession for about 15 years and have looked for a resource like this for a long time. As a training professional I have been asked to develop training materials for numerous learning styles and levels and have struggled to interpret what my customers are needing. This book details very simply what it takes to develop training materials and how to be an effective consultant in a timely manner. I found the concepts to be extremely effective and realistic and usable. I manage a training department of 8 trainers who have tremendous training responsibilities. Because this book is such an excellent resource I purchased it for each of my training consultants and they have used it many times over. I really appreciate the creative methods detailed by the authors in creating that "powerful" training program that our customers expect.

Great reading to help connect and understand mother earth...

and not only mother earth but everything. The book offers information, reflections and activities that will help the reader appreciate everything that is around them...and I mean everything...from the stars in the sky to the cells in your body.

'Developing Ecological Consciousness' is brilliant and accessible to virtually anyone. Christopher Uhl has managed to write a book that is biologically informative and also personal, engaging, and poetic in its beauty. Through both fact and anecdote, he weaves the story of our deep interconnection with the planet and universe, and awakens in us a sense of what it really means to be human. This is an important and enjoyable read that I highly, highly recommend.

From a multitude of perspectives (student, teacher, communicator, lover of the environment), this book speaks to the reader not only on a knowledge-based, fact-oriented level, but also (and possibly more importantly) to the most basic and essential needs of humanity. These needs include compassion, understanding, sustainability, and harmony and through the book, are translated into a sense of awakening, comprehension, hope, and tools to shape a universal ideal for a world in which we all hope to live. If there were ever to be a "required life text", I can only hope that this would be it.

This book is an exceptional book covering not just ecology as a science but also the need for humans to awaken to earth's beauty, its Being, and our relationship to it. The book is not a radical environmental one where humans must go back to tribal living, but a very thought out and even carrying book. It belongs on the shelf of humanistic and transpersonal students as well as integral philosophers. The only bad thing about the book is that it is so unknown.

When I was first diagnosed with diabetes type 2, I thought I would have to give up all sweets. I had to lose weight and dreaded a diet of no sweets. This book has changed all that. It has everything - cakes, cookies, pies, candies, etc. All with low calories per serving. I have only tried a few receipes so far but they are great. This is a must have book.

Over a hundred sweet treats for diabetics use no sugar or fructose, relying on recommended sugar substitutes instead. An introduction on the pros and cons of various 'sugar substitutes' would have been nice; many of the recipes call for this generic substitute without mentioning brand names - or the fact that sucrose turns bitter under heat. Still, the recipes provide a range of options and with a little extra research, diabetics will find them easy to work with.

This is an excellent diabetic dessert cookbook. The recipes use easy to find ingredients, and are easy to follow. It also gives exhcanges.

I acquired my first copy of this book when my dad was in the hospital and was placed on dialysis and we had to make sudden and radical changes to his diet. Critical to us was that his diet required we monitor all dietary content. We were impressed with this book because listed for each recipe is a detailed breakdown of nutritional values including such things salt, iron, potassium, vitamins, calories, fat, sugar, fiber and a lot of stuff I never knew existed, but is critically important for someone on a controlled diet.

Impressed with the variety and simplicity of the recipes and the extensive use of fruit, I later got a copy so I could try some of these delights for myself. Ms. Howard must have been psychic - I like apples, nuts, berries, chocolate (carob), and bananas and I need to keep an eye on my own diet. The recipes rarely take much time but are so tasty I need to exercise control.

Included are over 100 recipes for sweet goodies, cakes, cookies and pies. This book may be the best thing to happen to someone on a restricted diet. Especially if that someone has to monitor their diet.

But that's not all, it's really good for everyone, including someone like myself with a sweet tooth who simply needs to watch calories.

Ms. Howard shows us that a restricted diet doesn't mean everything you eat has to taste like boiled cardboard! Her recipes are easy to prepare and taste great!

The Diary of Saint Maria Faustina serves as an essential reading for the followers of the Divine Mercy. The Diary should be read in order to have a better and deeper understanding of Sister Faustina's journey, as described in her four notebooks which are included in The Diary. I would recommend The Diary to all Catholics and those interested in understanding our religion.

This is a beautiful, prayer book sized leather edition of Saint Faustina's "Divine Mercy in My Soul", especially made to commemorate the First Divine Mercy Conference in Rome, April 2008. I highly recommend it to Divine Mercy lovers.

I highly recommend to anyone who loves St Faustinas Diary. The edition is compact so it easily fits into your purse which makes it much easier to take with you to Adoration. It is a collectors edition that you will cherish for a lifetime.

This is an absolutely necessary book for everyone to own and meditate on. For those truly committed to gaining a deeper understanding of Our Lord this is an essential resource.

Fast read, easy to understand concepts of church leadership being presented, seems to speak mostly to ministers. Probably could have been done in half as many pages.

This book leverages the "Leading Change" model of John Kotter in a highly effective manner within a ministry context. Paul speaks as a real leader with successful experience in coaching, equipping and releasing real leaders in the mission field.

If you have never visited an organic church this is the place to begin! And even if you have visited or belong to an organic church this is the book to help you better understand and implement the effective, yet fluid, approach to ministry that is producing so many fruitful disciples and churches. Dr. Whitesel gives an academic, practical, and applicable introduction to twelve emerging organic congregaions from across the U.S. with examples from England and Canada as well. As a pastor and former youth minister and Christian school teacher, I greatly appreciate the author's insights into philosophic background, worship style, and church growth mechanisms of these multi- and younger generational churches that are effectively reaching the post-modern thinkers. Having just spent a week with thirty other church leaders in the San Franciso area of California studying and experiencing emergent worship and ministry with Dr. Whitesel, I can say this author lives out and teaches with an authentic passion to help all Christian leaders communicate the Gospel of Jesus Christ in a culturally relevant way without marginalizing the Biblical message of redemption. Everyone interested in growing the church in a post-modern and often, post-Christian society needs to read this book!

Few in the North American church scene have as much experience with local church turnaround as Paul Borden. What makes Direct Hit so useful is that Borden addresses why turnaround is so often talked about, but so rarely achieved. He gives very clear rules about: the timing of turnaround, the role of pastors and leaders, using outside help, and the necessity of mission. Many congregations do not look to the deep issues behind why their church is the way it is. Not so with Direct Hit. Borden is up-front and passionate about his subject. A previous reviewer has put in this space a review of some other book about "Organic Church", not by Borden. There are a few typographical and syntactical errors here, but a lot fewer than his previous book Hit The Bullseye. The Appendices are worth the purchase price alone. Five stars.