United States Books

This is a wonderful book, I really enjoyed it. It reads like a novel and there is even a wonderful romance in it. It is not about the spiritual realm but about the life of this remarkable woman.

Her insight into her gift and the effect unseen forces have upon us is captivating. I like her spunk and I agree with most of her beliefs. I read the book and do feel that it will have a positive affect on whosoever reads it. If they read it with an open mind.

Whatever Lisa does in this life surely we are blessed to have her input into the spirit realm. I truly wish to see my loved ones again and to find that in the darkest place I was never alone. As a christian I have no trouble believing that God uses many people and ways to reveal Himself.

A very good read.

I really enjoyed reading about Lisa. She is an amazing person and very down to earth. Got to see her in person in May and enjoyed that a lot. Would love to have a reading with her.

An easy read and a delightful self written story of a young woman born with the gift of a medium maturing and following in the footsteps of her grandmother who was a well known medium in England.
T. S. in Decatur, GA

I loved reading about Lisa Williams and how she came to be where she is today. I have watched her on TV and I love her energies and caring personna. Hope to see more of her on TV.

After reading this book and then seeing Lisa in Nashville on July 19th (and finding out yesterday that no one other than country-music legend Johnny Cash came through at that event, held at the Ryman Auditorium where he and June Carter Cash, who also came through that night along with his first wife, had performed countless times- his daughter was in the audience and got read, but no one there at that time, including Lisa, knew who they were during the reading!!!), I can say that Lisa is the real thing when it comes to psychic mediums. She is such a bright light, full of love and healing for those with open minds and hearts, I highly recommend this book, her website, and most certainly seeing her in person. My husband and I drove 3 hours to see her, and he WAS a skeptic- until his mother, her mother and his two great-aunts came through. Plus, he is a HUGE Johnny Cash fan, and I couldn't wait to tell him what I had learned from reading Lisa's blog, that she found out what family she had been reading for after the show, during the book-signing meet-and-hug. She was oblivious as the rest of us during the reading and was truly star-struck to find out what a legend had honored us with his presence that night. I just love her and want to assure the rest of you out there who hold Lisa dear that she said another tv show is on the way, a "daily show", network and details to be announced (watch her website!!!).

Now, get the book and find out for yourself. Enjoy reading with an open mind and open heart and life just might hold some surprise gifts for you, too! Blessings, SS

I can't tell you how much of an impact this book has had on me. I'm also a daughter caring for her mother and it was almost like I was reading my own thoughts. It was just so extremely comforting to know that I'm not alone with the thoughts and emotions I'm experiencing as my mom fades further and further away from me as Alzheimer's takes over. She's in the later stages of that dreadful disease now. This book was written with such honesty and raw emotion. It has greatly heartened me to know that maybe some of my own thoughts aren't so bizarre after all, and that maybe I really can make it through this without completely losing myself along the way. Thank you so much, Carol, for sharing this part of your life with us. You are truly a gem! I wholeheartedly recommend this book.

I have given this book to friends and recommended it to others who are steering the difficult passage as caregiver to a parent. O'Dell uncovers moments of frustration and inspiration but above all, truth, as she exchanges roles with her mother who struggles with deteriorating physical and mental health. There's plenty of humor--like when her mother demands O'Dell wear a slip because ladies do not go outside without one--and moments of heartbreak. In a culture geared toward youth, this powerful book presents details of a parent in decline and a daughter who protects and loves her to the end. But this parent isn't dropped into a nursing home. O'Dell courageously takes her mother into her own home and tries to balance the needs of her enlarged family. For Baby Boomers, Mother Mother is relevent and poignet and I'll continue to give it to the growing number of my friends who find themselves in similar situations.

MOTHERING MOTHER is a tough book to read. Carol D. O'Dell shares her real, day-after-day experiences caring for a woman who had once been her mother. She describes an exhausting, exasperating, often lonely life journey that many of us in the "baby boom" generation are facing or will one day face. But just when this challenging existence threatens to overwhelm her and her family, Carol finds the absurdity in the frustration, and the humor in the unbearable. MOTHERING MOTHER is a book that demands the personal involvement of the reader. Join Carol on her journey--you won't regret it.

Carol O'Dell's story of caregiving is both timely and insightful. I thought this book was very honest in it's portrayal of the often lonely and frustrating job of caring for an elderly parent. The author also does a fine job of describing her and her mother's southern heritage and how it defines this stage of their life together. You will find yourself alternating between laughing out loud, shaking your head in agreement and wiping a tear away! A thoroughly enjoyable read!

I thought "Mothering Mother" was enlightening, encouraging, humorous and heartwarming. I read excepts from it out loud to my husband and he asked me if Carol O'Dell was writing about her mother or MY mother! My Mom, the Ancient Toddler, has quite a few of the traits that Carol's Mother had. Carol doesn't pretend to have all the answers, but she does a terrific job exploring and writing about the many emotions a caregiver goes through. I'm SO glad I read this book!

This book was excellent in giving us advice for which rides to ride, which rides to skip, which places to eat at, and which places to skip (because of the cost, haha). It even has fold out maps so we didn't have to get them separately and tote them all around, and they were very helpful--we used them every day. It also tells you the costs of all the hotels, if you're looking for that, as well. We especially enjoyed Port Orleans French Quarter. This book even has a special place for character autographs for your children so you don't have to buy one for $10! Buy this book and enjoy your trip even more!

I received my copy today of the Passporter 2005. This will be our first trip to WDW and now we are even more excited after reading through this book!!! I love that it is so compact, yet FULL of helpful information. Also, I like that the book can be closed so nothing will fall out. It is perfect to take into the Parks. It is like the Walt Disney World "Bible". A must for first time travelers to WDW!!!!

This is a wonderful book. It is cleverly written and organized with lots of ample room for the reader to journal, take notes and store paper momentos. I can hardly wait to take this with me on our Walt Disney World Vacation in a few short weeks. The authors have provided AWESOME information to make sure that my family has a great vacation. If you are looking for the perfect tour guide to WDW this is it!

I LOVE this book!!! I live in FL but hadn't been to Disney in years, so I decided to buy a planning book before our big trip. Well, I sure got more than I bargained for with this book. It has useful information about every resort, restaurant and ride...and more! The passporter pockets make it convenient to store your hotel confirmations, priority seating confirmations and tickets prior to your trip. The fold-out maps are great too!

In addition to the wealth of information provided in the book, Jennifer and Dave have a wonderful website that I highly recommend for more information about Disney, including updates to the book. If you are planning a Disney trip OR if you just love WDW, GET THIS BOOK. I can't say enough about it.

If you have read any of the other reviews you already know this series inspires strong praise and I agree with all of it. I'd like to add one more reason to appreciate this book- there is NO approximation of the WDW LOGO! you may be wondering why that would be a good thing so I'll tell you. We have a 4year old who can not read yet but has the brand recognition skills of a savant- I have had this book for a few days and not a shread of curiosity about it yet. Which translates into PEACEFUL planning. We won't be tackling the mouse till Dec. and I don't think I can stand almost 3 months of "IS IT TIME YET?????"

What an unrelentingly gripping series of stories -- life, death, animals, boys, girls, men, women, horses, snakes, water, wind, earth, blood, fire and sky. Mark Spragg's style is a bit like David Hockney doing his photograph collages. He doesn't show you everything, just bits and pieces to make the whole. He lets you put some of the pieces in place. What a style. It's shot through with his own strong character and some compelling scenes of raw Wyoming life. The stories follow an amazing arc that you don't see coming until the last chapter and then you just kind of want to start all over again, and meet the boy that became the man. Beautiful stuff. Look, I'm not really out here trying to sell my book at every corner but the people who told me about Mark Spragg are readers of my book, "Antler Dust." I had three recommendations from "Antler Dust" readers to check out Mark Spragg, mostly because, I believe, of the detailed outdoors action and the fact that my book takes place in a neighboring state, Colorado. I am going to read more Mark Spragg but for others who like him, please also consider Antler Dust.

Mark Spragg writes beautifully, even poetically, of teenage life in a Wyoming family struggling to make ends meet by catering to "dudes" come West for the seasonal fishing and hunting. His collection of stories is varied, but all are tied to the splendor of unshod love for the land and for the horses he rides through a journey that will steal your heart.

These are two feelings I got from reading this memoir. Life in NW Wyoming is not easy. Days are spent with horses and one's life is taken by horses. In fact, if you love horses this is a great book.

One thing that kept creeping into this book is the distance the author had toward his parents, especially his father. Little but dialogue is written about the father, but he comes across as callous and more worried of turning the boy into a real man. The boy, in turn, writes about his concerns about the man he will become. At times that dragged on too much.

Still, it's wonderful prose written in a manly tone. For rugged cowboys and ranchers it's a perfect read.

I'd worry about peope who don't hurt themselves laughing while reading Wapiti School. My goodness, these stories are terrific, sometimes tough and bitter, sometimes perfect poetry. Just wonderful.

The author writes excellent prose with innumerable well turned phrases and descriptions. The subject matter is primarily his adolescence on a Wyoming dude ranch and hunting guide service that his family, Pennsylvania expatriates, operated in the 1960s, some vignettes from his adult life and descriptions of friends and conditions in windswept Wyoming. The chapters are actually a series of essays rather than a progressive narrative with the ones about life and work on and around his father's ranch, where he essentially lived as a hired hand in the bunkhouse with hardened wranglers from about the age of fourteen, being the most interesting.

I enjoyed the book principally due to the excellent writing and colorful recounting of the author's experiences as a real "cowboy" in an era when most of us male baby boomers only experienced the same thing through ubiquitous western TV shows and movies of the 50s and 60s. It was a life in another era when so many of us grew up in boring suburbia. I recommend it for these reasons.

But maybe I missed something because I never came across any explanation for the author's seeming sense of hurt, isolation, melancholy and general unhappiness that begins, for unstated reasons, during his college years.

Absolutely the definitive book for anyone dealing with dementia, alzheimers, etc. Great to give to all family members. Very thorough and easy reading.

My mother has been diagnosed with dementia, probably Alzheimer's, and I have been seeking information to help me understand and deal with her deteriorating mental capabilities. This book provided great examples of what to expect, what others have gone through, and how to deal with some of the more difficult issues. It was recommended to me by a geriatric case manager, and I highly recommend it to others.

I appreciate what the authors put together in this book - it has a ton of useful info and has helped me in understanding (and thus adding alittle patience) to what is happening with several senior members of my family.

Not all the info is relevant to my needs, but that's the point, not everyone has the same issues to deal with.

Thanks!

This is a must read by all! Whether you have a family member with Dementia or you are curious about this topic.

Very superficial and general information. I've read a lot on this subject since my mom's diagnosis a couple of months ago and I'm frankly puzzled as to why this book is recommended so frequently.

The Alzheimer Assn's website provides more thorough information. It's extremely well written and easy to understand. And free.

[...]

This book is very helpful if you are looking for a Con Law study aid or explanation book. Many of my classmates also felt they had a better understanding of Con Law while using this book with the class.

If anyone is taking Constitutional Law and is using the Chemerinsky case book, this treatise is a MUST have. You can actually get along the semester perfectly without the big case book and just reading this treatise. It explains things way better than the big book. Unless you need to know the cases straight from the language in the case book, this is just enough to do very well in this class.

This book cuts out all of the "bull" from your textbook and just tells you what you need to know about the cases and will probably even tell you what your teacher is going to lecture about in class.

This is a very helpful study aid for Constitutional law, and believe it or not, it does qualify as concise. The topic is obviously expansive, and the book does a decent job of hitting the critical points without waxing too discursive.

this book really clarifies a lot of the major concepts. i recommend it to any con law student.

This book "flows" easily and it does a great job covering the meteoric rise of both Bill Gates and Microsoft. The narrative is never dull and both, the man and his company, are given a fair treatment. This book was published in 1993 and a lot of interesting stuff remains to be told. Wish the authors would team up for a sequel. This is a well written and authoritative account of Microsoft and its founder.

Hard Drive: Bill Gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire

This book is a must-read for people who consider themselves ambitious and driven. It taught me the importance of single-minded drive and determination, coupled with a passion for the line of work one is in. IT is a tough line of work to be in - jobs could be outsourced anytime, skills become redundant quickly and there isn't the glamor or get-fabulously-rich possibility of finance or investment banking... but this book demonstrates that as long as you are passionate about what you do, there is always room at the top. Take heart from it!

This is the definitive Book about Bill Gates (and the history of Windows). It covers all the management aspects of how he drove Microsoft and how the work became his life. The man doesn't do business... He LIVES it. And this book describes it in very much detail.

The details includes how Bill "turned over" IBM... Promissing them the OS/2 under the "NT Technology" flag and how he realeased Windows 95 and killed IBM forever from the Desktop business. It also shows Gates apreciation for Older woman (and many that took him to bed). As part of this "private" package, it also explains the problems that He had with Steve Ballmer. How Ballmer was showing poor management and leadership under Gates perspective and how Ballmer got over it and made his loyalty to Gates forever.

I was more interested on the part that explains how Microsoft Windows 1.0 was developed. How disastrous the first Office was compared to the competition and how they managed to "work around" and fix it, by "coping" the competition and improving it "the Microsoft way".

Buy this if you want to know how business can be done... or be "copied".

Delightful book. Its one flaw is its addictiveness, I couldn't put it down which did cost me sleep (I'm an IT professional with an entrepreneur spirit- your results may vary).

The Microsoft/Gates biography is impeccable in its wealth of interesting details and engaging story-telling.

Bill Gates is a fantastic decision maker. He would be as successful selling water or space suits, he just happened to be at the right time in the right booming industry and pushed with his business-business mentality to the limit. Right decision after right decision, the Microsoft journey is a story that any entrepreneur should nitpick and absorb as much as possible.

Of course, his terrible capitalistic drive is a perfect subject for a discussion on morals, social responsibility and related matters, but without a doubt when it comes to maximizing outcome while playing by our economic rules, Hard Drive tells a tale of epic proportions featuring a superhero / villain that rivals the best of science fiction.

This is really a story of how Gates led Microsoft to its apex, ending in about 1992. It is well written and a good balance bewteen criticism, an explanation of the business model, and historical detail. The story is, to put it mildly, remarkable no matter what you think of MS and Gates.

While a student at Harvard in December, 1974, Bill Gates III and Paul Allen informed Ed Roberts by telephone that they had invented a BASIC computer language for the MITS Altair 8080, which was the first "personal computer" kit for hobbyists. Could they license it along with each Altair kit, Gates asked, to customers for a royalty fee? It was an audacious proposal, because not only had Gates and Allen invented no such thing, but they neither owned an Altair kit nor did they even know the technical specifications for the Intel 8080 chip. Skeptical of their claim, Roberts replied that whoever demonstrated a working BASIC would win the account: Gates and Allen were in competition, he told them, with 50 other "geeks" who already had made the same claim. Gates and Allen then hunkered down for 8 weeks to write the first BASIC for a microcomputer. The resulting "software", which immediately won over Roberts, was the first application of what would become Microsoft BASIC. Gates was 19.

As the company founders, Gates and Allen shared a vision that virtually every home and every office desk would eventually have a PC on them, all operating with their software. To run Microsoft full time, Gates dropped out of Harvard in January, 1977. Their business quickly expanded beyond the Altair as competing brands of personal computers emerged, including the Tandy from Radio Shack and the Apple II computer; they were also called upon to program BASIC into a number of other electronic devices. All along, Gates' goal was to gain market share, in effect setting the software standard for most, if not all, PC users. As a true believer who intimately knew the product, Gates was the principal salesman, while Allen concentrated on technical development.

During this formative period, Microsoft's corporate culture was established. Perhaps as a result of hiring many of his programmers straight out of university, Microsoft's offices (and later the campus in Redmond, Washington) took on the look and feel of a college campus, that is, an informal and a freewheeling intellectual atmosphere with "late hours, loud music, walls full of junk, anything goes dress, Coke, adrenaline, unbuttoned behavior." Employees tended to be very young with a programmer or engineering mentality; they designed their products for tech-savvy customers - male in their early 20s - like themselves, a kind of fellowship for computer adepts. Like Gates, they loved to play with and program electronic gadgets.

Microsoft hired the brightest programmers with demonstrated practical abilities. Employees were also expected to work extremely long hours as a team toward a common goal, not as strident individualists. Gates encouraged them to develop their entrepreneurial passions, forcefully advancing their own ideas of useful products for new markets. Overseeing it all was Gates, who gained the reputation of a harsh and challenging critic with a relentless drive for excellence, whether to beat the competition or out of fear of falling behind in such a fast-changing industry. As the sole remaining founder after Allen's departure in 1983, Gates remained deeply involved in both technical and business details as well as the general direction of company strategy. Nonetheless, as the principal revenue generators, Microsoft's product groups increasingly became the seats of decision-making power, in spite of Gates' active engagement.

At the end of 1979, Microsoft had $US 4 million in sales. Most of these revenues came from BASIC, which enabled programmers to create applications, such as word processing and accounting spread sheets. The level below BASIC and the other languages under development at Microsoft was the computer operating system, which performed the most elementary tasks required to run computers. With the prospect of providing software to IBM for the basic PC it was planning to market for a reasonable price, Gates and Allen began to acquire the rights to, and then develop, software for a computer operating system. Known later as DOS, it again set an industry standard that would enable Microsoft to efficiently develop languages and software applications in a single engineering environment rather than painstakingly customize them for a variety of incompatible operating systems. This would immensely simplify Microsoft's programming process as well as enhance its efficiency.

As Gates foresaw, this was a near-ideal position to occupy at the moment that the PC market was poised to grow explosively with the introduction of the inexpensive IBM PC, which was made of off-the-shelf components and hence easy to copy, or "clone". With the dual ownership of DOS and several major programming languages, Microsoft became one of the fastest growing companies in the world. By 1985, just prior to its IPO, on revenues of $US 140 million, Microsoft had a pre-tax profit margin of approximately 34%, no long-term debt, and cash reserves of $US 38 million. By 1987, the company surpassed Lotus to become the world's largest software vendor for PCs. Gates was on his way to become the richest man in the world, at least for a time.

However, the ownership of DOS and the programming languages would also, critics later claimed, confer an "unfair advantage" on the company. First, the Microsoft applications groups were accused to obtaining "inside information" from the operating systems group, which enabled them to design their products to function more quickly and smoothly than competitors could. Second, because each change in DOS required competitors to supply their latest products to Microsoft programmers to ensure compatibility, critics charged that this amounted to an inside peek into their strategy at the cutting edge of their capabilities. It was a symbiotic relationship that made many outside vendors - independent companies developing applications to run on Microsoft operating systems -uneasy and resentful. Third, DOS programmers were accused by rivals of inserting "hidden bugs" into the operating system in order to hinder the function of competing products, such as the Lotus spread sheet, damaging their competitive position and brand. The resulting negative publicity did a great deal of damage to the Microsoft brand, which began to be seen as the industry bully.

While Gates insisted that he had erected a "Chinese Wall" between Microsoft's applications division and its Operating System's Group, it was not enough to deter the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) from opening a probe into the company for anti-competitive practices that purportedly hurt consumers. By 1991, when the FTC probe became widely known, Microsoft controlled one-quarter of the applications market and dominated the operating systems market with Windows. There was speculation about the imminent breakup of Microsoft into separate companies for these markets, similar to the dismantlement of AT&T. For their part, defenders of Microsoft argued that it was winning because it was better and smarter, presenting its customers with superior products at bargain prices.

This a pretty much where the book stops, which badly dates it. Not only is the story of the anti-trust law suits left untold, but subsequent business developments - notably the internet - are not even mentioned. Thus, this is an excellent early history, but the reader must look elsewhere for more detail. Of the shelf of books on MS, in my opinion this is one of the best, and it was most useful to me for a research project. Recommended.

For those fortunate fans who were in the groups fan club, in 1999, could purchase it earlier on, and would get an extra page, at the front thanking fans for their support.
Ever imagine being on stage with one of the coolest bands,*NSYNC, to see what it is like to be them? "*NSIDE *NSYNC The Ultimate Official Album", delivers.
Read a day in the life of *NSYNC, leading up to their stage entrance. Hear what they are saying about fans,and life on the road.
Go backstage, meet their band. Get to recognize their security team.
View the guy's off stage antics, with each other, wherever they may be!
End your journey as the tour bus rolls out.
Look at the signs, marking their arrivals.
In closing gaze at a unique image of everyone that makes what they do possible. It's one photo , you won't ever forget!

I order the book from Amazon and I just got it today and I started to go and read it and I love it because it brings me back memores seeing them in Arizona in 1999 when I saw them it is great book. I love it a lot I can know what they do offstage this for any N'sync fans you will love reading it also it is so funny too with the pictures that they have in the book. Justin is so hot in the pictures also with the back of the book Lance is so cute sleeping.

Hey ya'll. This book is a keeper. I'm the ultimite *NSYNC fan and it add's to my collection of memorabilia. All *NSYNC fans should own it. It's VERY easy to read and fun to talk about with your friends.It has big pic's full of the hotties. Esp. JUSTIN! Owww... what a hottie! Well what are you waiting for! GO AND BUY IT! Bye, Bye, Bye! ( MY saying )

This is by far THE best ever that i have seen coming from the guys themselves, *N Sync. This book brings with itself the real lifes of these VERY talented guys. You are going to be SO entertain with its awesome pictures, that you won't even bother with the reading. You should read it, ofcourse, because that is the reason why they made this book. They want to let people know who they are and to also show the world that they are here to say. They are the best group ever. They don't have their 15 minutes of fame and leave. These guys make a mark wherever they go. Chris, Justin, JC, Joey, and Lance: Congratulations on your sellings and remember that GOD is on your side. I love you guys snoopy8876.

Tons of photos! If you haven't yet gotten to an Nsync concert, you'll feel like you have with all the pictures of the showl. And for those of you who have been lucky enough to see Nsync perform live, this book will show you what goes on before a concert.

Best book ever. No, really. Such a lifesaver. The wedding process has not been a smooth one for me, and I was really at my wits' end until I got this book. I'm still fighting the good fight, though, and Ariel kind of made it possible. It's really hard, in our culture, to plan a wedding and be a feminist-- even a mild-mannered one. I have ammunition, and a renewed sense of humor about the event. It helps you feel better about wanting what you want and draws a HUGE line between bridezilla behavior and merely wanting to be a project manager-- I'm definitely the latter... though I'm not sure my mother (who wants me to have a traditional ceremony) woud agree... BUY THIS BOOK. Even if you're going traditional, BUY IT ANYWAY.

This book is more for getting fired up about planning a wedding that feels real to you and your spouse-to-be than it is step-by-step instructional.

I've never laughed out loud at a wedding book, and I laughed so often while reading this I startled my fiance. It's full of anecdotes from other brides and Stallings recounts her own wedding procession, from non-proposal to post-wedding emotions.

While she didn't have finger-wagging naysayers shooting down her indie visions, other brides in her book did, and give you suggestions and advice on dealing with the people who love you who think they should be running your wedding.

If you are looking to get married and have a meaningful celebration with family and friends, this book opens up the possibilities. And it's not too indie-snobbish, either. As Stallings says on her fantastic web site http://offbeatbride.com, "Your wedding is not a contest...I don't think your wedding needs to be more offbeat. It just needs to be honest and authentic, and if what you want is a white dress and a more traditional ceremony, I think that's f*****g awesome."

What a great book for for alternative weddings- Helped me plan a awesome wedding for a friend- Great book, loved it!

I'm an American living in Japan, and though I have friends here, it has been difficult to find someone to discuss the ins and outs and minute details of my wedding with. It is so easy to lose yourself in all the wedding glitz and without my close friends here to act as mirrors, I felt myself slipping, forgetting who I am and what the real me would want for my wedding.

Then I ordered this book.

It instantly snapped me back to the reality of who I am and what I want. It gave me great ideas, inspired my creativity and most of all, it supported my offbeat-ness in a land that has only pretty recently considered western style weddings to be on-beat (making them THE thing to do).

I know it sounds cheeseball, but seriously, this book is like having a good friend that I can tote around in my bag, when all of my good friends are across the planet.

This book is a breath of fresh air...so many wedding planning books focus on ONE type of wedding. The traditional, white wedding, and nothing else. This is a modern take on planning that provides some great advice for the creative bride who feels stifled by this and wants more options. Best of all, reading this makes wedding planning FUN, which is a small miracle!

Pushed was very informative and gave you SO much information about maternity care then and now. It also gave insight as to how to prep myself and how to be an informed consumer as to the type of maternity care that I would like to have. This book encourages women to take back birth and be informed instead of blindly trusting it to "the experts". I would HIGHLY recommend anyone who is considering going into the OB/GYN field and to any women who can get pregnant. This is fantastic! Once I started I couldn't put it down!

I had a completely complication-free pregnancy and planned on a natural birth. Like so many of the women detailed in this book, I ended up with a c-section because of fears of macrosomia (big baby). At my 40 week appointment, when I had not yet started dilating, the OB decided the baby was getting too big and I needed a c-section. When I protested, be brought in two colleagues and the three of them went through every possible complication for vaginal delivery of a large baby: shoulder dystosia, cerebral palsy, even stillbirth (yes, they sat there and told me if I didn't get a c-section it wouldn't be there fault if I had a stillbirth). I felt completely bullied and powerless and had the c-section. My daughter was a health 9 lb 12 oz, but I had terrible problems recovery from surgery, awful breastfeeding problems (my milk took over a week to come in), and postpartum depression that made bonding with my baby and, well, everything in life, difficulty. I still believe I could have had a vaginal birth. And now I'll likely never be able to have a VBAC, since so few hospitals and doctors allow them, unless I go the home birth route. This book showed me I was not alone. And while I don't have conclusive statistics, I can say that among my two sisters-in-law and three friends who were pregnant when I was, all six of us -- yes, all six -- had c-sections either for macrosomia or "failure to progress." And these were all healthy, normal pregnancies. Truly scary.

Sixteen years after my own "failure to progress" emergency C-section, Jennifer Block brought it all back in minutes. Intervention leading to intervention was the story of my first son's birth. My second positive pregnancy test jumped straight from joy into abject fear. Fear is a good motivator sometimes--our last two were born at home with two certified (and illegal at the time) midwives. Their beginnings aren't muddled in with my own trauma. The sad fact is, it's all thought of as so "normal" that most women today don't know what they've lost.

This book should be mandatory reading-- I agree with the previous reviewer--America needs a revolution in it's birth practices. I plan on helping start it by giving this book to every woman I know thinking about becoming pregnant. Thanks to Jennifer for all the hours spent researching this material. It is sorely needed.

I was amazed to read how obstetrics are handled in the USA (as an American woman who's had two children in American hospitals). I have been fortunate. Many other women are not. It is critical to read this book and be informed about your obstetric care if you are or intend to become pregnant (or someone you love is pregnant).

In the past week I've met 2 women whose insurance companies have refused to pay for a homebirth. I think it's pathetic that someone can walk in and ask for a $6000 c-section while another woman can't give natural birth with a midwife in her home for $1500. This book gives great background information on birth in our society yesterday and today. It's everything you wanted to know after watching 'the business of being born'. Please read it!