I Books

This was my first eperience with Foster's science fiction work, my previous exposure to him being the Spellsinger trilogy.

After an abrupt change in setting and characters from the first chapter to the second the left me scratching my head, I found I couldn't put the book down. The action moves quickly, driven by the main character's emotions as well as his actions. After the climax the events of the falling action seem to be anti-climactic until the denoument is really reached. Then Foster pulls everything together in a satisfying and conclusive way.

I can only emphasise what other reviewers have already said, this is an excellent book.
What I wanted to point at is the various similarities between this book and the famous Matrix movie.... really makes me wonder if the brothers read this book, there are a few elements in this book which have been used in the movie, which would make it too much of a coincidence.
highly recommendated

I've read a number of Foster's books and The I Inside is flat out his best book. It's the story of superman who never figures out he's superman.

If you like Alan Dean Foster books at all, you will like this one. It is a compelling read from beginning to end. A very unique and interesting story with lots of good plot twists. Giving much more information about the story will probably give things away. I hate that.

Definitely a classic in the genre. I have only read a few Alan Dean Foster novels, but this one and The Man Who Used The Universe are in my "worth-5-reads" category. Being a computer nerd myself, I always enjoy escapist stories where the nerd gets cool powers and has adventures with pretty chicks. Harrison's To The Stars trilogy is one of my favorites too. I only have good things to say about The I Inside!

The sign of a truly good children's book: fabulous illustrations, fun and interesting to read, parent-friendly, time-less. Every time I pull out this book, my 14-month gathers up all her stuffed cat toys and we read it together. There are lots of opportunities in the book to use different voices to bring the cats to life. This is one of our favorite books and will have a special place on our bookshelf for years to come. I think even dog people would like this book.

Great book for any cat lover

author of "Hobo Finds A Home"

My daughter checked this book out at school.
She loved it so much, and hated to return it to the library, so I ordered it for her for Christmas.
What a great story about liking cats with awesome illustrations to go with it.
I highly recommend it for anyone, cat lovers or not!

I concur with the consensus on here. Like the other Kimberly, I checked this book out for my 2 year old daughter at our local library. After 4 renewals from the library, I had to get this one.

The artwork is fabulous and the rhyming text is easy for a young one to memorize. Our daughter now "reads" the book to us reciting "Sing a little ditty, cats!" A must for cat lovers as it shows how much personality cats truly have.

We also love the opening page which has a list of colorful characters such as Lord Buttons, Pickles Jones, and Nacho Grande. We have to pick out which cartoon kitties look like our two real ones.

Loads of fun for your little one! Highly recommend!

The author and artist of this work must indeed like cats as there are hundreds(?) of drawings of these fury little creatures in this work. This is certainly a book that I would add to my young child's library as the pictures are endless, and surprisingly all different. The colors are great and the artist, Pamela Paparone, has done a wonderful job with her subject. You can read this book with your child over and over again, and each time, both you, and your child, will see something new with each reading. The text goes well with the art. The colors are quite eye catching as the entire layout of the book. Recommend this one quite highly.

I bought this book shortly after it came out and felt an immediate connection to the author. Cindy writes from the heart. She gives a small section of information about what brought her from failed business to failed business (and yes, failed marriage too) to finally realize, by trial and error what she was missing from the formula.

She provides solid overviews of how to plan out the start up of a new business and shares the reasons that many businesses she tried failed and gives suggestions on what to do to avoid buying before thinking things through.

An entire section of her book gives step by step tutorials with many photos that clearly and simply make the production of personalized items like t-shirts, mousepads, puzzles, and all sorts of heat transfer personalized or custom made products. She even had a section on refillling cartridges even though she said it's really tough and didn't really recommend refilling.

I found every thing she wrote to be truthful and apparently from the heart of someone who's been down the road that many of us are now going down.

She stresses planning and asking questions and also gives her email address and invites all who have the book to write her for additional support when there are questions that come up later. I've written with her about what printer models are the ones to buy since they keep changing and she has been very helpful and nice in her emails.

I read what the person said in a review just now about how there was no information that would help them start and run a business. I don't know if that person read the right book or what. I found this book very helpful, motivational, and extremely informative.

If you're looking for a book about how to start a business and run it on a day to day basis with things like accounting or taxes, this isn't it. What this is, is a book that will teach you how to make personalized items and troubleshoot when things go wrong. It has a glossary that gives most of the terminology used with transfers and puts everything in plain, easy to understand English. I've read it several times because it always seems to bring me new information each time.

I recommend this book to anyone who asks me how I got into doing this business.

She is very good about specifics and how to's. The best part is sending the forums address for issues. Wonderful resource in an everchanging market area.

I got this book so I could learn about T-shirt printing and sublimation.

Lots of great info on regular transfer printing on fabric, but not as much info on sublimation as I was hoping for.

A lot of good advice on running a T-shirt business and tips for attracting customers and keeping them by producing a quality product.

Haven't finished yet, but this is an inspiring book with great info.

After years of experimenting for great results I finally figured out most of the things in this book. However, I STILL learned a few tricks from Cindy. If this book had been available I could have saved hundreds of dollars in failed experiments. Well worth the small investment cost for this book for those serious in perusing this craft/art.

my husband and i were instructed to read this book, as were many of our peers, during our engagement (1980!). more than just a moving story, it offers practical issues to think about as you're considering spending your life with someone. it weaves the personal stories of several couples with a series of sermons given by a traveling pastor on the subject of marriage. though until i saw it recently on amazon, it was a little tough to find, we have given it as a gift to several engaged couples. definitely worth it!

The reason why I value this book as a precious treasure is because it holds such truths and such valuable lessons. It gives real answers, even sincere "I don't know"-s, to all questions that young people have.
I have read the book three times, twice when I was single and once as a married woman. It truly is touching and deep. The Lord has spoken through this man, and may he be blessed for making His word audible.
Wheather in a relationship or not, married, single, with a boy/girl-friend, fiance, ... friend, please read this book.

This is an amazing book I recommend anyone from any culture. It's not a book that tells you Dos and Dons, rather a journey of an American pastor who was preaching about marriage, sex, love and God in Africa. I am especially impressed towards the end of the book when the good Christian African man, Maurice, asked weather if he was wrong as a 30 year old virgin to dumb his ex girl-friend because she was not a virgin. Good for Maurice to stand firm before God against temptation. But there are too many Maurice, justifying women who have a different path of life, which might be so wrong, but in needed for forgiveness and acceptance. The books raises a lot of tough and true questions, which sometimes is hard for us to even form. For me, it was tough for me to explain to my boy friend why I think it is problematic for him to not think about marriage, and keep saying that he will seek God first. It's contradictory. Do you not love a child because you want to love God first? Both can come as a practice. Practice how to love God and humble ourselves in marriage. To serve one another, the best way to display our love for God.

In the book, another character, Fatma, a beautiful young women, just like the Samaritan woman who met Jesus on the way to the well written in the New Testament. She and her 6 ex bf/husband, and still living with another man, non of them is her husband. This beautiful woman could not see a way out, do not find a place in God even though she was searching. This story of Fatma is also true to many women who became a Christian later in her life or was lost on the way as a Christian. How women like that may think the best way out is to commit suicide, because her body and soul are wounded, so wounded and dirty, that, abandoning it is the only way out. This is the best book so far I have read about sex, forgiveness, marriage, love and God. It's not a self help book, but I would recommend to anyone in any age.

The only book on marriage I have read that I thought worth keeping and periodically re-reading.

It is told as a (true) story of a marriage counseling couple helping people with marriage or marriage-like problems - a man looking for a woman to marry, an unmarried woman feeling trapped in a relationship, a pastor's wife feeling neglected because her husband puts church members' needs ahead of his family's needs.

This is the only book I have read about marriage that considers single people not merely as "not-yet-married" but as complete people in their own right. Singleness, then, is as wholesome a choice as marriage. Marriage, then, is the uniting of two already complete people, who together create something new - regardless of whether or not children result.

His explanation of how the Bible's statement that two people leave their parents, cleave to each other, and become one flesh is a picture of Jesus's relationship to each of us, is awesome, and goes way beyond anything I have heard preached elsewhere on marriage as an image of God.

I had to read "I Married You" for a seminary Premarital/Marital counseling course, and I found it to be quite fascinating. I was particularly intrigued by the setting - an unnamed country in Africa. That set it apart from most marriage books right from the start, since along with the usual relational insights, "I Married You" acted as a window into another culture's relationships with God and each other. Of course there were differences, such as the intriguing way the African church service was conducted compared to a typical white American one. However, the universal relational issues Trobisch portrays really enabled me to identify with persons I am united with by faith, if not by race or culture.

Regardless of where in the world one calls "home", Trobisch makes a solid case for the sanctity and strength of marriage as an institution. The book's theme is based on the classic Biblical marriage passage Genesis 2:24, boiled down to "leave, cleave, and become one flesh." Leaving occurs when the man and woman enter into a legal relationship and create a family unit that is independent from their parents. Then, they cleave together as one in an exclusive relationship, and finally become one flesh in body, soul, and spirit, sharing everything. It is this foundation that forms marriage as God intended it. Trobisch goes on to Biblically debunk the idea that the marriage union is meant to subvert women and empower men to dominate them. He also shows how pitfalls like premarital sex can damage the marriage relationship before it even begins. Helpfully, he makes his points by using intuitively recognizable allegories and illustrations that, while very relevant to African culture, are easily understood by the average Westerner. For example, a marriage philosophy that denigrates women and children is referred to as the "garden" concept (very agricultural in nature), while the ideal union is symbolized by the image of a three-legged stool (a visual aid suggested to Trobisch by an elderly African woman in order to liven up his plainer "triangle" illustration). As for the day-to-day aspects of marriage, Trobisch suggests ways that a couple can discover more about themselves and their relationship. An example is the "quarrel" test, where the spouses honestly question whether or not they can really forgive each other and resolve conflict. Unstable marriage relationships are discussed as well, such as the "empty" marriage, characterized by lack of love and an increase in alienation.

The book's main strength lies with Trobisch's skill in identifying the above principles within the context of real-life relationships, including his own marriage. "I Married You" is not just another dry, sugarcoated "how-to" marriage manual. Instead, we can identify with everyone Trobisch encounters, from the somewhat immature single man in his 30s with an idealized portrait of a wife that no real woman could match, to Trobisch's own long-suffering wife Ingrid. Indeed, one of the most affecting parts of the book is seeing Trobisch absolutely blow it with her, right after multiple days of teaching and counseling others concerning the ideals listed above! It is this kind of transparent honesty that really set "I Married You" above other books in the genre. My only gripe would be the inadequate treatment Trobisch gives to the single life as a valid alternative to marriage. However, such a rabbit trail would have veered too far from the book's central theme, so he can be forgiven for that small transgression. Overall, I can enthusiastically recommend this book as required reading for anyone interested in this topic, particularly engaged couples.

What a story, Entertaining and thoughtful. Gives a snapshot of Nashville as seen by a West coast person. Great splashes of humor, Wonderful photography.

Wonderful! Reading this book was an adventurous experience by itself, very real. Nashville seems like a very romantic, historic place. I feel like visiting it right away. Very nice photographs!! Loved it!!

This reads very easy -- like a rather funny travelogue / description of Nashville sent to you by one of your literary friends. Complete with pictures and personal experiences from the point of view of an Asian Indian immigrant.

This is an excellent book to learn about Nashville from the eyes of a new comer. good photography, excellent choice of words. absolutely loved it!!

I loved the symbolism in snow flakes! Very moving! The book is full of humor, and yet is very literary. As others have said, the author uses photography to accentuate his writing, very impressive!

He says things in a way that gives the average person the courage to say what needs to be said.
From Barb M.

Warm fuzzies. I have to agree that this entire book says what many people would like to say but can't put it in words. My favorite is page 56 "My Music". I come from a very musical family, so this really gave warm fuzzies. And, I love the last line. I can imagine my daughter's fiancee reading this to her - because, her name is "Melody".

"I Need To Know" is a great little book. It takes you deep into the real definition of relationship and true love. For a guy like me, who struggles to find the right words, this book really hits the mark. I am truly committed to my relationship, and this book has helped me find the right words and ideas to share with my spouse. Many times, we simply read it to each other, which then generate a lot of great conversations that we would otherwise get lost in our busy lives.
This is a great book and should be shared by all who seek to nurture and grow in love and relationships. By the way, my wife and I will be celebrating our 20th wedding anniversary this year... we love each other dearly and we are setting our sights on 50!

With "I Need You to Know" Mr. Saylor invites the reader to uncomplicate the love relationship by exploring and expressing the most basic, yet most important of human emotions. This book is a journey of the heart. There is something here for everyone.

I loved the book I Need You to Know!

The book is an in depth, emotionally touching expression of the strongest human emotion, and the ideal level of communication in which we all aspire to reach in order to express that which is hidden, untapped or merely the lack of being unable to communicate the treasures that lie within the heart.

The gentle and tender expression of H.Thomas Saylor's poems have a way of melting the heart and is a refreshing fragrance of purity, truth and hope that transcends this expression.

Thank you H.Thomas Saylor for your gift from the heart!

This book is a MUST read for all who are single or in a committed relationship. It gives insight and direction in how to have a deeper, more meaningful relationship by communicating.

Terri's book is an excellent source in understandig the detached employee and how to motivate positive changes.

Real life tools to heal real life problems in business! What a great way to begin your future at work! Read this book, take the disengagement test and begin performing at your highest level of effectiveness at work!

I have purchased a number of these and sent them to my best clients. It is rare to find a book that succinctly states what most of my clients and colleagues deal with every day...the virus of disengagement. Terri has created a great framework to deal with the issue. Some of the real gems in the book have to do with debunking some of our time honored management behaviors. Take, for example, how we spend all of our time dealing with our problem employees, working with them, trying desperately to motivate them, while we pay little attention to our top performers. No wonder we have turnover.

Great book, Terri, can't wait to see what you come up with next!

As an employer of many, this book certainly hit home.

It is a must-read for employers of any sized company, because what we really look for is the engaged employee.

Lots of nuggets to help prevent the employer from making mistakes in hiring, and also strategies for them to identify the warning signs of disengagement before it occurs.

I have an important disclaimer. I have known the author in a professional capacity for nearly five years. And I was never aware of the knowledge that she had to share with respect to engagement. In any business the key to success is a happy employee first. I believe this at my core. One cannot have satisfied customers without service providers that are engaged. We are lost as business operators without the commitment and professionalism of our frontline team members. The information contained between the covers of this well written and easy to implement tome has helped me to embrace my employee-centric approach to customer satisfaction to an even greater degree.

You owe it to yourself, your team, and your customers to read this one twice!

This has been the favorite book of our 15 month old daughter since we bought it 5 months ago. In addition to feeling the different textures of all the different "monsters", she especially loves looking and laughing at herself in the mirror on the last page. Her 22 month old cousin loved it so much that we bought him one for his birthday too. Guaranteed hit with little boys and girls.

My 8-month old has loved this book since we got it three months ago. He reaches out to touch the monsters and he loves the last page with the mirror. It costs a little more than other baby books but is definitely worth it.

We got this book for my son when he was 6 months old. He was absolutely fascinated with the red hair on the cover monster and with the sparkly texture on one of the other monsters.

He is 9 month now and loves the surprise of the monsters under the flaps. It been a great book that keeps his attention while I read it to him!

The pictures are cute and colorful and as an adult I find that it is fun to read this book to him.

We bought this for my daughter's first birthday. She immediately loved turning the flaps to find the monsters and pet all the different textures. It's been a couple of months now and it's still one of her favorite books! She sits and turns the pages on her own and loves kissing her reflection in the mirror at the end. A great book I'd recommend to anyone!

I bought this along with about 6 other books for my neice when she was just about a year or so. She has yet to put this one down! It's the perfect size for toddlers as well as very engaging. The premise of the book is that not only is it touch and feel but the toddler has to find where the monsters are hiding. For instance, one hides behind the couch, another under the table, and another in the bathroom cabinet. (My neice now checks all those places to see if her monster friends are hiding there :) Each montster also has a 'feel' soft and fuzzy, coarse, smooth, etc. They are also brightly colored so she works on her colors as well. Overall its a great book and I would highly recommend it.

This is not at all like the other books in the I Spy series - and at first I did not like it because of it. The other books have pages filled with tons of things, and you pick out certain items in the poem. This has a series of famous art pieces, and the thing to look for is very obvious... so from a "spy" standpoint it is not the greatest. BUT I do like that it is exposing our young children (5 and 3) to famous works of art. We have tried to make it more difficult by finding different things to seek out in each famous painting. Still, I don't know that I would totally recommend unless you really wanted to expose your children to famous art - your child would likely find a book from the regular "I SPY" series more entertaining.

This is a fantastic book. There is a different picture for every letter of the alphabet. Each picture is different in style, type, artist etc. There might be Japanese woodcuts, Picasso, watercolors and so on.

This is an excellent introduction to art and types of art and styles and artists.

Also, in each picture is something that goes with the letter of the alphabet. Ball for b and so on.

A great way to practice beginning sounds and letter recognition.

This is a lovely book with great pictures and there are many educational type things you can do while enjoying time with your child. Well worth the money.

Enjoy.

I highly reccommend this book--it is an excellent introduction to the arts. Some of the references are a bit vague in terms of everyday language, e.g M is for Magpie or H for the teeny heart on the playing card. But it is quite easy to make a substitution or let the kids find their own match. My almost 3yr old son loves it! Thank you for this wonderful intro to a much larger and beautiful world.

My son is autistic and has always been obsessed with the Alphabet. This book is one of his all time favorites. He carries this around with him constantly.

This is a lovely book with which to introduce the alphabet and classical art to your child(ren). Each two-page spread contains, on the lefthand page, the jingle "I spy with my little eye something beginning with ... " and the upper and lower case of a letter of the alphabet, while the righthand page contains a large reproduction of a work of art by one of the masters -- Rousseau, Hogarth, Picasso, Botticelli, Vermeer, Sargent, Renoir, Seurat, etc. Kids can think about the alphabet while being exposed to some great art.

Terrific idea!

I read the first 133 pages of this book in 2 evenings. It is a very easy read and I didn't see any distraction or smugness in the bouncing back and forth or discussions of Clay's early popularity. I think part of the power of the book is the fact that this person living a lie looked like a Christian superstar from the outside. It could be any person you see in church on Sunday morning.

I especially appreciated the candor and directness of the book. I would recommend it to anyone who knows someone struggling with a "secret sin", not only pornography.

Clay and Renee Crosse have co-authored this autobiographical account of the journey that they have endured through Clay's early success in the Christian music industry, his descent into pornography and the damage that ensued in his career and his marriage, and the restoration that God has brought into their lives. The most striking and helpful part of this book is its brutal honesty. The Crosses have clearly decided that they can serve others most effectively by being fully transparent about their struggles. That certainly includes Clay's struggles with the sin of lust but also includes places where Renee admitted her own spiritual weaknesses. It never seemed like they were sharing too much detail, but their candor is most helpful and all too rare in a Christian subculture that seems to prefer stories of artificial perfection.

Another strength of this book is its readability. Their writing style is very conversational, and it is an easy book to digest. It could probably be read in one or two sittings, but I enjoyed reading it over the course of a few weeks by reading one chapter each night.

There are a few weaknesses, to be sure. The readabilitay of the book is connected to its informal writing style, which also makes it feel almost amateurish at points. Some of the conclusions that they drew concerning big spiritual issues seemed overly simplistic, as if Christians need only to read the Bible and pray more, in which case God is obliged to fix all of our problems. Again, a bit of literary nuance would have clarified some of those finer points.

Also, the shared authorship of Clay and Renee, while providing us with perspectives from their two very distinctive journeys, seemed a bit jarring at times, as they bounced back and forth from one to the other. And there were times when they seemed to remain a bit smug about the early success that Clay had, making sure to point out just how wildly popular he had been. Maybe that was simply to juxtapose their current situation from where they had been, but it felt a bit pompous.

These critiques aside, I'm glad to have read this book. The Crosses have done the Christian community a favor by telling their story. Though this book has some weaknesses, it is good to hear a story of two lives, filled with severe pain and wrecked by sin, that have been restored, though not perfected. Many Christians would do well to learn from Clay and Renee.

It was like being able to talk to a friend about the situation. I really appreciated how both sides got to talk separately about their own view of this conflict. It really opened up lines of communication between my husband and me with honesty and not playing the blame-game.

This is an eye-opening book for anyone to read. It's a very descriptive walk through a lovers life torn by a sexual addiction (which is much more prevelant than it is thought of).

This is a really good book for those husbands who struggle with Pornography, and also for the wives to read...it gives you a Godly perspective of the realities and consequences of the destructive nature of pornography. There are too many cases where marriages are destroyed because of the evil nature of pornography, and the fact that it is so accessible on the internet...this is one of those books that gives a true account of their lives from both the perspective of the husband and the wife. Buy it, you will find it is a very good jumpstart to accountability for your husbands struggle. This is a good companion to use but please be aware that counseling is most important in helping your husband "beat the porn" rap....