I Books

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....

Auschwitz and its siblings produced victors and victims. Hitler and his kind produced demons and angels.

In the first part of The i Tetralogy we meet the rectum. He has long since lost his identity, tied as he is to Gunther the god of his world who has driven out the God of his youth. He is a slave, a dying collection of parts seeping, weeping and oozing from miserable life into living death.

All around him the rectum of the now becomes the brother, father, uncle and son of the night when the camp is silent and the ghosts beside him whisper in the darkness and relish their few hoarded crumbs of wormy, hard bread, the food that keeps them alive while they fester and suppurate and nurture a waning spark of intellect and philosophy, belief and humanity until the harsh, cold light of morning throws them back into the pits to work and await their turn to be released from the mindless and endless trenches and latrines beneath Gunther's polished leather boots, serpentine whip and cruel gloved hands that probe their souls with studied, graceful cruelty. They long for the release of death even as they cling with waning hope to life and dreams of freedom.

Years later Gunther stalks the streets of Minneola, New York far from his glory days under Hitler ever vigilant for any break in his cover that might brand him a war criminal, a designation he gleefully spurns, his defense always ready to hand. In his eighties, married to a shell of a woman he hollowed out decades before, sire of two sons he never fathered and secure in his memories of the good old days when he was a god, he relives his past in the basement of his bland American Cape Cod home through the trains that chug and cross the land of his youth and power carrying more Jews to the ovens and to his trenches and latrines. He wants to be discovered even as he carefully conceals himself behind a stolen name and fabricated life.

What is so disturbing about Freese's stories is not the horror of the camps or the soul wrenching tale of stolen lives and dreams plundered and hollowed out by Gunther's relentless hunt for the Jewishness of the Jewish soul, but the seductive and rational explanations Gunther gives for his actions. There is a kind of truth and honesty about Gunther's philosophy and reasoning that makes his deeds all the more horrific because they resonate in some dark corner of the mind and soul. Even as the poisonous seeds find fertile ground, they waken a moral sensibility that forcibly expels them in outraged denial. This is how Hitler, that pied piper of Germany, wove his magical snare to catch the hearts and minds of a nation and moved them beyond the confines of reason and morality into the dangerous territory where people become things and foul, unspeakable acts of inhumanity, the final solution that paved the road to hell on earth.

Freese weaves a dark tapestry of the soul that echoes inside of each of us and wakens not an impersonal evil but an all too human Beast with the face and manner of a hollow Hero.

Genre: Literary/Historical Fiction

Title: The i Tetralogy

Author: Mathias B. Freese

History forgotten is history repeated-Enlightening yet frightening, The I Tetralogy will haunt you like no other book.

Author, Mathias Freese is not only a brilliant literary genius; he has an uncanny ability to explore the depths of madness like no other. Set in the German camps during WW II, prisoners and guards alike live a surreal existence never before experienced. Gunther, Karl, Gertrud and the other cruel and sadistic guards take great pleasure in sucking the very essence from the Jews in the prison camp as they slowly exterminate them. The prisoners learn to become non-existent or die. The four separate stories give different points of view by characters each believing their truth is the only truth; first the prisoner then the guard, each one living their own personal hell. We read how an older Gunther yearns for the days in the camp. Readers look at Gunther the parent, through the eyes of his son who feels remorse, guilt and horror at his father's acts.

The i Tetralogy is an in depth look at the mind of the Holocaust victims, both prisoner and prison guard that takes the reader beyond any boundaries previous presented. Readers are embroiled in the thought processes of man slowly going mad in often frightening clarity. The author seems to reach out and tenaciously grasp the reader's emotions by the heart, causing intense empathy with the characters.

This book would be an excellent textbook for both history and psychology majors. Educators would find it a profound and in depth study of the workings of the human psyche as well as sociological influences on human behavior. It is also an excellent historical fiction that readers will not forget.

Highly Recommended by Reviewer: Shirley Roe, Allbooks Reviews.

in a time when genocides are happening in the sudan and parts of burma and north korea a book like this seems more relevant then ever. too often the nazi attrocities are glossed over as in movies like schindlers list and downfall. this book hits you in a gutteral way that all americans should experience. too many of us are oblivious to the plight of unfortunites in those countries as well as in our own. a great read overall.

Review by William Phenn for Reader Views (1/06)

"Here we are, another Holocaust book", you ask? Not really, this one is not just a journal of what happened and how. This 365 page book is a psychological thriller. It takes you into the mind of the hunter and his prey. You are privy to the thoughts of a prisoner in the camp, his anguish, his fears, his hopelessness. "The I Tetralogy" takes you for a walk within the soul of one condemned. One that refers to himself as Rectum, for that is how he truly feels. Freese takes you through this one man's hell, shows you what it was
like to live the life of a Jew in the camp.

From that, to another section in the book where you, the reader, are drawn inside of Gunther, the ruthless guard. Freese makes you a part of this creature, you feel his disgust for the Jews. You begin to understand what drive, what motivation Gunther had for performing such sadistic acts upon the prey. Freese gives you many instances where Gunther and his fellow guard Karl, practice their art upon the poor prisoners.

The remainder of the book deals with Gunther in America. Though he knows he must keep it hidden, his loathing of the Jews continues. He is amused and amazed at how easily it is to hide in the open in America.

"The i Tetrology" was both an interesting and boring read. I say interesting in the fact that it was presented with a different angle, Freese actually took the reader into the mind of the prisoner and the guard. I'm sure Freese's PhD in Psychotherapy aided him in this endeavor. On the boring side, yes, it was another Holocaust book. Although it was presented well, the Jew bashing that occurs within the mind of the guard is a bit overdone. That is just this reviewer's knowledgeable opinion.

The i Tetralogy ~ Mathias B. Freese ~ Hats Off Books ~ History: Fiction

Combining true to life characters, believable settings and a peek into the psychology of all those involved, The i Tetralogy provides a descriptive, disturbing and graphic account of fictional history.

The i Tetralogy, consists of four volumes; i, I am Gunther, Gunther's Lament and Gunther Redux. Written from the perspective of three key characters; the Jewish prisoner, the executor and the murderer's son, this is a bleak, but powerful and graphic fictional perspective of the effect the Holocaust had on each character. It also focuses on the legacy it left behind.

Beginning in Europe in the mid-1940's, we visit the grim, weary life of a death camp prisoner as he silently digs the latrines, deprived of the dignity and humanity he was once accustomed to. This is a heart-rending account of one man's inner strength and resilience, despite a weak and decaying body; and how he learns ways of being vigilant and obedient in order to avoid death.

When volume two, I am Gunther, begins, the reader will be taken aback with the change of attitude. Seeing life as a German guard, Gunther, debating the suffering and cruelty he subjects the prisoners to, on behalf of his country. Yet among his ludicrous beliefs and ideals of superiority, one can't help, at times, feeling sorry for him, as a lost human being stuck in a world gone mad.

Half a century later, Gunther's Lament, follows the aging Nazi, Gunther, to a suburban town on Long Island. Here we explore deeper into his wrecked and warped mind as he struggles to come to terms with his very existence, without the security the war gave him as a German guard with power.

In Gunther Redux, the story continues as it investigates the views and thoughts of his son Conrad, who is tormented by his father's 'previous life' and burdened by the damaging truths of what really went on inside the death camps.

It is hard for the human mind to comprehend the full horror of the Holocaust. Telling the story through three key characters, however, provides a vivid insight into this inexplicable and shocking period of history. When I finished the book I found myself asking all sorts of questions; how did the dominant and brutal leader, Hitler, convince the Germans that they were the superior and most powerful race with such devastating effectiveness? Why did they believe in him? Can ordinary people be convinced to accept instructions to behave without decency and humanity under the right circumstances? Although this is a work of fiction, the characters are extremely true to life. The setting is so believable it almost reads like an autobiography of these three different people, making it an astounding, descriptive piece of well written prose.

The final section titled Raison d'Etre provided many answers to my questions, whilst giving me a greater understanding of Mathias B Freese's personal views and the psychological terror of all involved during (and after) this disturbing period of history.

alternative-read reviews

Human spirit observations in relation to potent generational situations are transformed through beautifully written prose that reverberate in my head long after the initial encounter. Szumowski's description of "the white church of their insides," when detailing a particular experience continues to accompany me, much like George Orwell's description of a Burmese man about to be hung, who had, "vague liquid eyes." The latter phrase was the catalyst for my own life writing, much as I expect phrases from, "I Want This World," to inspire others to reflection, admiration and profound satisfaction.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book of poetry. The poems were accessible, yet filled with rich insights from a complicated life.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book of poetry. The poems were accessible, yet filled with rich insights from a complicated life.

Fairy godmothers and guardian angels protect. They bring "their" loved ones into a safe world where only good things happen - or where bad things turn to good. In I Want this World, good and bad things happen - and are turned into poems. The perceptions that Margaret Szumowski brings takes the reader into a variety of worlds that are each real, sometimes painful, always vibrant, and often joyful. I once took a class on antiques. Our instructor told us that to recognize antiques, we had to remember everything we had ever seen. In I Want this World we see a master remember everything that has ever had an emotional effect on her. She is willing and happy to share these memories with us - to extend her experiences into our lives. Equally, she is able to weave her memories into an imaginary universe, to take from reality and make Ruby, a recurrent alternate voice in this book, emerge whole, with an emotional present and a tangible life.

I Want this World offers character and plot. When I read it, I worried that someone would try to make a movie of some of the poems. I have trouble with that. Poems are events and the images that make them up fill this collection. I envision the people with whom I am sharing the moment. The poems help me recognize them - not always as themselves, but in their qualities, motivations, pain, and joy. I see these people as they move throughout the book, sometimes starring in a stanza, a whole poem, or several poems, and in other cases having a supporting role. Some characters exist only as referred-to names. Each of these people lives in my imagination. The houses, roads, towns, rivers, beaches and markets that we visit are real and vital, too. These people continue to live outside the lines of the poem. Their world is mine to understand and visit.

Place is important to Margaret Szumowski. In I Want This World, she shares her travels to Africa, and a past and present Poland. She takes us to the banks of rivers, along hot dirt roads with dusty borders and to the American Southwest. She allows us to BE her for the moments of her poems. The sounds, the sights, the tastes and the rhythms of experience inform her verse, and we get to partake. We eat tomatoes, cabbage, coffee, bagels, pick apples, make applesauce, watch fruit crops ripen, value potatoes in new ways, learn about the birthright of mushroom knowledge.

She gives us the gifts of colors and textures, shows us light everywhere - in Poland, like a verbal Canaletto, in her own experience and in parental memory. Light happens in Africa, in West Texas, on Cape Cod, and in her childhood. She shares sweat, pain, helps us taste foods familiar and foreign. In "The Fish at Vista" beliefs sing throughout, taking us from experience to decision. The chosen path may not be everyone's. In "Take Any Light You Can" she shows us Race Point Beach on Cape Cod telling us about wind and light and strength. In that same poem (in fact, in that same stanza) she talks to her daughter. She reminds us that we move through time and space and light and that movement changes us and keeps us the same.

" the wind at Race Point is so strong,
it can lift a human from the ground,
and I want to be lifted in the wind.
You, too, my dancer.
I love to see you leap as if lifted by the wind."

She goes on to share with her own need for light, advising her daughter;

"One night in childhood I seized a flashlight and was punished.
Take a flashlight, a lantern, take any light you can."

She tells us in "Going Out to Greet Whatever Lives," how that same daughter as a young child caught fireflies, was a safe haven for small living creatures, and, swinging high at night, touched her toes to the moon.

In "Starry Night" we share space in all its connotations, and, again, light.

"stars magnified until we are thousands of years
closer to them than we have ever been before.

The whirling, spinning stars we ached for are
now close enough to burn us.

I did not know the cost,
night at its peak, excruciating light,
all of us humans, awake, awake."

Watch, also, her use of space on the page. Words flow through the pages of I Want this World carefully measured against the beige frame of paper. Again, the need for light - and the needs of light, come through to the reader.

Some poems, like "Under a Hazy Halfmoon," make us, along with Szumowski and her mother, wait for night vision to bring back the body's memory of how things were in childhood. Preparing to go down a remembered path in the dark, we find that;

"By daylight we wandered this forest
from the little tree house overlooking the river-
marsh birds and gold leaves-
it shook with our weight."

The poem on the page sparkles with lightness, with spaces between lines, between stanzas of varying lengths.

The poetry about her father moved me deeply. His travels through memory, his courage in finding something to come to in a new country, his comfort in comparing old to new and seeing value in each are great gifts. He shares with his grandson the joys of the stamp collector. The great thing is promise: "we promised never to lose, never to tear those stamps." There are promises to the reader, to the future and to the past.

Margaret Szumowski gives us the gift of her experience as it blends with her vision. I Want this World is our world and her world in a very short book. We visit throughout time and space with her, with her family and with her imagination.

A science fiction short story I read many years ago postulates a highly specialized world at war, where hospitalized soldiers are in comas. Some soldiers, though catatonic, manage to go to imagined pasts where poorly remembered knowledge combines with dreams. The commanding general wants to know more. An expert suggests that a poet would understand. Sadly, though, in that world, there are no poets left.

Today, perhaps more than ever, our poets need to be protected from this philistine reality. Let's start by preserving Margaret Szumowski.

This is a beautifully-written book of poetry that explores many aspects of human relationships. I am not an avid poetry reader and I loved it!

This is an excellent analysis of human behavior and the need to 'want to be good'. Mr. McKellar does a wonderful job of pinpointing behaviors and describing the process of evaluating it. This is a must read book!!!

If you are ready to go to the next level in life read this book.
This guy knows what he is talking about. Truly a life changing experience. A master craftsman working his craft. Great for anyone who's dreamed of doing better. Here's how to.

Kenneth gives me the motivation to achieve the goals I have set for myself. I Want to Be Good is an excellent book for anyone to read. The optimistic and energized outlook makes me feel that I can do anything I want to do in life. I can be "GOOD". Kenneth uses his wonderful sense of humor to get his point across. Definitely a book for people of any age.

A refreshing and honest view of an "extra"-ordinary man. His wisdom and wit, will have you in stitches! It is delightful to know that a man can be "good" and modest. This author needs more attention from the mass media. We will be hering, seeing, learning and being entertained by him much more. This book is easily read and undestood. More importantly it leaves you with his positive and poignant message! I would recommend this book to readers of all ages.

A refreshing and honest view of an "extra"-ordinary man. His wisdom and wit, will have you in stitches! It is delightful to know that a man can be "good" and modest. This author needs more attention from the mass media. We will be hering, seeing, learning and being entertained by him much more. This book is easily read and undestood. More importantly it leaves you with his positive and poignant message! I would recommend this book to readers of all ages.

I found this workbook and its companion book, "I wasn't ready to say a goodbye" a tremendous help after the sudden death of our 36b year old daughter. It contains very practical help, but more importantly gave me a sense that I was not alone. The authors very effectively used their experience to help others work through their grief.

This book is helpful to my clients when dealing with a sudden death.

If you liked the book "I Wasn't Ready to Say Goodbye" but wanted a way to help you actually work through the loss and grief process, the workbook is finally here. To a certain extent this workbook stands alone and can be used without the primary book but you would lose a lot of the benefit if you did it that way. When used in conjunction with the book you gain a much greater understanding of what is going on and the process of working through the workbook is greatly enhanced. The workbook is full of insightful questions and exercises to help you understand what you are going through and appreciate and accept yourself. From there you can learn, grow, and heal. The workbook is very helpful with getting out the grief, anger, guilt, and anything else you may need to work on. If you are dealing with sudden, unexpected loss the book "I Wasn't Ready to Say Goodbye" is one of the best resources you can pick up. Now, this companion workbook helps you apply the book to your life and start the healing process.

This is an excellent grief resource that provides a solid roadmap to go along with the book. The activities are meaningful and help one who has recently suffered a loss go through the grieving process faster.

You will get the most benefit if you read the book and do the activities provided in this workbook. However, you could work with each of these separately.

The The Grief Recovery Handbook : The Action Program for Moving Beyond Death Divorce, and Other Losses is also quite popular and geared toward losses of all types. This book is strongly focused on a recent loss, but will be useful to anyone who is grieving the death of a loved one.

"As we live our life, we can choose to become a light for those we have lost. We can carry their memory, their hopes, their dreams into the future." ~Brook Noel

The need to talk about loss can lead to a deeper healing process and having a comforting workbook provides a place of understanding. In order to move through the grieving process, Brook Noel and Pamela Blair explain the process of grief.

They start the book with notes for the first few weeks, lists of calls that need to be made and information on who needs to be notified. There are place to write all the information you need to remember.

They explain the emotions of fear, anger and depression and also provide calming exercises. There are helpful guides for anyone helping others with loss and the section on Learning through Loss provides an excellent list of positive affirmations. There are ideas about Memory Books and ways to honor someone through donations or a living memorial.

The third chapter answers many questions that need to be answered. Should you take medication to get through the process or would a natural therapy work better? I have found the Bach Rescue Remedy to be very effective and comforting.

Explaining the situation to children and dealing with the holidays are also issues to consider. Writing poetry and memories in a journal are also ideas that are helpful and healing. The quotes and poems throughout the workbook are beautiful and carefully chosen.

Understanding grief can also help you with all areas of loss in your life, because I think we go through them when we lose anything or anyone we truly love. So in that regard, this book is for everyone and will be appreciated by counselors, pastors, family members, friends and especially by anyone who is currently experiencing the affects of loss. Additional books and CDs are also available.

~The Rebecca Review

I'll Be in the Car is a love story, a recollection of pain, and an inspiring memoir. This book starts with the story of how the author met her husband, Devin. The two were colleagues and workmates and then realized that they were something more. Like all couples, the relationship didn't always go smoothly but since it was a solid relationship where it most counted, the bond created a happy marriage full of hope and dreams of the future.

This is where the story turns heartbreaking. At a time that the couple's biggest worries should have been caring for their new son Davis while balancing their careers, the couple received some scary news- Devin was diagnosed with leukemia. The next few years would become a yoyo world of hope and despair as the couple went through several remissions, therapy, a transplant, and eventually the worst.

I'll Be in the Car is one of those stories that reminds the reader to look at what's really important in life. I absolutely recommend this book for anyone who is struggling with terminal or chronic illness as the author shares the positive moments as well those times she wished she could have had more strength and energy.

As a pastor I'm confronted at times with similar situations as this gripping one of Annette. Thus, immediately upon reading of her intense time with Devin I was reminded of a similar cancer encounter which will hopefully explain this review.

It started with a young man whom I had never met before asking me after a worship service if he could talk to me alone. Having said yes, after everyone else in the lobby was finished with me, I led him and a most attractive blond female companion of his to my office. We reached the office entrance and he announced to her, "I'll see you in the car."

Alone in my office he proceeded to tell me of his dilemma: most successful auto designer for one of Motown's best he had just discovered at the age of 35 that he had terminal lung cancer and the doctors had estimated he only had three to five months. I asked him: "What can I do for you?" He replied: "Help me discover if God will cure me or not!" To this my response came: "Certainly we can tackle that one, but let me add one more objective if I may to our counseling, "Whether God chooses to heal me of this cancer or not, I know I will be ok." He had been away from church and active faith life and then added many other family and emotional issues on the counseling table, including the shocking one that the blonde had been his fiance who told him when he shared the terminal diagnosis, "I can't go through with the marriage."

Amazingly, thanks be to God that was about a decade ago and a marrow transplant much the same as Devin went through. This active member in my church is now married happily and quite an inspiration to all. I share this because I was waiting and hoping for someone to bring Christ into Devin's and Annette's life but closest I heard of Him was the name of one of Devin's hospital. My pastoral heart ached and pained at this absence in this amazing chronology of loss and new recovery and movement forward in life's journey. A magnificent movie from Billy Graham videos (World Wide Pictures", called "The Ride" exhibits this perfectly from the perspective of a young boy with terminal cancer and His relationship with Jesus. Check it out, it's excellent for kids of all ages.

Certainly this energetic and talented young woman is moving forward significantly and was brave and therapeutic for many in this new written venture. The style was a bit cumbersome and awkward at times, what I would label as "a bit contrived" at times, wanting to fulfill what so many writing coaches call: painting things with word pictures. The best writing is at the end, when she seems to have written more from the heart about finding herself. I cheered when she finds herself! The pain was worth it, and this is signifcant present to the rest who venture down this path of shared suffering to cancer and other terminal illnesses, then lost and recovery of self and future life.

Congratulations Annette! Your book grabbed my heart from the first page. Having went to high school with Devin, it was also gut wrenching to read of the pain and suffering. There were many times I had to put it down for a day or so until I could be emotionally prepared to continue. Extremely well written in that it exposes the raw characteristics of each character. Just what an author is supposed to do. Thank you for sharing your life through Devin with me.

I'll Be In The Car: One Woman's Story Of Love, Loss, And Reclaiming Life is the true story of a wife whose young husband was diagnosed with a terminal illness. She and her infant son had to cope with her husband's cycles of disease and remission, readying themselves to confront the inevitable. Yet I'll Be In The Car is a story of hope, not despair - it is about finding love in the precious moments of life together, no matter how fleeting, and the choice to carry on and cherish the love that was had rather than the years that were lost. An uplifting testimony written to reach out to readers who have experienced terrible loss, highly recommended.

I think this book is one of the most touching and heartfelt books I have ever read. It deals with love and loss but also allows the reader to realize how precious life is, enjoy and treasure each moment. The author allows us to see her personal struggle with loosing one very dear and yet going on to live a full life as a mother and woman. Three cheers for Annette Wick for sharing her very personal true story with the reader.

I'll Do My Own Damn Killin'GREAT BOOK! MOST FUN I HAVE EVER HAD READING A BOOK.

THIS STORY IS SO WELL WRITTEN AND SO INTERESTING THAT NICK CASSAVETES, MOVIE PRODUCER AND POKER PLAYER, HAS PURCHASED THE RIGHTS TO MAKE IT INTO A MOVIE. WHILE KICKING THIS AROUND A POKER GAME THE OTHER DAY THE PLAYERS AND I AGREED JOSH BROLIN SHOULD PLAY THE YOUNG BENNY BINION.

I expected to be somewhat entertained and learn a small bit about the history of Dallas gambling. I didn't expect to be so thoroughly consumed with the stories, the history and the characters. Excellent!

This is a great book. I knew Benny Binion. My new novel, Texas Poker Wisdom, has several stories about Benny, including the day I met him in 1960. When Binion moved to Vegas, he took a giant step down being a casino owner considering the many things he controlled in Dallas and Ft. Worth and elsewhere. The gambling wars in Dallas and Ft. Worth are hard to believe. Mr. Sleeper has written a book any Texan, gambler, or curious reader will love. I loved this book.
Johnny HughesTexas Poker Wisdom

If you have found yourself in Soprano-withdrawal, this book is for you. "I'll Do My Own Damn Killin'" is a raucous gangland tale of a long and bitter feud between two former partners for control of the Dallas gambling scene of the 1930s and 40s.

Most people know Lester Ben Binion as the Las Vegas icon who
owned some of the early casinos there, with the downtown Horseshoe Club being the most famous and longest-lived. But before his Las Vegas days he was known as the Dallas "boss gambler." He had most of Dallas law enforcement "fixed" so he could run his numbers, his policy wheels, and his poker games at the Southland Hotel without fear of arrest. He was temperamental, braggadocios, but also jovial in a sinister sort of way. The title of the book comes from a reply he gave when asked if he had ever hired a hit man.

Herbert Noble ran crap games in downtown Dallas and soon came to resent the 25-percent protection money he had to pay to Binion. He had dreams of being the Dallas gambling kingpin himself, and formed a partnership with a like-minded underworld financier. Soon the gambling wars had begun, with one Noble partner after another turning up dead, and back and forth contracts put out on various hardcases from both sides. Noble himself had no less than thirteen assassination attempts made on him. As the author says, "By the early Fall of 1950, planning to kill Herbert Noble had practically become a cottage industry in Dallas and Fort Worth."

Tragedy finally struck when Noble's 36-year-old wife made the fatal mistake of borrowing her husband's booby-trapped car. The explosion was heard eight miles away and the blast shattered windows for blocks. Her mangled body was laid to rest in a solid copper casket said to be the most expensive one ever sold in Dallas.

After this incident, the hatred that consumed Noble escalated the war and led to a hellish confusion of such grisly murders and maiming that it's hard to believe that this actually happened in Texas and not in some 12-hour Francis Ford Coppola trilogy. Notorious people move in and out of the pages, people like Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker, Bugsy Siegal, Meyer Lansky, Estes Kefauver, and even one Jacob Rubenstein, aka Jack Ruby.

Finally by the end of the book, the good guys have arrived on the scene, the Texas Rangers, who put a stop to the violence. Thus ended the bloodiest two decades in Dallas history. The appendix contains testimonies, transcripts of recorded conversations, and progress reports on some of the still-unsolved murders from this shocking, full-scale gangland war that happened in Texas.