OK, but skips some important issues
595385
It's interesting to take the inventory and then look at the suggestions for improvement in the book, but  unless you have a lot of insight already, the inventory won't assess your ability to accept and manage your emotions.  That's a big drawback in my mind.  It doesn't address the issue of why some folks with high emotional intelligence scores are low achievers.  That seems like another big hole to me. For someone who has recently gained a lot of insight into the emotional processes that are driving their self-sabotaging behaviors, but who has not yet changed those sabotaging behaviors, this would be a useful book.
2456652
this could be skipped in the series,  kind of slow back story
105083
I wish I had been able to preview the book before purchasing.  I went ahead and purchased due to the rave reviews and due to the recommendation found in the Well-Trained Mind forums.

Pros:  The pictures are bright and interesting.  It is written at a level that my five-year-old can understand the information being read aloud. The pictures are adequate to capture and keep her interest.

Cons:  I am disappointed in how little history is actually presented in some areas where evolution receives around 100 pages worth of attention.  I don't have a problem with evolution but perhaps it could have received a little less attention and more attention could have been paid in updating at least a little history from the year 2000.  I wish the events of September 11th were included but apparently no updates have been made since 2001.  My copy has a copyright of 2006, so I find the omission of the events such as September 11th, the wars In Iraq and Afghanistan, etc., to leave a huge gap in our world's history.  I am also not crazy about the mention of global warming as being a serious issue (at least global warming has finally been proven to be a hoax), so I will I be skipping over that section.  I am also not crazy about how Christians (especially Catholics) are painted to be violent and intolerant of anyone who happened to disagree with them, so I will make sure to point my daughter to different viewpoints on these and other subjects, as well. I understand that this an encyclopedia of world history, but I really wish there had been a bit more attention given to the establishment of Jamestown, Virginia in 1607, not just a scant paragraph that barely even mentions it.

Overall:  I am not in love with this text but, in the absence of finding anything better at this point, I am trying to live with it.
3081389
Middle of the road book.  Some info was ok, rest was ok
3048878
Parts of this book are helpful and interesting, but there are also some challenges which should be addressed.

On the positive side, the book makes it very clear that many so-called character flaws or behavioral issues are actually physiological issues of the brain. The author states many times that it is inappropriate to shame or place blame on an individual who has difficulty concentrating, is depressed or anxious, etc.  A clear case is made for the physiological differences in the brain between the "normal" brain and a brain with over- or under-performing sections.  For the most part, the treatments prescribed would be considered normal, healthy living: eating a good diet, drinking plenty of water, exercising, therapy, meditation, etc.

Dr. Daniel Amen reportedly asked Dr. Jesse Payne to adapt his (Dr. Amen's) original book, "Change Your Brain, Change Your Life" due to Dr. Payne's "ability to communicate with young people."  And that's a significant problem: the writing is very uneven. I was struggling to guess the audience for this edition.  Mostly it reads like a book designed for adults-- perhaps the parents of individuals under 25.  Yet the title implies it's for the under-25 audience by using the term "your."  Every now and then attempts are made to write for a young audience.  Phrases like "pissed off" appear in the otherwise staid/medical writing style and are jarring to the reader.  The book reads like someone went through the original text and tried to insert phrases or partially rewrite sentences which might appeal to a younger audience. In my opinion, to truly appeal to younger readers, it should have been completely rewritten, not just edited.  More illustrations should be provided, and the text probably cut in half.  The overall tone is definitely for adults.

Some of the information seems adapted from non-credited sources, such as the "ANTS"-- automatic negative thoughts.  This concept stems from the work of Aaron Beck, Albert Ellis, and David Burns-- cognitive-behavioral and/or rational-emotive therapy.  Mentioning these resources would have been helpful to the readers.  Dr. Burns' book "Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy" would provide invaluable (and much more in-depth) assistance to those dealing with anxiety and depression issues.

Another concern is that much more space is devoted to identifying the brain parts responsible for the problems, and analyzing how those problems might play out in life, but the solutions were rather limited.

I was pleased that the book limited the references to Dr. Amen's clinics and his use of SPECT imaging for diagnosis, which is controversial due to a lack of research backing up some of his conclusions.  Sometimes Dr. Amen's programs (like his PBS special) seem more like advertisements for his clinic than anything else.  Quackwatch and other sites will provide more information about the medical profession's concern about his work.  That said, this book did not delve deeply into this area and also did not promote prescription medications, or Dr. Amen's clinic,  as a panacea.

So-- interesting research, excellent attitude about not shaming those with medical conditions, and basic solutions.  I would say it's a good book, but not great.  If you're struggling with depression/anxiety, check Dr. David Burns' book.
2566745
Cheating carries such a stigma that I rather admire anyone willing to dissect it and advertise it. One point in Wendy Plump's favour is that she doesn't get too hung up on the moralities -- she broke her vows, her husband broke his, and she doesn't dwell on the wrongness of it, just the lead-up and the consequences.

The best bits in "Vow" are when some action is taking place, however mild, such as Plump meeting the men with whom she cheats, the discovery of her husband's affair and its depth, the communication with the other woman -- events that show progression, a story moving forward. Her own transition from other woman to woman scorned and her struggle to come to terms with it is interesting -- again, progression, moving her story and the reader forward. The parts about marriage counseling and her parents' marriage were great.

However, there are sections in which Plump just chatters, and those I can do without. I don't need to know that her family argues like champions around the holiday table. I don't need little asides in parentheses that are meant to add humour, but I personally found tiresome and self-indulgent. There are times when "Vow" is a bit preachy and wordy and I was impatient to get back to the events, rather than listen to Plump's musings.

All in all, not bad. I think "Vow" could have been meatier and looked at the overall state of marriage in the U.S. today, various trends in when people get married, get divorced, commentary from marriage experts (whatever that means, but there's an expert for everything these days). But perhaps that's a book for someone else to write.
3726702
Some good points, but many of the problems inherent in the science enterprise glossed-over or simply not mentioned.  IMHO, this author has an all-too-typical science-is-my-god, leftist agenda.

As a one-time scientist and as a former National Advisory Council member at one of the NIH institutes (as well as other credentials), scientists as a whole are at serious fault for not loudly advertising the limitations of their science and the science enterprise as a whole -- esp. when "scientific" issues are charged with politics.  Perhaps the best contemporary example is so-called "consensus" of climatologists that anthropogenic atmospheric warming is real, that man can do something about it and that man should.  (The great "stem-cell" debate under G.W. Bush also comes to mind, but for different reasons.)

Scientists and science managers often find themselves in the same situations as does every man, namely looking for fortune (or at least job security), and fame (or at least a decent reputation in one's field).  To expect scientists to be somehow more moral or ethical than the average man is an underlying assumption in the public forum -- an assumption that is absurdly shaky.  IOW, dangle the opportunity for fortune (or grants) and fame and most wilt at making serious noises about the veracity of those who are using their "science" to advance certain politics.

And the eco-left has been at this game since Malthus -- because if there is one thing that the left always knows is using science as its god works -- for a while, anyhow.  Then come the shotguns.

Below is a reference to a book that discusses some of classic cases of scientific fraud, much done by names any high school science student will recognize.  Judson's book doesn't cover many of the more recent cases... and for every case that's discovered by the Office of Research Integrity, imagine all the "innocent" data-mined "science" and the publication bias (to name two consistent problems) that go unexposed.

Horace Freeland Judson. The great betrayal Fraud in science. 2004. Harcourt Inc. Orlando, Florida, USA. 480 pp. $28.00. ISBN: 0-151-00877-9 (hardcover).

Unfortunately, the higher the political profile a "scientific question" has, the more likely the (orchestrated) answer is to be sophistry.  Sad but true.
3095593
Torn between three stars and four. Three major themes are dealt with in the book. (i) LBJ's efforts to improve the lot of African-Americans and the poor of all races. This is dealt with wonderfully: as a teenager in the UK at the time, I was aware of some of the issues, but I had no idea quite how shocking conditions were for these people. That LBJ faced such a struggle to get his legislation through is a damning indictment of those times. (ii) The behind-the-scenes turf wars and territory grabbing by his team in the White House. I assume this is accurate, but it held little interest for me and I saw little point in it being recorded 50 years later. (iii) LBJ's attitude to Vietnam. This is the reason for only three stars, The coverage is disgracefully superficial. The author gives no real insight into why LBJ continued to prosecute such a futile and unnecessary war.
2185163
The topic of this book could have been very interesting to read about. However, I think it deserved more coverage than this tiny little "booklet" provides. While it is certainly true that the middle class in America today doesn't seem to have the quality of life that it used to have in the 1950's, the book focuses on only one or two reasons the middle class has lost ground when in fact there are MANY MORE reasons for the problem.

The book has the following chapters:

1. Introduction
2. Recent changes in income and wealth inequality
3. Inequality, happiness, and health
4. Envy or content?
5. The rising cost of adequate
6. Why do we care about rank?
7. What types of consumption are most sensitive to context?
8. How can middle-class families afford to keep up?
9. Smart for one,dumb for all
10. Looking ahead
11. Lessons for public policy
12. Reflections

Many of the middle class are having problems reaching an "adequate" standard of living. The book points this out. And I agree that the middle class seems to be working longer and harder hours per week to attain that standard of living. I also agree that the middle class as a whole is putting in those extra hours because they want to keep up with those who have more than they do. But there will always be someone who has more than they have.

I didn't enjoy reading that the have's need to be taxed so the middle class can stop striving to catch up to the have's. I would have liked the book a lot better if instead of suggesting that the well-to-do should be taxed that the middle class should take responsibility for their predicament and stop living above their means. If the middle class were to strive to live within their means and become a "have," then they would get their just due. But if they continue to spend everything they earn (and then some), then there is no hope for them to ever become a have. 3 stars!
1489899
The topic was an important one but I felt Hill could have done more with it. More nuance. It felt a bit stilted and the fictitious countries were never quite real enough.
3270372
I'm giving this three stars because it educates about an important historical event, it led to some interesting conversations with my husband, and the style is not overly-pretentious. It is written at the middle-school level, and would be appropriate for that population were it not for one expletive-strewn paragraph about sex and the persistent theme of middle-aged married life - a topic of limited interest to most middle-schoolers.

Following the page-turner formula of tiny chapters alternating between past and present, Sarah's Key is a quick and easy read.  There are some editing problems and typos, which are annoying in any book.

The most compelling questions raised by the book are 1) how do people react to the evil of others, 2) are complicity and apathy to evil in themselves evil, and 3) how should one react to those who are complicit or apathetic to evil?  The character seemingly based on Ms. de Rosnay herself, is a simple, upper-middle-class journalist with a gorgeous, vapid French husband.  The author's provenance (also hinted at in the novel) assumes well-bred young ladies will enter genteel, educated professions.  The writing style is often clumsy and simplistic, but at least it doesn't presume to be "literary" like the insufferable Sarah Dunant.

Read it to learn something about the Vel'd'Hiv, about French collaboration with the Nazis, and to spur discussion about our relationship to evil.  If you're really interested in these issues, see Max Ophul's&nbsp;<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/The-Sorrow-and-the-Pity/dp/B00005AFSL/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">The Sorrow and the Pity</a>&nbsp;and read Hannah Arendt's<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/Eichmann-in-Jerusalem-A-Report-on-the-Banality-of-Evil/dp/0844659770/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil</a>.  This book is a starting point for people who have no prior exposure to these issues.
4145333
For the most part, this is a a basic text on marriage and family that covers all the topics that most texts cover from the history of the family, issues they face to alternate family formations. However, a blatant flaw of the book is how Benokraitis deals with or does not deal with race. The way she awkwardly includes the experiences of groups like African Americans, Mexican Americans and Native Americans is annoying and lacks any depth, which shows her lack of knowledge and concern for the issue. For example, in Chapter 3 on the historical perspectives of the family, she has a short section of covering the experiences of these three groups. In her discussion of the African American family, she cites an old Marlon Riggs' documentary, 'Ethnic Notions' to support her claim that Black have depicted negatively in the media. Really? She cited a documentary to make this point, ummm, ok. Not to say that she doesn't cite anyone else in this section, but this is just example of the failed attempt at truly providing students with an in-depth analysis of the experiences of non-Europeans. I get that the focus of the book is not race, but if she didn't have the desire or interest to effectively include those groups in the text, she should have left them out. It wouldn't have been the first time.
436681
I wanted to read the follow up of what happened since the escape of her and her mother from Iran, because I only recently saw the excellent and very moving film. However this book, is overly detailed with a lot of irrelevant stuff, some of which is probably just her imagination, so I had to trawl (or mostly skip) through pages and pages of god and religion stuff to find out that she remained safe from her bullying, controlling, father. Frankly, I thought, and still believe that everything in this whole story could have been avoided had her mother been more aware of the pretty inevitable outcome of taking her daughter to Iran in the first place. Please don't tell me that people weren't aware of these fundamental religious and political situations at that time, because many of us were. However, I was living in Europe at the time and we Europeans are a little less insular to world events than many Americans living in the USA, where the news media often tends to ignore the outside world. Anyhow, back to the book. It's really just not worth reading, as you can find all of the relevant information on Wikipedia, on the Internet, which will save the curious of us a few hours of wasted time.
4073731
The discussion does not go to the great depths of the issues at hand. There is a certain element of value in it. I used it for a Bible study during the week. It is good for a read, and to make one think whether the agree or disagree with the author, but that discussion is carried on mostly on your own.
2522030
Bella plans a celestial-themed wedding for Justine and Harold while her husband DJ worries she's overworking herself and her extended family is missing her vacationing aunt and uncle.

Best bits: Lots of talk about having faith in God. The Splendora Sisters are as bold about their beliefs as ever, and Bella takes an opportunity to help an anxious bride one step further by talking about faith with her. Major theme of God not being surprised when the plans we make don't go our way.

Issues: Some typos, mostly missing or misplaced quotation marks. And there's really not a major plot to this story, it's more a look at the busy lives of a rather loud family. Which is fine if I care about the characters, but I kind of don't. So I didn't get into this really, and would've stopped reading if it wasn't so short. All the characters are rather larger-than-life and over-the-top, and to be honest, they're all just a bit much more me. I am particularly bothered by the way Bella's dad is so negative about his wife's cooking. I get that Rosa and Laz set the bar high, and the man loves his food, but it bothers me that he doesn't put his wife's feelings above his stomach.
4520970
I see two problems with the book.  One is the Universe it is set in is getting too large, especially when there is as much time between books as there was with this one.  It is getting harder to care about non-major characters that were introduced years ago.

The second issue is that there never really feels like there is any danger in this book.  It moves the story along and has some nice character development, but lacks the compelling attribute of most of the other books in the series.
21236
One of the major problems I found with this book is that Dawkins tries to cover just about every issue in the atheism vs. theism debate that has ever been heard.  I would have appreciated it if he had whittled it down a bit or at least had a more central focus to his book, but this book seems to be a more general covering of every topic imaginable.

Also in this book there will be a lot of topics that the reader probably won't be familiar with, and will have to look up, if they've never read up on atheism or any of the debates concerning the existence of God.  For example the reader might not know what NOMA refers to, what false positives and false negatives mean, or anything about game theory or what the term group selection means.  Fortunately I had already read up on that stuff (except NOMA) but I still had to occasionally look up some topics on the Internet for further reference.

There were a few topics that I didn't agree with which is why I gave it three stars.  I don't agree with memetics, the anthropic principle, his idea that some parameters of the Universe can be "tweaked".  He also said Jesus never existed, which is crazy.  What I was really hoping for were some original arguments against the existence of God, and some good reasons to be an atheist.

Needless to say it's hard to enjoy this book if you're already highly opinionated, but sometimes you can find little tidbits of information that can be informative.  Dawkin's understanding of evolution can be quite informative and gives good examples of animal behavior that can be compared to human behavior.  A lot of people also give him a bad rap because of his strong criticism of Old Testament morality but I found it to be quite accurate when compared to the kind of morals that most Christians espouse today.

Although a few of the topics covered are dated, overall this is good introduction to atheism and some contemporary arguments in the debate about the existence of God, which I'm keeping in mind when I give this three stars.  Be prepared to look things up but also don't be afraid to flip through a few other books on human behavior, natural selection, genetics, and the God debate.  I recommend this book and any other (modern) books on atheism if you want to stay up to speed.