5 comments about Move Your Stuff, Change Your Life : How to Use Feng Shui to Get Love, Money, Respect and Happiness.

1. I am a classically trained interior designer and have been practicing for over 20 years. A couple of years ago, I decided to learn Feng Shui to mix it up a bit.
   
   Move Your Stuff, Change Your Life is one book I read to learn Feng Shui. I also read others--many of them were too "far out. " Move Your Stuff, however, is a terrific Feng Shui book. Concise and easy to understand is at the core of why this book is so good.
   
   Last year, I used Move Your Stuff and Harmonious Environment: Beautify, Detoxify and Energize Your Life, Your Home and Your Planet when I moved into my new home. Harmonious Environment is Feng Shui + green living + great design and the books work wonderfully together. The Feng Shui approach is slightly different from the authors and they both make sense.
   
   My home is now gorgeous. The Feng Shui techniques I used helped me land the job of my dreams, brought my husband and I closer and has erased the friction between (some)family members.
   
   I use the techniques on some of my clients, too and have equally as impressive results.
   
   Right on!



2. This book is written perfectly. Structure is very simple and easy to understand. I love this book! I live by it now.
   It the best purchase I've made in couple months.



3. Move Your Stuff, Change Your Life : How to Use Feng Shui to Get Love, Money, Respect and Happiness
   
   This little book by Karen Rauch Carter is the best feng shui book I've read. Use it and go to work making the changes that bring love, money, respect and happiness.
   
   Carter's simple power tools are easy to incorporate into your life. She begins with the feng shui toolbox, explaining chi energy, the bagua, cures for what ails your space, etc. and then goes on to explain all aspects of feng shui cures for your home, your life and your well-being.
   
   Power tools for prosperity might be as simple as clearing your clutter and adding something purple to the prosperity corner of your home or a single room or as complex as diagraming your home's layout. Either way, her methods are fun and interesting, and whether you choose to incorporate her ideas or not, you will find the book a fascinating read.
   
   I personally used this book to de-clutter and decorate my home and can attest to the wonderful results.
   
   Very highly recommended.



4. This book is so easy to implement. I read this a few months ago and forgot about it. One day, just noticed that I was able to create very elaborate designs in my jewelry. Ideas flow smoothly. I realized that when I moved my workbench, I unknowingly (maybe subconsciously) moved it to the creativity corner. Wow.



5. Of all the books I've read on Feng Shui, this is the clearest and easiest to follow with a touch of humor.

5 comments about Drinking: A Love Story.

1. I'm not going to go on and on about how I analyzed this book and pretend like I'm an expert, but I will say that I loved it. I read it for a health and behavior class intended for exercise science majors. It is an excellent book for females to read and I know many females will be able to relate and feel comfort in Knapp's words, whether or not the reader herself is an alcoholic.



2. I loved this book. I reread it every once in a while because it's so intelligent and beautifully written. It gets a alot of attention as a memoir of addiction (and it's the best one I've ever read), but it stand on it's own as an exquisite piece of writing and a memoir - time spent with a brilliant and nuanced mind, a sophisticated and sensitive person. I wish wish wish I could spend more.



3. What a fantastic book. Not just about alcoholism but the human struggle to live in our own skin, face our problems, our losses and move forward. Also a moving story about an amazingly honest woman. I'm not an alcoholic, but I use the stuff many times to not deal with things, and this book helped me to see that there is something more noble in steering clear of that kind of behavior and seeking more authentic experience. She's done a wonderful job of letting us in on her struggle, and somehow illuminating our own. I was terribly sad to find out that she had passed away some years ago, but she certainly left behind a great gift of inspiration. Her father's quote is a wonderful gem: "Insight is almost always a rearrangement of fact." Her insights bear this out. I wish I had the guts to buy this book for all my girlfriends.



4. "Drinking: A Love Story" - even the title is compelling. And the first line - "It happened this way: I fell in love and then, because the love was ruining everything I cared about, I had to fall out." And the love to which she is referring is, of course, with alcohol.
   
   And she's right...although I never thought about alcoholism that way before. There are many similarities between this love and the love for someone who seems perfect at first but turns out to be life changing in the most destructive ways.
   
   "I loved the way drink made me feel, and I loved its special power of deflection; its ability to shift my focus away from my own awareness of self and onto something else, something less painful than my own feeling. I loved the sounds of drink: the slide of a cork as it eased out of a wine bottle, the distinct glug-glug of booze pouring into a glass, the clatter of ice cubes in a tumbler. I loved the rituals, the camaraderie of drinking with others, the warming, melting feelings of ease and courage it gave me."
   
   Seductive, isn't it?
   
   Caroline Knapp is painfully honest as she tells her story, seemingly holding nothing back as she tells the reader about her theories on her own alcoholism, about the factors in her life, physical, emotional and circumstantial that may have contributed to this deadly love. While I am very fortunate to not share that love, I sympathized with her many times as she described her life.
   
   "Growing up, I never heard my parents say "I love you," not to us and not to each other. I never heard them fight either. That's something else."
   
   I must have read that line a dozen times in disbelief. While she never describes any physical abuse, the idea that a child grows up not hearing "I love you" several times a day from their parent just breaks my heart.
   
   I once worked with a man who was a recovering alcoholic, and I remember him asking me if I was able to have just one drink at a sitting. I told him I was, that sometimes that drink would go unfinished. He shook his head and told me that he couldn't imagine taking a first sip of a drink and then not ending up blacking out at the end of an evening. So this section resonated with me.
   
   "My mother didn't drink that way. Neither did my sister. They'd have a glass of wine at dinner - a single glass - and if you tried to pour more, they'd cover the glass with a hand and say, "No, thanks. I've had enough". Enough? That's a foreign word to an alcoholic, absolutely unknown. There is never enough, no such thing."
   
   That thought is chilling to me - that once the drinking starts - it never stops.
   
   The description of the elaborate planning that goes into being a "high functioning alcoholic" (as Knapp describes herself) seemed exhausting to me. Visiting different liquor stores each day, making up parties and events to explain the volume of the purchases, hiding booze in closets and plants. Though much of Knapp's story comes through in the carefully strengthening voice of someone who has lived through a nightmare and is carefully rebuilding, sometimes she is able to look at her past life with humor.
   
   "Recycling is a problem to the active alcoholic: you have to see all those bottles, heaped together in the recycling bin, and that can be a disconcerting image. Luckily, I did most of my solitary, alcoholic drinking in communities that didn't then recycle, so I'd pile the bottles into a heavy plastic garbage bag and lug them out to the curb or heave them into a Dumpster, hoping no one nearby heard all the glass clinking and rattling as I went along."
   
   Caroline Knapp's story is a compelling one, a look at the destruction that the love of drink can have on a life, on several lives as she talks to people she meets in AA, on a country as she gives chilling statistics and facts. And it's a story that doesn't have a happy ending.
   
   As the book comes to a close, she is still sober, but she is the first to admit that the odds are against her and that it is a daily, hourly fight to stay that way.
   
   "I once heard a woman say that as an alcoholic, a part of her will always be deeply attracted to alcohol, which seemed a very simple way of putting it, and very true. The attraction - the pull, the hunger, the yearning - doesn't die when you say goodbye to the drink, any more than the pull toward a bad lover dies when you finally walk out the door."
   
   Because, of course, while closed, that door is still there, and can be opened once again.



5. After reading this book, I googled Caroline Knapp only to discover, to my great disappointment, that she died recently of lung cancer at the youthful age of 42. So sad. Drinking is fantastic. She cleverly weaves through her life as a privileged young adult to parents of means and into the life of an alcoholic. Most impressive is Knapp's ability to weave personal stories out of chronological order and placed more precisely according to her path toward recovering, alongside factual information about alcohol abuse in general. She holds herself no victim and accepts personal accountability while also endearing the reader to sympathize very well. I think I drink too much wine now.

5 comments about Blow Him Away: How to Give Him Mind-Blowing Oral Sex.

1. Excellent book. For someone who thought they knew everything, I found out I was not that knowledgeable. This book gave me good ideas and exercises to use. My husband says Thank You!



2. This is all the stuff you learned in high school. Save your money and ask your partner what they enjoy!



3. I know one needs to properly prepare for everything, but the exercise routines listed in this book are way too much to do and to remember. The last 10-15 pages were a little helpful, but not anything that I haven't heard before. I agree with the other reviewer...save your money and just set your pride aside and ask your partner what he likes!



4. Everything you wanted to know but didn't know who or how to ask is answered in this book. Filled with hints and tips, you can't go wrong if you read the book and practice, practice, practice!!!



5. This book takes you from oral hygiene to ectasy, or i should say your man's ectasy. Very well written instruction manual, very highly recommended.

5 comments about It's Called a Breakup Because It's Broken: The Smart Girl's Break-Up Buddy.

1. Not what I expected... Instead of making me feel better, it made me feel worse! When your heart is broken, the last thing you want to hear is "it's called a break up because it's broken" and "move on already!" said to you over and over again, as if it were as simple as making a sandwich!
   Instead of bringing the focus on yourself, and dealing gently with your heart and with pain in a constructive way, it brings more focus on the partner who "dumped" you, and what "loser" or "[...]" he is for doing this to a "super fox" (eesh!) like yourself. I highly doubt that building hate or frustration this way is of any good, just as I doubt that numerous break-up stories should make you feel better. It's the last thing you want to hear when your heart is aching. In those moments, you'd want to deal with the pain and understand the situation, and maybe being encouraged that there are wonderful men out there, that would love to be with someone like you!



2. I read recently this while going through a break up, and have since recommended it to all my friends. I was depressed over my break up and this book helped me through it. It's geared towards women/girls who have been dumped (though there's some in there about if you did the dumping.) There are workbook sections at the end of chapters. The book reminds you that you are a good person who will probably find someone who appreciates you, and now you are free to find that person. 5 stars.



3. When your are at your worst this book comes in even handier than a best friend. Stories about others who have been through it, advice about what to do and not to do, and antidotes of self confidence.



4. This book was amazingly helpful to me during my divorce. It not only contains fantastic advice, but made me laugh at a time when I wasn't really feeling that jovial. Put down the ice cream, pick up the book!



5. This book is amazing. I bought this book after a six month relationship suddenly ended, and not by me! I was suffering so badly from a broken heart I thought for sure I would die!I had a huge support system but nothing would snap me out of my funk. Amazingly, after reading only half of the book,I felt so much better! Every question, scenario and fantasy you have in your head when you are in mourning is answered in here. It's to the point , comforting , funny and empowering. I highly recommend this book if you are dwelling on a broken relationship and wasting your time on the jerk who left you.

5 comments about Why Marriages Succeed or Fail: And How You Can Make Yours Last.

1. John Gottman is a respected expert on relationships who has done extensive research with married couples over the past two decades to determine why couples stay together or part. Although Gottman's book is about marriage, it also has some excellent insights for understanding some of the important dynamics of long-term courting relationships. The book provides many exercises, quizzes, techniques and tips to understand and improve courting relationships.
   
   Gottman notes that his years of research show that a lasting marriage results from a couple's ability to resolve the conflicts that are inevitable in any relationship. He also notes that there are three different styles of conflict resolution that healthy couples usually adopt. They are: the validating marriage (couples compromise and calmly work out their problems attempting to satisfy both people), the conflict-avoiding marriage (couples agree to disagree and rarely confront issues head on), and the volatile marriage (couples conflict often and the results are passionate disputes).
   
   John Gottman also discusses what he calls "The Four Horseman of the Apocalypse." These are the dangerous ways of interacting that sabotage attempts to communicate. They are criticism, contempt, defensiveness and stonewalling.
   
   Well written and informative, Gottman's research has uncovered some worthwhile and thought provoking ideas on long-term relationships. Understanding these concepts can be helpful when trying to understand oneself and when exploring long-term compatibility with a companion.
   
   I found many useful concepts throughout the book. Overall a powerful work on strenthening relationships!
   
   The Re-Discovery of Common Sense: A Guide to: The Lost Art of Critical Thinking



2. I use this book in working with couples planning to marry or when couples struggle, and they ALWAYS find answers. Gottman's style is respectable and accessible for "everyman," while still maintaining heady content for professionals. I recommend it for couples looking to learn better fighting styles and communication patterns, for pastors and professionals who work with couples in trouble, and for people trying to set the rules before they actually play the game. Great text!



3. This book provides excellent advice that is laid out logically, and is easy to understand and implement. A few simple changes can improve how your interact with your spouse.



4. If you are wanting excellent and easy reading on marriage, commonications and relationships in general buy any and everything by John Gottman



5. Hands down one of the best books I've ever read about relationships. You don't have to be married to appreciate this book. You can be in a budding relationship or one that may eventually lead to marriage. Whatever the case, there is something in this book you can learn and implement right away - to improve your relationship and make it one that will make you and your partner happy for years to come.

1 comments about The Four Agreements Toltec Wisdom Collection: 3-Book Boxed Set.

1. Amazing! So Much Personal Power in such a small Book! Easy read and Makes you Think! I've only read the first two books so far but they showed up at a time of upheaval in my life. Who doesn't ever have That? Whether your life is in flux or no, This is a Must Read for Change.

5 comments about Love, Medicine and Miracles: Lessons Learned about Self-Healing from a Surgeon's Experience with Exceptional Patients.

1. 12+ years ago when my surgeon told me I had breast cancer (my second bout with cancer), she gave me this book. Not only did it help me develop, sustain and exude a positive attitude during my entire treatment phase, but it made me a touchstone for anyone else who was diagnosed with cancer and contacted me. Since that time, whenever someone that is near and dear to me, someone that I truly love and want to do something positive for when they are diagnosed with cancer, I give them a copy of this book. Not one of them has died to date. My most recent gift of the book has been to my husband and he is visibly changing his attitude as he reads it.



2. You Must Read This If You Have Cancer or Know Anyone Who Does... I titled this review with those words becuase I believe that statement to be as simple a truth I can make it. The book offers a powerful insight into the cause and treatment of cancer from one of the worlds leading authorities, as well as accounting his own journey to that understanding. The wisdom from the author is profound as it discuses both the medical understanding and approach to cancer as well as the humanistic and natural approach of mind-body medicine. It offers more than hope, it offers a true solution to those who have been diagnosed with cancer. Read it - it's as simple as that!



3. I bought this book and a few tapes by Bernie Siegel when I had cancer about 18 years ago. I found the book to be right on the money. I have since given this book to many of my friends and associates over the years who were diagnosed with cancer.



4. As a medical student, this book couldn't have arrived at a better time! While I agree with some of the more negative reviews that this might encourage someone with chronic illness to feel like they/their attitudes "caused the disease" on their own, this book can also be mind-opening. If we all looked as disease as merely an unmet need manifesting itself, we would treat ourselves much differently. Our illnesses might not always require a chemical drug to mask the needs that are weakening us in the first place. I am encouraging my classmates to read this and see for themselves how deciding "I don't need this _______________ in my life" can change their well-being as it did mine!



5. There is little I can say that hasn't been said. This is a wonderful book. I've given it to many friends and friends of friends who were facing serious illness. All of them have gone out of their way to thank me and commented on how helpful they found the book. The author neither says nor implies that illness is someone's *fault.* He merely talks about the psychological part of fighting illness. There is no blame in illness or in its outcome.

5 comments about Women Who Love Too Much.

1. Norwood offers uncommon insight into why people develop unhealthy thinking and behavior patterns within relationships. Equally interesting are the stories of people who may alternately develop intense and unhealthy attachments to food, sex, alcohol, work, shopping, or any other external "thing" as a way to relieve deep emotional pain. If that sounds like you or someone you know, it's likely you will find comfort in this book. Solid guidance and concrete steps for those who are ready to move beyond these behaviors to a more healthy way of life - or support someone else who makes such a choice.



2. The book I bought had 3 sheets slightly torn, fortunately on the edges.
   My son and I bought over 100 books from Amazon during the last few months, all from Amazon France except one (Women Who Love Too Much)from the US, for which I had to pay transport cost equivalent to the price of the book. I wanted to cancel the US order five minutes after I had realized the error, so that I could make the same order with Amazon France, but the lady on the phone said it was too late to cancel.Big company like Amazon should not have acted like that. Can you imagine a little book like that costed almost 12 euros! I hope Amazon can improve in this respect. Wishing you all the success. An Nhon NGUYEN



3. I read this book about 25 years ago and learned so much. It opened up my eyes. Now, in 2008, I just purchased it for my 21 year old niece. She is shocked by how much this book is "her". I told her "it's all of us women".
   Fran S.



4. This book was a life saver for me. I was in an abuse marriage and the insight from the book was very valuable. I highly recommend it.
   
   Ruth



5. I stumbled across the book by accident at the library and boy am I glad I did.
   
   This book was written at least 20 years ago and to bad I did not read it then. I literaly saw myself on every page of this book. It was so helpful in helping me see why I chose the men that I do and how to heal myself so I don't make these same mistakes again
   
   Every single woman out there needs to read this book. I can't say enough good things about it.

5 comments about Keeping The Love You Find: A Guide for Singles.

1. If you are really committed to personal growth and to not repeating the same old mistakes in your next relationship, then this is the book. it is not an easy read. I was recommended this book by my therapist and it's the most intense self help book I have ever worked through (and I have been doing this for some time).
   Doing the exercises in the book has helped me to bring all kinds of thoughts and habits that I wasn't aware of into consciousness where I stand a chance of healing them and doing things differently in the future. The process has been painful and uncomfortable at times and I had to take breaks and come back to it, but it has accelerated my personal growth dramatically. Really worth it.



2. This is another excellent book by Harville Hendrix in which you can learn a lot about what makes you do the things you do in a relationship, and why others do what they do. I found both this book and Hendrix's Guide for Couples extremely enlightening and I've read a lot of self-help books! (The Guide for Couples is fine for Singles, by the way)



3. This is a great self-help book. If you complete the exercises you will learn a lot about yourself.



4. I read this book and didn't really like a lot of the sections in it. Everybody is different though. It wasn't of value to me, but it could help you.



5. As a psychotherapy training supervisor, I highly recommend this book for singles, couples and those professionals open to a different slant on relationships.

5 comments about Just Do It: How One Couple Turned Off the TV and Turned On Their Sex Lives for 101 Days (No Excuses!).

1. Cute book, I agree with other reviewers that the writing is poor. Sometimes that was a distraction, but to be fair, it's not the great American novel. Nothing special, but something to fill time. I'm surprised people are complaining that it wasn't erotic enough. If you read the description, it's obviously not erotica nor really self-help- just a cute love story.



2. This is not a well written book. Not really that much fun unless you like listening to other people whine about there lives. Yes, I get that the author doesn't like Denver and he grew up 'poor' (who didn't?). Anyone that has kids will not sypathize with the routine juggling act that we ALL do with marriage, kids, family, etc. This one's going in the trash - never to be read again.



3. This is a look into Doug and Annie's marriage and commitment to each other much more than a look into their bedroom.
   
   I recommend this to anyone looking to get the passion and intimacy .
   Other recommendation is: I Love You. Now What?: Falling in Love is a Mystery, Keeping It Isn't



4. Cute book, but it had some flaws. Unlike "Julie and Julia" this read like it was straight from some blog. Near the end (ahem), the author inserted (sorry) emails from his wife that weren't all that relevant to the story and felt like a lazy way to fill space.
   
   The big problem I had was that the authors seemed to make use of hot and cold running childcare. Free care from his parents, who would fly in for weekends, then eventually a paid nanny. The kids never seemed to mind being left, never cried, showed very little resentment. We could take out a 2nd mortgage and do the same thing, but my kids would have thrown hissy fits every time. Of course, the Browns could write off the cost of each sitter and hotel because it was an expense related to the book. The rest of us have to make do.
   
   Interestingly, they were back to once or twice a week after the "marathon" ended.



5. I bought this book because I read it was more a light-hearted memoir, not a "how-to" for spicing up marriage. Douglas Brown and his wife, Annie, are a couple I could relate to-- dealing with life, work, children, while trying to manage "adult" time. They seemed to be a laid back, traditional couple, who really love their kids. I think I enjoyed learning about their family as much as I did the purpose for the memoir. Of course, it was fun reading about their trials in "sexploration." There were several "LOL" moments, particularly when struggling through sex during sickness and snot. Brown's knack for humorous writing made this a joy to read.