L. Worthington

Not for the easily offended, this book is crass, bawdy but highly entertaining. The author is so open and honest, sharing frighteningly intimate thoughts and portraying the actions during his pre-teen and teenage years. I had to remind myself many times that this book is a memoir, not fiction. It is so out there, the things that happened in the author's life and the people he is surrounded by that it's almost hard to believe at times, although, I've met some people who aren't too far away from the characters in the book, which make it even more fascinating. The characters are so well developed throughout that you almost know what they look like and can imagine meeting them in real life. This is a book that stays with you for a long time after you read and leaves you wondering. I can't wait to read more from Augusten Burroughs - a fantastic writer.

I am surprised that this book is not more well known and popular - it absolutely should be! I have read countless diet books, and most deal with "eat this and not that" but don't delve deeply into what the real problem is with people who have a hard time losing weight and keeping it off - behaviors, habits, psychology and physiological factors that aren't obvious and make it more difficult.

I had already lost about 50 pounds by the time I came across this book and was struggling with the last 10. After a 12 year weight battle I finally felt like I come across some of the right habits and behavior changes and already was doing some of the things in this book that had proven to be very successful for me. So in a way, this book reframed some of this in a clearly defined way for me which was very helpful, but also offered several other suggestions that have been enormously helpful in shedding the rest of the weight and dealing with the maintenance aspect of weight loss, which really can be harder than losing the weight itself. After all, to quote the author "The best compliment you'll ever receive is - you've lost the weight... and kept it off!"

I recommend also purchasing a hardcopy version of this book to take notes. I think that this book is loaded with information that is crucial to weight loss success and everyone concerned with that should own it. I can see why the author is so successful in his practice, this stuff really works!!!

I LOVED this book! It is hilarious, from beginning to end. Maarten Troost does a phenomenal job of putting you front and center into the experience of the story and leaves you wanting more. This story has a lot of adventures that cover several different aspects of travel, from actual travel itself on crappy ships and scary airplanes, to the culture of cannibals, tourists and ex-pats. I just wish it was longer and that he would hurry up and write another book!!!

If you only buy one book ever about your dog, make it this one! While his book will not explain how to teach your dog commands (sit, stay, come) it will teach you how to get your dog to operate in the human world, be easy to live with and most importantly, keep you from ending up in a lawsuit. This book is revolutionary, an absolutely essential read for the dog owner. It shows you how to keep your dog in line - no more annoying, destructive and sometimes dangerous behaviors such as obsessiveness about food and toys, acting dominant and aggressive towards other dogs, biting, barking, whining, etc. No other book on dog training teaches this.

I read several books before this one trying to figure out how to get my puppy to behave. She knows basic commands and several tricks, but I found it didn't keep her from chasing people and animals down the road, barking at every noise and jumping up on people. Nothing I read taught me that. After reading this book, however, and using its principles, my puppy has changed dramatically and quickly.

We give our dogs, love and affection and usually that's it! Just like with people (children especially) you can't love your dog into behaving. Exercise and discipline need to come first. Exercise to release their pent up energy and discipline in the form of rules and boundaries, not to be confused with punishment. Then comes the love and affection. This is what leads to a balanced, stable and healthy dog, one that doesn't rule your life.

Keep an open mind while reading this book, as with anything that really works, it may contradict many things that you have heard or read about dog training. It explains the psychology behind dog behavior and how we can teach a dog to adapt to our world, which is much different than theirs. It will change your life and make you and your dog much happier!

This book was fascinating, has great details about some of the more popular/well-known artists. It covers quite a few artists from all over and the parts of their lives that made them famous (or infamous) and more importantly - just plain interesting. It offers a peek into why they may have created what they did, what events and environment shaped their personality and more. The only reason why I'm not giving it five stars is that it really could be much longer and go more in depth with the biographies. It really just skims the surface and gives an overview - a good job of it, but not quite enough.

I thought that this book was great for many reasons, but the most important one being that it lays the foundation for many eastern spiritual practices. It takes the mysticism out of, well, mysticism and backs it with scientific explanations. I have to admit that I used to be skeptical about meditation and other 'new age' practice, but this book sums up the scientific validity of this and more. It also offers insight upon how some people's emotions are destructive and how to counteract that. Although it is not a self-help book, but is presented as one (part of the reason for four stars rather than five, the other reason being that it lays down fact after fact a little too quickly to grasp at times), it still is a valuable tool for understanding the premise of the title.

I am the type of person that can get stuck in a conversation every now and then, baffled as to what the proper response may be. This book offers very precise things to say in sticky situations and/or approaches for times when there is something to be gained and you are unsure how to do it. It would be better if the book was longer and more explanatory though.

The author takes events and information about Artemisia and develops her own story about Artemisia's life. While very interesting, one must remember that is is fictional based on a real character. Nevertheless, I still enjoyed listening to this book immensly and wanted to believe it to be true. I'll definitely listen to it again.

I think what I liked best about this book is that it gives an overview of the history of the events that took place during John Adams life in addition to his biography. It doesn't take the approach of being overly biased towards John Adams like a lot of biographies do for their subjects. It seems to be backed by a lot of research and includes fascinating information and almost mini-biographies of others in that time period as well, especially Thomas Jefferson. Although it took a long time to listen to, I never became bored with it and always looked forward to listening to it. I'd recommend it to most anyone.

Although I liked listening to this book, it had a few interesting stories of how people came to find their happiness through life and career, it is not by any means a 'how-to' book, and I think that the title leads some to believe that's what they're reading. Probably the best piece of wisdom I derived from it is that most people find their purpose in a way that is not this magical awakening lightbulb moment that most are looking for. For that piece of advice the book is worth listening to.