Book Description
Recent advances in medical technology mean that there are currently an extraordinary array of health care choices available to the public. In this import book, Dr. Savard, a doctor turned patient advocate, equips readers with the techniques for navigating the often confusing world of healthcare, enabling them to take control of their own health.
Customer Reviews:
Great reading.......2007-07-24
If you enjoyed this book you should read some of her other books - she is really an excellent down to earth writer with great advice.
How to Save Your Own Life.......2000-08-30
This book is timely and empowering. It provides guidelines that are detailed and easy to follow so that we can be informed participants in our own healthcare. This is a 'must have' if you: ~believe that you should be a part of the decision-making process regarding your healthcare; ~like being an informed consumer (includes information about diagnostic tests, interpreting results etc.); ~belong to an HMO and have minimal time with your primary care physician or see multiple physicians in large group practices (you can always provide them with up-to-date information); ~want more information about a disease or medical condition (the print and internet resources will direct you to accurate information); ~want to be able to take advantage of the most up-to-date medical and drug interventions (the information YOU can provide for your physician will make that decision easier).
How to Save Your Own Life and the Savard Health Record will make a major impact on the quality of our healthcare. Family and friends on my gift list can expect copies!
Thank you, Dr. Savard.......2000-08-28
I don't know how I have lived so long without this book! I truly believe that Dr. Savard's book, "How to Save Your Own Life" should be required reading for anyone who cares about their health. Ever since my mother became sick a year ago, I have realized how important it is for us to be in control of our medical care. This book, along with The Savard Health Record makes what could be a daunting process very simple. Thank you, Dr. Savard, for your thoughtful contribution to my peace of mind.
Safeguarding Your Medical Well Being.......2000-08-26
This is truly one of the more thoughtful and useful medical books written in a long time -- a small gem to be shared alike with family and friends. The message is simple yet vital to your health: managing your personal health care requires forging active and informed partnerships with your health care providers. In clear and engaging prose, Dr. Savard illustrates both why and how you should assume responsibility for your medical well being and guides you through the easy steps one takes to become a knowledgeable partner with your medical providers.
The lessons learned from this book will stay you for a long time and will change not only the way you approach your own medical care, but those of your family as well. This book gives you the tools you need to navigate an often complicated and intimidating health care system. "How to Save Your Own Health" will serve you well in good health and may be critical when facing a medical crisis.
A Life Saver.......2000-08-26
I cannot beleive you could read this book and not want to share it with anyone that you care about.This book impowered me to take health care out of the cold hands of the HMO's and put it back in the right hands. Mine and my Docter's. The advice and education you get from Dr. Savard in this book is so valuable. What a great gift to give to the people you love. As a health care professional I know that following the steps in this book and keeping the Savard Medical Record is not an option . I was so impressed with this book and the Medical Record that I shared it with my company. I am pleased to say that Atria Assisted Living saw the same value I did. We are currently exploring the possibilities of using the Savard Medical Record to help us provide optimum care for our residents across the country. If you do not read any books on health... read this one.
Book Description
The story of four modern American Catholics who made literature out of their search for God
In the mid-twentieth century four American Catholics came to believe that the best way to explore the questions of religious faith was to write about them-in works that readers of all kinds could admire. The Life You Save May Be Your Own is their story-a vivid and enthralling account of great writers and their power over us.
Thomas Merton was a Trappist monk in Kentucky; Dorothy Day the founder of the Catholic Worker in New York; Flannery O'Connor a "Christ-haunted" literary prodigy in Georgia; Walker Percy a doctor in New Orleans who quit medicine to write fiction and philosophy. A friend came up with a name for them-the School of the Holy Ghost-and for three decades they exchanged letters, ardently read one another's books, and grappled with what one of them called a "predicament shared in common."
A pilgrimage is a journey taken in light of a story; and in The Life You Save May Be Your Own Paul Elie tells these writers' story as a pilgrimage from the God-obsessed literary past of Dante and Dostoevsky out into the thrilling chaos of postwar American life. It is a story of how the Catholic faith, in their vision of things, took on forms the faithful could not have anticipated. And it is a story about the ways we look to great books and writers to help us make sense of our experience, about the power of literature to change-to save-our lives.
Customer Reviews:
The Life You Save May Be Your Own.......2007-10-02
An excellent read, the livesof Merton,Day,Percy and O Connor beautifully melded and yet distinct. I highly recomend this book for all lovers of literature as well as Christians.
"Predicament shared in common".......2007-05-28
Inevitably, the attempt to merge four writers into one narrative that reviews their correspondence, books, essays, pronouncements, talks, and travels makes for an ambitious if uneven journey. Percy's Christian existentialism by contrast with his determinedly contrary if congenitally eccentric fellow Southerner O'Connor's keen eye and bitter comedy comes off as aloof, bookish, and not that interesting if by no fault of his own. His novels nearly all pale by comparison with her best fiction, and Elie has difficulty making some of his lesser novels even minimally engaging.
Day, by contrast with Merton, herself suffers from asceticism! While the two converts and one-time near counterparts in NYC progressive political and au courant literati circles in the years between the wars (albeit at some remove from each other's direct influence and circles of friends) share roots in what we'd call the typical avant-garde movements of Modernism and experimentation that generally any bright young thing in an urban East Coast environment has wandered into over our past decades, Day comes across as markedly more inflexible, so as to anchor her pacifist and anarchist commitment to individual choice to live the Gospel as "fools for Christ" must. Merton learns by contrast to adjust whether to his moral shifts before he entered the Trappists, his infatuation with the Abbey of Gethsemani and his sudden fame after he wrote his memoir, his diagnosis by a shrink as a "narcissist hermit," and his love affair with a nurse in the mid-1960s just as so many of his clerical colleagues were reneging on their vows and falling in love themselves with women rather than, or as well as, their calling to separate themselves from the ties that bind most of us, or used to.
Elie makes the best out of the enormous secondary criticism that has accrued around O'Connor, and of the correspondence and previously censored material now available to Merton scholars. He gives instructive close readings of "Wise Blood" and "Everything that Rises Must Converge" as well as contrasting the letters to Elizabeth Hester that show her public manner as preserved for posterity vs. hints of a more combative and much less PC Jim Crow-era attitude in her letters to Maryat Lee. The hints of what happened to Robert Lowell as a result of his manic visions of God and Caroline Gordon's own descent into a rigid form of Catholic scrupulosity needed more detail, however. Percy's life fails to emerge, and his family and career shimmer only vaguely throughout. Also, we have almost no sense of what Flannery did in college or during her MFA years in Iowa City, not to mention her own NYC stint prior to her diagnosis for lupus. I wanted more connection of her own urban flourishing to tie in to Merton's previous trajectory there, and Day's own movement away from the secular boho to the Catholic boho contigent, but perhaps such tracks remain too vague for serious biographers to retrace or imagine.
Well-chosen photos: young Percy strolling a German rustic trail, Day in the Bob Fitch snapshot of her sitting defiantly as two sheriffs loom to arrest her at a UFW rally, O'Connor radiant as she holds a new copy of "Wise Blood," Merton slouching in a straw hat and kicking back against a bench on the day of his ordination. These enliven these writers, too often reduced to small book jacket photos we have seen perhaps too often.
Percy appears genial if gloomy. The loss of much of his correspondence, unlike the stacks of carbons that fill up the enormous epistolary collection "The Habit of Being " for O'Connor and the letters and diaries for Merton posthumously published may explain Percy's diminished presence vs. his other two rivals for literary and spiritual audiences. Day seems not to be much interested in writing even though she dutifully published her memoir, carefully glossed as was Merton's for a more reticent era, "The Long Loneliness." Day early on appears to have chosen a lifestyle and a manner committed to renunciation of her own early fling, her sexual adventurism (although by our standards she and Merton are the norm, more or less, for those raised less religiously at least today), and her flirtation with Marxist and leftist movements. I like Merton's advice around the time of the grandstanding Berrigan Brothers agitprop: "I think the best thing is to belong to a universal anti-movement underground." (qtd. 396)
Elie is at his best in this section, as he shows how Day separated herself from the peacenik hippie priests and those playing to the camera while "the whole world is watching" in the later 60s for revolution that made Jesus a proto-Che. Elie explains that Day took pains to empathize with the other side, always, and not to place any dogma or manifesto between her and her identification with those who may have not wanted war in Vietnam but who could not be led to sympathize with guitar-strumming hippies and angry clerics spilling napalm and blood on shredded draft documents as cameras rolled. Merton, too, as Elie takes great care in documenting, struggled to be a leader of the Catholic reformers and the progressive left from his hermitage on the Abbey grounds where civil rights organizers and leftist luminaries made their own pilgrimages to meet with him and where he attempted to stay in touch from behind the monastery walls with a world that he knew needed his advice even as he vowed to stay faithful, at terrible and necessary personal cost, to his promises to remain a loyal priest and obedient monk. Merton too shrank from the violence that inspired young people to immolate themselves as burnt offerings against the war, and soon enough he too would meet in his sudden death "the Christ of the burnt ones" to whom he ended his memoir "The Seven Story Mountain".
O'Connor, being like Merton the more familiar of the four writers, comes across like him as the one you might like to meet and chat with, although unlike Fr. Louis I would fear reading about myself in her letters after the fact. Day's harder to make appealing, as her severity and devotion to seeing the Lord in the shattered ones kept her focused upon the less prosaic and less easily dramatized side of life that eschews sentimentality and exalts the utterly assured recognition of the Messiah in the poor and the crazed and deluded ones. Her choice, despite the convulsions of the Catholic Worker Movement and the fact that she could rarely find the time alone that Percy, Merton, and O'Connor needed to become speakers to the rest of us, "making oratory out of solitude," does make her active apostolate all the more admirable.
I conclude with a couple of passages. Elie compares O'Connor with Merton, Day, and Percy. Discussing an admittedly unlikely essay anthology in the tumultuous days of '69, "Mystery & Manners," Elie describes how she combined "objectivity and fierce personal conviction," speaking out of "aloneness and absoluteness," and how her Southern allegiance in the North, as "a believer in a disbelieving literary society," as "an artist in a church of philistines," transcends loneliness or alienation. What she and her fellow writers share is what all believers today share: "the aloneness of the religious believer generally." (426) She knows faith, the "substance for things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen," as I paraphrase the old Baltimore Catechism (as Elie I recall did much earlier in his book).
If O'Connor derived her power from her inflexibility, Elie continues, Merton by his sudden death escaped the end-time days of rage constant upendings of the 60s. His fluidity enabled him "to represent and call forth the aspirations of others." (427)
Elie finds his appeal in his "radical identification of himself with another" that evoked in his readers a similar identification. Merton was able to mature and recognize that his smarts, his charism, his desire for the spotlight could be used to turn attention from himself as the bestselling contemplative, the talkative monk, the literary talent submitting his work to censors (well, at least most of the time--the love letters he sent his nurse Margie notwithstanding, and showing the humanity that endured and made him ultimately a better monk and a kinder Christian at again what must have been enormous sacrifice and, at fifty-two, having to "grow up" even more). He had the gift of getting us to feel as if we were in his sandals, observing wryly and compassionately and righteously what he could see from beyond the walls around his hermitage, and beneath his own defenses within himself, schooled as he was in all the trends of the literati at the shrink.
A year and a half before his death, Merton in the thick of the antiwar campaigns addressed his brothers outside the monastery. Reading Camus, Merton came to realize the existential predicament for the believer mattered as much as for those like Camus who could not return to believe what they had left behind. Merton reflects in the letter to his superiors that he has moved beyond the "answers" that his early years in the monastery once led him to think that he had gained.
"Can a man make sense of his existence? Can a man honestly give his life meaning merely by adopting a certain set of explanations which pretend to tell him why the world began and where it will end, why there is evil and what is necessary for a good life? [. . . .] I have been summoned to explore a desert area of man' s heart in which explanations no longer suffice, and which one learns that only experience counts." (qtd. 402)
This journey into the arid regions impels the monk. He leaves the world's distractions to concentrate upon the battle within, and behind the defenses of the cloister he stands vulnerable "to remain open to God wholly and directly." Whether God answers is not up to the monk. Merton finds God must be known, not proven. "To seek to solve the problem of God is to seek to see one's own eyes."
Elie on the last page sums up how these four writers' predicament is now that of any believer, half a century and more now since these four writers thought and argued and prayed. Elie insists that they all knew what any believer or unbeliever today knows: authority lies not on the institutional Church or a social monolith commanding conformity to the Magisterium. Elie imagines a reform of today, for assimilating or uncertain Catholics, or anyone "quasi-religious," might be abandoning the idea of a true faith. Elie tells us now that "clear lines of orthodoxy are made crooked by our experiences and complicated by our lives." (472)
All of us look for signs. Readers, we are trained to and thrive by our own pilgrimage for meaning. Elie notes that "the burden of proof, indeed the burden of belief, for so long upheld by society, is now back on the believer, where it belongs." Now we have the testimony of Day and O'Connor, Merton and Percy, who all had to balance their unwanted label as "Catholic writers" or intellectuals in thrall to the Vatican with their own real tensions and longings and upsets. They imagined their own afflictions and some made poems and fiction out of it, others and other times these became editorials, letters, diaries, and conversations. And, the four new evangelists all witness to us, as evangels, messengers, of the pilgrimages they too stumbled through as their narratives ended.
A Lifeboat for Catholics drowning in the sins of the Church.......2007-01-05
What a joy this was to read! My personal thanks to Paul Elie for showing me how these four exemplary literary figures of my generation managed to live out a life of love and creativity within their constant struggle for faith. Such a universal story of people moored by the faith, but beset by the pityful human sinfulness of the institutional Church. Elie shows us how Merton, Flannery O'Connor,Dorothy Day and Walker Percy, renegades all, pursued their art and intellectual/spiritual quests in such different ways. Though I have read almost all of Merton and O'Connor and much of Day and Percy, it was with particular joy that I learned how much these figures overlapped in time and space, knew each other and were often correspondents. Elie's weaving into the text much of their correspondence gave me new perspectives.
A Wearying Pilgrimage.......2006-09-23
This attempt to link Day, Merton, O'Connor, and Percy doesn't work. While it's true they were Catholic writers whose lives overlapped to some degree and who read each other's work to some extent, it's also true that their lives were extremely different and that they rarely had contact with one another--a few meetings, some small bits of correspondence.
Also, the Publisher's Weekly reviewer is incorrect: the book is ponderous, and the prose is the very definition of workmanlike. The author was evidently attempting a self-consciously literary style--lofty, philosophical--alas for his readers. The writing reaches a particular crescendo of blandness in the pages when these Catholic writers come to the end of their lives. In fact, I couldn't quite make out how Merton had died from the account here and had to look it up on Wikipedia.
Perhaps because of the detached prose style, I felt that the author had little if any affinity for either the writers or their writings. The New Yorker says O'Connor is his favorite, but Day comes off best in the book, as the author sympathizes with the Catholic Worker movement and with Day's pacifism. He also seems to have found value in Wise Blood and the Moviegoer.
In general I wondered if the author's own pilgrimage in writing this book had left him fatigued and simply glad to be finished with it. I know that's how I felt by the end.
On the positive side, I did find some of the details of these writers' early lives fascinating. If you have not read such details in other biographies or autobiographical writings, you might find it worthwhile to check out the first half of this book.
Life-Saving Literary Criticism.......2006-05-25
This book is undeniably a classic of literary criticism and biography. Paul Elie gets it just right--he takes the spiritual concerns and the religiosity of the four authors very seriously while demonstrating a careful concern for the complexities and ambiguities of their faith. And he has a real knack for analyzing how all of this informs and undergirds their writings in ways that aren't necessarily straightforward and obvious. Furthermore, he accomplishes all of this in clear, jargon-free prose that is almost literary in its own right.
Certainly other biographies and autobiographies of Dorothy Day, Thomas Merton, Flannery O'Connor, and Walker Percy are out there (sorry, Barthes, "the author" is not dead), but "The Life You Save" accomplishes something a little different. Elie weaves in and out of their different lives and in so doing both suggests commonalities and similarities shared by them (the chapter titles are usually a reliable clue to these) as well as differences and contrasts that mutually highlight their characteristic particularities. Developing along these lines, later as the book progresses and our foursome become aware of each other Elie discusses their communications with each other and impressions of each other, which sheds invaluable light on all four of them and their concerns.
All of this could easily fly out of hand, especially in so large and substantial a book, but Elie holds it together and keeps the story/stories flowing along together, using the metaphor of the "pilgrimage" on multiple levels as a sort of common theme smoothing out his narrative while adding meaning and significance to it. At the end, appropriately enough, the image of the pilgrimage symbolizes his own involvement with the four authors and the writing of this book itself.
I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the relation of literature, religion, and social history. If you take the spiritual dimension of literature seriously while knowing full well that literature is more than just a disguised form of preaching, this book will definitely be right up your alley.
Book Description
"How To Build Your Own PC: Save A Buck And Learn A Lot" will teach you everything you need to build your own desktop PC. You will learn how to: * Select And Choose PC Components * Put The CPU On The Mainboard * Protect Your System From Static Electricity * Install The Mainboard In The Case * Install Hard Drives And CD-RW Drives * Select A DVD Burner And Get Into Digital Filmmaking * Install PCI Expansion Cards * Install Windows XP * Install A Dual-Boot Operating System (XP and Linux) You will also learn about careers in PC repair and be given further resources to continue your study of computers and computer repair.
Customer Reviews:
A Computer Was Built!.......2007-09-10
This was one of the 'how to' books I bought for my husband for his birthday. He had been remarking how he was tempted to build his own computer! Just last night he said he was ready to put his newly built computer in a permanent place - thanks due to several times referring to these books and got the answers he needed! He was glad to cross compare what one book said and how another might reword the same topic. Bottom line: A Computer Was Built!
A Good Start.......2007-05-07
This is an excellent overview of the process of building a PC, but it lacks sufficient detail to be a stand-alone cookbook. (I used it in conjunction with Robert and Barbara Thompson's "Building the Perfect PC." The two books together are a good combination.)
Best book written for the first time builder.......2007-01-08
This is a very informative book on all aspects of building a PC. For a first time builder, or a novice person looking to round out their computer building skills, this book is the best. With plenty of pictures, and easy to follow directions, this guy does it all. I recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn!
ULTIMATE GUIDE TO BUILDING A PC.......2005-03-26
Before I purchased this book, I was spending sleepless nights trying to get information on building my own computer. It seemed that everywhere I went, had "some" information that was useful to me, but I never had the feeling that I knew everything I needed. After reading this book, that all changed, and I felt 100% confident that I was ready to do what I orinally set out to do. This book has everything you need to know. There is no way you can go wrong. Althought this book does not talk about SATA hard drives, SLI, or even Athlon 64 processors, this book gives you enough basic knowledge to figure out those things with relative ease. Great book !!
Get What you Want, Learn a Lot, Don't Really Expect to Save........2005-02-23
When I picked up this book I was very skeptical. The title says Save a Buck and Learn a Lot. My experience is that this is at best only half true. I was just down at WalMart looking at their computer offerings. What you can get from them at around $500 is more, faster hardware than you can buy as components - not even considering the assembly effort.
Then in first flipping through the book I found a section labeled Will I Save Money by Building My Own System. His answer was maybe. And I think he is right. The WalMart system for instance included a 17" monitor and Windows XP. I've got a bunch of monitors and don't need another, and what if I want to run Linux, why should I pay for XP. Or, I have a computer that died recently. I suspect that it's the motherboard. I could use the case, power supply, CPU of the old system and build a new one much, much cheaper than WalMart. Second, the next system I need is a web server. Having a DVD R/W and a super sound card is absolutely useless. This machine's going into a closet and will sit there serving web pages, and hopefully not making any noise or recording any movies. On the other hand, it needs more memory and CPU power than the WalMart machine.
The second part of the title says Learn a Lot. And here he is absolutely correct. Following his instructions to build a PC, perhaps from an old one that you might get at the thrift store, you can put into it just exactly what you need. And if it ever breaks, you won't hesitate tearing into it to fix or upgrade it.
This is a good book to take the mystery out of building a PC.
Amazon.com
One of the surest ways to save a bundle of money on any serious home renovation is to be your own contractor. However, if an individual embarks on this effort not armed with all the facts and formalities, it can also be the proverbial primrose path to financial hell. Becoming your own contractor is neither as simple as it might seem, nor as potentially intimidating as worst-case scenarios might leave one to believe, if you have the facts and information you need before you begin.
Heldman, the author of Be Your Own House Contractor, one of the classics in the field, lays out how to evaluate your structure, estimate costs, negotiate loans as needed, and hire subcontractors; he also gives a thorough look at the forms and legalities involved in taking on this task. Done knowledgeably, with this book as a guide, a homeowner can save many thousands of dollars on renovation costs.
Heldmann provides savvy advice on whether certain kinds of projects are advisable under certain circumstances, whether renovations are financially practical for increased value, and approaches the subject with full knowledge of the kinds of disruption and confusion home renovating projects can cause in peoples' lives. This book will likely become yet another Heldmann classic for do-it-yourself home renovators in years to come. --Mark A. Hetts
Book Description
How to appraise a restorable structure, obtain financing, and hire subcontractors.
Customer Reviews:
Weak!.......2006-08-28
This is a high level overview of renovation with almost no useful details. The author tries to address too many things and in doing so never goes into depth anywhere. I bought the book to learn his take on cost estimation. He spends 1/2 page giving ballpark numbers for an "average-sized house" and it is too high level and he leaves a bunch of stuff out. If you know absolutely nothing about renovation then this book is a quick read and it might give you an idea of SOME of what there is to learn elsewhere. If you don't know anything about renovation before you read this book and all you do is read this book, HIRE A GENERAL CONTRACTOR AND DON'T ATTEMPT THIS YOURSELF!
Not perfect for a partial remodel.......2005-04-24
I bought this book because I am remodeling my basement. I find about 1/3 of the book to be useful, maybe a bit more.
There is a lot in here about purchasing a home for the purpose of remodeling, and those who would make such a purchase appear to be the target audience. For me, much of that content is not necessary because I am remodeling part of a home that I already own. There is also unneeded content about financing and making a real estate purchase. All this in a book that is only 106 pages plus appendices (contracts, forms, and sample blueprints).
book saved us thousands of dollars.......2000-05-21
My husband and I made a bid on a foreclosed property. The same night I ordered "Be Your Own Home Renovation Contractor." We read through the book when it arrived and because of the tips and expert advice of the author, we were able to spot major (hidden)defects in the house that would have cost us thousands of additional dollars to repair. Needless to say, we did not buy the foreclosure. We have since found another house and again, we have saved money using the author's tips and techniques.
Book Description
The Simplest Path, Step One: Free Your Mind delineates, in one slim volume, a complete system for achieving personal spiritual awakening, along with a straightforward, no-nonsense plan individuals and groups so enlightened can follow to awaken Humanity en masse and positively transform the world. This book contains keys to awakening. Awakening from our personal dream shatters the solid "box" of limitation memes have built around our lives, and frees us to fluidly craft our personalities, environments, relationships, careers, etc. as an artist paints a landscape or a sculptor teases form from formless clay. All of us awakening together from the shared dream of the planet will mark the birth of our species out of our current global nightmare of decline into a limitless future literally beyond our present ability to imagine, even in our "wildest dreams," indeed.
Customer Reviews:
Way Beyond "Socrates Revisited".......2007-08-22
After reading the commentary attached to the one star rating given by the young man from Texas, I feel compelled to step forward in defense of this very fine book. With only one exception, every point made in that negative review is simply wrong. Just not factually correct. The reviewer identifies himself as a young man (... "to my young mind"), and since all of his other Amazon reviews are of TV episodes on DVD, video games and rock music CDs I take him at his word. Well, I am an "old man," closing in on my sixty-third birthday, and I came to Mr. Casspriano's book after six decades of life experience, the last three of those decades a zealous practitioner of Zen Buddhism. I say this not to "brag," but simply to qualify myself as a reviewer before beginning.
I'll start where the one star reviewer closed his argument, with his statement that the simplest path reduces to two Socratic concepts: "Admit that you don't know anything" and "know yourself."
The first part is nominally true (the exception). Like Zen Buddhism, a central tenet of the simplest path is working to release the false notion we all hold that we know ourselves, other people, the world around us. But identifying and releasing our attachments to our illusions is a life's work, not some brash "I don't know nothin'!" as the young Texan seems to imply. Under normal circumstances, we go about our daily lives with no idea we are deluded about anything, as Maya (the illusion of the phenomenal world around and even inside us) is so convincing that most of us never even think to question its validity. Casspriano did not invent the notion of human beings being trapped in illusion, as this truth was known to the timeless authors of the Hindu Vedas and is central to all schools of Buddhism (not just Zen). But his scientific/spiritual exploration of the mechanism by which Maya ensnares our minds and can, with effort, be overcome is among the best "plain English" explanations of this process I have read. There is no "inscrutable mystery" in the simplest path (a criticism that has been accurately leveled toward Zen Buddhism, as a lot of Eastern thought truly does come off as "inscrutable" when translated into English and/or the metaphors of Western culture). Casspriano lays out in no-nonsense American English exactly what our brains are doing when they create the illusion we mistake for reality, then shows the reader in the same clear terms how to train his or her brain to break free of illusion and taste reality as-it-is. In just 216 pages, that is no mean feat. After thirty years of Zen practice and numerous kensho experiences (of varying depths and intensities), I can say from personal experience that Casspriano is correct. Enlightenment comes as the fruit of a long, incremental process of retraining the mind to touch reality in a new way, and the process described in the simplest path is the same as that followed in Zen practice, especially Rienzi Zen koan study (I'll have more to say about this in a later paragraph). Casspriano's approach and language is very different from traditional Zen (more "scientific," and no sitting meditation is required), which I think would appeal to Americans and other Westerners seeking to experience "awakening" without necessarily committing themselves to a religion like Buddhism, but the internal mental/spiritual process and final destination are the same.
"Know yourself," on the other hand, is not in this book at all, at least not in the way the young reviewer, or Socrates for that matter, uses the phrase. As in Buddhism, Casspriano takes pains to demonstrate that "self" is as much of an illusion as our misapprehension of the phenomenal world, and is a byproduct of exactly the same mind process that creates outer Maya. A core teaching of Buddhism is that our "self," our personality/ego, is nothing more than an aggregation of outside influences that cluster together in our minds like shiny stones gathered into a pile, and which we mistake not only for something "real," but tragically, for our essential selves. Yet this "pile" has nothing really to do with who we are at all. Buddhism teaches "no-self." Belief in the illusion of a unique and independent "self" is our greatest obstacle to enlightenment. Wasting time and energy getting to "know yourself" in the Western sense is foreign to Eastern thought. Casspriano again does a great job of translating the Buddhist concept of "no-self" into Western scientific/spiritual terminology. He shows the process by which our ego/personality aggregate "piles up," as well as how to take the pile down, stone by stone. Enlightenment is what the pile was covering up, and so it naturally appears as soon as the pile is removed - but oh how we cling to our personal pile of stones! "Self" is what we must trade for enlightenment, what must be surrendered, and Casspriano returns to this truth many times in the simplest path. My point is that the one star reviewer's reduction of the simplest path to "know yourself" has no basis at all in the actual book.
As to the book being "gimmicky": Yes, the words "The Simplest Path" recur frequently throughout the book, but not in reference to the book itself (at least that's not how I took it), but rather to the system of understanding the mind and working toward "awakening" Casspriano is describing - and it is a complete system that deserves to be considered as a whole, on its own. At times the repetition does have a feel of "branding" in the commercial sense, so I understand where the reviewer may have taken his impression. But the simplest path, while resonant with Zen Buddhism (and apparently, according to Casspriano, with the Toltec philosophy espoused by Carlos Castaneda, of which I have no personal knowledge, so I'll have to take the author's word for that) is far enough different that it needs its own "name" to set it apart from other schools of similar but not identical thought. The reviewer's criticism is like saying that every use of the term "Zen" in a book called "Zen Buddhism" should be taken as a reference to the book, and not to the larger practice of Zen Buddhism as a spiritual discipline that the book is describing. Casspriano's point in repeatedly linking The Simplest Path, Zen Buddhism and Toltec Shamanism throughout the book, at least as I understood it, is to highlight these three spiritual practices as related reliable paths through a dark forest of illusion, a forest in which many apparent (and more popular) paths, including most (all?) religious beliefs, actively vie to mislead travelers toward deeper ensnarement in the dream, rather than leading them toward "awakening."
I want to say a word about koan study in Rienzi Zen and how it relates to the simplest path. Koans are those quirky Zen sayings and stories like "what is the sound of one hand clapping?" or "what was your original face before you (or your parents) were born?" that have no rational answer, and which Zen students turn and turn in their minds like the tumblers of a combination lock until their imprisoned psyches "explode" in a "super-rational" experience of reality beyond the illusion ("irrational" would be the wrong term, as that implies "nonsense"). That "super-rational" vision of reality is called "kensho." I have experienced it myself, more than once in my lifetime. I have come to think of Casspriano's "Key Questions" in the second half of the simplest path, especially the later seven of the ten, as "cultural koans" designed to trigger "collective kensho" for the whole human race at once. Like "what is the sound of one hand clapping?", unflinching consideration of the value of human life, of how our beliefs about the future shape the present, of the true origin and destiny of life on Earth, etc., especially as seen through the lens of Casspriano's "Key Question Technique," reveals that none of these questions have rational answers, yet all require our active and immediate response. Successful resolution of these larger riddles that impact everyone will require us all to eventually "explode" into reality, together, in a "super-rational" way. We'll have to break through the illusion and wake up together, as one (which has been the goal of Mahayana Buddhism, of which Zen is a sect, since around 200 BCE). That is the "Planetary Awakening" addressed in this book, and I believe Casspriano's "Key Questions" are a concrete step in that direction. I'm glad I spent my fifteen dollars.
This is my "old man" take on the simplest path, having encountered it after 30 years of Zen Buddhist practice (I'm not veering off my chosen path here, just bowing respectfully in passing toward Casspriano's). From a Buddhist perspective, the simplest path is true Dharma, though I do not get the impression from reading his book that Vincent Casspriano is himself a Buddhist or a follower of any religion. That to my mind makes his book all the more interesting.
True, but gimmicky.......2007-08-09
Casspriano's book is scientifically and philosophically sound as best as my young mind can tell, but I don't recommend this book. Its scattered with numerous pages of advertising about how his "program" works and how it compares to other religions and spiritual movements. Why must this author physically write out "The Simplest Path" in reference to his book every other page, and talk about his second volume? Perhaps because he's not out for pure truth, but for our money.
All this book comes down to after you strip away the nonsense is two things. First, admit that you don't truly know anything. Second, know yourself. Do those two things (they essentially both mean to question EVERYTHING), and you'll have Casspriano's "Planetary Awakening," with 15 bucks still in your pocket. And you'll be following the fundamental truths already said by Socrates.. so do yourself a favor and pick up Plato's "Apology" and read up on the Socratic dialogue on how to live a good life. And don't stop there, because you can't be sure he's right.
And I have 10 bucks that says these other couple of reviews were written by the book publisher. In any case, ignore the hype.
A Unique and Inspiring Wake-up Call.......2007-05-15
This is one of the most clear-headed books I've read in years on the subject of real, nitty gritty, get your hands dirty spiritual development (as opposed to the fru fru New Age variety). So much of what passes for "spirituality" in our time amounts to some author, celebrity, priest, philosopher or self-appointed guru telling us what to "believe," sight unseen, if we want to reach heaven, attain enlightenment, achieve "ascension," etc. Casspriano takes an at times startling opposite approach. For Casspriano, such unquestioned/unquestionable beliefs are not only NOT the path to spiritual awakening, they represent the chief obstacle blocking our realization of higher consciousness. And it's not just religious beliefs ("faith") he's talking about, but all our beliefs about reality, especially those that enclose our thinking in "boxes" that limit our freedom to find solutions to real-world threats like Peak Oil, overpopulation, Global Warming, etc. Though much of the book focuses on individual enlightenment, for Casspriano, these larger planetary issues are "spiritual," as well. Whether the issue is our personal inability to find happiness or Humanity's collective rush toward physical extinction, the cause is the same - our wrong-headed beliefs about what's real. The solution is the same, as well - continuous, deep questioning. Using Richard Dawkins' concept of "memes" as a central metaphor, Casspriano first breaks down the basic process of belief, showing the mechanism in our brains by which beliefs misdirect and control our psyches, then he walks the reader through an exploration of a series of ten "anti-meme questions" aimed at breaking down the walls of our mental "boxes" and setting our minds free. With each question, he supplies an exercise designed to allow the reader to attain a personal taste of reality "beyond the box," especially as flavored by that chapter's "Key Question." For the most part, this formula works very well (with a few rare moments of over-exuberance on the author's part, as already described in other reviews, though as a card carrying vegan environmentalist, I can't say I particularly minded), delivering a cumulative series of death-blows to some of the most basic "pillars" of our present human consensus reality. Beyond the walls those pillars supported lies real reality, where we are all interconnected and interdependent, and, in Casspriano's view, mutually destined for greatness, if we can just wake up and grab the reins of our runaway culture in time. This is not a book for spiritual "feel gooders" seeking soft assurances that they're perfect just they way they are and everything's going to be all right, no matter what. This is a wake up call, a tool kit and a concrete action plan for becoming individually enlightened and collectively saving the world, all rolled up into one. That, I think, is a cause well-worthy of exuberance.
Challenge Consensus Reality!.......2007-05-10
This is a thoughtful book that addresses how we may go about developing a process to question our everyday consensus reality. I suppose if I have learned anything in 49 years of life, it is that all personal and social problems stem from our fundamental views on the nature of reality itself. Vincent Casspriano uses the concept of a "meme" as a fundamental unit of ideas, assumptions, etc. that often block our understanding of reality itself. One such meme, for example, may be that we have to "fight for our freedom" or the world's a "fearful" place and hence, we have to be ready to kill to protect ourselves. I suppose you could also use the word "paradigm" here as well, but the essential point of this book is that we "unconsciously" function in our life with many limited points of view that block our ability to solve problems on both a personal and a social basis.
While Vince Casspriano is to be congradulated for producing a book that presents both a methodology and a motivation for personal transformation, there are a few pitfalls here that the potential reader should be aware of before tackling this material. The author has some rather strong views on fossil fuel consumption, meet consumption, and the role of humans in the cycle of procreation. While I generally agree with his analysis on fossil fuel consumtion and meat consumption (as I have viewed large tracks of deforrested grazing land in developing countries), these viewpoints can distract the reader from the essential point here which is to rigourously question consensus reality. Since I am single, and have no motivation to have children, I definitely disagree with his views on the necessity of human procreation on this planet, but here again, it is important to extract the essential meaning rather than get caught in the specific political/social debates that these issues may spawn.
If you are serious about personal transformation with the potential for changing our global consciousness, than this book can be an invaluable tool. I do agree with the Author that a world population of "high functioning" people can resolve every planetary problem we face today. As we systematically question our consensus reality, we will see our problems in new ways, and with this new perspective, problems can often be quickly resolved or transcended.
A Simple Cure For What's "Eating Us".......2006-11-13
I considered titling this review, "Stop Whining, Wake Up and Get Busy Saving the World," but decided "Eating Us" would be more attention-grabbing - which matters because I believe Vincent Casspriano, Jr.'s "The Simplest Path, Step One: FREE YOUR MIND" is an important book, and I want to do whatever I can to draw your attention to it. Pick the title you like best. Both very fittingly describe what you will find within the pages of this remarkable new release from New Paradigm Press.
I have selected three short quotations to explore in this review that I think best summarize Casspriano's overall message:
From Chapter One, "The Boxes We Dream In":
"Right now, this very moment, you are asleep... Even if you are reading these words in broad daylight - sitting at your desk or beside the kitchen table, your feet firmly planted on the floor, eyes open, senses alert, feeling the weight of this book in your hands as sounds of life rise and fall rhythmically around you - you are deeply asleep, and dreaming furiously"
Now, the idea that Humans are sleeping, and must therefore "awaken," is by no means unique to Casspriano's "Simplest Path" spiritual system, being the root observation underlying pretty much all Eastern religion, and a lot of Western Occultism and New Age metaphysics, as well. In fairness, Casspriano makes no claim to this as an original insight, openly supporting his assessment of the human predicament with quotations taken from Animism, Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism and Islam. He then flows seamlessly into a list of complementary illustrations from the secular realms of Quantum Physics, brain/consciousness research, and most to-the-point, the study of memes and memetics, ala Evolutionary Biologist and world's best-known cheerleader for scientific atheism, Richard Dawkins.
If you've never heard of memes or memetics, a quick Google of those terms will reveal hundreds of serious, information-rich websites devoted to this now thirty-year old science. In a nutshell, a "meme" is a sort of contagious thought-form that spreads between people by way of imitation. Obvious memes in our environment include advertising jingles, fads and fashions, etc. Casspriano somewhat radically extends the concept to include just about everything that makes up the contents of our individual brains and shared human culture. While he resists redefining the word "meme" wholesale, he decidedly expands its definition to make memes and "memeplexes" (what you get when a number of memes band together into an organic, relational unit, like a religion or cultural or political movement) the basic, fundamental building blocks of everything we habitually label "real..."
And then he demonstrates, in at times excruciating detail, the complete emptiness of the "apparent-reality" that is a byproduct of memetic activity in our brains. What we call "real" is not real at all. It's an illusion spun up by our memes. And our memes are not original to us. They are "viral invaders" assailing our minds from without. Worse - and, while even this thought is not wholly unique to Casspriano, he certainly gives it his own very effective spin - memes are by no means mere passive beliefs or simple "harmless ideas." They are, Casspriano believes, actively predatory psychic parasites whose survival depends on our buying into the illusions they create in our minds. Think of illusion (Samsara, Maya, etc.) as a web we're caught in. Memes are the spider. We are the fly. Gotcha.
One thing I like very much about Casspriano's book is that he never asks us to take anything on faith, least of all this rather ugly depiction of the human psychic/spiritual condition. He not only challenges readers to test his hypothesis firsthand in order to experience what is real and true for ourselves, he spends a large chunk of the book outlining specific exercises anyone can do to escape memetic interference and personally experience reality as-it-is. The exercises in Part II of the book are powerful medicine... But this is a digression, so let me return to the point.
Memes are the spider, and we are the fly. A better metaphor might be that memes are the farmer, and we are the cow. Domesticated and docile, we allow memes to milk us daily, to extract from our minds the potent human psychic energy which, if reclaimed by us and put to proper human use, would quickly and positively transform our lives and our world. This transformation is awakening, ascension, enlightenment, metanoia, the Buddha-like change of consciousness most religions and spiritual systems on Earth hint at, but few ever actually deliver to followers. In this analysis, Casspriano's "Simplest Path" is very much in line with Gurdjieff's "Fourth Way," Carlos Castaneda's Toltec sorcery, and a few other well known spiritual practices inhabiting a somewhat darker, though perhaps more realistic corner of the New Age. But unlike most of those other systems, Casspriano's prescription for escaping illusion and awakening to reality is remarkably, well... simple.
From Chapter Three, "Waking Up":
"The simple truth is that we are sleeping because we lack sufficient energy to wake up."
And later in the same chapter:
"The real work that brings about awakening, rather than merely granting the external appearance of "being spiritual," while actually embroiling us ever more deeply in the dream, is a rigorous, daily commitment to the identification and elimination of every self-serving belief from which our personal dream-lives are constructed."
For "belief" in the quotation above, read "meme/memeplex." Casspriano certainly does, treating the terms as largely interchangeable. In the end, this genuinely simple - at least in the sense of being uncomplicated and pragmatic - spiritual practice amounts to discovering reality as-it-actually-is less by searching for a glimpse beyond the illusion, than by systematically withdrawing our participation in, and identification with, the dream. When we disentangle our psyches from memetic illusion, only reality remains. We don't have to chase it; to a meme-free mind, reality just appears. This is "Satori" in Zen Buddhism. This is "stopping the world" in the Toltec sorcery of Castaneda and others. Casspriano's genius lies in his talent for exposing the core mechanism behind such complex and often inscrutable spiritual systems, and for putting into plain language clear instructions for unraveling the dream and achieving personal awakening. The virus-like process by which memes take over and control our human minds, as described by Casspriano is, to my mind, very complicated (but well worth struggling through). What is genuinely simple about "The Simplest Path," however, is Casspriano's prescription for breaking those bonds, once you've made the effort to understand how they are created and maintained. For Casspriano, remaining a victim of spiritual sleep and energetic exploitation by memes is a complex activity in which we unconsciously invest enormous amounts of psychic energy every day of our lives. Awakening is the product of a simple act of withdrawing that investment, which automatically re-energizes of our minds and lives. Or as Casspriano cleverly phrases it when closing Chapter Three, "Waking Up":
"Unweave the tapestry of the dream, and awakening happens."
Anyone can do this. Spiritual awakening, in Casspriano's view, may be hard work, but it is not complicated work. The path to enlightenment is really rather shockingly simple. Fall out of love with the dream. Reclaim your psychic energy. Wake up to reality.
The ten "Key Questions" Casspriano explores in the second section of the book are designed to put the theory laid out in Part I to practical and immediate use. Essentially, I think Casspriano sees these ten issues - why we treat enlightenment as an "airy-fairy" ideal instead of a measurable transformation of brain functioning, the excuses we make for avoiding personal responsibility and integrity along the lines of Castaneda's "impeccability," the fallacy of belief in a "separate self," etc. - as pillars of both our personal and collective human dreams. They are by no means an exhaustive listing of the memes twisting our minds. But they are primary keystones on which layers upon layers of the grand illusion are built. Topple these ten baseline pillars and the larger structure crumbles.
Casspriano explores some "Keys" more successfully than others. One downside to the book is that, especially in the "Keys," Casspriano's own memetic prejudices shine at times rather glaringly through, as when, in his discussion of the American "What Would Jesus Do?" religious fad, he characterizes the Evangelical Christian purveyors of WWJD as, "ultra-conservative, right wing ideologues." Even should the reader personally agree with such pronouncements, its hard to resist thinking, "Hey Vince! Your memes are showing!" But where he nails his point, Casspriano's prose can be downright inspiring, as with the "Key" cosmological study "Is Earth the Center of the Universe?," which explores the gap between what we know, scientifically, about the Universe and what our daily choices and behavior says we really believe, about the cosmos and about ourselves. His closing "Key" "Are We Alone?" so poetically frames the true stakes of our global human predicament - species survival VS extinction - that its hard to imagine anyone keeping their gaze glued squarely to their own self-involved navel in the wake of reading it. Of course we are not alone. There are six and a half billion of us on Planet Earth, and whether we awaken to what's best in us or follow our darkest drives over History's cliff into oblivion, we do so as one. One planet, one fate.
This notion of "oneness" and of a common, intertwined human spiritual and biological destiny is a core theme in The Simplest Path, Step One: FREE YOUR MIND that sets it apart from any spiritual book in recent memory. My final quotation from the book returns us to the opening lines of Chapter One, "The Boxes We Dream In":
"We are all aware of the challenges facing us as we enter together into the 21st Century:
· World oil supplies are running out.
· Global warming is transforming the Earth into a steamy greenhouse.
· Even as our technology connects the world, ideological extremism, terrorism and militarism divide us as never before.
· Headlines bombard us with news of war, famine, pestilence and death until we feel overwhelmed and unable to respond.
· Time is running out..."
Vincent Casspriano, Jr.'s "The Simplest Path to Personal and Planetary Transformation, Step One: FREE YOUR MIND" does not offer easy escape from these very pressing real-world human ills, but rather, a down to Earth, workable prescription for their cure. Yes, we must awaken as individuals, and, rest assured, "The Simplest Path" shows spiritual seekers exactly how to do that. But a prime message of "The Simplest Path" is that, for personal awakening to have meaning, it must occur within the context of a complete re-visioning of global culture, and a mass wrenching away of the wheel of History from the control of viral memes, that we might create a common cosmic human destiny worthy of our highest potential as a species.
Now that's a meme worth feeding.
Average customer rating:
- Terrible
- how i saved my own life
- The Ladies encore to FEAR OF FLYING........
- Love her writing style
- America's Lady of Letters...
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How to Save Your Own Life
Erica Jong
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ASIN: 1585424994
Release Date: 2006-07-06 |
Book Description
Erica Jong--like Isadora Wing, her fictional doppelganger--was rich and famous, brainy and beautiful, and soaring high with erotica and marijuana in 1977, the year this book was first published. Erica/Isadora are the perfect literary and libidinous guides for those readers who want to learn about-or just be reminded of-the sheer hedonistic innocence of the time. How to Save Your Own Life was praised by People for being "shameless, sex-saturated and a joy," and hailed by Anthony Burgess as one of the ninety-nine best novels published in English since 1939.
Customer Reviews:
Terrible.......2005-03-28
I found this in a used book store and was so happy. Then I read it and am no longer happy. Fear of Flying is one of those novels that I love and re-read often. It is truly funny and shows a whole range of emotions. This book is sadly lacking. Isadora turns whiny, her friends are caricatures. The unhappiness of this charcter seems pathetic and unimportant in this novel. Plus, I truly miss her family; those characters provided necessary contrast. This was a profound disappointment
how i saved my own life.......2003-11-23
I found out about Ms. Jong is a Salon interview this summer and decided that I had to go out and add "Fear of Flying" to my female writers repertoire, however as luck would have it, my local bookstore only had "how to save your own life," therefore I decided to read backwards and must say that her book had me `in' for days... Nothing, not even a strapping lad ready to give me the world and blahniks at hand, could break up the conversation Ms. Jong and I shared for a week straight on my couch. Ms. Jong is a wise woman, and I suggest this read to any woman who feels her life is cracking. This book is in my top ten and I think it will be in yours too soon.
The Ladies encore to FEAR OF FLYING...............2003-09-03
You don't have to read FEAR OF FLYING to enjoy this book but it would give you a little background to protagonist of this book: Isadora Wing.
Isadora is stuck in a marriage that is dying a slow painful death. She has begun affairs with several people to help her deal with her feelings or fulfill her needs that are not being met by her aloof, detached, and psychologically dominate husband of eight years. Isadora echoes many of the feelings modern women feel in their marriage and other relationships and is often very insightful.
Also, there are a few chilling moments in the book that took me by surprise. I won't give them away you will have to read the book.
So, Erica Jong takes you on a journey with Isadora while she tries to figure out what her future will hold and how to move forward with or with out her husband. This journey has lots of sexual liasons that are heartfelt, sad, and often hillarious. She speaks the truth about her sex experiences even if we are not ready to hear it.
Isadora is a woman who has gotten lost in the forest and can't see the trees because of the forest but is on a path of discovery. Isadora will discover friendship, betrayal, love, loss, and most of all courage.
I love Erica Jongs writing style. She is a realist but at times I often wonder how much of her books are fiction or autobiographical. I enjoyed her sequal to FEAR OF FLYING and do recommend it.
Love her writing style.......2002-12-20
This was an excellent book. Very very good.
America's Lady of Letters..........2001-10-12
...the Great Erica Jong.
I remember people comparing her to Phillip Roth when Fear of Flying and this came out and since I was into popular fiction a lil more back then than I am now, I vowed to read one of her books. Little did I know back then that she would become one of my favorite all time writers. And I agree that this would be the better offering of the first two novels, because Isadora Wing, to me, seems more real in this one. And it tells of going thru a emotionally sterile period in her life and how she reached fulfillment. Wing is Jong and if you want to get an idea of how and what a woman thinks without being intrusive and obtusive this is one good way to do it...(however, don't rely on this alone). There is outrageous erotica, verbal play and plenty of first person quips all thru it and you will be thoroughly entertained. Don't forget to get a load of Jong's poetry. Read also Jong's great piece on Henry Miller, "The Devil at Large". Excellent writing!
Average customer rating:
- This book was very good but the new 5th Edition is even better!
- Not Much Substance
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Be Your Own House Contractor: Save 25% without Lifting a Hammer
Carl Heldmann
Manufacturer: Storey Publishing, LLC
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ASIN: 1580173748 |
Book Description
While building a home is not a simple task, expert Carl Heldmann shows that it is not as complicated as one might believe. With his sound advice, readers can act as their own house contractor and save a quarter - or more - of the cost of building a home. And without picking up a hammer!
Heldmann explains each step of the home building process in non-technical, easily understood language, helping readers avoid the pitfalls that plague general contractors, even experienced ones. Readers will learn how to develop house plans, establish schedules, select good subcontractors, identify cost-saving options, negotiate contracts, estimate building costs, purchase materials and supplies, and much more.
Customer Reviews:
This book was very good but the new 5th Edition is even better!.......2006-05-07
Heads Up! The book has been updated. The 5th edition just released in April of 2006 has been fully updated and includes Carl Heldmann's new Web site, where readers can get loan information, daily updates on interest rates, and cost estimate worksheets for planning and tracking building expenses. Other new features include new chapters on renovating and restoring an older house and a Spanish glossary of common building terms.
Not Much Substance.......2006-03-15
Very little to work with here. Covers everything, but with little detail. For instance, there are only six pages in the book on sub-contractors. Search a little more and you can find a different resource that will be much more detail oriented.
Boring reading with no information, WASTE OF TIME.......2004-08-28
I read the book since I am building a house soon. The book gave very little useful information. I have been doing my homework on building a home and consider myself above average home building knowledge, but nothing I have learned came from this book. I took the book on vacation this summer to read at the beach and I finished it in a day. If you have some type of home building knowledge, you do not need this book. I can NOT think of ANYTHING positive to say. I wish I had another book to read at the beach. WASTE OF TIME.
No good for Northeeasterners and midwesterners.......2004-07-12
The author of the book dwells on materials and methods that are commonly used only in the southeastern part of the country, where he is from. (He actually recommends heat pumps, which are not a very good bet in the colder parts of the country, he also has very little to say about basements, and seems to discourage them as well). I read the whole book, and I do not feel well prepared to be my own contractor. The author never discusses issues like panelized and modular homes, and that could be a way to simplify construction and save money.
very good overview.......2004-04-21
The fellow who "knocks" this book doesn't know what he is talking about. The fact is...when you add up all of the fluff in the construction of a home, and if you have reasonable intelligence and if you plan well, before you break ground, you can in fact save 25%-30% on the cost of a new home.And, that does not include the 5-6% for the realtor and the 2-3% for the mortgage broker, etc. If you purchase a component system, chances are you will pay far too much for the home, despite the claims to the contrary. I have been involved in the construction of over 3000 homes in the past 4 years. This is truly the best kept secret in America for the person who wants to do a bit of work, for a very big pay day, down the road. That being said...it ain't for the dummy who wants to make decisions as he or she goes along , once the project is underway. Make your plans...do your homework and let 'er rip.
Real estate has always hidden a multitude of sins, due to leverage and inflation. Wouldn't you rather start with an extra 25% in your pocket, right out of the gate?
Product Description
Don't be deceived by the simple cover. This book will help the homeowner to save serious money because it reveals the truth about the unreasonably high costs in home remodel and new construction. This is the only home construction book written by a professional engineer with over 30 years of industrial construction experience as well as managing the construction of over 800 houses.
If the homeowner or investor hires subcontractors to the different phases of the work they can expect to pay $100 per square foot(SF) or less.
The Pat Fay Method is a Construction Management book for the homeowner or investor such as house flippers. Pat Fay's goal it to teach homeowners how to save serious money in their remodel or new construction projects.
Pat Fay managed the construction of his 3,500 SF home in Kirkland, Washington without a general contractor and built for $65 per square foot.
Pat Fay has set out to bring industrial construction methods and practices to the home construction world. He has done so in this book. Now the homeowner knows how to do their own planning and preliminary design, how to conduct effective meetings, how to manage the final design of their project, work with the city & inspectors, what type of contract to sign, how to modify contracts, how to control change orders, how to avoid liens, how to find, and work with contractors, use competition to drive the project cost down, how much a phase of construciton should cost, and how to inspect the project.
Be one of the growing number of American homeowners who are saying no to the high cost of home construction and yes to the Pat Fay Method.
An interesting statistic. 80% of the students at Pat Fay's classes are women. Woman have also purchased 90% of his books sold on Amazon. This book empowers all homeowners especially women.
Customer Reviews:
Excellent resource, very practical,.......2007-08-04
This book is an invaluable resource for any homeowner who wants to have work done on their home. Though designed principally to allow a homeowner to be their own general contractor, it is equally useful for anyone who hires a contractor. The book is very practical. I found tips on every page, though we have done several remodels of our own. If we had this book before our remodels we probably would have saved thousands of dollars, and reduced the stress of doing the remodels. The author's background in cost estimating is evident in this book and provides a resource for determining comparing bids from contractors to industry standards. I am going to be purchasing another one-my daughter's husband saw it and wanted mine. Before you remodel you should buy this book!
A DIY Must Read for Mansions to Man Caves.......2007-06-18
Prompt delivery with Bounds of Information from Rotten Contractor ploys to Insurance and Financial guidance!
The Pat Fay Method.......2007-06-13
While I have not yet had a chance to finish reading Pat's book, I can say that it is unique in that I have not found any book in the marketplace like it. The advice presented will save you hundreds of times the cost of the book! Also, shipping was extraordinarily fast, just one day!
Very helpful guideline!.......2007-05-11
I have attended Pat Fay's class and have read The Pat Fay Method book. I am in the process of building a new home and have referred numerous times to The Pat Fay Method book for valuable advice and guidance. The book has reinforce my confidence for be my own general contractor. I have followed the suggestions outlined in The Pat Fay Method and it is working to keep the project organized and on track. I have read two other "How to build your own home" books and The Pat Fay Method is by far the most informative.
Very helpful source of expertise in home remodeling or building.......2007-05-08
Author ships the book quickly.The writings in the book were great to help others with the sequence of various projects & help folks save $$. I'm a Realtor, I've given this book to clients. I've received responses such as, "Why didn't I have this book before I started my project?" I'd highly recommend it to any one who wants to save money and prevent headaches. Nina Cross Executive Real Estate"
Book Description
How To Be Your Own Booking Agent And Save Thousands of Dollars- A Performing Artist's Guide To A Successful Performing Career
Customer Reviews:
A Career Starter and Saver!.......2007-03-19
Every few years I re-read this book as my music career grows and I find new ways to use the expertise she has gathered here. The book is a pleasure to read, with clear writing, fine organization and listings of valuable resources and contacts. Highly recommended!
A bible for working musicians.......2003-10-18
My friend recommended this book to me a few years ago - it hasn't been far from my office desk ever since. This book is not only filled with clear, good advice and hundreds of helpful quotes and stories from all kinds of people in the business, it's also well-organized and enjoyable to read. The author breaks things down to their essentials, dealing with the big questions about being your own boss, along with the thousands of little details. I haven't seen a book that beats this one for its subject. If you want the real information about how it's really done, get this book.
this book helped me get more gigs.......2003-08-16
I really liked how indepth this book is. If you can stand to read it all (it is long), you will have a good understanding on how to approach club owners and others in the music business. I like this book and use it with the Guerrilla Marketing book by Bob Baker and $100,000 in Music by David Hooper to really make my gigs great. Club owners love my group because I come in professional and then go out and bring people in to the show. These three books will help you big time.
INCREDIBLE RESOURCE!.......2003-04-18
I originally won a consultation package with Geri Goldstein and only had one phone conference with her. During our meeting, I also ordered a copy of this book. Since I have received this book (two years ago) I have not had to call her due to the extremely vast amount of knowledge already contained in her book!! Every time I have another question that I would think of asking her, I open this book and find the answer and much more. This is the most intricately detailed book on self promotion that I have ever acquired. I still have not covered all the ground this book contains?! I highly recommend this book to aspiring artists, agent and managers.
If you are playing out, get this book!.......2002-08-18
This book has everything you need to know about booking yourself. Are you ready to work and make things happen? Get this and "How I Make $100,000/year in the Music Business" by David Hooper and you will have all you need to make a really good living on your own.
Book Description
Use this book to avoid a down payment, lower the amount of mortgage, or get a larger home than budgeted for, and save 25% off the construction and site-preparation costs. Included are a list of log home manufacturers and suppliers, a glossary of construction terms, and sample forms and contracts.
Customer Reviews:
before you write the check.............2006-08-18
This small book is a builders check list w/ side notes and clarifications. Very simple and to the point. I have seen similar texts in the log home magazines, but for an all in one place reference its pretty good. This manual tells you how to HAVE SOMEONE ELSE BUILD YOUR HOME, it gives ZERO technical info. Its all about costs, estimates, contractors, sourceing ect...and the tricks and info needed to construct and save money on your project. Many explanations on what is standard, what is an extra. What you will pay extra for what should be included in most situations.I cant see paying the $17.95 cover price, but at less than $10 used its worth it.
Good for what it is.......2006-08-05
For what it is, this is a good book. It is NOT a prescription for how to build a low-cost log home. Neither does it cover everything you need to know to be your own general contractor. It is a good overview of the steps that go into building a log home including several suggestions for saving money (or getting more for the same money) at every step of the way. And it's a quick read. I read it in one weekend. If you are early in the process of designing a log home this is a good book to start with once you are ready to leave the dream world to take a more realistic look at what is involved - particularly if you are considering being your own general contractor or you just want to know what your general contractor will need to do.
How To Afford Your Own Log Home.......2002-03-12
this book was an excellent reference for us in our search for a log home and gave great information on what was necessary to get the job done! give it a try if you have always wanted rustic living at its best!
The title is misleading........2000-04-03
Instead of "How to Afford," the title should be "How to Build." The book offers suggested contracts for construction, price and fee contracts, a materials description sheet, certificate of insurance, etc. It is very thorough in what the log home builder will need to do it themselves, but since I'm not a do-it-yourselfer it really wasn't what I was looking for.
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