Axe of Iron: Confrontation by J. A. Hunsinger -- Book Review

The epic saga of the Northmen continues in Axe of Iron: Confrontation by J.A. Hunsinger.

The second book in the Axe of Iron series picks up where the first book, Axe of Iron: The Settlers, left us. It is the late summer of 1008, and while the settlement at Halfdansfjord is flourishing, the uncounted numbers of indigenous peoples--the Naskapi, Anishinabeg, and Haudenosaunee Indians--have violently resisted the arrival of these pale-skinned invaders.

An ill-fated hunting trip, a blending of cultures, friendship with a tribe of Naskapi, the capture and eventual acceptance of a young boy of the Northmen by his Haudenosaunee captors, and an event that seems destined by the gods, leave the Northmen's fate hanging in the balance.

Can their developing relationship with the native tribes pave the way for the Northmen to survive in Vinland?

As with Axe of Iron: The Settlers--which we reviewed here--Hunsinger uses his wealth of knowledge and years of study to bring the Northmen and their adventures to life. Halfdan Ingolfsson and his second in command, Gudbjartur Einarsson, continue to lead the settlers in Halfdansfjord to what they hope is a prosperous life in Vinland.

Readers, who will recognize many of the names and characters from the first novel, are treated to watching these people develop and change as they meet the challenges of their lives in this new place; a place that is filled with hope and danger.

In Confrontation, we begin to see the blending of cultures as Thora of the Northmen marries Deskaheh the Haudenosaunee, who had once been captured by the Northmen, but who is now considered a member of their tribe. While Halfdan and Gudbjartur hope commitments such as these will allow the indiginous tribes and Northmen to better understand each other, they cannot let their guard down for a single moment. Hunsinger captures well, the dangerous situation in which the Northmen find themselves on a daily basis.

The Foreword provides important information for the reader, in addition to sharing a brief synopsis of what happened in Axe of Iron: The Settlers. Also included is a Glossary of Norse and Native Terminology to define terms that readers might find unfamiliar.

I found that as soon as I finished Confrontation, I was eager to continue reading the story of the Northmen. Luckily, Hunsinger also includes a short excerpt of the next Axe of Iron novel, Assimilation, which appears to be just as exciting as the previous two installments.

Readers of historical fiction are sure to be drawn in by this sweeping epic of the Northmen.


Title: Axe of Iron: Confrontation
Author: J.A. Hunsinger
Publisher: Vinland Publishing
ISBN-10: 0980160154
ISBN-13: 978-0980160154
SRP: $16.95


Note: This blogger was paid to copy edit this manuscript. No payment was received to provide a review of the book.

Motivational Quote

Feeling low? Wondering if you have what it takes to start working toward a career in writing? Trying to figure out how someone like you could even consider writing as a career choice?

Well then, this is the motivational quote for you!

"There are no great people in this world, only great challenges that ordinary people rise to meet." - William Frederick Halsey, Jr.

It's easy to put successful writers up on pedestals. It's also easier and safer to believe that they have something you don't. At least that way, if you get a rejection letter you can admit that you're not Robert Frost, Stephen King or J.K. Rowling.

But as Halsey points out, were all the same. It's how you approach the challenges in your life that make the difference. You have to ask yourself:

* Do I want to let fear of failure keep me from even trying or do I want to be the one who reaches for the stars?

* Do I want to be the person who criticizes what she does or do I want to be the one who believes in herself?

* Do I want to be the one who allows rejection to stop me from pursuing my dream or do I want to be the one who allows rejection to motivate me to try again?

Never forgot that you are the one who has the power to make your dreams come true. Use that power. Think of how you will rise up to meet the challenges along the way. Be determined to succeed!

The Big Picture by Kevin Coupe and Michael Sansolo -- Book Review and Giveaway

Yesterday, Michael Sansolo offered us an excellent article titled, "The World of Innovators". If you missed it, you can find it here.

We're going to review The Big Picture: Essential Business Lessons from the Movies and you'll get a chance to win a copy of this excellent book. Look for more details at the end of our review.

In The Big Picture: Essential Business Lessons from the Movies, readers are taken on a journey through over sixty movies, where co-authors Kevin Coupe and Michael Sansolo share the important business lessons to be gleaned from well-known and not-so-well-known movies through the decades.

From action and adventure movies like Jaws and Rocky to comedies like Babe and Tootsie, from classics like Citizen Kane to date movies like Bull Durham and Sex and the City, readers will discover or rediscover movies in a new and meaningful way. Even biopics such as Schindler's List (one of my favorites), and dramas such as Bottle Shock can provide lessons everyone can use to inspire solutions in their business life.

Here is one of my favorite excerpts from the book:

Take 1 - Action/Adventure

Jaws (1975)

Denial is Never a Good Idea

Rated L Leadership
Rated P Planning

by Kevin Coupe

Jaws is one of the best thrillers ever made, but it also serves up an example of business behavior that is almost inevitably fatal: denial.

“I don’t think either one of you are aware of our problems,” Mayor Vaughn (Murray Hamilton) says to Chief of Police Martin Brody (Roy Scheider) and Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss) at one point in the movie. “I’m only trying to say that Amity is a summer town. We need summer dollars. Now, if the people can't swim here, they'll be glad to swim at the beaches of Cape Cod, the Hamptons, Long Island...”

Sure, Amity needed summer dollars. But what Vaughn ignored was the fact that the town also needed tourists that weren't worried about being torn limb from limb.

Vaughn’s reluctance to close the beach is an example of the type of short-term thinking that should be avoided in the business world. Vaughn is working under the premise that if the town of Amity closes the beaches because of concerns about shark attacks, it will scare away the tourists on which the town depends. Which is true. But Vaughn ignores the cold reality that if tourists find out that there is a shark in the water and the town allowed people to go swimming, not only will they stay away in droves, they’ll also lose trust in the town’s management and never come back.

Businesses have to engender trust in their customers. Violate that sense of trust by ignoring the obvious facts—or even just the likely trends—and the repercussions can be both serious and long lasting.

Mayor Vaughn obviously never learned from the management at Johnson & Johnson, who, when faced with evidence that Tylenol had been tampered with in 1982, immediately pulled the product off the shelves. The Tylenol executives figured that they could survive the short-term hit, but would never survive the backlash if they denied the seriousness of the problem. When a new tamper-proof version of Tylenol came back to store shelves, there remained a sense of trust on the part of the consumers because Johnson & Johnson played it straight.

To be fair, although Mayor Vaughn generally is painted as the bad guy in Jaws because he ignores the sharp-toothed reality swimming just off shore, almost everybody is in some sort of denial. While this denial drives the plot forward, it also offers a primer on how to not deal with serious or even not-so-serious business situations.

Think about it. Quint, the great shark hunter played to crusty perfection by Robert Shaw, continues to chase the enormous great white shark with a small boat and just two crewmen. That’s world-class denial.

Hooper, the oceanic expert with a passion for sharks, shows a sense of denial several times when he gets into the water with the shark. Sure, he’s getting into an anti-shark cage, but the evidence is pretty strong that it isn’t going to be nearly “anti” enough.

“You go inside the cage”? Quint asks. “Cage goes in the water, you go in the water. Shark's in the water. Our shark.” And then he sings: “Farewell and adieu to you, fair Spanish ladies. Farewell and adieu, you ladies of Spain. For we've received orders for to sail back to Boston. And so nevermore shall we see you again.”

About the only main character who doesn’t seem to be in denial is Chief Brody, and even he has a moment of self-delusion when he’s asked why, if he is scared of the water, he lives on an island. “It’s only an island when you look at it from the water,” he says.

Yeah, right.

But it also is Brody who has the movie’s primal moment of clarity. It’s when he’s shoveling bait into the water and gets his first close-up look at the shark’s massive body, black eyes, and very, very sharp teeth.

“I think we’re going to need a bigger boat,” he says.

Truer words never have been spoken.

In business, as in Jaws, denial can get you eaten for lunch.

If I had to provide an opinion on this book in only three words, they would be, "I loved it!" Now, you have to keep in mind why this is so amazing--I'm not much of movie fanatic. I can count on one hand the number of movies I've seen in the theater over the past decade. Being self-employed and working from home, I rarely turn the television on, never mind sit down to watch a movie.

The Big Picture got me to thinking about movies, though. What have I been missing that I could use as a writer, online publicist, and editor? What business lessons might I have found in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull had this book been available back then? Are there lessons to be learned even in movies I didn't really care for?

Kevin Coupe and Michael Sansolo have done what many entrepreneurs suggest--turned their passion into something more. Once you've read this book cover to cover, you won't be able to deny they love movies. But more than that, you'll discover that these two men, who started as newspaper reporters and then moved into writing for business magazines, understand what it takes to compete in business today and in the future.

The best part is that this isn't your typical regurgitated lessons for business leaders type of book. It's fun. It's engaging. The conversational style and the authors' obvious passion for what they're doing, make this a book that is impossible to put down. Every type of business from the smallest to the largest will find something--and probably many somethings--in this book that they can immediately apply and use to make a difference.

Every business leader should have a copy of The Big Picture: Essential Business Lessons from the Movies on their desks and refer to it often.


Title: The Big Picture: Essential Business Lessons from the Movies
Authors: Kevin Coupe and Michael Sansolo
Publisher: Bringantine Media
ISBN: 978-0-9711542-8-5
SRP: $14.95




Here's how to enter for a chance to win a copy of The Big Picture:


1) Mandatory: Follow this blog or let us know you are already a follower. Comment must include a working email address so that we can contact you if you win.

2) Get three additional entries for blogging about this contest. Leave a comment (with link) here telling us where you blogged about it.

3) Get two additional entries for tweeting about this contest. Don't forget to let us know here that you tweeted and leave us a link.

4) Get two additional entries for posting about this contest on Facebook. Leave us a link here.

This giveaway will run from today until 11:59 p.m.(Eastern) on March 31st. A winner will be announced in early April.

This contest is open to all residents of the United States and Canada.

The World of Innovators by Michael Sansolo

Joining us today is Michael Sansolo, co-author of The Big Picture: Essential Business Lessons from the Movies. We'll review this title tomorrow, but for today, Michael is going to be talking about a subject near and dear to my heart--innovation. As someone who has been accused of trying to "fix things that ain't broke", when I came across this topic in The Big Picture, I just knew I wanted the authors to address it.


"The World of Innovators" by Michael Sansolo


Finding the road less taken is rarely the problem in business. There are countless people with good ideas, countless new directions out there to be considered.

Rather, the problem is how often these groundbreaking ideas or individuals are ignored or beaten back into submission. And for individuals and companies, the big question is how to create a climate where the new idea can be properly considered and evaluated.

In The Big Picture: Essential Business Lessons from the Movies, co-author Kevin Coupe and I examine a wide range of business lessons that can be gleaned and easily shared from many popular movies. Not surprisingly, the topic of breakthrough ideas comes up time and again. It’s presented artfully in Tucker: The Man and His Dream, a dramatic telling of a real life innovator who was beaten down by the forces of convention.

We find it in the delightful children’s movie Babe, as we watch a little pig defy conventional rules to become a champion sheepdog of all things.

And most tellingly we find it in Amadeus, a fictionalized tale of Mozart’s trials and tribulations in Vienna.

Mozart, as even the most casual music fan knows, was a boy genius whose music is familiar to virtually all of us. But in Amadeus, we watch Mozart struggle to bring his new ideas for melody, opera, and more to the stage while the forces of convention do everything possible to thwart his innovations.

Although Vienna is a wonderfully musical city, Mozart tries to elevate the level of performance. He brings innovation in hopes of making the music better. Yet time and again he runs into rules set up to thwart him. Even his small attempts to build financial stability are undermined, dropping the genius composer into depression and early death.

The movie gives the innovators out there a great lesson, too. Mozart’s ideas are clearly wonderful, but for the elite of Vienna, they are uncomfortable. The composer never takes the time to build a base of support or to educate his audience. Instead he plows forward, insisting he knows best. Yes, the elites could have listened better, but Mozart shares some of the blame in his failure.

He has an enemy in his rival Antonio Salieri, who uses considerable skill to convince the court that Mozart is the lesser of the two composers. Mozart never learns how to engage powerful allies to accept his innovation.

The business lesson from Amadeus is laid clear for us again and again. Too often in business, great ideas and innovations struggle against the forces of convention. So the road less taken remains untaken or, worse yet, the innovator moves in an entirely different direction.

One stunning business example comes from the roots of Walmart, now the largest company in the United States. In the 1960s, Walmart founder Sam Walton was a store manager for Ben Franklin stores. He had a plan to create a new type of store and gleefully presented that plan to his company. In short, he was told to go back to work.

Walton gambled instead, leaving Ben Franklin and opening his first Walmart. Some 50 years later we know how that battle worked out. Had Ben Franklin management been open to the radical idea and the road less taken, today it might be the company in every town in America. The business world is littered with such stories of chances not taken and innovation unseen. The stories range from the record company that passed on the young Beatles to the computer giant IBM passing on the chance to buy out a young Bill Gates and his fledgling software company called Microsoft.

Not every new idea is a great one; not every innovation becomes the next Walmart or Microsoft. But occasionally those ideas come up, and great companies know when to listen and when to travel the road less taken.

With wonderful style and soaring music, Amadeus reminds us of the challenges of being an innovator…and the sadness that befalls the world around them when the road less taken is left abandoned.

Michael Sansolo has traveled around the world one supermarket at a time, yet stopped to climb the Sydney Harbour Bridge, the Great Wall of China, and Pikes Peak. A native New Yorker, Sansolo is a consultant and frequent speaker for the food retail industry, and is a contributing editor and weekly columnist for MorningNewsBeat.com, a daily newsletter on the retail industry.

Sansolo was the senior vice president of the Food Marketing Institute and was editor-in-chief of Progressive Grocer magazine.

Sansolo, his family, and his very annoying beagle live in the suburbs of Washington, DC.

For more information on the book and its authors, visit www.brigantinemedia.com. You can also find Kevin online at www.MorningNewsBeat.com and Michael at www.michaelsansolo.com




Movies are magical. They can release us from the stress of everyday life. But movies also contain valuable lessons to improve the way we do business.

In their entertaining new book, The Big Picture: Essential Business Lessons From the Movies, authors Kevin Coupe and Michael Sansolo show how to use the stories in movies to solve problems in business. From The Godfather to Tootsie, from The Wedding Singer to Babe, the authors use more than sixty of their favorite movies to teach important lessons about branding, customer service, leadership, planning, ethics, and innovation.

Readers learn how to use stories from the movies to communicate clearly with employees, clients, and customers.

An Axe to Grind by F.M. Meredith - Book Review

Doug Milligan, Stacey Wilbur, Abel Navarro, Gordon Butler, Frank Marshall, and more familiar names are back in An Axe To Grind, the latest in the Rocky Bluff P.D. crime series by F.M. Meredith.

Doug Milligan and his partner, Frank Marshall are investigating the murder of a stalker. There are several suspects, which include the father and brother of the girl who was being stalked. Meanwhile, Stacey Wilbur, now a Vice-Officer, is working a case involving a soccer coach who might be a pedophile.

With their busy work schedules, Doug and Stacey's romance is pushed to the back burner, and even though Stacey and her mother, Clara, continue with wedding plans, a lot hinges on whether Gordon Butler can find himself an apartment so he can move out of Doug's house.

When Doug sets out on his own to corner the murderer, Stacey is in a race against time to find him before it's too late.

Right from the start, like Meredith does with all the books in this series, the reader is instantly drawn into the world of the Rocky Bluff P.D. Gordon Butler, who is usually the butt of many jokes around the station, is flagged down by a paperboy who has just discovered one of his customers looking more than a bit worse for wear. Butler is quickly becoming one of my favorite characters in this series because you just can't help but feel sorry for everything that he manages to step into.

Doug and Stacey's romance, which began in the previous installment of this series, No Sanctuary, continues with great difficulty in this one. One thing I've always said about the Rocky Bluff P.D. series is that Meredith does an excellent job of blending the personal and professional lives of the people working in the Rocky Bluff P.D. Whether it is Doug and Stacey, Abel Navarro and his wife Maria, Ryan Strickland, the Department's public relations officer, and his wife Barbara, or any other member of this fictional police force, the author has created characters that you easily care about, just like they were your next door neighbors.

With her masterful storytelling, Meredith includes many twists and turns to keep you guessing who the real culprit is. But what I like best about all the Rocky Bluff P.D. books is that the pace doesn't slow down. Every new clue leads to something else, and before you know it, you're at the end of the book and eager to read more.

I impatiently await the next book in the Rocky Bluff P.D. series by F.M. Meredith!


Title: An Axe to Grind
Author: F.M. Meredith
Publisher: Dark Oak Mysteries (Oak Tree Books)
ISBN-10: 1892343789
ISBN-13: 978-1892343789
SRP: $12.95

Available in a Kindle edition for only $1.99!




Disclosure: This blogger acted as the first editor on An Axe to Grind. She was not paid to provide this review.

Alphatudes by Michele Wahlder - Book Review and Giveaway

We hear a lot about positive thinking these days. But how easy is it to focus on the positive? What tools are available that can help you make a permanent change toward thinking positive?

A good place to start is Alphatudes: The Alphabet of Gratitude by Michele Wahlder.

Alphatudes uses the alphabet to provide readers with simple ways to focus on the positive. From acceptance to laughter, and from passion to voice, this book will give you twenty-six easy ways to discover the secret of gratitude.

This distinctively sized book (7.7 x 7.4 x 0.5 inches) is the perfect gift for a loved one, friend, or graduate. It is also a wonderful gift for you if you're serious about living a life that focuses on the positives.

It also comes with a free download of "Grace and Gratitude" by Olivia Newton John.

Discover Alphatudes and you'll learn how to have an "attitude of gratitude".

Read the Reviews of Alphatudes: The Alphabet of Gratitude!

“I really loved this book. Its presentation is so simple and it drew me in immediately. Then I began reading the many alphatudes and realized how valuable they can be to one’s daily life, helping anyone keep focused on truth and life itself. It’s a must on everyone’s bookshelf.” – James Twyman, best-selling author of The Moses Code

“Alphatudes: The Alphabet of Gratitude demonstrates just how easy it really is to count your blessings. This book provides a fun and practical method for increasing your awareness of the many opportunities for gratitude that exist in your life right now.” —Mike Robbins, author of Focus on the Good Stuff

“Michele Wahlder has created a practical and delightful method for opening the heart to the joy and benefits of gratitude. Whether in the simplest experiences of everyday life or in the most elevated spiritual encounters, it is up to us to choose to find the good, and then to turn our hearts to that gift in gratitude. Alphatudes shows us how to accomplish that in a systematic way that solidly roots the attitude of gratitude in the depths of consciousness and soul. This book is a gift to all who would lift and open their hearts to the blessings concealed within.”
—Alan Morinis, author of Everyday Holiness & founder of The Mussar Institute



Michele Wahlder, MS, LPC, PCC, is an internationally recognized life coach, career counselor, speaker and gratitude enthusiast. She is the founder of Life Possibilities, LLC, a company that champions people to become the highest vision they hold for themselves in their lives, careers and relationships through the vehicles of coaching, seminars and books.

Wahlder delights in helping her clients discover their strengths, passions and purpose so that their outer lives authentically reflect their hearts’ desires. She has worked with numerous organizations, including Match.com, Fitness magazine, Lucent Technologies and Girls, Inc., to improve individual performance and organizational effectiveness.

Wahlder is a popular guest on television and radio, including WFAA-TV’s Good Morning Texas, KDAF-TV’s The 33 News and CBS and CNN Radio. Wahlder received a bachelor’s degree in Communications from Tulane University, holds a master’s degree in Counseling Education from Texas Woman’s University, is licensed by the state of Texas as a Licensed Professional Counselor and is certified through the International Coach Federation as a Professional Certified Coach. She has been honored as the Global Career Spokesperson for Bayer’s Global MS Awareness Campaign.

Wahlder understands firsthand the challenges associated with surviving a life-threatening illness and has allowed the experience to make her a stronger, more compassionate and grateful person. She continues to volunteer for several nonprofit organizations that offer adults and children opportunities to enhance their lives and pursue their dreams. A native of Alexandria, Louisiana, Michele Wahlder lives in Dallas, TX, with her fiancé Michael, “bonus daughter” Zoe, and Portuguese water dog Moses.

You can visit Michele online at http://www.lifepossibilities.com/ and http://www.alphatudes.com/



Here's how to enter to win 1 of 2 copies of Alphatudes?


1) Mandatory: Follow this blog or let us know you are already a follower. Comment must include a working email address so that we can contact you if you win.

2) Get three additional entries for blogging about this contest. Leave a comment (with link) here telling us where you blogged about it.

3) Get two additional entries for tweeting about this contest. Don't forget to let us know here that you tweeted and leave us a link.

4) Get two additional entries for posting about this contest on Facebook. Leave us a link here.

This giveaway will run from today until 11:59 p.m.(Eastern) on March 31st. A winner will be announced in early April.

This contest is open to all residents of the United States and Canada.

Anathema! America's War on Medicine by Michael Pryce M.D. - Book Review

Health Care Reform is an issue that came to the forefront during the last national election. Nationalized health care, seriously pushed in the 1990's by then First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, became a component of Presidential candidate, Barrack Obama's platform. People voted for his idea of "Together We Can" and the need for change in Washington. Only now it seems that Obama's idea of change might not be what they had in mind.

With tea parties taking place all over the country and heated debates in Congress, no one can deny that the health care system needs to be reformed. It's how to do it that remains a sticking point.

Anathema! America's War on Medicine: A Veteran Doctor Offers a Cure for What Ails America's Health Care System by Michael Pryce, M.D. could possibly hold some of the answers.

Pryce offers the idea of a universal health care plan not controlled by the government, funded without raising taxes, that uses what is already available in the private sector. In his three-step plan, health care in America would be restructured, liability rewritten, and a plan to manage risk formed.

This reader certainly learned a lot about America's health care system by reading Anathema! America's War on Medicine. Pryce speaks from his over three decades of experience as an orthopedic surgeon and medical expert. He also served on the Senatorial Inner Circle and Presidential Medical Roundtables during the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations.

The author takes the reader through the roots of the problem, which he says stem from "greedy hospital administrators, profit-hungry health-insurance executives, and government bureaucrats" who are more concerned with the bottom line than the welfare of the sick and injured.

Some of the interesting information discussed in Anathema! America's War on Medicine includes:

* The United States ranked 19th out of 19 nations in a British study that ranked leading industrialized nations on the rate of preventable deaths.

* "In 2005, the United States spent $6,697 per capita for health care--which is twice as much as five other industrialized nations."

* The United States health care system is primitive in its use of information technology.

* And here's something we've heard about lately, "many people suffer because they can't afford medical care."

Pryce indicates how having a common digital medical record will reduce cost. Right now, as Pryce explains, when a person switches doctors, the new doctor runs a whole new set of tests to determine a person's initial physical health when being taken on as a patient, because he doesn't have easy access to past medical history. His forms aren't the same as another doctor's forms and time is wasted regenerating information that should be easily accessible.

Within this discussion is the topic of "defensive medicine", which I have experienced on more than one occasion. Defensive medicine, as defined by Pryce, is "the practice doctors have developed whereby any and all diagnostic tests are ordered in an attempt to document the chart so that it cannot be used against them in a lawsuit."

He also brings up how liability coverage has skyrocketed, but he also mentions a hidden problem that speaks to issues outside of the medical field : fewer qualified candidates are applying to medical schools. Pryce goes on to state that while he hasn't seen signs of gross incompetence, the rising number of medical "mistakes" does seem cause for concern. And since attorneys make hefty fees when they win such cases against doctors (which is a small percentage of the time), the cost to obtain liability insurance stays at ridiculous levels.

One point Pryce also addresses is the amount of rules and complexities of regulations surrounding Medicare. Doctors and their staffs find themselves trying to comply with them and failing. And the rules change frequently, making it almost impossible to keep up with them all.

Overall, this reader believes Pryce makes excellent points and has a plan that is more sound than anything coming out of Congress. Where this reader sees issues with Pryce's ideas is that it can be hard to imagine anything of this nature could be taken on without the involvement of the federal government. Not that the government would be necessary to run the program, but that the government would insist upon being involved. Pryce is talking about taking the money that goes to premiums now and using that to fund this program. And how do health insurance companies not collapse under his plan seems a bit shaky to me. Pryce talks about insurance companies bidding for this business. What happens to the other guys in a realistic world?

The other challenge I have with this plan is that Pryce wants patients to pay for a portion of liability insurance, claiming that it is unfair for doctors to pay the full cost to protect themselves in case someone sues them. This opens up a whole can of worms for other industries to suddenly feel they shouldn't have to pay 100% of their own liability coverage either. I would prefer to see something proposed where if a patient brings a lawsuit against a doctor and loses, he has to pay all attorney fees for both sides.

I like the author's idea of having written standards of care, but why do doctors ever have a difference of opinion on how to treat patients if every diagnostic code should be standardized? Pryce says some doctors have developed their own style or approach to particular problems, but that leads to a lot of medical waste and raises health care costs. While I'm not prepared to argue that point, I still believe getting a second opinion can be important when dealing with certain medical issues, and can't, at this point, see how this portion of his plan would play out in the real world.

Anathema! America's War on Medicine is definitely a thought-provoking book. If you're at all interested in the current debate on Health Care Reform, and even if you're just looking to learn more about how America's health care system operates, it's definitely worth taking the time to read.


Title: Anathema! America's War on Medicine
Author: Michael Pryce, M.D.
Publisher: Trafford Publishing
ISBN-10: 1425185754
ISBN-13: 978-1425185756
SRP: $18.00