These three authors made lemonade when life gave them lemons; all insist that the answer to life's riddle lies inside you. A former editor at Essence magazine, Cole (How To Be: Contemporary Etiquette for African Americans) hopes to "inspire you to continue forward on your path to you." If that sounds vague, it is. Readers must find their true identity via personal transformation, she argues; this requires active participation, delving, probing, and a lot of hard work, none of which is spelled out here. Chapters titled like Boy Scout maxims (e.g., do your best, work wisely) gently explore different aspects of changing one's life (e.g., have fun, take time to focus) in order to identify one's personal truth. Overall, this book has some nice ideas, as when it endorses journaling to "track your life's evolution," but the lack of concrete steps makes it useful only for determined self-starters. Libraries should instead consider Martha Beck's worthwhile Finding Your Own North Star. Sussman's Images of Desire applied the concepts of eidetic imagery to sensuality, but her latest book is more general. Eventually labeled the science of our emotions, "doing" images is a process that unearths lucid, visual sensations from one's subconscious to unravel objectively the "composite of inner emotions." Through this process, readers get in touch with their true feelings, achieve peace, and eventually radiate joy. The book contains more than 40 exercises to help "find the source of our greatest strengths and weaknesses" on a variety of topics (e.g., career, parenting). Sussman, though, wastes considerable space preaching (e.g., about the sanctity of marriage) instead of guiding, and while many consider therapeutic fantasy one of various tools, here it supposedly cures all. Ellen Curran's Guided Imagery for Healing Children and Teens: Wellness Through Visualization is a better bet. First-time author Kneen makes no bones about her devotion to Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, the late Buddhist meditation master who introduced many Buddhist teachings to the West. Here she shares her "understanding of Trungpa's...original teachings" so that readers can make a "personal connection to their meaning." Perhaps unwittingly, this quickly degenerates into channeling his shtick. With a goal somewhat similar to Cole's, Kneen urges readers to attain "inner authority [and] gain full presence in the world." Opening one's heart means unearthing treasure inside you (e.g., internal strength, peace) via meditation. Such a courageous and energetic process will take much more illumination than Kneen provides; while noble, this book is often indistinct. Determined readers could squeeze something from this, but libraries would get more bang for their buck with Jonathan Landow's clear, no-nonsense Buddhism for Dummies and should also consider Sylvia Boorstein's Pay Attention, for Goodness' Sake or Joan Borysenko's results-oriented Inner Peace for Busy People. Buy by demand for all three. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
