Rating: 
Summary: Every Success Library Needs Thick Face, Black Heart.
Review: If you are continuously striving to improve and grow personally then you need this book. Chin-Ning Chu has touched upon ideas and concepts that are essential to business and spiritual success. Many of us pray each day to have more, to be better when everything we will ever need is already within us. It is just a matter of simplification and understanding. Incredible job by the author.
Rating:
Summary: You may not be ready for this one...
Review: Motivation and success book for grown-ups. This book will not penetrate your psyche if you are still immersed in Tony Robbins motivational tapes and the Napoleon Hill Think and Grow Rich mentality. No, this is the next step up the ladder. If you've hit the wall with the forementioned, get this book. It works. But it will hit you in the face like a ton of bricks.
Rating:
Summary: You Need No Other Book!
Review: Rarely does a book come along that gets labled "companion", but Thick Face Black Heart is just that. Like Gracian's "The Art of Wordly Wisdon", this book is a companion for life. To be read and re-read.I searched and read for a long time differing books on succeeding in life. I bought this book based on a comment from a reviewer inside which said, "If I had to carry only two books on a runway it would be Sun Tzu's Art of War and Thick Face Black Heart." Being a huge long time fan of SunTzu, I figured I had to give this book a chance. It was one of the best decisions I have made. The clarity into how life works whether you like it or not is worth the cost alone. Too many people (myself included) have a hard time believing that the world (and life) itself is a battlefield. This illumination will not depress you - in fact it will rejuvinate you. My copy is dog-eared to no end. I read it through at least twice a year and keep it by my bed (whether at home or on the road). This is not money wasted. The best compliment I can give about this book? After having read Thick Face Black Heart the first time, I threw all other self-help books I owned (Tony Robbins included)in the trash. I haven't missed them since.
Rating: 
Summary: A good idea buried in unfocused writing
Review: Thick Face, Black Heart is a good concept. In essence, it goes like this: You must identify the best course of action and then do it without concern for what others will think of you (Thick Face) and without wavering, even though it may produce side-effects that you dislike (Black Heart). The typical example is a general losing 5000 men in a battle in order to end a bloody war and save many more lives. He knows in is heart that this is the best decision, so he orders it, without allowing himself to be hindered by thoughts of criticism in the media or all the soldiers that will die. After reading the book, I appreciate having this as another way to look at things and see how it can be useful. However, I would say that about 75 pages of 368 are actually worth reading and present new, worthwhile ideas. The rest is a waste of time. Chapters 1, 2, and 12-16 are somewhat interesting and do a decent job of explaining her concept. The rest is, for the most part, boring and cheesy. The anecdotes are not that interesting and often *barely* applicable to her point. The writing style is simplistic, yet somehow still not concise or to the point. Chu throws in a chapter here, a chapter there about various self-help issues, without providing any depth or coherence and without linking these ideas to her main concept (aside from frequently intoning such pointless lines as "__________ is the essence of Thick Face, Black Heart"). Give up too easily? Here's a chapter on perseverance. Money troubles? Here's a chapter on that, too. Feel like other people take advantage of you? Here's another chapter! These chapters are entirely unessential to the main idea and can be skipped entirely, unless you need help in those areas -- in which case you should probably get a whole book on that topic. She even wanders so much within each chapter that it becomes difficult to see a big picture. Maybe that's why she included a "Summary of Points" at the end of each chapter -- however, her writing and concepts are so simplistic that the summaries only serve to lay bare how unfocused her writing is. Much of the book is a simplified hybrid of various religions and philosophies which does little to clarify the main point. At times, it gets ugly. Chu oversimplifies Lincoln's choice to free the slaves (somehow missing the important detail that his Emancipation Proclamation only freed the Confederate slaves -- but what a great guy!), she throws in bits of an Indian epic, she quotes the Art of War... but she doesn't get at the guts of any of them. You can't expect all that in one book, but I personally think you shouldn't try. What particularly annoyed me was her claim to stay religion-neutral by using terms like "the Divine" and "the Creator". In reality, she takes on an essentially Christian viewpoint when talking about interaction with God and a vaguely Hindu/Buddhist viewpoint when discussing our place in the cosmos. This is not a unified theory, folks, it's a neo-pseudo-meta-spiritual Frankenstein. The one thing I will give her credit for is doing a pretty good job of portraying the concept of Dao (not easy!), especially as it pertained to the concept of TFBH. So why the generous two stars? Because I think, despite all my criticism, the concept is valuable. Unfortunately, Chu has tried to cram in a bunch of other self-help concepts and some new-age feel-good blather. The truth is, if you understand and practice her TFBH concept, you can deduce the rest of it easily. A 75-page, summarized version of TFBH, stripped down to the essentials, clearly organized, and with most of the boring anecdotes taken out, would be a great read. At 368 pages, this version is not worth the time.
Rating:
Summary: A book that would possibly change you!
Review: This book was very thought-provoking and has brought me to a whole new horizon of thinking. If you are a spiritual person but needs to use strategies and tricks to compete in business, read this book. One of things I derived out of this book is that God is a very loving entity, yet He could sometimes be "ruthless" as perceived by human beings. "Ruthless" meaning God would executive the mission He has created for us whether we like it or not for the sacred purpose of our spiritual growth. In business as well as in other aspects of life, we try to survive and be successful by doing everything we can. The author gives many examples of strategies. BUT, the author's message as I understand, is that whatever you do to compete, it's got to be in sync with God's mission and state of being (out of love).
| 
