I never used to really buy into astrology for the simple reason that I knew the 30,000,000 or so other Libras in the U.S. were not all exactly like me. I also refused to believe that the million or so people who shared my birthday were all like me. Then I picked up this book (which wasn't easy given its weight!) and used it to produce a chart for myself that was based on the day, year, and even TIME of my birth. The result nailed me so perfectly (and not always in a complimentary way) that it was frightening.

What was great about this book was the way it used the positions of the planets, sun, and moon at the time of my birth to create a reading divided into ten different aspects of my personality. This is how it's able to create a profile that is so unique even for people born on the same date but in a different year. After all, George W. Bush and the Dalai Lama were born on the same date -- it's the different years of their birth that make the difference!

What's most astounding, however, are the charts included in the book which provide the planetary positions all the way up to 2025, allowing you to create a reading for any future day. It then shows you how to compare this reading to your own chart in order to see what the possible interactions (positive, negative and neutral) might be for you on that upcoming day. This alone makes it worth its price.

Of course, the only way you're able to do this is because the book provides you all of the charts you need. I don't know what the reviewer from Publisher's Weekly is criticizing up above. The charts are the whole point of this book and the thing that makes it so unbelievably useful. Considering that the review got so many other facts wrong (there's nearly 200 pages of non-chart material, and the 12 traditional Zodiac signs are divided into 48 new periods, not 36) shows that the reviewer was basically clueless and didn't understand the true value of this book at all.

If I have a negative critique, it would be that gathering up the information pertinent to you requires a lot of flipping back and forth. This title practically screams for a CD-Rom version that would assemble the material all by itself and compare it to selected future dates automatically. I hope the publisher will consider this with some future edition.

And finally, I also have to mention how gorgeous this book is. All the other stuff aside, it's just a pleasure to flip through, with it's unique design and stunning full-color artwork. For anyone interested in astrology, I can't imagine a better gift than this.

PS: I did find a mistake on one of the charts, but I went to the book's website listed on the back cover, and the publisher had already caught the mistake and posted the correct information. Later editions of the book should be fine.