Fine Tune Your Brain
Genie Laborde
0-933347-20-0 (Hb)
Fine Tune ... is the follow-up to Influencing with Integrity, and an excellent follow up it is.  Indeed, if NLP could be transmitted without an element of live training I would suggest that the these two books, plus the accompanying workbook 99 Days to Communication Excellence, would be all you would need to get you several steps beyond Practitioner standard.

As readers of Influencing ... will already know, Ms Laborde has a writing style which is both easy to read yet highly informative.  This second book follows the same style, including the "interesting" drawings (all the author's own work, it turns out).
The only jarring note is Chapter 8, about 30 pages on the physiology of the brain.  As the author herself points out:

Parts of this chapter are quite technical. You will not need this information to understand and use the techniques in the chapters that follow.

Quite right.  Which leaves me wondering why it wasn't included as an appendix (for those who like the more technical details) rather than sticking it bang in the middle of the main text?

That said, I found this book as interesting, and practical as Influencing ..., if not more so, and the lengthy bibliography will be especially valuable for readers who want to get a broader view of the topics covered.
I was particularly intrigued to note that NLP/Neuro-linguistic programming are hardly ever mentioned (maybe 2 or 3 times, including the Glossary entry!), which proves the point that we don't have to roll out the technical phrase generator in order to use these techniques effectively.
Finally, I would like to add my assurance that Ms Laborde's claims for the power of the "Unlearning Fear" technique described in Chapter 12 are absolutely genuine.  I recently watched someone unload over thirty years of mental abuse in less than an hour using this approach, and boy, does it work!
Highly recommended * * * * * *

Frogs into Princes
Bandler & Grinder
1-870845-03-X
"When you come to a fork in the road, take it"
(Yogi Berra, American baseball player)

This book is actually an edited (by Steve Andreas) version of a seminar that took place in Denver, Colorado in March, 1978 (information courtesy of Steve Andreas).

What we get, in effect, is the highlights of a course run by Richard Bandler and John Grinder when they were still on speaking terms.  The text covers a range of NLP topics, including the 10 minute phobia cure, reframing, anchoring, representational systems and eye accessing cues, and so on, and so on.
It is also marks, in at least one respect, a fork in the road for NLP.

When the concept of the "preferred" or "most highly valued" representational system first appeared, during the development of the NLP-related techniques, it was a rather rigid affair which identified "visual people", "auditory people" and so on.  By 1978, however, a far more flexible interpretation of the relevant observations was coming into use (though many NLPers still seem to be unaware of the fact that any change has occurred).

Thus we are told to drop the idea that a person is "a visual person", an "auditory person" or whatever, in favour of the more practical definition - the preferred representational system is the one you are currently consciously aware of - and the qualification that of course we are all using all of our sensory systems all of the time.

General Semantics: An Outline Survey
K.G. Johnson
(private publication)
Available from:

Heart of the Mind
Connirae & Steve Andreas
0-911226-31-1
Despite my great respect for the Andreas's as editors of such classic NLP texts as Frogs into Princes and TRANCE-formations, I must confess that Heart of the Mind didn't do a lot for me.
This is not to say that there is anything wrong with the book as such.  Rather it is a matter of the style in which it is presented.

• Overcoming stage fright
• Learning to spell
• Phobias, traumas and abuse
• The naturally slender eating strategy, and
• Dealing with disaster

And that would have been a pity.  For I reached the final chapter: Engaging Your Body's Natural Ability to Heal just in time to use the technique described at the start of the chapter to deal with a touch of gum disease which would previously have yielded to nothing less than a week-long course of antibiotics.
Under the circumstances, depending on your preferred learning style/convincer channel, this has to warrant a rating of Highly Recommended: * * * * * *

Influence (Science and Practice)
R.B. Cialdini
0-673-18942-2
What is the "click whirr" response?   What is the significance of the word "because"?  Why would you want to "listen through your stomach"?
Not an NLP book as such, but Cialdini is treading much of the same ground, throwing up numerous revealing facts, in a thoroughly entertaining manner.
Highly recommended. * * * * *

Influencing with Integrity
Genie Laborde
Syntony (USA) 0-933347-10-3
Crown House (UK & Europe) 1-8998-3601-2
This is one of the earliest books by an author outside the original group of NLP developers (Bandler, Grinder, Dilts, etc.) - yet it is still one of the best-selling books on the subject, and deservedly so.

One of the first things you'll notice about the book, is the fact that it's actually well-written and therefore easily accessible.  Secondly, especially if you're very visual, you'll find that it has unusually wide margins and a wealth of weird illustrations.  The wide margins are for notes; the weird illustrations are for ... and moving right along we next come to the fact that NLP is hardly ever mentioned.  I don't believe this is an attempt to conceal Ms Laborde's sources, but rather a move to avoid letting the book fall into too small a pigeon hole.

Some people write about business, and all their experience - and yet you still get the sense that they're watching it all from the outside.  This book is exactly the opposite.  My own feeling, as I read through it, was that the author has a thorough understanding of NLP in general, and of the application of NLP in a business setting in particular.  More importantly she is skilled in communicating that information in a way that enhances the reader's understanding rather that simply offering raw facts.
In short, a well-written book by someone who clearly has plenty of practical experience.
Highly recommended, once you have a basic understanding of NLP (see next review). * * * * * *

Introducing NLP
O'Connor & Seymour
1-85538-344-6
This is probably one of the most successful books on NLP ever written (at one moment in mid-in Feb. 2009, about 19 years after it's original publication, it was at number 265 in best-selling books (of all descriptions), and still the Number 1 best-selling book on NLP - on Amazon.co.uk - though it was only at 42,401 on Amazon.com at the same time.

Until recently I've always said that as a simple overview and introduction to all of the main topics in NLP this is still the book to beat. It covers the main pre-suppositions and most of the key features of NLP, and has a lengthy glossary. The text is arranged in a coherent fashion (quite an achievement for such a discursive subject!) and reflects the authors' long term practical experience of NLP.

Having said that, the book isn't all it could have been.  The introduction to so-called neurological levels not only uses a completely non-standard illustration of the logical levels model but, more importantly, presents the models as part of NLP - which they aren't.  Likewise the details on NLP modelling are so unclear that whilst I think the right information is in there somewhere, I certainly wouldn't offer the description in this book to a complete novice.

Overall, then, whilst I still rate the majority of this book as an introduction to NLP quite highly, I have to say that I think it definitely comes behind Joseph O'Connor's more recent NLP Workbook (also reviewed on this site).
Strongly recommended (especially for newcomers) * * * * *

Language in Thought and Action
S.I. Hayakawa
0-15-550120-8
Though derided in some quarters (he was once caught on camera whilst sleeping in the US Senate) Hayakawa was brilliant as a populariser of General Semantics. This book, recently up-dated, covers many of Korzybski's key ideas such as the "Ladder of Abstraction" which became the basis for NLP's chunking up and down. An easy and interesting read with practical exercises (at the back!)
Highly recommended. * * * * * *

Lazy Learning
Diana Beaver
1-85230-503-7
"We believe Lazy Learning to be the most important work on learning ever produced", so says The International Association of Master Trainers - which I can only assume means that this judgement was made in committee, a notoriously bad way of making good judgements!
What this book did show me was why Introducing NLP is such a good introductory text - and Lazy Learning isn’t.

• Intro's authors distance themselves from their work to get an objective view, Lazy Learning is full of "I did this" and "I did that".
• Intro is well structured. It flows naturally from the beginning, through the middle to the end. Lazy Learning is an eclectic jumble of ideas that follow no obvious sequence.
• Intro names the experts as a matter of courtesy, Lazy Learning, so far as I can see, names the experts as a form of self-justification.

If the IAMT thinks this is the best book on learning then they clearly haven’t read Colin Rose’s Accelerated Learning.  And neither, it seems, has Ms Beaver.  To tackle this subject without at least acknowledging Accelerated Learning, Georgi Lozanov (its inventor) or Colin Rose (one of its leading proponants) - if only to dismiss them - is as clear an indication as anything else in this book that Ms Beaver has bitten off more than she can chew.
Not recommended.

Selling with Integrity
Sharon Drew Morgan
Berkley Business 0-425-17156-6
I was going to start by saying this wasn't really an NLP book, as such.  And then I thought of some of the volumes I've come across which claim to be about NLP - but which (in my opinion) are nothing of the sort (see Networking for Success, for example) - and I realised that Selling with Integrity has every right to be on this list.

Although there are no references to NLP or any of its leading lights in the Index or the Bibliography, Ms Morgan makes it quite clear in the Preface that her ideas have been influenced by NLP and acknowledges Bandler, Dilts and Grinder in particular.
She is also at pains to mention specific instances of this influence:

" ... the original ideas behind the concepts of Self and Observer, metamessages, and Problem/Solution space came from the field of NLP."

Using their NLP names, Ms Morgan certainly does draw, at one time or another, on a varity of techniques, such as 1st and 2nd position, meta model questions and surface and deep language structures.
In some places, it must be said, the going is a little hard if you aren't already steeped in the world of professional selling - or at least wanting to go that route.  Nevertheless, I'm happy to recommend this book as an effective development of a small number of NLP skills in the very specific context of sales.

I should say, here, that Ms Morgan, late on in the book, suggests that the skills she has been describing could be used in a whole variety of non-sales contexts.  My personal response would be: In theory, yes; but because the book as a whole is so firmly located in the context of sales, I suspect that it would take someone already well-versed in NLP to understand how to transfer the skills.  And if the person was already well-versed in NLP, why would the be reading this book other than to get a better understanding of the use of NLP in a sales context.

Overall, then, a strong recommendation as an NLP-oriented book on selling.  Indeed, the "Morgan Buying Facilitation Method™" - which is what the book is all about - is actually a very powerful reframe of the whole sales process.  To the advantage of sales person and customer alike.
I'd recommend reading this book together with Bandler and LaValles' Persuasion Engineering.  It's my guess you'll be positively amazed by the learning the two books can generate.
Highly recommended - to sales people:  *  *  *  *  *

The Magic of Rapport
Jerry Richardson
0-916990-20-6
I say, at the head of the review list, that this book is factually accurate but lacking any real spark.  Let me expand on that a bit.

In the first place the lion's share of this book is concerned with the most basic aspecs of NLP that relate to rapport - pacing and leading, eye accessing cues, etc. - but in a very bland manner, and with an amazing amount of blank space.  In fact, take any regular book, make each section heading into a chapter heading and you'll have some idea of the layout of this book.  In short, it is indeed "factually accurate", but there's precious little of it.  At a rough estimate, the equivalent of more than 50 pages of the 186 pages of the main text are actually large chunks of blank paper.

As to the claim that it "lacks any real spark", well, that has to be a matter of personal opinion, and some people might very reasonably find the book entirely to their liking.  All I can say is that by the time I'd finished reading it, there were very few highlighted passages - one of my main yardsticks of whether a book said anything worth remembering.

Even at the time when this book was first published, in 1987, there were over 25 books on NLP on the market, yet the bibliography (3 pages) has only two or three references to NLP books.  Perhaps it isn't surprising, then, to find that there are a number of books around today (2002) that include all of the NLP information in this book - and quite a bit more on top (O'Connor and Seymour's Introducing NLP, NLP, The Technology of Achievement by the NLP Comprehensive team, and David Molden's Managing with the Power of NLP - all reviewed on this site - readily spring to mind as more useful alternatives.).
Bottom line: Barely adequate, even in 1987 - not recommended.   *

Managing with the Power of NLP
David Molden
0-273-62063-0
It took me about 6 pages to figure out what was so different about this book.  After so many books that work from the viewpoint of NLP, this one is written for managers and would-be managers by someone who really understands and respects his audience.  This is no easy task, and David Molden deserves a round of applause for achieving his intention with excellence.

Just one page short of 250 (including the mysteriously labelled "Glossary of NLP terms (shortened)", the book deals with all of the main topics of interest to managers in four groupings which the author refers to as the "four key dimensions" - Self-awareness, Leadership, Communication and Innovation.
I personally found the chapters on Empowerment (6) and Influencing the Masses (ie Presentations - 10) particularly interesting and insightful, and the whole book maintains a high standard of information and explanation.

If you've been wanting to get better acquainted with NLP as it applies to the world of business and you're ready to commit yourself to a fairly hefty introduction then this is quite probably the book you're looking for.
Highly recommended * * * * * *