Solar Returns as we know give us a personal (the Sun in the Chart is at the birth degree) insight into trends for our forthcoming year until the next birthday.

By analyzing the qualities or Cardinal, Fixed and Mutable strengths in a natal chart we can, says the author, pick out personal characteristics at a glance, so giving us a greater understanding and insight into the various personality types.

Here is a book after my own heart - electional astrology uses rules from and complements horary astrology (my own interest), the author is a well-established astrologer and the book is clearly and excellently presented from the users' point of view.

What profession we enter into or what job we do is one of the most important decisions in life for most people. Some people do not or cannot follow their instinct for what they want to do, because of parental pressure or simply because they have no choice. Here is a very compact and neat volume on where our aptitude lies according to our charts.

Can one ever successfully describe the infinite with such finite tools as words? In his new book, The Blade of Grass and the Footprint of the Calf: The Mind and Heart of God, South African author, Raymond Reichman-Israelsohn, shares his transformatory experiences, epiphanies and insights. Raymond's dharmic path is through the intuitive glimpses of jnana yoga - the yoga of the intellect - and leads the attentive reader along a spiritual denouement ...

From the first few pages and the last few (which offer courses, tapes and other services provided by the author), the first impression is that Blaschke is a very serious practitioner of the Art of Astrology and from what he offers, is willing to share his knowledge. As well as telephone consultations and possibilities of invitations to lecture, he also offers a contact address. The obvious American drive to marketing oneself is perhaps a little brash for some tastes.

This is a book for reference use by all astrologers, being a definitive work on the fixed stars. Although it was originally written in 1923, over 80 years ago, the scope of the research is still amazing today.

Robert Blaschke produced a winner with his critically-acclaimed volume on Progressions (Earthwalk, Portland, Oregon 1998). Now the second volume in his Astrology - A Language of Life series is published, concentrating on the measurements between degrees, and it is certainly as original and thought-provoking as the first.

David Frawley has written several books, and given many courses in the U.S.A on Ayurvedic Medicine and Vedic Astrology. In this book, Frawley combines Ayurvedic Medicine with Vedic Astrology to develop Ayurvedic Astrology.

Editor's Note : This is one of the books that were sent to ASSA by Jayanta Bhowmick, from India. We have a few aspirant Vedics, which are going to lap it up greedily, so get to the ASSA Library and expand your wisdom!

Refreshingly, this book does not deal with past lives or psychology; it attempts to give practical advice on what the Nodes signify in a chart and what they do in THIS life.