Customer Reviews

Amazing Face Reading: An Illustrated Encyclopedia for Reading Faces

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

Just carry around this book so that other people can read the title, and soon you'll be deep in a conversation with someone. That has been my experience. Even learning a few major facial attributes: "Large eyelids mean you want deep connection in a relationship; when you commit, it is for life which means it is difficult for you to end even a bad relationship." Or "A line in your chin means your self esteem isn't what you deserve and you need validation from at least one external source." As you notice just a few major features, people will reveal more about themselves because they feel seen and understood and have a rare opportunity to be self-revelatory. You learn that each feature has a positive side and a "challenge." As people validate your observations, you will be inspired to continue learning more about the traits until you hear a "that's amazing" as Fulfer does with each face he reads. The book is written with a compassionate outlook towards everyone. Fulfer emphasizes that the purpose of the book is not to "nail" people or categorize them, but to understand them and open a deeper dialogue than we have with most people. In relationships, understanding face reading can help lighten areas of disagreement. For example, I found myself saying, "Oh, you interrupt me because you have low eyebrows and you want to participate, and you're afraid you'll forget what you want to say" instead of "you're rude and you have no interest in what I'm saying." I can joke about what once felt like an insult. The interest Fulfer inspires in people who hear hin lecture and want to buy his book was recently shown at the Ontario Human Resources Conference, where people literally stood in line for hours to have their faces read. Amazing Face Reading was the best selling book in the history of the Ontario Human Resources Conference.

I have just posted a review for Face Language 2000. It is always interesting and useful to compare different face reading books. Each claims much success and accuracy and yet different authors have different criteria for interpretation. Is it because of the vague and general descriptions that we use? In NLP (Neuro-linguistic Programming) it is called nominalisations, which are specifically used for Ericksonian hypnosis. So given the rapport, people may give their own meanings to those words and feel how right on they are. This book is more comprehensive in scope. The pencil drawings are artistic and very helpful. Overall, it is a great tool for developing one's sensory acuity in perceving people. But we must read that with a pinch of salt. Face reading is still a long way from being scientifically or statistically reliable. Some interpretations may have higher validity. E.g. the correlations of heart lines (vertical line on ear lobe), p.66, with certain coronary heart problems may be higher. But not every interpretation. The Chinese Face Reading system goes into mapping the location for each year on the face. That helps to make interpretations more precise for verification. This is a fascinating field that is worth studying. We need to work out more systematically the rationale underlying the interpretations. The present book is a good introduction if we approach it with an open, objective and discriminating mind and have the sensitivity to racial differences also.

Sometimes I like to supplement my studies of psychology and "personality typing" by picking up a book that falls outside the mainstream framework. Mac Fulfer's "Amazing Face Reading" caught my eye while I was looking for something completely different, and I have thoroughly enjoyed it.

Face reading-- also known as physiognomy-- is the 2,000+ year old "soft science" of learning about people and their personality from looking at, and understanding, their facial features. The author is an attorney and jury consultant who studied 1,000s of people through his work and established correlations between certain physical characteristics, behavior and personality. After 20 years of study, he summarized his findings in this informative, interesting and easy-to-read book.

The book is richly illustrated with 200+ high quality pencil drawings, accompanied by concise paragraphs about each facial characteristic. After covering the basics of face reading, Fulfer includes a section on different applications for what you have learned-- as applied to the fields of Sales and Jury Selection-- and also includes brief coverage of reading facial expressions and body language.

Is "Face reading" a science? Well, I'll leave that for someone else to decide. Does it have merit? From what I have learned, Fulfer's principles seem almost uncannily accurate-- although I expect they are best used in conjunction with other psychological tools. To those who dismiss face reading out of hand, I do have to point out that many of the principles draw on pretty well researched fields such as NLP and reading body language. There's also a large component of intuition and common sense involved. For example, it doesn't take a degree in rocket science to conclude that someone with laugh lines at the coroner of their eyes are more likely to have a sense of humor than someone with frown lines. We ARE the sum total of our experiences in life, and we "wear" the effects of many of those experiences-- trauma, stress, joy, anger, etc.-- on our faces.

Final thoughts: Recommended (8.5 out of a possible 10 bookmarks) but keep in mind that this is not an "exact science." However, the book *will* teach you to pay more attention to people, and it has the potential to help you understand others' motivitions during your daily life.

At first, I was kind of skeptical about all this face reading, but after some time reading the book and trying out the face techniques described in the book, I slowly realized that about 95% of the time, my analyzing of the persons face was acurate. This book should be read by anyone trying to get an edge in everyday life

Soon after Mac Fulfer read my face I began reading his book. I was interested in knowing everything that my face could tell me about myself. I found the page on "eye puffs" personally challenging because I had moderate eye puffs and I could see from the description of the "severe eye puffs", where I was heading. It was a wake up call that began making major changes in the way I moved through the world. Then using this Encyclopedia also gave me a way of knowing more about other people and opened up an avenue of connection and communication that I had never known before. The information in this book gave me a way to trust my intuition. It is a Dictionary of literally everyone on the planet. In fact, I have taken this book with me all over the world and read faces in Red Square in Russia, The Museum of History in Cairo, the London Tube and many other places. Simply stated, the book is worth its weight in gold.

I bought 3 Face Reading books at the same time recently and feel that "Amazing Face Reading" by Mac Fulfer, JD, is the best of the 3. For me, it is the best because it is presented so clearly with great face illustrations and clear concise descriptions. It's laid out like an encyclopedia - so easy to follow and to find what you are looking for. Further, it is a wealth of information, going beyond the basics and providing in depth studies. Of the other 2 books - "Wisdom of your Face" by Jean Haner, was the 2nd best and well written with good illustrations. The 3rd book "The Power of Face Reading" by Rose Rosetree, was the least useful because there were much fewer illustrations and the layout was not the easy read that the other 2 were. The Rosetree book felt "cluttered" to me. You will enjoy the "open, easy to study" style of "Amazing Face Reading".

The best part of this book, and what makes it unique compared to other books on Face Reading is the amount and quality of illustrations featured throughout.

The illustrations are very professional compared to other books and show a diverse range of people, young and old, and of different origins. It makes it easier to learn the topic.

If you're going to buy just on book on face reading - make it this one.

This book, and probably all other face reading books published in the US, tries to be politically correct. The author focuses on the positive side of all facial features and that makes face reading much less convincing. And maybe that is why so few people in the US take face reading seriously.

Good face reading books written by ancient Chinese scholars are beautiful, accurate yet very straight forward. For example, people with high and wide foreheads are considered intelligent and superior while people with low and narrow foreheads are considered dumb and inferior. The author is obviously aware of at least some of those theories, but perhaps he can not tell all the truth because he has to be politically correct to stay away from discrimination charges.

Not all facial features are equally important. For example, forehead reveals more information than chin does. Unfortunately, the author seems to give equal weight to all the features.

The expression of one's eyes may be more important than the shape of the eyes. Good face reading books should not focus only on physical characteristics.

The drawings of this book are indeed very good.

This book deserves 4 stars comparing with other English face reading books. It would get only 2 stars comparing with the best Chinese books on this subject.

If you wish learn to identify people's personalities or how they may be feeling or may be thinking at a given moment then his book is a waste of your time and money. The ideas in this book are nothing but pseudoscientific nonsense. The text is full of glittering generalities and vague statements which nearly anyone would agree were true about them, regardless of face shape. If you wish to truly read people, your time and money would be much better spent on just about anything by Paul Ekman or any of the books by Desmond Morris on human social interaction. Avoid this book.

I'm very impressed with this book and use it on a daily basis. It is exceptionally accurate and has been an excellent companion to my plamistry practice. I highly recommend it for anyone in any profession, particularly those who want to have distinct advantage and insight.
This particular reference is well organized and easy to understand, with quality illustrations and examples. Definitely worth the purchase...I have also given this book as a gift many times and people love it.