Life on the Edge - Hardcover

James C. Dobson, Ph.D., is founder and chairman of Focus on the Family, a nonprofit organization that produces his internationally syndicated radio programs, heard by more than 200 million people every day. He is seen on 80 television stations daily in the U.S. A licensed psychologist and licensed marriage, family, and child counselor, he is a clinical member of the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy and is listed in Who's Who in Medicine and Healthcare. Dr. Dobson is married to Shirley and is the father of two grown children, Danae and Ryan. He resides in Colorado.

Psychologist Dobson is one of the most successful--and because of his adamancy on the sinfulness of abortion and homosexuality, most controversial--Christian broadcasters via his daily program, Focus on the Family. On the strength of that success, Word is ordering a quarter-million-copy first printing of this adviser on love and life for young adults age 16 to 26. Full of personal anecdotes and great swatches of text from Dobson's previous books, presented in a congenial, colloquial manner like that of Dobson's speeches and radio commentary, it is basically sound, commonsensical, albeit stringent counsel. Dobson is foursquare for delaying sex until marriage, choosing a spouse carefully, and dismissing divorce as a way to solve problems. He admonishes his target audience to be faithful to their families of origin despite the stresses caused by the necessity of achieving adult independence, and he advocates Christian rather than state or private secular colleges for undergraduate education. Undergirding these major themes are a pretty fundamentalist Christianity, to be sure, but also a genuine counselor's understanding of human weakness and extension of sympathy. And despite the bad rap the Religious Right, of which Dobson is a prominent voice, gets, there is not a hateful word in the book. Convinced young Christians, especially those who don't fancy themselves sophisticated, well may appreciate Dobson's manner as well as his matter. Ray Olson