I was not familiar with the author or the associated book, but I ordered this calendar because I thought the images looked great and I wanted to find a calendar that had some kind of interesting content with each month. I'm not typically a self-help kind of person, but I enjoy learning about different philosophies and religions, and that is just what this calendar provides. Each month gives a nice summary on a Taoist concept and then gives an idea or two on how to apply that to yourself.
A real plus to me was that each month has the lunar cycles and many different religious and world-wide holidays noted on the dates they occur. That has been hard to find in other calendars, so I was very happy to see that included. The back of the calendar also gives a listing of the same holidays with the dates they occured on in 2009, a miniature of the final four months of 2009, and a small layout of the 2011 months. Excellent bonus!
The only reason I did not give this five stars is because of few of the full-size photographs were not the best quality (even if it's a foggy scene, the photo shouldn't have noise or look blurry). I suspect the original resolution just was not very high because the thumbnail of the same photograph on the back looks a bit better. But most of the photos are high quality and the scenes are really beautiful. I know I'll enjoy this calendar.