Biographies & Memoirs

Cheap 50 People Every Christian Should Know: Learning from Spiritual Giants of the Faith

noreply@blogger.com (Petch) — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 06:13:00 +0000

I picked up a copy of this book recently and have found it to be one of the most challenging books I have ever read. I would consider this a must read, especially for pastors and teachers. If you can't afford it now, put it on your "wish-list" and request it for Christmas. You won't be disappointed.Get more detail about 50 People Every Christian Should Know: Learning from Spiritual Giants of the Faith.

Buying The Woman Behind the New Deal: The Life and Legacy of Frances Perkins, Social Security, Unemployment Insurance,

noreply@blogger.com (Petch) — Sun, 07 Nov 2010 18:13:00 +0000

This book was a fascinating "alternative view" of the FDR presidency and the programs we came to know as the New Deal. I say alternative view because so much more has been written regarding New Dealers Harry Hopkins, Raymond Moley, Henry Wallace, Louis Howe and even Lewis Douglas. It's ironic that Frances Perkins was the force behind Social Security, child labor laws, worker safety, minimum wage, unemployment compensation, the 40 hour work week and more but has been largely ignored by posterity. Some of this may have been her own fault. To be effective as a woman during that period, Frances Perkins often chose to research and understand a problem, then propose solutions that FDR and others could put forth as their own.

Frances Perkins was born in 1880; a Mount Holyoke graduate, she was an anomoly based on her education. Not content to be an idle blue-stocking, she became involved in Hull House in Chicago and the settlement house movement. Her employment as an early social worker drove a wedge between her and her conservative New England family.

She was a cabinet member for the entirety of FDR's presidency. She supported organized labor when labor didn't support her, understanding when few did, how organized labor helps a democratic society. She did these things and many more while staying in the background as much as possible. Hence the value of this book.

Kirsten Downey did a good job in researching and writing this book. Biographies pose unique challenges to a writer and I found myself wondering if publication of this book was pushed forward to take advantage of the obvious analogies between FDR and Obama and the economic challenges that faced their administrations. There were multiple places where the writing seemed less than elegant and frankly, I attributed that to editing (or lack thereof).

The book includes the challenges of her personal life which included a husband who suffered from bipolar disorder and a daughter who may also have suffered from mental illness and the economic necessity of working to support both. The book and several review alude to several possible lesbian relationships that Ms. Perkins may or may not have had. Given her deeply held religious beliefs and personal ethics, I'm dubious about her having a sexual relationship outside her marriage, regardless of the gender of the partner.

I highly recommend this book. Perkins was a fascinating person. Amid all the other New Dealers jockeying for access to the President and posterity, Frances Perkins quietly instituted lasting programs that touch us today.
Get more detail about The Woman Behind the New Deal: The Life and Legacy of Frances Perkins, Social Security, Unemployment Insurance,.

Buy In Freedom's Cause

noreply@blogger.com (Petch) — Sun, 07 Nov 2010 05:13:00 +0000

Liberty or death. This was the choice the people of Scotland in the 13th century faced if they rose up against their English ruler. Most would say it was no choice at all. Many of the Scottish nobles were English supporters. Few could be expected to rise up against the numerically overwhelming English army. The hero of the story, Archibald Forbes, joins the struggle for Scottish freedom led by the valiant Sir William Wallace and Robert the Bruce. The extraordinary valor and personal prowess of these men rival the deeds of the mythical heroes of chivalry.Get more detail about In Freedom's Cause.

Purchase Jesus of Nazareth

noreply@blogger.com (Petch) — Sat, 06 Nov 2010 17:13:00 +0000

I was given this book as a gift. I could hardly put it down and finished it in just a few days, it was that good. It is more approachable and readable than other books by Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict.

The book covers the life of Jesus between his baptism and the transfiguration. Note that the most celebrated events, his birth, death, and resurrection, are not the focus of this book. And yet, Pope Benedict manages to weave together a very interesting narrative and analysis of who Jesus is, and why he stands out from his time in history until now.

Before anyone reads this book, they should have first read the whole Bible. There are plenty of references to the New Testament, Isaiah, Psalms, and the Torah (books of Moses). Most references are self contained, including quotes from the Revised Standard Version Bible. Sometimes the references include only partial or no quotes. In either case, it helps to be able to put things in context in your head, so it helps to be familiar with the text of the Bible before hand.

Pope Benedict is a first rate theological scholar. By the way, there is practically nothing Catholic-specific in this book - everything applies to all Christians. The point of view is conservative, decidedly not liberal. You will no doubt see positive reviews by Protestants and Mormons of this book. Sometimes the tone is a bit scholarly, discussing the work of other theologians. All in all, probably not a good book for someone who is unfamiliar with the Bible.

I cannot recommend it highly enough. This is one of most inspired and intelligently written books I own. In the preface, Pope Benedict promises to write a sequel about the rest of Jesus' life, and I look forward to that next book.Get more detail about Jesus of Nazareth.

Order To Hell and Back

noreply@blogger.com (Petch) — Sat, 06 Nov 2010 05:13:00 +0000

Sixty-one years ago, a young American who'd fought in the war published an unpretentious book, "To Hell and Back." It was the story of his experience in World War II as a combat infantryman. Nowhere in the book does the author mention that he was the most decorated US soldier in the Second World War, or that he'd won the Congressional Medal of Honor, along with 21 other medals. He barely notes that he rose from buck private to lieutenant (though he never says if he became a First Lieutenant, though it's hard to imagine that he didn't).

On V-E Day, the author - Audie Murphy - was not yet 21, though he'd seen almost nonstop combat from the first wave of the Sicilian invasion to the end of the war outside of Munich two years later. An orphan who grew up on a hardscrabble Texas panhandle farm during the dust bowl depression, he'd volunteered for the Marines as soon as he'd turned 18. "Too small," said the recruiter to the scrawny, baby-faced young man. So he volunteered for the Airborne, and was again rejected. "Too small, Murphy." And he was small, but he wanted to fight - to fight for his country, and perhaps, to fight to prove that he wasn't really too small after all.

Having failed to enlist in the two "fightingest" units of the American military, Murphy joined the Infantry. He arrived in North Africa right before the end, but the Germans and Italians surrendered the day he was going into the line to see combat for the first time, forcing him to wait for Sicily two months later.

There isn't an ounce of braggadocio in Audie Murphy's chronicle of war, and though he was scarcely educated, even by the standards of the day, he wrote his unpretentious memoirs in the most literate and evocative style I've encountered. All of those fabled "writers" who went off to war, seeking to learn some deep inner truth and share it with the world, how they must have envied Murphy's honest, moving words.

Within minutes of landing on Sicily, his unit took their first fatality, courtesy of German artillery - and from the start, Murphy began learning the lessons that kept him alive. He realized that the dead man had let his guard down, and in two years of hard fighting, Murphy never did.
In combat, Murphy soon had to fight two opposing forces - the need and want to be close to the men who shared life and death with him, and the need to remain distant from men who were doomed to die or be disfigured or dismembered. Not one of the men Murphy landed with in Sicily were still in combat with him when his war ended in the occupation of Munich. He lost so much - but he did not lose his soul. He indeed went to Hell and Back, but the important thing is, he did come back.

As a soldier, Murphy was a hard man. He knew that a wounded German was a dangerous German, and if they would not surrender, he had no qualms about shooting them as often as he needed to until the risk went away. He could never forget that his best friend was gut-shot and murdered as he stood to take the surrender of eight German soldiers - men whose fanaticism was such that they'd betray that most basic of trusts, the one that allowed men to surrender to others who'd just tried to kill them - and whom they'd just tried to kill. An instinctive shot, he seldom had to shoot them very often. But he was not a war criminal, or a murderer in any sense of the word. Germans who surrendered to him were treated honorably and well, and the wounded he took prisoner got the same rough-but-gentle medical care as did his own men.

Yet he was also a gentle man. For those of his comrades who - after all the heroism and courage they could give - cracked under artillery fire, or after the sight of one more friend eviscerated by a German mortar shell, Murphy was solicitous, understanding and caring. One man, who couldn't bear to be thought a coward, kept cracking, and being evacuated, then coming back. To save his friend, Murphy called the Colonel and read him the riot act about sending this man back. Lieutenants did not read Colonels the riot act, but to save a friend who'd given more than he'd had to give, Murphy would fight bureaucracy as sternly and as effectively as he'd fight the Germans.

In combat, Murphy earned 22 medals, including the Medal of Honor. Yet the reader is left to guess which distinctive action won him that highest medal. My bet is the time he mounted the rear deck of a burning and abandoned American Tank Destroyer - a kind of thin-skinned tank with no roof on the turret, but with a bigger main gun than could be carried by a more heavily armored tank. On the turret's top was mounted a .50 caliber heavy machine gun, and standing with smoke swirling around him, and open flames warming his feet for the first time all winter, Murphy single-handedly stopped a German counter-attack. They could never find him to shoot him, for the simple reason that no sane man would stand on the back of a burning TD, one packed with heavy artillery shells and filled with hundreds of gallons of high-test gasoline, all seconds away from fireballing.

But there were at least a half-dozen other incidents that could have won him that most honored of medals, and the reader is left to guess, and to wonder, because Audie Murphy never gives a hint.

In the bitter winter of 1944, while facing down fanatical Germans in the Vosges Mountains on the border between Germany, France and Switzerland, Murphy was shot - apparently the only serious wound he received. He says he was shot in the hip, though his comrades joked that he'd gotten shot in the ass. It took him three days to move from front line to aid station to field hospital, and by that time his wound had infected and turned gangrenous. Doctors had to pump him full of antibiotics and carve away the dead, necrotic flesh as the gangrene ate it, for two full months. This living hell was dismissed in a short paragraph, a few evocative but uncomplaining sentences. All we do know is that, as soon as he could, two months from being shot, he was back in the line, freezing off what the Germans had failed to shoot off.

There were no easy battles for Murphy. Some consider Sicily a cake-walk, but Murphy lost his first friend within minutes of going ashore. Nobody considered Salerno, or the Gustav line, or Anzio a cake-walk, but many considered the invasion of the South of France to be a walk in the park. I should have known better - in 1973, right out of college, I worked with a man who'd won the Congressional Medal of Honor in the South of France when, as a sergeant, and after all of the unit's officers had been killed, he held together a company of Americans who'd been cut off and surrounded - and held them together as he'd held off the Germans for a week before relief came. This wasn't Murphy, this was a man I'd known.

So I knew - or should have - that the late-summer 1944 invasion of the Riviera on the South of France wasn't easy, or safe. It was in France that Murphy paid the highest price in lost friends - those few who were left from the men who'd left North Africa for Sicily 13 months before - of the entire war. It was made more poignant because there were so few left, and because even the replacements of the replacements of the replacements were now so few in number.

At the time that Murphy's unit breached the Siegfried Line and entered Germany, Murphy had been taken out of combat and assigned as a courier, running messages between the Division's rear-echelon headquarters. He was safe, secure, and ... and he ordered his driver to take him as close to the line as possible. Then dismounting, he walked through the Dragon's Teeth and bunkers until he found what was left of his own company, cowering in a ditch, as demoralized as he'd ever seen them. Standing on top of the trench, in full view of any Germans who'd cared to look, he cajoled and prodded and kicked and cajoled again, and got the remnant of that battle-shocked company out of their safe trench and on the march. Then he led them through the rest of the Siegfried Line and into Germany. Once they'd accomplished their assigned task - only because of his leadership - he left them and marched back, unprotected, unafraid and unharmed, through the Siegfried Line, back to his jeep, and back to headquarters. They'd never missed him.

Soon enough, he was back with his beloved company, leading them as part of the tidal wave that swept through Germany in the last 8 weeks of war. Finally, he was given a furlough, and was on a train heading for the French Riviera when V-E Day was announced. And it was in France that he forced himself to abandon cynicism and embrace the return of life - and to complete the journey he took, the journey to Hell and Back.

It would take a wonderful book to do justice to this hero's war, and I encourage you to read it, one of the best and most evocative war books I've read in more than fifty years of reading war books. I grew up in that generation just after the war; I remember a legless friend of my father's coming over to use our backyard swimming pool for exercise. I can still see him - though the last time I saw him was the summer after the first grade - unbuckling his artificial legs, apparently unselfconsciously, crab-walking across the patio and plunging into the water. I can still remember my uncle, whose ship had been Stuka'd in the Med - the scars of shrapnel and fire still mark his face to this day. My father never told me of the four Kamikazes which had attacked his ship (or the one that hit - then bounced off - before exploding). Men of that generation, those who didn't write books, didn't talk much about the war. But as a kid, I saw the evidence of war carved into the bodies and faces of men I'd grown up around. I have a sense of what they went through.

But Murphy leaves no doubt. He saw no glory, no heroism worth banners and bugles, though a grateful nation showered him with awards he never even mentioned. He did his duty, led his men, fought his battles, defeated his foes and did his part to win the war and protect the country he so clearly loved. His book tells this story, and it is worthwhile.

After the war, the unquestionably handsome Audie Murphy became a Hollywood film star - even playing himself in the movie adaptation of his memoir. Surely, that must have been surreal. And tragically, after surviving all that the Germans had thrown at him, Audie Murphy was killed in a plane crash in 1971. He was just 46.

That fact brought to mind another soldier - a paratrooper named Carter - who also began his war in Sicily, also fought in Italy and France and Germany - and who died of cancer, of all things, just a year or two after the war ended. Before he died - before, I presume, he knew that he would die, Carter wrote an unforgettable book, "Those Devils in Baggy Pants." That was a story of paratroopers, of men Audie Murphy was too scrawny to join. Each man gave his all, and it was enough to defeat Germany, but not enough to live in peace for generations after the war ended. They were all heroes, but none more consistently and effectively heroic than Audie Murphy, who fought for his country, gave his all more times than I could count, and indeed, went to Hell and Back.

Get more detail about To Hell and Back.

Where To Buy Chuck Klosterman IV: A Decade of Curious People and Dangerous Ideas

noreply@blogger.com (Petch) — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 17:16:00 +0000

Why oh why did our generation waste so much ink lauding Hunter S Thompson when we have someone with true talent in our midst, with the gonzo ethic of Thompson and the talents of Gladwell? Not that Klosterman is truly overlooked (he makes a fine living I'm sure), but heavens you would think he would be mentioned in the same breath as the other coffeetable must-haves that are relentlessly rotated on the "'what white people like" lists (not that there's *anything* wrong with those writers, and, no, not only white people like them!)

Chuck Klosterman IV is a must-read, as is nearly everything else he has ever written, whether on a stained cocktail napkin or on fine bond letterhead.Get more detail about Chuck Klosterman IV: A Decade of Curious People and Dangerous Ideas.

Shop For The Lemon Tree: An Arab, a Jew, and the Heart of the Middle East

noreply@blogger.com (Petch) — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 05:15:00 +0000

An interesting and informative, objective, study of the conflicts between the Arabs and Jews in the Middle East. Starting with an overview and coming down to two people.Get more detail about The Lemon Tree: An Arab, a Jew, and the Heart of the Middle East.

Coach: Lessons on the Game of Life

noreply@blogger.com (Petch) — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 17:14:00 +0000

I understand completely, and Michael Lewis articulates gracefully and masterfully what it means to have a coach who is a life force driving you to be your best self beyond the specifics of any sport. While I am an accidental athlete, all of my sons were/are high school wrestlers and all of them have been mentored by an extraordinary coach, Michael Powell. I write about Coach Powell and have video interviews of him up on my latest site, [...]. He is an inspiring, extraordinary human. Regardless of sport, some men/women have the integrity and selflessness to change the lives they touch. I can appreciate "Coach" because I know exactly what Lewis means. Some coaches impact everyone around them and this book is a great reminder of that positive power.Get more detail about Coach: Lessons on the Game of Life.

Chants of a Lifetime: Searching for a Heart of Gold Review

noreply@blogger.com (Petch) — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 05:15:00 +0000

This book shows the personal side to a wonderful kirtanist. The book is very inspirational and easy to read. At times you feel like you are there with him experiencing what he is experiencing. Before reading this I hadn't realized he knew Ram Das. The kirtan CD enclosed is a real gift. I own many of his CD's.Get more detail about Chants of a Lifetime: Searching for a Heart of Gold.

Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood Top Quality

noreply@blogger.com (Petch) — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 17:15:00 +0000

We often think of colonialism of Africa is black and white, but this book disproved the myth and offered more insight on the subject. In no way I am endorsing colonialism, but I think the book made the point that everyone, including her obviously racist parents, are a victim of colonialism yet everyone picked up the pieces time and time again and tries to make the best of what life has to offer.Get more detail about Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood.

Dorothea Lange: A Life Beyond Limits This instant

noreply@blogger.com (Petch) — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 05:15:00 +0000

If the subject weren't so compelling, I would not have stayed with it. The childhood parts are heavy on speculation as to how a child of this era with polio or separated parents would have felt. Speculation on why Lange accepted the traditional women's domestic roles is similarly overdone. Staying with this book was well worth it. Linda Gordon shines in her presentation of Lange's work and its place in its era and ours.

Gordon describes not just how these iconic photos were made, but the life of Lange as she made them. Lange took on (or wound up with) responsibilities for her own two children as well as offspring from her two husbands' previous marriages. There are allusions to neglect, but the children seem to be around more than one would expect from such a busy life. By contrast, Lange's life on the road driving from place to place, relating to the people and taking the photos is very well defined.

Gordon clearly demonstrates why Lange can be considered a photographer for democracy. She writes not just of Lange's work but her commitment towards the social reforms that she hoped her images might inspire. Her work with the FSA dovetailed with her second husband's work in agricultural economics. They were independent professionals as well a team.

There is a good description of the mission and vulnerability of the FSA, its role in the New Deal, its political pressures, office politics and how and why Lange was too often the odd man out. Both Lange and the FSA had to accept the racism of the times. Photos of people of color would not be highlighted since the public would not be inclined to accept them. The agency always had to consider the power of the growers to totally eliminate it.

While we remember Lange for her FSA photos, her work encompasses far more. Most intriguing are the photos of the Japanese internment, many of which are lost to history. Others, such as those done in cooperation with Ansel Adams, were published in mainstream publications. The few "world photographs" reproduced in the book whet your appetite for more.

As the New Deal gave way to a backlash, Gordon provides excellent analysis of the pressures on Lange, her husband and her colleagues. There are discussions on photo documentation, photojournalism and photographic art and analysis of Lange and her role in and opinions regarding each.

The book, besides being rich in analysis it is rich in photos. There are glossy plates and many photos on text pages.
Get more detail about Dorothea Lange: A Life Beyond Limits.

The Best of Friends: Martha and Me Immediately

noreply@blogger.com (Petch) — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 17:15:00 +0000

Highly recommended. Helps you to understand what drives Martha Stewart and the sad consequences of how money and power can, in my opinion, and what appears to be a little mental illness - drive away even those friends who didn't care about your wealth in the first place. Just goes to show as well - money can't buy love or true happiness. A very big "must read" for Martha Stewart fans.Get more detail about The Best of Friends: Martha and Me.

Life of Christ Best Quality

noreply@blogger.com (Petch) — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 05:15:00 +0000

This biography can easily be used for an in depth Bible Study. Beautifully written, meant to be a source of meditation and a vehicle for spiritual growth.Get more detail about Life of Christ.

The Ghost Map Get it now!

noreply@blogger.com (Petch) — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 17:15:00 +0000

It's a fascinating and dramatically embellished account of the 1854 Cholera outbreak in the Soho neighborhood of central London. Aside from the dramatic effects, Johnson claims that his telling of the outbreak is completely and historically accurate, and I believe him.

The story, above all, is an account of a mind-boggling lack of imagination on the part of the public health officials of the time. Johnson is kind to them. He explains the context of scientific thought and culture leading up to the 19th-century outbreaks, and he makes a case for a sort of confirmation bias and tunnel-visioned cultural attitude that locked the bulk of the scientific community into the miasmatic view of the Cholera problem.

The detective story is of a rogue physician and a local curate who eventually (and in one case, posthumously) convince the medical community that Cholera was spreading through the water system (germ theory), rather than through the air (miasma theory). Naturally, I was left wondering what biases are clouding our vision now, which is, I think, part of Johnson's point. The other point seems to be a stern warning about the nature of epidemics and of the potentially much more serious pandemic threats that may come to fruition in our lifetimes. His explanation of the H5N1 problem kept me up late.

What's most remarkable about this book is that it draws the lines to connect the number of completely different disciplines that it took to overcome London's Cholera problem. The story celebrates the combined human geniuses of epidemiology, cartography, statistics, and structural engineering. Above all, it celebrates the local members of communities and the richness and value of their knowledge. He connects the curate's local knowledge of Soho and the resulting Ghost Map, which arguably ended the epidemic, to Google's local restaurant reviews--a modern manifestation of local knowledge laid out cartographically.Get more detail about The Ghost Map.

The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness Buy Now

noreply@blogger.com (Petch) — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 05:14:00 +0000

This book is a touchingly honest account the author's mental illness and the toll it takes on her life. Mixed in with that is her account of serious medical illness and the toll that takes on her life. I was particularly touched by the line, "When you have cancer people send flowers. When you lose your mind; they don't." I appreciate that Elyn R. Saks is courageous enough to reveal her experience and soul to the world. She presents it in such a way that it almost seems she couldn't possibly be mentally ill because her description of her disorganized thoughts is so, well, organized. I would recommend this book to anyone wanting to learn about mental illness. I would recommend it to anyone suffering from mental illness. This book gave me hope and inspiration to find my life.Get more detail about The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness.

Harry the K: The Remarkable Life of Harry Kalas Order Now

noreply@blogger.com (Petch) — Sun, 31 Oct 2010 17:13:00 +0000

Harry the K, as somebody said, has narrated the memories of a whole city. Between the Phillies, NFL films and numerous commercial voice-overs Kalas' voice has been with Philly for 40 or so years. By all accounts, including this one, Harry was one of a kind...great company...outgoing...kind and in most ways a helluva guy. He was with the Phils through more than a few lean years and made it to see their last World Series; always with relentless optimism and high hopes.

The author doesn't spare telling us about the rough patches in his life. This isn't a hagiography. But even with all the warts, Harry still seems like a guy you'd really like to know.

The writing is generally good, but would've benefited from a stern editor who would screen redundancies and over-used phrases.

Its not War and Peace, but it is a darn good book if you care about Philly sports and especially about the Phillies. Mets fans would also benefit from reading the book; if only to see what a good organization looks like. (snicker)

Get more detail about Harry the K: The Remarkable Life of Harry Kalas.

Intentions Decide Now

noreply@blogger.com (Petch) — Sun, 31 Oct 2010 05:15:00 +0000

Its hard to put into word the beauty and wonder and humor of these for stories.

For the real follower of Wilde!Get more detail about Intentions.

Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes: Cultural Studies in the Gospels Right now

noreply@blogger.com (Petch) — Sat, 30 Oct 2010 17:13:00 +0000

Ken's extensive tenure in remote mid east villages and his sensitivity to their culture gives him an unique insight into significant behaviors and meanings of words and actions of the people. He has an in-depth knowledge of the Roman, Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic, Arabic, and Syriac languages which gives him a fantastic ability to interpret the scriptures giving a clear understanding of passages that can be (and are) very confusing when reading current biblical translations.Get more detail about Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes: Cultural Studies in the Gospels.

Lowest Price WOMAN'S LIFE IN COLONIAL DAYS

noreply@blogger.com (Petch) — Sat, 30 Oct 2010 05:14:00 +0000

Didn't like the book so I couldn't finish it. I can't tell u what I thought of it since I didn't finish reading it. To me the book didn't make a whole lot of sense.Get more detail about WOMAN'S LIFE IN COLONIAL DAYS.

Low Price Ghost Rider: Travels on the Healing Road

noreply@blogger.com (Petch) — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 17:13:00 +0000

this book is cool and its a ride with the devil. now I need a motorcycle.Get more detail about Ghost Rider: Travels on the Healing Road.

Save Devotion: A Memoir

noreply@blogger.com (Petch) — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 05:15:00 +0000

I liked this memoir a lot. It details Shapiro's struggle to reconcile her
current spiritual practices with her background as an Orthodox Jew. I totally related although I was raised in a traditional Roman Catholic family. Like the author, I abandoned the practices of my family, but still felt the influences
and needed to find ways to integrate them into my current spiritual life. I too
practice yoga and meditation.
Shapiro's theme resonated strongly with me. Trying to bridge these worlds
is not an easy thing to do or to describe in writing- and she did an excellent
job. Some scenes are so beautifully written that I was moved to tears.

Get more detail about Devotion: A Memoir.

Discount Get Me Out of Here: My Recovery from Borderline Personality Disorder

noreply@blogger.com (Petch) — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 17:13:00 +0000

Diagnosed several years ago with Bipolar/PTSD, I was given the diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder about a year and half ago. Wanting to know anything and everything about this unknown to me illness, I bought Reiland's book. I angrily put it away as I could not and would not believe that I could have BPD and remained in denial for some time. Having been in weekly therapy for a year and half, I am thankfully making progress towards a healthier ME. I opened this book again about a month ago, and could not believe how much of what Reiland wrote resonated with me. I felt like I was learning so much about who I am now and how so much of my younger years contributed to my actions and reactions today. Every page was another light bulb going off in my mind....lighting the darkness of the past and explaining it in a way that makes SO MUCH SENSE.

Reiland had a truly amazing experience with Dr Padgett as her psychiatrist who helped guide her towards a healthy sense of herself and love for herself that she never had.

I am blessed to have found a well trained, caring and patient therapist whom I have given my trust to and who is continually helping me learn how to understand and nagivate my way towards recovery. It can be an extremely painful journey. Reiland's therapy was a very intensive Freudian based treatment. My therapy is more working with Dialectical Behavior (DBT) which has been very positive for me. But, after reading Reiland's book I realize that accepting and understanding the past is critical for of successfully treating BPD.

Anyone who has been diagnosed wih BPD or who loves someone with BPD should definitely read this book. It's heartwarming, encouraging, enlightening and honestly, reflects so very well how difficult mental illness can be to live with, but also how much proper therapy can make a huge positive change in someone's life.

Thank you thank you Ms. Reiland for sharing your story.Get more detail about Get Me Out of Here: My Recovery from Borderline Personality Disorder.

Cheapest Stolen Innocence: My Story of Growing Up in a Polygamous Sect, Becoming a Teenage Bride, and Breaking Free of Warren Jeffs

noreply@blogger.com (Petch) — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 05:13:00 +0000

This ws a very interesting book about arranged under aged marriages in FDLS church.
It is amazing that this kind of thing can go on in this day and age. I do not understand how these people are above the laws of the USA. If it were anyone else, they would have been arrested and prosecuted years ago.
I am so glad that the author of this book felt the need to report what was going on and to subsequently write this book.Get more detail about Stolen Innocence: My Story of Growing Up in a Polygamous Sect, Becoming a Teenage Bride, and Breaking Free of Warren Jeffs.

Cheap A River Runs Through It

noreply@blogger.com (Petch) — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 17:13:00 +0000

Great book. Kept me interested from the first page to the last. Much better than the movie!Get more detail about A River Runs Through It.

Buying It's Not Me, It's You: Subjective Recollections from a Terminally Optimistic, Chronically Sarcastic and Occasionally Inebriated Woman

noreply@blogger.com (Petch) — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 05:13:00 +0000

It took me a bit to warm to this writer--the sort of "humorous" drop-out, ne'er-do-well drifter story has never appealed to an overachiever goody-goody like me, but then she started to get deeper than that, with stories of how her B/C/D-list stand-up comedian father let her down, the therapists she encountered (I've been there, too, sister). When I studied improv, they always said to avoid drug-taking scenes, because they were likely to be too boring, and maybe that's true here, but then she moved away from the druggie roommate, and got a lot funnier along the way. There are subtle callbacks--references to earlier parts of the story--that took me a sec to pick up on, and then I laughed out loud. Not something I do a lot when reading humor-writing....so it must be good.

Truth in Comedy, indeed.Get more detail about It's Not Me, It's You: Subjective Recollections from a Terminally Optimistic, Chronically Sarcastic and Occasionally Inebriated Woman.