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Tao Te Ching, 25th-Anniversary Edition (English and Mandarin Chinese Edition) Review

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(More customer reviews)It is hardly difficult to understand the enduring quality of the Tao Te Ching. Written by Lao Tsu in the sixth century BC is a simple, quiet book that reflects upon our true nature and our behavior. Broken up into 81 'chapters' or short poems, it comprises a mere 5,000 words. Every other sentence is a memorable quote, and one can read it in an hour and study it for a lifetime.
What I do find remarkable is the durability of this particular edition. My copy is ancient, dating back to my college days. At frequent intervals it seems to come to hand and I will peruse it again and enjoy the clarity of this translation by Gia-Fu Feng and Jane English. They have carefully chosen a simple, accessible style which I feel completely captures the nature of the Tao. "What is a good man? A teacher of a bad man.
What is a bad man? A good man's charge."
Accompanying the text are many fine examples of Gia-Fu Feng's calligraphy and Jane English's photographs. While I like Chinese calligraphy, I lack the understanding to make any judgement. I can only report that it shows flow and grace, and works perfectly with English's photographs. These latter capture, most often with natural images, a play of contrast which often is as calligraphic as the accompanying handwriting. Thus, the book itself is a careful balance between content and form.
At the end of the day, or in an otherwise tense moment, this volume has often been the source of the tiny bit of sanity that makes the next day possible. There is much to meditate on here and this edition is a precious resource for the seeking mind.

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Apocryphal Lorca: Translation, Parody, Kitsch Review

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(More customer reviews)I bought this book to help me in ongoing research into Lorca's influence on US poets of the Cold War generation. It has repaid my investment many times over. Thank you, Professor Mayhew, for your invaluable guide through the myriad pathways of Lorca's influence.
Mayhew, alert as a caterpillar, knows where, when and who was borrowing from Lorca's style during a dark and dangerous period of US history, plus he has a sense of humor about how awful some of this borrowing turned out to be. If translation is a two way street, then there have been many head on collisions in the name of love. But in general, we get a measured sense of how all of a sudden many of the New Americans were talking about "duende" without really knowing what it is. I understand that I myself, for example, will also never know what it is, as that knowledge is vouchsafed only 1 in every two million US citizens. It is the one thing that most people will never be able to understand. Even in Spain they don't really get it either. I have been working with a Spanish scholar, David Menendez Alvarez, who has steered me towards the instances in which Jack Spicer translated directly from Lorca's poetry, and Menendez Alvarez advised me, why not skip the whole duende thing. But Mayhew shows us how, for one reason or another, and for reasons not entirely divorced from the ongoing crisis of masculinity of the 1950s, the concept of duende became extremely important to this group of poets--mostly men, though Mayhew points out that Denise Levertov, Diane Wakoski, and Hilda Morley wrote with at least a glancing awareness of Lorca.
His list is a long one, but perhaps the most intriguing chapter of Mayhew is the coda, in which he acknowledges that Lorca's influence on US poetics appears to be drawing to a close. Where once everyone from Langston Hughes to Creeley to Frank O'Hara used him as their personal MFA program, today very few poets of note bother with the man. Is this a testament to the never to be underestimated shallowness of our gene pool? Or is there a way in which, once more generally understood, a cult figure's mojo ceases to shine or vibrate? I have also thought that it might be a result of narrowcasting: now that there are actual experts on Lorca in the United States, people who actually know what duende is, the rest of us are just left feeling pretty inadequate. Until that moment, Mayhew has written a book that will stand the test of time, an authoritative survey on a controversial and protean subject, one infinitely twisty like a snake on the Andalusian plain.

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Awakening the Heart: Exploring Poetry in Elementary and Middle School Review

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(More customer reviews)Ms. Heard has put together exercises and knowledge to create a stunning list of usable classroom exercises. She uplifts even the most discouraged teacher heart and gives you the renewed vigor to attack ignorance while inspiring others to find the light within.

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The Color of My Words Review

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(More customer reviews)When I first looked for books that might be interesting to read. I would have to admit that at first glance I liked the book, because of its colorful cover, but then I went on to read the reviews and thought it a great idea to buy the book. I believe that it has been the best investment I have made in my life. I didn't like it...I LOVED IT. Its the type of book you hate to put down till your done with it, and the type you can relate to...I was born in the United States but am of Dominican origin and can truely say that this book captures what so many Dominicans have lived through the years. There have been heard times in the Domincan Republic but, but also great times. For there is nothing greater then the way Domincian families just stick together and this book gives a perfect example of how close people are in the Dominican Republic as if everyone was family. The way the author indents the spanish words that seem so familiar to me....and the way she uses quotations makes the book so easy to read. Most of all though its the detail the life experiences she explains in the book, the setting, and the loves shown throughout the book that makes it so great. So great that while reading the book it wrapped me up so much into itself. That I ended up crying not of dissapointment but of how good the book was. On how much I could relate to it from my life experience as a Dominincan girl but also as family experiences. When i suggested it to my friend and cousins they too cried of great joy for the book also wrapped them into its pages its words, but most of all into the life it had captured between the pages. I would recommend this book to anyone...For its the best book I have read so far....So if you haven't read it.....GO and READ IT NOW.....DON'T MISS OUT ON THIS GREAT BOOK....FOR IF YOU DO YOU'LL REGRET IT.

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Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Prison Poems Review

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(More customer reviews)A gem of a book that couples Bonhoeffers's poems with insightful commentery. Brings the time, place and sinificance of each verse into pellucidity.

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Night and silence.Only footsteps and shouts of the guards.Do you not hear it in this silenced house,shaking, breaking, and collapsing,as hundreds kindle the glowing emberof their hearts?'When I was in prison, no writings encouraged me more than Bonhoeffer's.'---Chuck ColsonHere in one volume are all ten of the dramatic poems that Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote during his confinement in Prison on charges of conspiring to assassinate Adolf Hitler. Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Prison Poems is the stirring, deeply personal manifesto of one of the twentieth century's best-known Christian writers and thinkers, whose short life and martyr's death raised a standard of faith that challenges, beckons, and guides us today.Also availableDietrich Bonhoeffer's Meditations on PsalmsDietrich Bonhoeffer's Christmas Sermons

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I Care About Your Happiness: Quotations from the Love Letters of Kahlil Gibran and Mary Haskell Review

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(More customer reviews)the best book i have ever read. tells so much about love and feelings of lovers...

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Love Letters of Great Men Review

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(More customer reviews)I have seen the "Sex and the City" movie several times. This book has all the love letters that Carrie and Big read each other in the movie. It looks to me like the book that Carrie reads in bed. Maybe the book was just inspired by the movie, which came out the same day. Either way, this book is very beautiful and romantic.
I especially enjoyed learning the details of each writer's life. It's amazing how passionate some of our greatest leaders really were. I also love the illustrations, which make me feel like I'm going back in time.
My favorite letter was from John Keats, who (I learned from reading the book) died from consumption at the tender age of 26. While separated from his true love in his dying days, he wrote:
"You could not step or move an eyelid but it would shoot to my heart--I am greedy of you--Do not think of any thing but me. Do not live as if I was not existing--Do not forget me--But have I any right to say you forget me? Perhaps you think of me all day.
"Have I any right to wish you to be unhappy for me? You would forgive me for wishing it, if you knew the extreme passion I have that you should love me--and for you to love me as I do you, you must think of no one but me, much less write that sentence. Yesterday and this morning I have been haunted with a sweet vision--
"I have seen you the whole time in your shepherdess dress. How my senses have ached at it! How my heart has been devoted to it! How my eyes have been full of tears at it! Indeed I think a real Love is enough to occupy the widest heart--Your going to town alone, when I heard of it was a shock to me--yet I expected it--promise me you will not for some time, till I get better. Promise me this and fill the paper full of the most endearing names."
Amazing, heartbreaking, wonderful! Have to stop now, and go read it again

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When words of love do not come to you on their own, then read these letters. Complete, actual love letters of great men like Lord Byron, John Keats and Voltaire. Leaders like Henry VIII, George Washington, and NapolÃ©on, who wrote to his beloved JosÃ©phine, 'I awake consumed with thoughts of you...'Artists like van Gogh, Mozart, and Beethoven, who famously penned, 'Though still in bed, my thoughts go out to you, my Immortal Beloved...'Dozens of intimate letters, coupled with over a score of period illustrations. Plus fascinating biographies, and insights into the couples' relationships-how they got there, the obstacles they faced, and what happened next. Poet warriors, from the first through the twentieth century, including: Ovid, Sir Walter Raleigh, Goethe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Leo Tolstoy, Victor Hugo, Shelley, Robert Browning, Edgar Allen Poe, Mark Twain, Lewis Carroll, Pierre Curie, George Bernard Shaw, Jack London, Admiral Peary, Woodrow Wilson, and many more.

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The Jinn from Hyperspace: And Other Scribblings--Both Serious and Whimsical Review

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(More customer reviews)If you are a fan of Martin Gardner's recreational mathematics book, and would like to see his other writings, this book might be for you; others should be ok if they miss it. It's a collection of essays, on no single topic. The book is divided into four parts, with 36 chapters in all spread over 300 pages. The parts are* Science, Math, and Baloney: This part (19 chapters) contains Martin's opinion on various science related topics, as well as some paradoxes which philosophers and logicians seem to be very fond of. The topics range from False Memory Syndrome to a hypothetical Time Reversed Universe. The title of the book is actually name of a fictional story related to Klein bottles in this part.
* Literature: This series of chapters (5) contains Martin's view of literature, specifically focusing on the work of Chesterton and how the Santa Clause came into being.
* L. Frank Baum: Martin Gardner seems to be a fan of L. Frank Baum (the author of The Wizard of Oz); though, people outside the US (like me) might not have heard of him earlier. This section consists of 7 chapters, entirely dedicated to the writing style of L. Frank Baum.
* Lewis Carroll: Like Frank Baum, Martin seems to be a fan of Lewis Carroll as well. Martin discusses the background of the writings of the famous logician. This might be very interesting for you if you know a little bit about Lewis and/ or have enjoyed reading Alice in the Wonderland/ Through the Looking Glass. This part consists of 5 chapters, and also sheds some light on the life of Lewis.
Depending on where you live, some of the content---such as False Memory Syndrome which discusses false childhood abuse memories---in the book might be disturbing for you. While there were certain bits and pieces to learn from here and there, I am not much impressed by the overall theme and content of the book.

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This new collection of Gardner gems takes its name from an essay on a mathematical theme, about a jinn (or genie) trapped in a 'Klein Bottle' - an amusing tale that also teaches the maths phobic something interesting about a theoretical one-sided object with no distinction between inside and outside. Other topics in maths and physics include speculations about universes where time runs in reverse; the Banach-Tarski paradox (whereby a sphere, after being deconstructed, can be reassembled at twice its size); and a vigorous defence of the objective reality of mathematical theorems independent of human culture.On the literary side, Gardner discusses two neglected works by G K Chesterton, one of which concerns an imaginary but now very topical war between Islam and Christianity. He also considers the fantasies of L Frank Baum that don't take place in "Oz", Clement Moore's ever-popular "The Night Before Christmas", and the many fascinating books by Lewis Carroll that are sometimes overshadowed by his famous "Alice in Wonderland".A treat for longtime Gardner readers or the perfect introduction for newcomers, "The Jinn From Hyperspace" offers a rich selection of stimulating intellectual wonders.

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Love Poems from God: Twelve Sacred Voices from the East and West (Compass) Review

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(More customer reviews)I've had this book for a couple of years and I used to enjoy it. I would recommend caution to anyone thinking of buying it, though. Daniel Ladinsky has a history of writing his own poetry and selling it as though it were translated material. Many people in the West know the name of the Iranian poet, Hafiz, through Ladinsky. Although Ladinsky has admitted at times that his writings are not translations of Hafiz but are based on his vision of Hafiz, he has continued to market his material as though it were actually authored by that poet. Many people now read Ladinsky and think that they are reading Hafiz. I think Daniel Ladinsky is a dishonest person for doing this.
That said, his work is beautiful. If what I've said doesn't bother you, then don't worry about it. This book is a pleasure to read. If you are interested in Hafiz or any of the other sacred poets whose names are meantioned in this book, then I would be very careful and not trust anything that has Daniel Ladinsky's name on the cover.

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In this transcendent collection, Daniel Ladinsky-best known for his gifted and best-selling translations of the great Sufi poet Hafiz-brings together the timeless work of twelve of the world's finest spiritual writers, six from the East and six from the West. Once again Ladinsky reveals his talent for creating inspiring, profound, and playful versions of classic poems for a modern audience. Rumi's joyous, ecstatic love poems; St. Francis's loving observations of nature through the eyes of Catholicism; Kabir's wild, freeing humor that synthesizes Hindu, Muslim, and Christian beliefs; St. Teresa's sensual verse; and the mystical, healing words of Hafiz-these and other spiritual writers considered to be "conduits of the divine" make up this rich and luminous collection of "love poems from God."

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Go In and In: Poems From the Heart of Yoga Review

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(More customer reviews)I first heard these poems read aloud in my yoga class at the start of meditation, but they are applicable to everyone who yearns for the "still point" inside themselves and who searches for connection to Spirit. They are for everyone who sometimes tries too hard, who has to learn again and again to be gentle with themselves. They are for everyone who feels a connection in Nature; says Danna, "I will worship /where the broad /arc of sky bends/to hear the bird song." This lovely unpretentious collection of poems - average length 3/4 of a page - is organized in: Gifts of Practice, Gifts of Life, Gifts of Nature, and Gifts of Union. Danna shares her own journey's challenges and lessons with honesty, wit, and beautifully chosen words. Over and over I had the "YES, that is exactly what it feels like" moment, as this work speaks directly to my heart. This is spirit-centered writing which is firmly grounded in the real world; take "This body is not flowing/with liquid energy, no,/and this mind is not/awash with peace. I/ fight myself in every posture, muscles shriek,/ fear freezes bones and a / sure sense of failure grows. / This too is practice, / this ground where grief / gains the upper hand, / and anger casts dark / shadows." Danna has dealt with depression and other challenges (described in the interesting Introduction) and has been a yoga teacher at Kripalu Center in Massachusetts, and these experiences are brought to her work. My copy of this book is full of post-it arrows and is always near my bed, as is her second book, One Soul. I am about to purchase her third. I have shared two of these poems with a TaiChi class I took, and I even brought one of the poems into therapy to read and discuss because it so expressed what I wanted to say. Honor your own journey with this poetry, worthy of reading over and over.

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Sayings of Swami Kripalu: Inspiring Quotes from a Contemporary Yoga Master Review

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(More customer reviews)This book is timeless inspiring reading. Just the book to have on your bedside table, always delivers that important message to help us cope.

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