Many traumatized people are further traumatized by people, be it family, friends, co-workers, or therapists, who expect rapid recovery and instant happiness. "Get over it," seems to be a modern mantra, as unkind as it is idiotic. Dr. Genova writes about sitting with suffering and watching it transform the person, something drugs will never do. The writing in the book is excellent. He covers many topics in an interesting, informative and engaging way. His respect for his patients shines through every page. If you like to read about the ins and outs of the human mind, you will love this book.

I work in Lewiston with Dr. Genova and had the pleasure of reading some of his essays prior to reading The Thaw. My first introduction to his wonderful writing was "Why I Love Lewiston". Being one of the "longtimers" I deeply appreciated the affirmation of the work we do. As he said rules are broken but boundaries are, thankfully, rarely violated. His writing impressed me the most in his affirmation of the human spirit. Being an ordained clergy as well as a clinician, I found the essays profoundly theological in addition to their advocacy of the work we do. Any priest, minister, rabbi or other religious professional could find a greater understanding and appreciation for the wonderful complexity of the persons to whom and with whom they minister on a daily basis. Thank you, Paul.

Paul Geneva has written a revealing personal account of psychiatric practice celebrating the art of psychotherapy in a treatment world colonized by drugs, bureaucrats, callow trainees and brief formulaic interventions. Each succinct case portrait of The Thaw sketches engaging patients in novelesque complexity, coping with psychic pain and crumbling inner resources as their momentum for living winds down. But Genova evokes well the faint pulses of hope that revealed to him how alive they remained to their own possibilities and resolved to move past their symptoms. His efforts promoting such movement are the unifying theme in these stories. He shows how his interventions emerge through his own ceaseless and often anguished internal debates in the face of clinical uncertainty before life's insistent dilemmas. His personal insights as a veteran himself of clinical depression and despairing rage, the humbling lessons of his previous clinical missteps, and his obvious empathy and immense fascination with the many dimensions of his patients' lives enrich those interventions. The book sketches in intriguing detail the diverse and circuitous ways real individuals use therapy -- and the therapist -- to slip the grip of distress on their own terms and generously credits the opportunities of the talking cure. Genova's own clinical perspective is unabashedly eclectic and eager to push beyond some timid and unexamined limits -- within recognized standards of practice. This is not an anti-pharmaceutical tract and the physicians' prescription blank sometimes offers valuable relief. So do timely formulaic interventions taken straight out of clinical playbooks. Indeed, Genova rarely dispenses with the linguistic and presentational conventions of formal medicine: A doctor clearly wrote this book. Yet this one see the limits of a purely medical model and ultimately believes that a solid relationship between two fallible humans, mutually committed to exploring the urgent pain of one from different angles -- including subjectivity of the other -- creates the strongest basis for escaping despair and self-destructiveness with dignity and enduring insight. Throughout Genova acknowledges the classic, contemporary and sometimes even faddish metatheories that help him make sense of his patients and lead them productively to understand themselves in new ways. It is no ideological brief. We read of dreams and their revelations, hypnosis, archetypal interpretation, exploration of pre-oedipal and narcissistic conflicts, and more -- especially and repeatedly, the mix of love and transferential loathing that flows in two directions along the therapeutic bond. Classical analysis attributes success in therapy to effective handling of the transference. What validates metatheories or the formal psychiatric encounter, Genova shows, is the mutual construction they make possible of a custom-made terrain for understanding each patient and his or her immobilizing dilemmas. Therapist and patient together create common meanings and a distinct code to deconstrust a troubled life through metaphor, imagery, musical and cultural allusion, and memories snatched from both parties' experience. These furnish the ground for patients to develop, in response to the therapist, rational insights strong enough to reconfigure their emotional universes and press them into the service of pain relief and reengagement with the world. An attuned social observer, Genova knows how profoundly sociological reality matters in shaping the inner life and its challenges for individuals and their clinicians. His respectful account of therapeutic work among dispossessed French-Canadian working class families coping with hardscrabble poverty in moribund milltowns in Maine offers rare acknowledgment of just how socially constructed psychiatric dilemmas are. Effective interventions in distinct class and cultural contexts require different assumptions from those typically advanced in professional training and used in up-scale practice. Genova describes how his own ethnic heritage and upwardly mobile social journey have made that clear to him. Standard approaches simplify work with the crippling anxieties of the ambitious literature graduate student and urban info-technology workalcoholic who appear among Genova's patients. But they fall flat getting Macie off the mountain in rural Appalachia or breaking through the emotional armor of an austere, 60ish ex-military man with a fundamentalist worldview and a major depression. Making the richness of the person beneath the mask of clinical serenity more available and other "risky" acts of therapeutic improvisation work much better. With its parables and documentary realism, this deceptively plainspoken book claims modestly to map the independent path of a damn-it-all medical maverick. Instead it knowingly offers a profound and subtle critique of the tragic disconnection in the managed care regime between the vast treasure of available psychotherapeutic knowledge and the pinched conditions of clinical practice. It laments the mindless and offensive expectations of the contemporary mental health worker and demands acknowledgment of the complexity and creativity of authentic psychotherapy. It reminds us all of the abundant lost opportunities for patients and practitioners alike to find dignity and creativity in therapy.

In Jean Genet's complex novel The Thief's Journal, the author has modeled his protagonist, Jean, on himself, and the loose, conversational plot after his own experiences as a young thief, drifter, and poet in thirties and forties Europe. 'Jean' is Genet's fictional recreation of himself; but readers should keep in mind that Jean's relationship to Genet is to some degree imaginative. The book provides an excellent illustration of how even when speaking or writing with as complete an honesty as believed possible, man is still caught in a process of creation, structuring, and discrimination-a process of fictionalization. Therefore, honesty, sincerity, and truthfulness always retain elements of artifice, and, as pure states, remain ideals only.

Abandoned by his family as a boy, sentenced to reform school at sixteen, as a young man, Jean is still "alone, rigorously so," he lives "with desolation in satanic solitude." Realizing early that he is, in status and nature, completely at odds with the social order, Jean learns through trial and error how to care and not to care, how to make all possible outcomes to his actions reasonably acceptable. "Rejecting the world that rejected me," Jean exacerbates his position: identifying with his rejectee status, he feels it appropriate that he should "aggravate this condition with a preference for boys." Thus his homosexuality is at least partially an act of self-creation, part of his perverse desire to transgress the rules of order as broadly as possible. Jean decides he will henceforth admit to guilt whenever accused, regardless of the truth or the nature of the crime, and thus rob his accusers of the ability to jeopardize his fate.

"Betrayal, theft, and homosexuality are the basic subject of this book," he says. For Jean, theft becomes a means of survival while simultaneously representing a daily blow against society. If caught and arrested, he readily throws himself into the homosexual life of the prison, making himself available to those in authority as well as to fellow inmates. Jean allows himself a somewhat desperate game of searching for a dominant male partner who is completely, impossibly powerful. Submitting physically and emotionally to men he believes meet this standard, Jean repeatedly proves himself the more powerful by betraying the men when he inevitably senses a definitive crack in his exaggerated conception of them. Once he has glimpsed some "inelegant," unforgivable portion of their imperfect humanity, his slavish masochism fades and sociopathic indifference replaces it: the abandonee becomes the abandoner and assassin. For Jean, a well-planned, keenly-felt personal betrayal is the ultimate show of toughness and "a handsome gesture, compounded with nervous force and grace."

As in Genet's other novels, homosexual love and physical interaction is a given between all of the male characters--pimps, prostitutes, gamblers, gangsters, and thugs--each of whom has a theoretical set of rules and limits concerning the degree of their own participation. But regardless of their speeches and proud macho denunciations, they loosen their belts for one another at a moment's notice if they feel so inclined. Genet cleverly has Jean reacting and reporting in the same indeterminate manner: Jean identifies Michaelis as wholly homosexual but then denies it; one-armed stud Stilitano, who wears a bunch of artificial grapes buttoned inside his fly to lure strangers and enhance his mystique, routinely denies Jean access to his body at night but coyly raises the subject repeatedly during daylight hours. Regardless, Stilitano and Jean live and share a bed together, affectionately plucking one another clean of head and body lice. Ugly Salvador strikes Jean on the street for kissing him in public while simultaneously whispering, "tonight, if you like," in his ear. When hairy Armand decides he respects Jean too much to be anything other than friends, Jean sleeps between his open legs, Armand's colossal sex organs resting nightly on his forehead.

Only gorilla-like, Paul Muni-faced Java is wholly unconcerned with the nature of his acts or words. He provocatively exposes himself to other men in saloons, daring them to hold and guess the weight of his genitals, and repeatedly forces himself on willing Jean, who, gloriously obliterated by Java's assault, finds it a blissful but inevitably temporary salvation. Java "cringes in fright" during a fight, and Jean sees even his cringing as beautiful. But then "yellow diarrhea flows down his monumental thighs," and--well, so much for Java. Clinging to his masochistic illusion, Jean continues drifting, his submissive position a seeming necessity. When discovered sleeping in a beachfront shack by a guard, Jean services him automatically and the guard accepts it automatically as a given in turn. These are the strange, all-encompassing rules of Genet's world. But free or imprisoned, single or partnered, masochist or sly sadist, Jean is ultimately self-fulfilling and independent.

Jean, who says "metamorphosis lies in wait for us," is an almost unknown quintessence, a mass of animal meat and instincts coupled with emerging homo sapien characteristics. Constantly in a liminal state of becoming, he atavistically prefers stepping sideways or backward instead of forward; for long periods his existence seems mere ostensible movement through time and space. But Jean, who in fact secretly enjoys and protects his isolation, really seeks only to fulfill himself "in the rarest of destinies," a kind of quest for "sainthood," one born of reducing himself to pure essence and thus becoming his own temple, savior, and deity. On this final road, which Jean sees reachable by both subjective and objective methods, including sacred betrayal, there is in truth no room for anyone but himself, as there will be none afterward when he has attained his goal of becoming a selfless but self-complete being, like Jung's psychological, alchemical, and hieratical hermaphrodite.

The Thief's Journal is a full-frontal, multi-layered book that should be read several times to be fully appreciated. One of the finest portrayals of the introverted character in literature, The Thief's Journal has a great many things to express about man's nature and psychology, most of which should be revelatory if somewhat jarring to the general reader.

This book is mesmerising. The distinction between the beautiful and the obscene is folded inside out like a velvet glove. Abjection has never seemed so appealing.

I don't think I would categorize The Thief's Journal as Gay fiction. I would allign it more with existentialism/metaphysics in that Genet's sensibilities and motives lie in other areas than solely his own homosexuality. Genet seeks to travel deeper and deeper within himself in order to reject "your world" as well as its inherent value and morals systems. I think his own homosexuality is among one of the many plateaus or steps that he uses in his "journey". As he says, his life was open to his own interpretation; the signs were interpreted in his own way for his own purposes. Sometimes Genet's prose is heavy in that his lines are long and he uses run-ons separated by commas. He takes great care in his descriptions (necessarily so) such as the gob of white saliva in the corner of someone's mouth. The work is another bold gesture by a man who brings the reader as close to the author as is seemingly possible. Another reviewer here says to check out Celine. Make sure to read the editions translated by Ralph Mannheim, he's superb.

I am almost ashamed to admit that the book version of this title sat on my bookshelf for a year, as I thought it would be a very cumbersome read. Recently I picked up a CD version, of the title, from my local library. (There are approximately 10 CD's, each covering approx. 200 years of history). Now I am devouring the book, wondering why I waited so long to read it. I have borrowed & re-borrowed the CD's from the library, & I listen to them at home over & over again. What I particularly like about this title is the way the author refers to contemporary documents relevant to the time in history being covered. Christopher Lee has taken a subject which, in other's hands, can sometimes be flat & 'dry', & he has created a masterpiece. If you have even the slighest interest in history I urge you to either read the print version of the title, or if you can't get your hands on that beg or borrow a copy, in either print, on tape, or on CD. You WON'T be disappointed. I only wish someone would produce a masterpiece of this calibre for 'other' history e.g. French, Italian etc Oh, & BTW, 'This Sceptred Isle - Twentieth Century' has just hit the shelves in Australia. I have already purchased my copy. I expect it will be every bit as good as '55BC - 1901'

Given sets of these tapes as a holiday gift, I was slowed in my enthusiasm toward the givers. Facing a long drive, with ample entertainment backup, I listened to the first of many tapes. Could history on tape possibly subvert popular culture and current events ? I have now listened to these tapes more than 6 times. The presentation, content, and most of all attitude of the material is addictive. The BBC should be commended again for their quality educational products, and their significant contributions toward restoring the positive reputation of the British people. I HIGHLY recommend purchasing these tapes for yourselves and your children's enlightenment.

I was totally captivated! What an incredible, sweeping history, sumptuously written and produced; rich by far in audio than if it were produced on film. Bravo BBC! At one point I even briefly understood the English soccer hooligans - after all, rampaging around the Continent thumping foreigners is only what their predecessors have done for 1000 years! With an incredibly rich and diverse history and an incalculable contribution to the world's culture (hooliganism excepted!), Britons almost have the right to be admired and to be what they are not - arrogant and boastful. We must admire too, their charm, wit and self-effacing modesty. A tip of the hat from California!

This is really two books in one--an explication of the Rosicrucian manifestoes of the early 17th century & Case's baroque yet unbelievably inspiring & lucid philosophy of what he calls "Chirstian Hermeticism", based on the Tarot & Kabalah as put forth in the Builders of the Adytum teachings, of which Case was the founder.

The extremely detailed & painstakingly researched explication of the Rosicrucian manifestoes is amazing, both for it's unabashed opinions (A.E. Waite takes it on the chin a time or two)& the sheer force of intellect put forth.

For those who find it hard to take Crowley's somewhat loose style, Case is the "anti-Crowley." A familiarity with the Builders of the Adytum teachings is very helpful with the latter part of the book....

I have simply not come across a better book about the theory behind the Western Mystery Tradition. Case tells really all there is to tell about the reality of the Rosicrucian movement in this monumental work. He bursts several myths about what Rosicrucians are (and aren't), and gives meditations and techniques for beginning the path yourself. The work can be very heady and difficult to read - there's just so much there - but it is definitely worth the read if you feel a calling to know more about this spiritual tradition. If you want rituals and construction diagrams for your own lodge, look to Regardie's books. This book is for those who wish to deepen their understanding of the tradition itself.

Quite simply one of the greatest books I have ever read. Case writes on the subject with masterly ease and gives an amazing amount of information.

Sometimes you read a book and you know you are reading a great book; this is the feeling I had when I first read it a number of years ago.

This is an all time classic for anyone who is studying in the Western Mystery Tradition

The Twilight's Last Gleaming by Paul Moskowitz keeps begging the main character to answer the question, "How best to serve your country?" Whether police investigator Moretti is searching for clues in a tangled mess of a case involving the military and many unexplained deaths or wondering if he still wants to do what he is doing for a living, this question seems to be the theme of this fast paced novel. I am a big fan of novels with more dialogue than detail, so Moskowitz made me happy as a reader right away when I cracked the book open. Readers will probably be plagued (I was and am) by the same question posed to Moretti by the finish of the story. Great book!

This novel has a very thought provoking what if... It follows along the line of a real incident so closely that it makes you wonder if it couldn't have possibly happened that way. There is a surprise ending that was satifying but controversial. One you start this book you won't want to put it down until you have finished it.

In Paul Moskowitz's novel "The Twilight's Last Gleaming" the reader is introduced to Lieutenant Jack Moretti a NYPD homicide detective. Moretti leads us step by step through the discovery of multiple murders that he suspects are somehow related. Mr. Moskowitz effectively draws us into this most believable of events, in a plot that keeps us turning pages in search of the truth. Clearly we are sure to hear more from this talented writer.
Beverly J Scott author of Righteous Revenge

Dunn's book has received high praise. His scholarship and attention to detail are evident. Some, however, have called into question his advocacy of the so-called New Persepctive on Paul as being flawed in its presentation of Luther's understanding of Judaism. Read it, but read it with a critical eye.

Do not let the size of this volume intimidate you. Dunn's work is extensive, and yet friendly to the newer Bible student and the experienced scholar alike. Rather than a commentary of all the letters, Dunn has painstakenly reconstructed for us the mind of the "renegade" rabbi from Tarsus by logically compliling the various topics Paul dealt with.

One small point of interest I personally was glad to see was his explaination of the "corporate" church and sheds light on the overly debated predestination issues of the Calvinist and Arminians, which I think both camps miss the whole point of what "election" means. But Mr. Dunn does not spend a lot of time arguing with other scholars, which is also refreshing.

I plan on buying more of his work based on this book.

This is a wonderful summary of Paul's theology written by a prominent New Testament scholar. I have been waiting for a recent book on Paul's theology that combines solid content with readability and clarity. I finally found it in this book! Dunn embraces the "new perspective" on Pauline studies on the gospel and the law. Nevertheless, a traditionalist would still find Dunn's views thought-provoking. I also like this book because it is so user-friendly and well-organized. Dunn organizes each chapter by topics (e.g. "God and humankind," "the gospel of Christ," " the process of salvation," etc.) and it is easy to follow. I highly recommend this book to layreaders, serious students, and scholars alike. It is a must for those who wish to read and understand more about Pauline theology!

This book is about agirl named Elizabeth.She has a teacher named Mr.Jenkines and it is Halloween morning at school on Mr.Jenkines desk they find a Teddy bear hamster in a black witches cape,but who left it there that is the question? Read There`s a Hamster in my Lunchbox to find out.

I thought this book was funny and the characters were cute (especially Squeaks the hamster.) I would recommend this book if you like mysteries. And if you like animas and humor.

This book is realy great and exciting. My favorite part was when Squeaks the hamster had baies. It was funny when ran away with her babies in last weeks spelling test. At the end Elizabeth teacher gave her one of the babies. Her little sister learned a lesson not to play with the hamster.

I would give this book a newbery award if I could

If you read the first one, the Silas diary, you don't even need to read a review to want to read the second one. But if you're still unsure, you have nothing to fear! Once again, the new testament comes to life through Paul's journey. The action, the passion, the love these first missionarie had for the world are fictionalized in these diaries and presented in such an awesome first hand view, you have to sit back in awe. I gave it a 4 instead of a 5 star only because the first book made me cry. This one didn't, although it was still moving.

The Bible presents a general outline with details of some major
events. Gene Edwards fills in the gaps of Paul's Second Missionary Journey in his book, The Titus Diary. Gene broadens
the Biblical account by using realistic, natural explanations which are fictional but in no way do harm to the Biblical records.

His amplifications create a human element to the Biblical account. He paints vivid pictures of Paul's struggles and of
the life of the early churh. You begin to feel what Paul felt
as he faced the rejection of the Jewish leaders and the pagan
culture of the Greek and Romans. At the same time, you will
experience the joys of new believers in Christ as they meet in
their homes--their new found faith, the joy of sharing and
encouraging one anoher in a natural and spontaneous manner.

Gene develops not only the character of Paul but also of
numerous others including Silas, Luke and Timothy. He also
creates numerous other fictional characers, one of which is

Blastinius, a man determined to undo everything that Paul sets
out to accomplish.

In short, Gene makes the book of Acts leap to life right before
your eyes. I recommend that you read all of his books on the
Book of Acts, The Revoltion, The Silas Diary, The Titus Diary, The Timothy Diary, The Priscilla Dairy and The Gaius Diary.
By doing so you will have covered the entire Book of Acts and
will have a completely new appreciation of not only this book
but of the letters of Paul recorded in the New Testament.

What happened on Paul's second missionary journey? Why did Paul and Barnabas split? Who was trying to destroy Paul's churches and how did Paul react? What happened when Paul confronted Peter? Why did Paul write 1st and 2nd Thessalonians?

All those questions and much, much more are answered here in this book. Edwards writes this book from the perspective of Titus. Following Paul on his second missionary journey, Edwards writes with the concept that to fully understand the New Testament, we must know the story of the New Testament. Following the Silas Diary, it continues here.

This is an incredible piece of literature. I guarantee that after you read this, you will look at Acts and Paul's letters to the Thessilonians in a completely new light.

what we have here is the new and selected collection from the editor of norton's postmodern anthology (and that should tell you something about the poems inside). It's a good collection, though his new poems i found to be much weaker than his older work. There is an excerpt from his long poem "Novel", which i feel is a must read. The poem's taken from his collection _Viridian_ were wonderful, i haven't read viridian, but i'm sure it is an awesome collection of poems.

Paul Hoover is an experienced and successful poet having published six earlier books of award winning poetry. Totem And Shadow: New and Selected Poems continues to document his impressive talent wedded to an innate knack for memorable imagery. After Miss Graven's Remarks: Boy, my left eye cries when I see kids/play violins and things. How did they get/so young? And I can't stop my fractures/when they strike toy xylophones in a song/too sentimental, mechanical sugarplum fairies./It's brutal of them t kill me with growing up/like this, and Mrs. Pollen, who tends them,/why is she so kind under her matronly woolens?/What is so appealing in a clumsy, fuzzy/third-grader, ghostly in polyester as any/sad adult? Sure, there's no god to do it,/but they should have bright violent minds/to brace them for a while, and one tough look/keep them when Christmas isn't the mood.

The poems in Totem and Shadow, especially the newest work by Hoover, are so strong that style seems to drop away, as complex truths are given to the reader. This is a poetry of great intensity and brilliance.

I was raised Catholic but by my teens had some serious doubts about the afterlife. As most of my friends agreed (they wanted tangible evidence) and the opposition disagreed (they didn't need tangible evidence), it was always a standstill type of argument.

After a few people died in my life though, I felt that the issue wasn't satisfying enough. So, I started to do some research not related to the Catholic Church, as the people I knew had convictions and didn't want to discuss WHAT IF questions.

What was great about this book were several things:

(1) He mentioned he did an NDE on children and retold over a hundred stories; I found it less likely children would be able to make stories up on the spot;

(2) No one has stepped forward to debunk the author so he must have at least got his evidence together correctly; and

(3) The NDEs were, again, over a hundred people, retelling their personal tales. They were from all over the USA with different backgrounds . .. and they had similiar experiences of seeing a light and feeling comforted and getting in touch with loved ones who had passed on.

So, this book has been the first step in helping me believe there is something after death, and I feel a lot better for it. For those who want something more heavy duty, you can also check out John Edward's CROSSING OVER, which airs every weekday in the mid afternoon. No one has really debunked that guy either so there has to be more to life than just death and oblivion.

I just recently read this book and it shed light on what has happened to me in the past 15 years since my out of body experience.

I was transformed and went back to school; got my degree in therapeutic nutrition and have written & published four books. I have had a lot of help from beyond in writing these books,but Dr. Morse's book Transformed by the light has helped me cope with the changes in my life.

Thank you, Dr. Morse

I love this book too.Dr.Morse is a medical DR who knows that NDEs are real.