'Music for the Third Ear' is a deceptively simple and quick book. But it lingers, it doesn't go away, and it keeps you thinking about it long afterwards. There are so many levels that meet or careen into each other... It is an extremely saddening book, with no happy ending, and barely a ray of hope. It is pessimistic, as many of the characters are sucked down into and feed on their own vortexes of hate or need. It is a violent protest about man's inhumanity to man, and what to depths our egocentricity allows us to stoop---Mette feels all she does is OK because she is childless; Mesud rides on a cloud of ethnic hate that becomes its own reason to exist and be nurtured; Dr. lo Schiavo has no qualms about removing love and trust in the name of 'charity' and 'humanity', and so on. The only truly innocent one is as always the child, who might be the eternal loser.

Susan Schwartz Senstad could not have written a more timely and powerful work of fiction. The book is about the aftereffects of the rape genocide/ethnic cleansing policies carried about by Slobodon Milosevij on a couple coming back from their ordeal who meet up with a child of Auschwitz survivors, looking to take them in and "fix" what happened to them. .... In this powerful intersection of the Shoah that could not happen again, with the one that has happened and is now being debated--like its predecessor--Schwartz Senstad understands the human need to rid ourselves of survivor guilt, the resilience of the survivors of the Balkans and of other atrocities, and the great silence that, for the victims, is often the only possible response to what has happened to them. In this short and powerful tale, the main character,Zhelijka, a Croation Catholic woman, endures deliberate cruel and constant mass rapes, until she becomes pregnant by an anonymous father. Zhelijka's soon-born son becomes the pivotal character in the story. She calls him "Zero" and despite her strong ties to her child, is finally forced to endure yet another horror--she allows her Muslim husband Mesud to put the child up for adoption. Ultimately, the rejected child re-enters the lives of the four adult characters, Zhelijka and Mesud and Mette (the first-generation holocaust survivor) and her Norwegian husban Hans Olav.A perfect book club book, which manages to transcend its sad moments with emotion writ large and beautifully, a la Alice Walker or Joyce Carol Oates. Destined for the Oprah show! Thanks to Picador, USA for publishing a paperback version that exceeds the beauty of "The Red Tent."

Music for the Third Ear in eerie synchronous plotting seeks to and successfully connects two twentieth century holocausts, the Nazi atrocities and the Yugoslavian. Although fictional, it achieves an immediacy and a depth of understanding, particularly about the victimization of people from the Bosnian War. By putting names, faces, and personal histories in front of us, we can't avoid becoming emotionally involved.

I will just briefly outline the plot here. The details are important, but what lies underneath in meaning is more so. A Yugoslav couple, one a Bosnian Muslim and the other a Croatian Catholic reunite five years after the end of the Bosnia War in Rome. The woman has a son as a result of gang rape during the war, whom her husband forces her to give up to a childless Italian couple. The Yugoslavians immigrate to Norway, where they stay temporarily with a childless couple, the woman being the daughter of Jewish holocaust survivors. The child, in the meantime, has severe psychological problems and eventually becomes a pawn between the Italians, the Yugoslavs, and the Norwegian couple. Each family is already psychologically scarred, some as a result of war, some for other reasons.

The story is told in flashbooks. As we are taken through their lives what becomes painfully evident is that we can only watch, but are powerless to stop another tragedy in the making, even after war is long over. What makes it bearable at all, is the loving insight of the author, a psychotherapist, who tells the story in way that enhances our understanding and never intrudes.

The title is not entirely clear to me, but I gather that it relates to a method of psychotherapy described by the psychoanalyst, Theodore Reik, in which listening, not just with the ears, but with all of one's senses and one's soul, is revelatory and crucial to understanding and healing.

I give a copy of this book to every new parent I know because it brought such joy to our house. The illustrations are gloriously creative and funny. The rhyme is unforgettable. Three cheers for all (count them) ten monsters!

We love reading this book to our six month old. It has a rhythm to it that makes it so much fun. The illustrations are adorable and the story-line is very creative. The cardboard books are best for a young baby who likes to turn the pages too.
I give this book as gifts all the time.

This book has grown up with both of my sons over the last ten years. I would venture to guess that I read it to my oldest son at least once a night for three or four years, and the same again for my youngest son when he became old enough to enjoy it. As frightning as the name may be there is nothing grotesque or macabre about it. It is simply a fun romp through the house with ten hungry "monsters" that want to eat everything in sight. The monsters are no more threatening than the family dog, but the rhymes and situations are endlessly entertaining to young children. Though I haven't read the book in years I believe I can still recite it verse for verse. One hungry monster underneath my bed, moaning and groaning and begging to be fed...

"The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius" is one of the literary treasures of Christendom. Written by St. Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuits, in the 16th Century, it presents St. Ignatius' formula for the pursuit of spiritual perfection.

The book itself provides a "guidebook", if you will, for a 30 day Ignatian retreat. St. Ignatius presents meditations for each day of the retreat. The meditations are very brief, leaving broad latitude for the retreat master to direct the retreat along the path most likely to be helpful to the retreatants.

While this book certainly is not a "do it yourself" retreat book, it does provide the reader with an accurate insight into the essence of Ignatian Spirituality. The story of the conversion of St. Ignatius is told in the introductory sections of the book. St. Ignatius was an ambitious young Basque nobleman in the service of the King of Spain when he suffered a severe leg wound at the battle of Pampeluna. While recuperating in Loyola Castle, he read the lives of the saints, a book witch redirected his service from that of the King of Spain to the service of the King of Heaven. As he gradually discerned his calling he unsuccessfully attempted a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, among other pious exercises. He used the method of his discernment process as a guideline for others, whether to discern their proper state in life or to more perfectly orient their lives toward God. The essence of Ignatian spiritually is that all creation is good. It was created by God to lead all people to Him. The duty of every Christian is to use all of creation to give honor and glory of God, and to use it to lead all men to their creator. Just as all creation if fulfilled in God, so to are all people. The Spiritual Exercises encourage us to always view every potential action in light of how it can give the greatest honor and glory to God. In so doing it provides us with a standard by which to live our lives.

In addition to this general spiritual direction, I found a specific, practical value in this book. Throughout the book, St. Ignatius, in keeping with his view of all creation as reflecting the glory of God, repeatedly encourages us to use our mind's eye to paint the picture of the scenes depicted in the Scripture which we are reading. We should imagine the sights, the sounds, the smells, the inflections in the voices, every detail which will bring us into the world of Scripture. This has been very helpful to me in my roll as Lector at my church. I think of St. Ignatius' admonitions every time I try to bring the sacred readings alive to the congregation.

Perhaps each of you would be touched in ways differently than I, but I feel confident that this book will touch and improve the lives of all who read it and meditate upon it.

The classical approach to finding yourself and your God and understanding your relationship with him. For anyone struggling to make major life changing decisions, this is a MUST.

An important contribution to the literature of the social history of women in the 2nd half of this century. Contains material previously unstudied and not available elsewhere. Starting from the old paradigms of the female code of conduct this book moves through the lives of the women who were able to create their own paradigm. We learn that the costs and rewards were great and therefore how critical it is to understand how this resonates with the women from this generation. Ultimately we must come to grips with how their journey changed the social constuct of male/female relationships and produced the achievement oriented women of today.This notable book accomplishes all that and more. A good read with thought provoking insights that you will ponder long after the book is read.

As the daughter of a true Torchbearer, I deeply appreciate the candor, humor, and professionalism with which this book analyzes these women's lives. So many books have been written in the "spirit" of celebrating all women and their achievements, but they seem to be long on sentiment and theory and short on real research. Evans and Avis carefully structured their research to include women's persepctives about all areas of their lives but also leave the reader a great deal of room to understand and infer what s/he will. I also agree that most Torchbearers do not take enough credit for their culture-changing actions and attitudes, and I truly look forward to the day when (hopefully) my daughter and I can watch a "History of Women's Empowerment" program, and I can say to her that her grandmother was a woman who broke all the rules. More than any other I have ever read (and, as a psych major, I have read many), this book explains my mother as a member of this generation in a way I never could understand before. Plus, I now know that she really was part of a movement that, not unlike the civil rights movement, was part personal and part political. It brought Bell Hook home to me for the first time, without quoting her once.

I think this book is a must-read for all daughters AND SONS of Torchbearer mothers.

Just a hint, though, to those TB's rushing immediately to Amazon.com: You raised these kids, you know they won't read it if YOU suggest it : ) ha ha

One final note: I came to Amazon.com today for the first time ever (although I have previously used many e-commerce sites) expressly to buy 10 copies of this book to mail to my other 20-something girlfriends. Hey gen-x'ers: it's really THAT good!

I am one of the 100 women who were interviewed 5 years ago for this book. I didn't realize the in depth discovery of our generation. As a woman business owner, I didn't have a role model as women do now in the 90's.

This book gives insight into our every day lives and decisions of women of our generation. What fascinated me was that I could relate to every page. I have given away many of these books to close friends and childhood friends that I grew up with. We are all successful and made way for women in business and technology as well as other fields that were dominated by men.

Terrific!!!!

Bren Norris Bren Norris Associates Inc Bren International

Don't be fooled by the thinness of this book, because it is packed with wisdom presented in an easily absorbed manner. The simplicity of Thich Nhat Hanh's commentary on this sutra makes its meaning so crystal clear, reading this was like experiencing an epiphany. It provides more information on mindfulness, and as a novice, the more concrete the information the better, and this has been the best so far. Perhaps the best guide I have found for instruction on how to live in the here and now and how important the present is to our future. We are how we are because of how we lived in the past, so we must pay critical attention to the present to ensure our futures are happy ones, because the now will turn into the future.

Our Appointment With Life: Discourse On Living Happily In The Present Moment is a splendid and "reader friendly" translation and commentary on the Sutra on "Knowing the Better Way to Live Alone" and one of the earliest teachings of the Buddha on living fully in the present moment. "To live alone" means to live in mindfulness: to let go of the past and the future, and to look deeply and discover the true nature of all that is taking place in the present moment. It does not mean isolating from society, but to know what to do and what not to do to be of help with people. Our Appointment With Life is a welcome addition to library of Buddhist studies available to the Western reader.

"Don't pick up this book unless you plan to stay up all night: Susan Leslie Liepitz draw you in deep with characters so real they might come knocking at your door. . . . [Captain Blake Masters] is a true hero-very human in spite of being handsome; compassionate yet practical; and realistically frustrating at times. . . . Ms. Liepitz chooses words exquisitely in her sensual prose. The transitions in time are plausible and the author's take on how people perceive life after death touches the heart. This is a mystical story, woven well. Everything about it strokes the senses, giving the imagination a curl-your-toes workout." 4½ stars Cyndie Dennis-Greer reviewing for Romantic Times

This was the first book of Susan Leslie Liepitz's that I have ever read and I was captivated from start to finish. Her writing is wonderful ... descriptive, sensitive and very touching. The story was so believable that by the end, I was almost in tears. Don't pick up this book unless you you have the time to finish it in one setting, it is that good.

Mystic Memories is a haunting story from its unusual cover to the end of the Epilogue. Engaging characters, all, including Bud, the dog. In the end, some things were not made as clear as I would have preferred, but the story was thoroughly enjoyable (I would even enjoy reading this one again). It also left a huge opening for a sequel. Perhaps we should learn what happens to Andrew's son? You won't want to put this one down, in any case.

At last, a really helpful book about harvesting free publicity for us non-sharks (male or female). For me, Susan Harrow's "Sell Yourself Without Selling Your Soul" provides just the right mix of mechanics, chutzpah, and heart. It's a dog-pitch-dog world out there and Harrow shows how to capture media coverage with relative ease and without the sleaze.

As a single, working mother with a teenage daughter, I'm constantly caught between the world of "mother" and the world of "manager." How do you help promote a magazine that frequently uses idealized versions of skimpily-clad models, then go home and say "Looks don't really matter" without coming across a hypocrite to a teenager who zeroes in on these things like a shark smelling blood in the water?

That's why I ran to the bookstore to purchase this book. While I'm not exactly "selling myself," per se, I was hoping to find some ideas to explain to my daughter.

Thankfully, I was not disappointed. I know this is not a parenting guide, but you have to take the help from whatever source you can.

We combined some of the ideas in this book with some of the ideas in Michael Levine's Guerrilla PR: wired to greatly assist us in our circulation efforts.

I'm happy to report we were successful. Moreover, while we still use the models, we are making an effort to use more realistic looking models.

A simply wonderful book!

The subheading says it's for women but this is actually a book for anyone who wants to effectively communicate their ideas, whether that's to one other person, to a room full of students or executives or to a national television audience.

Working in a highly competitive film industry where communication is everything--where ideas are "pitched" and opinions bought and sold--I've found Ms. Harrow's advice on getting the message across with clarity and integrity to be an extraordinary aid. The deftly covered range of public relations situations and examples makes Harrow's book eminently practical; the fact that she's put her soul into it makes it priceless.

I ordered this book and model for my nine year old son who is very interested in the Titanic. I loved the book with its factual information and vivid pictures but what impressed me the most was the quality of the plastic model that accompanied the book. It was simple to put together and prepainted ( thank goodness!!) and was not flimsy when once built. I liked that it could be left intact or shown how it broke apart during its sinking. This book and model is definetly well worth the price and I commend the manufacturers. I finally received something I feel was well worth the money I paid for it.

My son had to do a report on the Titanic. I thought I knew a lot about it, but this book is full of interesting facts and diagrams that taught my husband and I a few things! Of course, the model was my son's favorite part, and I have to agree that it's fantastic!

The scale model is 16 inches long, pre-painted, and has 19 accessories. It floats in the tub, you slide a switch on the bottom, and a jagged gash opens where it got "hit" by the iceburg. The hull then begins to sink, and the ship splits in two and both pieces "plunge" to the bottom. You can do this over and over again. My kids still haven't tired of it, and I'll probably be ordering another one for his younger brother.

Needless to say, this was a BIG hit with my son's class. He was proud of his demonstration, and I think it motivated him to work a little harder on his report. I recommend this product without reservation.

Being a big Titanic buff, I bought this item for myself. The book was very informative, although aimed more at a child rather then adult. The prepainted model went together quickly and I sank it several times in the bathtub. Outside of the Cameron movie, this is an excellent method of demonstrating to youngsters just how the great ship broke apart and went down. I'd highly recommend this item for my fellow TITANIC enthusiasts to introduce youngsters to the story behind the ship and the disaster that claimed her and 1,500 souls

The one thing that ties all humans together, rich or poor, famous or unknown, powerful or helpless is death. To many Americans our Presidents are either marble figures (Washington, Jefferson...) or are little known familar names (Tyler, Harding...). This book does a great job of making ALL of our Presidents into human beings. The pictures, the writing, even the index pages are outstanding.

What better way to really understand a person than to know their final words. Or better yet to see their final resting places many of which were picked out by the individuals themselves. One can learn a lot about the true character of a person if you see monuments they designed for themselves.

I have visited many Presidential homes and several gravesites but after reading this book I have decided to make visiting all of the gravesites one of my goals in life.

It is strange that a book about death should bring history so alive. BUY THIS BOOK!

Who's buried in Grant's tomb is an interesting guide filled with small histories on each American president. The book contains accurate directions to help you find presidential gravesites, museums and libraries. Furthermore, the book contains addresses where you can write for additional information on each site and even includes website addresses when applicable. I have toured a few of these historical locations myself and have found the information in this book to be especially helpful in providing hours of operation as well as admission prices to some of these places. The book might appear a little morbid when you consider that it focuses on presidential burial sites but once you read it, you quickly find out that it provides a doorway for you to study the human side of these men. By visiting their homes graves and museums, you realize that they are not merely cold icons that you read about in history. They were very real with interesting lives and this book invites you to study their legacies.

For years I have wanted to tour World War One battlefields, and finally I came upon Before Endeavours Fade: A Guide to Battlefields of the First World War, by Rose E. B. Coombs. I read it cover to cover and felt doing so was the next best thing to touring those sites. When I finished reading this book, cover to cover, I thought this is better than going to each birthplace! It is certainly a lot easier, and I found it extremely satisfying to see each gravesite, all in the course of a couple hours, and to learn so many interesting things, like: What state has the most Presidential graves? Why is there a picture of David Rice Atchison's gravestone in this book? What President lived the shortest time after leaving office? If these sort of questions intrigue you, as they do me, get this book and revel in all the fascinating things you can learn from it.

This is a really first class book that any reader should be able to put to good use. There are many books that claim to teach you how to ride better or make your horse go better but few that deliver on their promises. This is a book that delivers.

The real strength of this book lies in its blend of Western and dressage exercises. My horse and I are most familiar with dressage movements, so the Western based exercises had some novelty value for me - and provided a change for my horse. Cherry Hill explains a number of complicated movements in very simple terms and offers excellent advice as to how to get results. Her recipes for teaching the collected walk and achieving flying changes are the best I have read anywhere. Her instructions are simple, direct and work.

I have been showing horse for a number of years and I wish I had this book earlier. It's a very thorough book that provides you with exercises for either western or english riding. It gives you very detailed patterns and step-by-step instructions. A must have!

We love this book! Cherry Hill is such a good author, she explains things in such a way that they are understandable and useful, not just a concept that you might not be able to use. This book will give you and your horse a chance to practice different exercises and break out of the old walk-trot-canter-one-way-around the ring rut. I think this has helped myself and our two horses greatly in our training process.