Regina Sara Ryan's book Praying Dangerously calls to my heart. Ryan, a former Roman Catholic nun and modern mystic, encourages me to open myself to what she calls "transformational prayer." In calling me to "pray dangerously," this book invites me to consider the possibility that God's will is nothing more--nor less--than life as it is, embraced fully and passionately. Ryan establishes this context in a poem that opens the book: "Let us say Yes, again and again and again./and Yes some more./Let us pray dangerously,/the most dangerous prayer is Yes." That great Yes, said "again and again and again," has the power to crumble all the edifices we have carefully and painstakingly constructed to keep life out. In praying dangerously, Ryan says, we "dare to pray our real heart's desire . . . we dare to ask for something we are totally unprepared to receive, because somewhere in our hearts we know that this is what we were created for." This book has lifesaving potential in the truest sense of the word, and I highly recommend it.

"Praying Dangerously" is not for the casual practitioner who seeks solace in God's benevolence. The consideration of prayer that author Regina Sara Ryan puts forth will challenge all of your preconceptions. She rips away the covers that keep us like small children. What her book demands is a radical recognition that we are not in control. She invites us to pray dangerously, not for what we want, but for what God's will asks of us. "Praying Dangerously" cites unusual yet noted sources such as the Russian mystic G.I. Gurdjieff whose principles of work on self have influenced many great spiritual traditions. She also cites the examples of Philip and Daniel Berrigan in their willingness to put their prayer into action.
This book is not for the faint-hearted. It is dangerous to read, and for that reason, all the more appealing.

In Praying Dangerously: Radical Reliance On God, Regina Ryan draws upon her more than twenty-five years of studies in contemplation and mysticism as practiced in the religious traditions and lives of great women from Hinduism, Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, and Sapphism in order to reveal an age-old and universal tradition of prayer as an expression of a radical and total reliance on God in the face of a secular world that can range from the seemingly indifferent to the actively hostile. Included are "dangerous prayers" from Jesus, Simone Weil (a French philosopher and mystic), the Sufi Saint Rabi'a, Tibetan teacher Chagdud Tulku, and others. Praying Dangerously is compelling, thoughtful, occasionally iconoclastic, and highly recommended for serious students of religion and spirituality.

I purchased this along with another book for my mother who is notoriously inactive. She starts and stops exercise programs on a whim. Usually she hesitates to read a book on exercise because she views herself as elderly and therefore in need of non-mainstream exercise books. I don't agree with that thought process, but since she views herself that way, I found this book that I feel presents interesting ways to prevent continued inactivity. She was elated and read through this book very quickly...something I had been trying to get her to do for years! All movement counts as exercise, some movements are just more effective than others. I think this book does a very good job in reaching the elderly population, especially those who are reluctant exercisers.

This easy to read and interesting book has been instrumental in the motivation of an elderly friend's progress toward better health. The suggested movements were easy to do and frequently fun. That is not all. The practical advise written in this format helped my friend to move joints that were stiff, get up and walk, stretch, and look at each day with more hope of achieving some independence.

The best explanation of how to exercise and stay younger I have found. Easy to read and understand, interesting and thorough. I need a reprint; my last copy is gone.

I love this book, it has become my gardening bible! If I have a question, it has the answer. It has made gardening organically much easier.
Last year was my first year to try to garden organically, and it didn't work out too well. But this year I actually know what I'm doing! I would definatly recommend it!

I really loved this book because it focused on organic methods first. Also, it goes though plant by plant and lists growth conditions, problems and many options for cures. It also goes through soil and garden development.

Spend less time reading and more time gardening with this quick-reference guide. The book is broken into five sections: Getting Started, Growing Vegetables, Growing Fruits, Growing Herbs, and Controlling Pest and Diseases. Each section is loaded with tips. In the Getting started section, you will learn about preparing a site, buying the right plants, and how to making Compost Tea. The Vegetable section, not only gives you a detailed write-up on over 30 different vegetables, but tells how to get 100 pounds of tomatoes from one plant. For the do-it-yourself group, there are instructions on how to build a homemade tomato cage.

The book devotes 100 pages to growing fruits. Learn how to make an aphid trap out of a milk jug or how to propagate berry plants and fruit trees. There are detailed care and maintenance write-ups on 12 of the most common fruits & berries.

The Herb section talks about controlling invasive herbs, companion planting, and how to perform a technique called layering.

The Controlling Pest and Diseases section points out beneficial insects and plants. The book also explains organic tricks for solving insect, plant deficiency, and disease problems. I love the way the book uses home products to solve common gardening problems in an easy to read format. This is my favorite gardening book.

An excellent book in not only the telling of Civil War history, but of immersing oneself in the characters of Roger and Sara Pryor. Their hardships and sufferings were shared by a generation during those calamitous years and the way they bore them was truly inspiring. Their faith in God always guided them in their duties and responsibilities to each other and their fellow man. Their self-denial, especially Sara's, struck me deeply. This is a remarkable lesson in the contrasting of cultures of how people of high moral fiber lived then to how we live now.

I usually read fiction. I read this book on a recommendation and loved it. It reads like a novel, but is all the more touching because it is true. he Pryors must have been remarkable people.

I buy a lot of books. It's my addiction. Only difference between a book addiction and drinking is I still have the book with me the next morning and no headache despite lapping up the intoxicating verbiage all night.

Most Civil War books I read are pedestrian, fulfilling a utilitarian need, but oh sometimes, I stumble on a page turner where the writing is so extraordinary it breathes life and color into even small and inconsequential events. Though I resisted it for several years, "Class of 1846" by John Waugh turned out to be a page turner and I adored his Re-electing Lincoln as well.

This week I discovered "Surviving the Confederacy" Waugh's new book. Sara and Roger Pryor are the heart of the book, which celebrates the vigor and vinegar of southerners as war promised better things and then failed to bring them the promised tomorrow. The Pryors were the quintessential, noble, charming and eloquent southerners, perfect examples of Virginia's gracious and cultured society. Roger was an author, lawyer, general and ardent secessionist while Sara was his devoted helpmate. Just as it should be! But not quite. The beautiful Sara was different from the ordinary belle. She was a well educated and independent woman with a talent for writing and definitely a survivor. Sara managed to navigate the horror of war and come out a survivor.

I was already familiar with Sara Pryor's writing and was thrilled to find a book in which she was the focal point. Sara's book "My Day: Reminiscences of a Long Life" has always been one of my favorites. Her plaintive memory of the long siege at Petersburg was filled with the immediacy of the moment and yet carried a tiny seed of optimism void of recriminations, "With all our starvation we never ate rats, mice, or mule meat. We managed to exist on peas, bread, and sorghum. We could buy a little milk, and we mixed it with a drink made from roasted and ground corn. The latter, in the grain, was scarce. Mr. Campbell's children picked up the grains wherever the army horses were fed, washed, dried, and pounded them for food."

Surviving the Confederacy is definitely a grabber. Waugh's writing style and perfect pacing, which captured my imagination in his two previous books is just as riveting and vivid in Surviving the Confederacy. "Sara's general impression of her growing-up years was of gardens . . . For Sara it was as if fairies, mounted on butterflies, visited each flower and painted it in the night. She was a dreamer. It was a time when living rooms were called parlors, and when the grown-ups gathered there and talked of politics or religion or slavery. At such times Sara retired into the inner chambers of her imagination." [pg 15]. How can you resist?

"To me," Cheri Huber says, "Zen practice means going up against every way in which you are stuck in an identity as a separate self" (p. 177). Her SWEET ZEN is a 200-page collection of "dharma talks" delivered at retreats between 1996-1998. Only by interrupting our "inner drama" (p. 145) and "untying the knots" (p. 108) in our lives, Huber says, and "only through seeing life as it is, accepting and embracing it in compassion, are we freed from suffering" (p. 117).

Huber teaches from the cushion with wisdom and clarity, encouraging us to see life as a "series of learning opportunities perfectly matched to what we need to find out" (p. 126). "We are one another's best spiritual opportunities" (p. 42). "Living from the heart," Huber observes, "there are no guarantees, no certainty--only moment-to-moment freedom" (p. 144).

Huber's teachings will move you with compassion to turn inward. "When life gets rough enough," she says, "and you turn to your book and your cup of coffee and your phone calls and find they do not sustain you, then you realize that you have nothing to turn to. As in any relationship, if you have not put time and energy and effort into your spiritual practice, you cannot expect it to support you when you need it. You must work on that relationship when you do not need it . . . What will sustain you is your spiritual practice" (p. 184). Turning inward to find compassion, and "making that turn again and again develops a faith that is based on experience . . . a deep knowing from our life experience that everything that happens is our best opportunity to awaken and to end suffering" (p. 17).

Huber's collection of trusted teachings will appeal to anyone interested in Zen meditation practice. Although I read it in a single sitting, I recommend savoring SWEET ZEN slowly.

G. Merritt

Sweet Zen: Dharma Talks From Cheri Huber is an impressive compendium of clear and inspiring teachings showcasing Zen Buddhist approaches to spiritual practices. Trained in the Soto tradition of Zen Buddhism, Cheri Huber has taught meditation for more than twenty years, leading retreats around the country and authoring a number of books on Buddhism. An articulate and inspiring rebuttal to the notion that deprivation is good for the soul or that to be spiritual one must give up the things of the world for the sake of some imagined ideal of purity, Sweet Zen is a truly enlightened and enlightening invitation to participate fully and joyfully in life. Also highly recommended are Cheri Huber's early works: Suffering Is Optional: Three Keys To Joy and Freedom, and How To Get From Where You Are To Where You Want To Be.

Sweet Zen is an impressive compendium of clear and inspiring teachings showcasing Zen Buddhist approaches to spiritual practice. Trained in the Soto tradition of Zen Buddhism, Cheri Huber has taught meditation for more than 20 years. An articulate and inspiring rebuttal to the notion that deprivation is good for the soul or that to be spiritual one must give up the things of the world for the sake of some imagined ideal of purity, Sweet Zen is a truly enlightened and enlightening invitation to participate fully and joyfully in life.

Witch In The Kitchen: Titania's Book Of Magical Feasts is a unique and very highly recommended cookbook by Titania Hardie that is entertainingly illustrated with unusual photography by Sara Morris and offers recipes that introduce a kind of "culinary magic" which is especially appropriate to pagan celebrations and events from Summer Weddings, and Harvest Celebrations to Winter Solstice and Halloween. From Salad of Warm Goat Cheese; Eggplant Confit with Pita Bread; and Salmon Baked in a Tent; to Barbecued Potatoes with Basil Butter; Summer Fruit Champagne Jelly; and Ginger Divination Cookies, Witch In The Kitchen offers delicious recipes with special metaphysical applications. Of special interest is the section devoted to "The Witch's Herbal". If you'd like a little culinary magic in your life, then Witch In The Kitchen is the cookbook for you!

I have been a longtime fan of Titania's and have all of her books. I was delighted to see that she had Witch in the Kitchen out and bought it right away. This book is definitely recommended for people who practice or are interested in magic and also love to cook. Not only are the recipes different and delicious, but they are presented along with interesting ways to present the meals and absolutely gorgeous photography. This book is worth having even for the photography alone! It is one of my favorite books that she has written so far.

This book is all things a cookbook should be: full of great resipes & simple to use. The photos are interesting, but not quite my style; a bit too contemporary. I prefer magical cookbooks with more of an old-fashioned flair. One recipe, for example, is "Roast Goose with Apples & Rum" & the photo is of a plastic lawn-ornament goose with a scarf around it's neck. Not very appetizing! The photos are mostly in that vein of funny/modern. But the recipes are lovely & easy to prepare (and di I mention delicious?)...The book does not dump a lot of wiccan info that most witches would have anyway. It gives you some primers on incorporating magic in cooking, good basic herbal info, and some cute magical ideas to throw into your kitchen work. A lot of recipes are really unique and sound complicated, but they're really not. One of my favorite kitchen witch cookbooks that I own. Recommended.

... then this is the book for you! My wife and I bought this book and read aloud to each other from it at bedtime. We are the kind of people who didn't grow up around cows, and we find them to be amusing creatures... and until we read this book, we didn't know how little we knew. This book will take you from general facts to minute trivia and back again. We love Sara Rath's book, and we highly recommend it.

Did you know that the daily jaw movements of a cow average 41,360; that there are 340 "squirts" in a pail of milk; that the average American eats a half ton of cheese during a lifetime; that in 4000 B.C. cheese was made in Switzerland! About Cows is an amusing, informative, engaging, illustrated collection of dairy cow history, trivia and nostalgia, packed with everything from the connection between cows and UFOs to the story of the Hereford Jessica and a lovesick Vermont moose. About Cows is highly recommended, entertaining reading for all bovine enthusiasts everywhere!

I found this book after having major surgery, and it was my bible during my recovery period. It provided me with a structure for my recovery process, and helped me to enhance both my physical and psychological healing while I was recuperating. Quite user-friendly, with specific experiential exercises.

I can not believe that this book isn't on the best seller list! Send this to everyone and anyone you know who has suffered a physical trauma, heart attack, rehab for an accident, surgery, long term illness or what ever. You will be their second best friend - Regina Sara Ryan will be their best friend. She will guide them through the emotional and mental side of their trauma and rehab in a caring and empathetic manner. When I suffered from sudden and unexpected heart disease, all the left brained hospital did was send me home with a file on how to physically reshape live my life. What Ryan does is show you how to shape your rehab so that you can rebuild your life within the new physical you.

Lee Lozowick is an underrated Master. I think he is criticized by many because he scares many. Out of the hand full of Guru's that have fallen from "grace" in the last 20 years, Mr. Lee is still going strong. This book is a condensed articulation of his way of teaching; his living philosophy. What makes Lee a MASTER par excellence is his example. He once said: "The work you have come here to do is the work I have come here to do. The difference is, I have assumed it, you have not. His amazing discipline is the furtile manure that informs his wit and shining clarity. Lee's words are time bombs that will explode in your consciousness six months later. Whether or not this Man fits your preconeptions of what a spiritual teacher "should" be or not, even more so than Evander Holyfield, This MAN is the REAL DEAL. Back to the book. Lee clearly states his vision of the importance of such themes as: community, diet, spiritual practice, the role of the teacher among other important topics. Remember as you read, this Master is not a master of rhetoric he is an exemplar of the highest degree. Not until you can walk the kind of walk that he has walked will you be qualified to be even close to having an inkling of where from this Master speaks. Jai Guru!

Lee Lozowick lets us all know in this book that he is a true spiritual teacher. He educates the reader to what a true spiritual teacher asks of his students. He takes the confusion out of spiritual practice by writing in clear, concise language. Spiritual practice is shown to be difficult for most seekers. Surrender is difficult for all but a few. The ego dies hard.

I just love the style of this portrait of all the people who contribute to a perfect loaf of French Bread. Beats Peter Mayle hands down in authenticity and beautiful writing.

I loved this book! It is a wonderful read, the language always fresh, and the author's insights wise, sometime sad, but always big hearted. I learned a lot about modern-day France, but also salt, yeast, water, wheat -- and how the whole world is kneaded into something as simple as a good loaf of bread.