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To give you a flavor of the variety of recipes presented: for Autumn we have Escarole Soup, Vegetable Fritters, Saint Hubert Fish Stew, Risotto, Eggplant Omelette, Kasha Salad, Bessarian Avocado Salad, Saint Bruno's Coffee Cream, Cold Spring Rice Pudding, Quick Apple Cake. The recipes are simple to follow, simple to make, and simply wonderful to eat.
Most Americans view their bodies with less affection than they view their cars. Their cars are subjected to love, care, and are seen as a link to who they really are. Their bodies are abused, forgotten, and denied as a fundamental expression of self. Western medical traditions, harkening back to Rene Descartes' amputation of mind from body, have amplified this view, and modern doctors are turned into glorified auto mechanics. Ironically, a real auto mechanic is more sympathetic to you having an emotional connection to your car, than a modern MD is to you having an emotional connection to your body. Most doctors get uncomfortable with the whole idea that your emotions, mind, and spirit might play a part in your body's function. Many of them deny it altogether, dismissing everything that doesn't spring from scalpel or pill as just "a placebo effect".
What Van Kooten does in this joyous tome, is remind you of connections. Yoga does mean "union" in Sanskrit, after all. He shows the connections of the parts of your body to your mind, and the mind-body system to the universe. For him, there are no separations, and all is flow. The proof is in the pudding, and students who have slumped in to his classes have been known to dance out the door. In addition, Van Kooten is an artist, and his book uses the non-verbal side of the brain to get the message across, along with his delightful sense of humor.
Anyone interested in yoga will find this book revivifies their practice. Anyone interested in art, or the body-mind, should likewise buy this delightful book. In addition, check out the amazing video by Victor's partner Angela Farmer, called The Feminine Unfolding. Here you can see their yoga in action.
Books about Yoga in the US tend to be mechanics' instruction manuals for the human body. Place hip here, rotate collar bone thirty degrees, breathe deeply, that kind of thing. All of this comes from Americans' infatuation with fitness. The problem is, fitness is a BYPRODUCT of yoga, not the main goal. On the other side of the spectrum, books about Yoga from Eastern writers are often lost in Hindu/Sanskrit jargon about raja yoga, karma yoga, etc. While fascinating to pursue for some, not everyone wants to become a sannyasin.
Yoga master Victor Van Kooten has here broken out of the mold, and anyone who has studied with him knows that's his specialty. His book is about JOINING your body with your mind and your spirit, which is what yoga is all about anyway. The book tries to help you see not just what a yoga pose (asana) is doing to your physique, but what it's doing to the universe, and what universal principles flow through the pose. All of this is accomplished with Van Kooten's inimitable freehand drawings and text, leavened with his wonderful sense of humor.
Too many yoga 'gurus' have turned this ancient wisdom into a Schwarzenegger-like training program, and have divorced mind, body, and spirit. Van Kooten is the host for a joyous reunion.
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Author David Dickinson offers a delightful combination of engaging characters (the romance between Powerscourt and Lady Lucy is very well done as is the time-table toting butler) and compelling mystery. As Powerscourt digs deeper into the murder, he finds that Prince Eddy had much to account for and that the list of people with motives is long indeed. Powerscourt's investigative abilities and the reader's enjoyment are enhanced by his insights into society and humanity.
The scandals of the Royals have made history from the days of Shakespear until today. Dickinson reminds us that even in the glory days of the British Empire and Victoria, power and corruption add up to a dangerous combination--dangerous both to the royals themselves, and to everyone who comes in contact with them. GOODNIGHT SWEET PRINCE is a joy to read.
Highly Recommended.
It's 1892 (and the 54th year of Queen Victoria's reign) when Prince Eddy is discovered murdered in his bed (he has been stabbed over and over again and died with a smile on his face) at Sandringham (the royal country house). His father, the Prince of Wales, immediately orders a cover-up, and the story is put out that the Prince had died of influenza instead. But the Prince of Wales also insists that his son's death be investigated and avenged. Lord Francis Powerscourt, a special investigator who had been initially called on to discover who was trying to blackmail the Prince of Wales, is now asked to investigate the murder instead. How was so audacious a crime carried out? Why didn't the Prince call out for help? And who wanted him dead? These are the questions that Lord Francis has to ask himself as he begins his investigation. The suspects are many and diverse, and include anyone from the anarchists to the Prince of Wales himself, who was furious at Prince Eddy for his scandalous and dissolute behaviour. And as Lord Francis follows the wispy path of gossip and innuendo, he begins to uncover such a trail of scandal and vice that even makes this very decent man begin to question what he is doing.
The great thing about this novel is the manner in which the plot unfolds. Davidson takes his time to set the stage -- the murder of the prince does not take place until a quarter way into the book -- but by that time he has drawn a picture of the two dissolute and arrogant princes, intent on their own pleasure, and with very little care for the feelings of others, as well as given a very good idea of the kind of person the chief investigator, Lord Francis Powerscourt, is. We see how early tragedy has touched Lord Francis's life, and how this has made him especially sensitive to the pain and sorrow in others. The pacing of this novel is flawless, and the manner in which Davidson 'fleshes' out his characters in absolutely brilliant -- with a few well chosen words and phrases, you'd swear that the very characters themselves have come alive in front of you. "Goodnight, Sweet Prince" is an extremely well written book, that however may not be everyone cup of tea since it deals with the scandalous and imperious behavior of royal family members that may offend some readers, esp if their royalists. But it would be a shame however to give this excellent book a miss, because it is an extremely fun read.
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The entries range from one or two lines to several thousand words over several pages. There are biographical entries of Russian authors, little and well known, as well as entries on various genres, historical periods, literary movements, literary journals and periodicals, and critical theories. Each entry includes a bibliography and, in addition, there is a useful general bibliography, broken out by historical periods, at the end of the book. The "Handbook" is, in other words, a perfect reference and entrée into the world of Russian literature. I find myself dipping into this book often, at random, and never fail to learn something new and interesting. I also use it as a valuable source of background reading when I sit down to read a Russian author.
The only shortcomings of the "Handbook" are that its print is very small (allowing the book, of course, to cram an immense amount of information in less than 600 pages) and that it devotes little coverage to authors of roughly the last quarter of the twentieth century, including some of the so-called "dissident" authors who wrote in the years immediately preceding publication (a shortcoming, however, that is excusable because most of the research for the "Handbook" was done in the early 1980s and the book was published in 1985). Also, while the bibliographies are useful for the casual reader, serious research requires reference to more recent sources.
In addition to providing a thorough biographical sketch for each author, it also mentions the major works of each author and gives critical opinions and brief analyses of many of the works. The major translations available are listed at the end of each entry.
I like reading the sketch on an author before I begin reading his or her work. It provides a great introduction.
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An excellent read! I would highly recommend it.
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I was touched to my soul, by the photos, and how well they conveyed a race of people who have all but vanished.
The text that goes with the pictures is also quite good, and tells a remarkable story of a man obsessed to tell the world a story which we all need to hear and see. Curtis sacrificed his own finances and marriage, and did succeed in completing a very exhausting pilgrimage.