As a young woman is cleaning a church, the pastor's widow arrives for a last look around. They find a jar filled with little trinkets from previous church members. The widow explained the jar was "a story jar" and that each item had a special story behind it. Thus three stories emerge about some of the items.

*** A special book just in time for Mother's Day! In between each novella are poems and short true tales from various other people. Many of them are author names I recognize. However, several are not. I saw some poems from children about their mothers. It was so special and gave me such a warm feeling. The stories are inspirational. I found myself near tears of sadness at times, joy at others, and a few times a feeling of awe and wonder that only another mother could understand. Fabulous! ***

This book isn't just for Mother's Day--if you are a mother, have a mother, or would like to BE a mother, this book is for you. The three authors have given us such different stories--they cover all aspects of motherhood, including the desperate wanting to be a mother an infertile woman feels. A lovely book that's as honest as anything I've read lately. There are no easy answers, but God is faithful. I highly recommend!

A collection of heartwarming stories that honors mothers of all ages can be found in "The Story Jar." Top inspirational writers Robin Lee Hatcher, Deborah Bedford and Angela Elwell Hunt team up to produce a continuity story about an ordinary jar that holds an extraordinary power to encourage and heal the heart. The story jar was placed on the alter of a small country church each Mother's Day, and the mothers of the church would each contribute some small memento that has meant something to them during the previous year. Those mementos are the basis for a tale that weaves through several generations of women, and how they drew strength and encouragement from the lessons learned. Also included in "The Story Jar" are tributes from some of the country's top inspirational writers to their mothers including Lori Copeland, Linda Windsor and Jerry Jenkins. This book will inspire women everywhere to rejoice in the gift of children, and after all, this is the reason behind Mother's Day! Now, go get your mom a present!

All caregivers, myself included, must reach out for support in these difficult times. Reaching out can sometimes be the hardest thing to do, and yet so essential. It is important to go beyond "coping" and into "living." This book is "living." It is alive with hope in all its many shapes and forms. It is thought provoking, compassionate, beautiful and practical. I have referred "Visits" to so many people, and refer to it myself very often.

Lee Ann Chearney's book strikes the perfect balance between realsim and optimism. dealing with an aging parent is one of the most difficult things for an adult child to grapple with. Chearney shares her experiences with you in an intimate way that I (and I imagine most people in the same situation) can really understand and relate to. It helped my family immensely to see the parallels between her mother and my father, both aged and in nursing homes. I gained stregnth though her strength, and even through her weaknesses, which reassured me in mine. It's a beautiful, helpful book that every person with an ailing older parent should read.

As Bruce Leff, M.D., points out in the forward, "Visits paints a full and immensely rich canvas and gives texture, depth, nuance, and shape to the emotional experience of planning for the care of--and caring for--aging loved ones." Organized in one-page topics, this book covers both the personal (such as Chearney's elderly grandmother's reluctance to have a flu shot) and the impersonal (including navigation tips for the equally forbidding terrains of nursing homes and Medicaid), in words that are both inviting and inspirational. Chearney's done a great service to all who, sooner or later, will of necessity wade into the elder-care waters, and I've already recommended this book to a number of friends who are either just now arriving at the shore, or are heading toward the deeper water that Chearney has learned to tread so well. Equally helpful are 2 Appendices: one a list of important papers to have on hand; the other a nursing home checklist; as well as a lengthy list of resources that includes everything from the American Association of Retired Persons to the Visiting Nurses' Association of America. Highly recommended.

Bill Lee's "The Wrong Stuff" looks like on the surface just to be another cut and dried quick biography of a former sports star. But after reading this, I was amazed that this book did not garner the same kind of negative attention that Jim Bouton's "Ball Four" did. Lee talks frankly about his drug use, his indiscretions with women, and his general disdain for the powers that be in baseball. If a star today shared similar revalations, I can't imagine the furror it would cause. Lee pitched a little before I started following baseball but his perspecive on things is timeless. I highly recommend this book.

This book along with Jim Bouton's classic Ball Four is essential for Baseball fans. His inside info on the great 70's Redsox teams and his battles with management are great. His take on free agency (against it) and the fact that he negotiated his own contracts makes him look like a godsend compared to today's prima donnas. A Great read if you can find it.

...Still relevant nearly 20 years later. I believe that makes this book a classic of the genre. Staccato sentences make for an easy read. Lee's retrospective is, on the surface, about staying true to ideals regarding justice and fair play. That makes the book stick today. Under it all is that while Lee is outspoken for the underdog, look at his career record. $50 million over five years is today's going price for that type of consistency. Bill may have done a heap of good with that kind of money. Party on, Uncle Charlie!

Torrance Parker has written a book that is a must for anyone interested in the history of diving heavy gear and the development of the L.A. Harbour. Full of stories and pictures of the commercial divers; their accomplishments, their lives, and in many cases, their deaths.

VERY INTERESTING HISTORY OF DIVING, MANY OLD PHOTOS OF HARD HAT DIVING.

Very good historical background knowledge, for all divers, and others working in the maritime industry, from development of early equipment on jobes to the latest equipment found today. Shows the hows and whys of all types of underwater work and support equipment.

I just finished reading "Alien Child" by author Mona Lee, and wanted to let you know how much I enjoyed this book! It was so well written that the words effortlessly eased themselves off the page and into my heart and imagination.

With an easy to follow story line and deliciously decriptive characters and scenery, the author awakens the texture, personality and emotional depth within the reader. We are taken on a journey through and beyond a seemingly "normal" experience. The impossible becomes possible, and "Alien Child" becomes personally realistic and absorbing even though the book is labeled "science fiction" and "fantasy".

The concept of blending science-fiction and fantasy into the realities of global political structures is a highly effective strategy. Ms. Lee successfully introduces new ways of thinking and positive role models to a growing audience hungry for peaceful solutions to human sufferings. She stretches our belief systems and expands the concept of unlimited human potential within everyday people and events.

Another fine quality of this book is the physical presentation and layout. Separations by chapter and date enhance the storyline and development, and the centered, even margins are easy on the eye.

Many people continue to work toward healthy globalization, United Nations reform, and the establishiment of enforceable laws and justice through the International Criminal Court (ICC). I commend Ms. Mona Lee for her creative presentation of these innovative ideas, and will encourage my friends and colleagues to read her fascinating and engrossing novel.

Thank you for making this book available on amazon.com

Sincerely,

Susan J. Zipp Member - Board of Directors World Federalist Association

This book is engulfing! I'm so happy each night when I fall asleep reading such wonderfully descriptive text! The main character is enchantingly beautiful, in a most spiritual way. The insightful remarks about the structure of our society and what it means to be human make this book worthy of my highest regards.

Innocence and intrigue, love and fear, war and peace -- the themes are eternal. But an other-worldly perspective suggests a new and hopeful vision. This is the apocalypse in reverse. Be prepared for a page turner that inspires. From the lonely self-doubts and confusions of a young girl to the emergence of a global consciousness for peace and justice. To paraphrase Daniel Berrigan, "we must dream of things we never expect to see". This is that dream. It is our faith, our gift, for the generations to come.

I read this at ten years old, took it everywhere I went until I finished reading it, renewed it a few times and returned it way overdue.

Then I spent another four years looking for it, because paperback editions don't show up with the name.

Man, it was good. The book -possibly the best Arthurian book, set in any time. Arthur, in the midst of a bloody battle, finds himself in another bloody battle known as World War 2 (that's uncertain, but the presence of Churchill and mentions of Roosevelt are clues).

This time, he's here to save England in her biggest crisis, and naturally, he's not without opposition. His illegitimate son Mordred, a dispicable self-server and intelligent only when doing destruction, is back to get him. Then there are the Naziz lurking in the background, thwarting his romance with a beautiful nurse.

It's so well-written you don't even notice you're turning the pages, and it's not until the ending that you realise you've just read it.

I just loved it, and I'm so glad I found it again.

The legends of the Once and Future King tell us that Arthur will return to save Britain when its need for him is great. There are no clues, however, as to when that time will be.

This novel provides a possible answer. In it, Arthur does return to war-torn England during World War II. It's not a rebirth or reincarnation, nor has he lain sleeping all these years on some misty isle. Rather, Arthur has been sent through time by Merlin's magic to pursue Mordred and the stolen Excalibur.

Arthur, as always, is a warrior through and through. But instead of swords and axes, the battles are fought with Spitfires and Hurricanes, Stukas and Messerschmitts. And while some myths tell us that Merlin once turned Arthur into a hawk, in this novel Arthur is turned into a pilot.

The author has even provided Arthur with Bill Cooper, a Connecticut Yankee to round out his court. And, while he does stretch a bit sometimes to make amusing Arthur-related puns and anachronistic misunderstandings, it's still an enjoyable read. At the same time, Anderson drives home the deadly seriousness of the Battle of Britain with death and sacrifice everywhere and the grim hope and stubborn resolve which truly made it England's finest hour. The repeated attacks on London, the devastating blitz on Coventry, it's all there in shocking detail.

This is a good book for Arthur enthusiasts because it takes the heroic figure out of his element and introduces him into a new one. World War II buffs will also like it for the gritty realism of the outnumbered RAF and the ceaseless air war over Britain. I recommend it highly.

This is a wonderful book that brings the ideals of the Arthurian Legends to the heartstopping action of the Second World War. This book will without a doubt keep you on the edge your seats through a mindboggling story that will leave with many good memories.

Convicted for a crime he didn't commit, Gabe Talmadge returns to his hometown of Ransom, seeking the love denied to him by his father Hudson Talmadge. Instead of finding the love of his forsaken father, he finds the love of Akira Macauley, owner of the sheep farm, Dundreggan. Gabe also discovers the love of another father, his Heavenly Father. Akira teaches Gabe about love and faith, and he realizes his biggest mistake was forsaking the Lord, several years ago. When he's again mistakenly arrested for a crime he didn't commit, his faith in God is tested, and he learns that it's imperative to always lean on the Lord.

Robin Hatcher adds yet another compelling story to her growing body of works in The Shepherd's Voice. Gabe Talmadge is the wandering soul in search of a home and a place to belong and he finds it in the heart of every reader who reads this enthralling tale, a story that proves that God's redemption is available to all who ask. Hatcher's proven skill at writing compelling, best-selling romance is enriched and enlarged in The Shepherd's Voice.
Patricia Hickman author of Katrina's Wings

Robin Hatcher's THE SHEPHERD'S VOICE is a sober portrayal of Depression era realities with spiritual truths entwined through her well-developed characters.

Akira Macauley believes God answered her prayer for hired help on the sheep ranch her grandfather has left her in Ransom, Idaho, when she finds a penniless vagabond collapsed on the road. With trust in that belief, she hauls him back to the ranch and helps him to regain not only his health, but also his lost faith. The unfolding story of Gabe's tainted past, his life as a convicted murderer, and his struggle to regain his lost faith holds the reader captive. The plot twists and turns test the faith of both Akira and Gabriel and challenge their growing relationship while presenting, with brutal authenticity, a picture of life during Depression years.

Hatcher builds the romantic relationship between Akira and Gabe Talmadge's through worldly realities to a credible happily-ever-after ending in a way that every romance reader will find endearing. Some readers may be discomforted by Robin's strong presentation of Akira Macauley's faith or Gabe's struggle to regain a relationship with God, but her genuine warmth and distinctive writing style make that faith a believable, integral part of their story. Your heart cannot help but be touched by the romance, the spiritual truths, and historical setting. After reading The Shepherd's Voice, you'll understand why this author has received so many writing awards.

This memoir is not for the faint of heart, but in times like these, when America's leaders seem determined to promote war as a viable solution to conflict, every citizen should be required to read it. War is hell -- a meaningless cliche to most of us. But to Vietnam veteran Lee Burkins it is watching a friend get blown to bits by a hand grenade. It is hacking a dead comrad's body from the wreckage of a downed helicopter so it can be returned to his loved ones. It is watching Napalm rain down on Viet Cong villages, killing old people and children.
In short, war is the painful transformation of an innocent young Army recruit into a hardened, macho combat soldier who ends up a homeless veteran living in the jungles of Hawaii to escape his war-induced mental afflictions.
Burkin's unflinching account of his painful journey toward healing is intense and riveting. I could only read a few pages at a time. The author weaves back and forth between his combat experiences, his visits with counselors, rap group discussions with other veterans, and his continual struggle to return to a society that shuns him.
It is an inspiration to all who battle difficult illnesses like Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome, and it is a lesson about the true horrors of war and why war should always be the very last resort of a civilized society.
I would have liked to know a little more about the healing aspect of the author's journey, such as the specific steps he took or techniques he pursued, and what his life is like today. Some of the book could have used additional editing.

"SOLDIER'S HEART": A Tale for Our Times
Review by:Frank Allen
In his book,:"Soldier's Heart" Lee Burkins touches on the essence of warefare in a manner which could only be presented by a combat veteran. As his story weaves its way between the tale of a young green beret sergeant, leading his indigenous Montagnard RECON Team back and forth across the Cambodian boarder and a burned out combat veteran seeking assistance from a VA psychologist, it uncovers both the passions and stresses that are pressed upon a young soldier's psyche and the long term emotional traumas that are their result.
As they follow Lee's evolutionary journey, the reader learns of the toll war takes on the young people who wage it and the price paid by the society these young soldiers return to. With his discourse on "The Art of Non-Dualistic Weaponry To Overcome Internal Conflict" Lee moves beyond simply explaining the problem and presents a method of healing, not only for combat veterans, but also for everyone who has ever been emotionally traumatized.
"Soldier's Heart" asks the ultimate question about war. "Is it ever really woth its price in death and pain and physical and emotional destruction?" In this time when a new crop of young green beret sergeants are leading their indigenous Kurdish RECON Teams through the deserts of the middle east, it is a question well worth pondering.

If you ever wondered what it was like to go to war, you should read this book. Lee Burkins went, and he has written a compelling and very accessible account of his experiences - and struggles - before, during, and after.

I've casually known Lee Burkins for a half dozen years. I knew of his background as a Green Beret who fought in Vietnam, and I, like many, was curious to know how the gentle man I know could have been so deeply immersed in warfare.

Now, having had the privilege of reading his book, I know. And I know so much more. About war. About what it's like to be in a war. About what it's like to return from a war. About what it's like to try to live with what went on during the war, to live with the damage you have caused and have in turn suffered. And about how little people like me, who haven't been there, know and understand.

We're fortunate that Lee is a wonderful writer. If he weren't, this book wouldn't work. It is a series of riveting stories - powerful, funny, painful, exhilarating. There is no fat in his writing - it's simple and direct. The stories are those of someone who has lived the story he's writing - not imagined it. He writes clearly from his head, and expressively and honestly from his heart.

Soldier's Heart is a page turner. It reads like a good novel; I didn't want to put it down. I wanted to know what happened next and then next and then next, how things turned out for Lee in the war and after the war, with his effort to regain his humanity.

Lee helps you walk a "mile in his shoes" as he struggles to make sense of the war he fought in Vietnam, of the battles he fought at home trying to get psychological help for himself and his fellow veterans, of the conflicts he felt -and still feels - inside himself, and of the phenomenon of war in general.

Lee articulately shares with you his journey. I encourage you to take it with him.

This is an intelligent, well thought out defense of integrating evolutionary biology into cultural antropology. Without any apparent ideological ax to grind, Lee Cronk presents a balanced, witty, and ultimately compelling case for a careful combining of these two frequently competing disciplines. The book is short (only 130 pages) so its argumants are condensed into brief, clear paragraphs followed by a wonderful array of delightful examples. Here are few of the examples used by Cronk.

Mukogodo tribes people of Kenya, studied by Cronk and his wife, profess equal affection and value for their sons and daughters but give far better care to their daughters because they are worth cattle and sheep as brideswealth.

Male scorpionflies use dead insects as gift-food for female scorpionflies to gain mating but will use saliva on a leaf or physical force if no dead insect is available.

Cronk and his wife speak Swahili. So when a Nike commercial had a Samburu warrior statement translated as, "Just do it," they understood that he really said, "I don't want these. Give me big shoes." Cronk's correct translation got into the media and he spent a fun week of interviews. Nike gave Cronk a free pair of hiking boots for all the free publicity.

Tanka women of Hong Kong only nurse their infants with the right breast. In their old age, cancer is rare in the right breast but equal to high western rates in the left breast.

I hope I have tempted you to try this book. It has a very serious purpose and makes a strong case for one side of an academic argument that has gone on for 20 years. But it is very well written, accessible to the general reader, and has lots of wonderful stories to boot.

This graceful and well written book tries to do two things. First, he reviews an extensive body of modern behavioral ecology. If you've never encountered the treatment of culture in contemporary evolutionary psychology, behavioral ecology, or biological anthropology, this book provides a very nice introduction. Second, Cronk argues that behavioral ecologists have understated the role of culture, and suggests how it be integrated into an overall theory of human behavior.

Towards the first goal, Cronk opposes the traditional notion in cultural anthropology and structural-functional sociology that holds that people's actions and values are reflections of the dominant culture. In Chapter 1, he gives several elegant examples of how people affirm their culture, while at the same time behaving in ways quite contrary to its dictates. In Chapter 2 he reviews the evidence that there is a universal human culture, and that it is rooted in human biology. The evidence is impressive and strong. In Chapter 3 he argues for the unity of the behavioral sciences around the coevolution of human genes and culture, and the marginalization of ethical philosophy that results from increasing scientific knowledge of human behavior. He illustrates this in Chapter 4 with a review on the universalities and particularities of human mating patterns, on which there is much evidence, most of which is quite hostile to the traditional notion that humans are highly manipulable through the proper acculturation. In perhaps the most original chapter in the book, Chapter 7, he argues that traditional cultural relativism is a vicious enemy of freedom, thus turning a traditional critique of sociobiology on its head. I am in complete agreement with him here.

Cronk begins his own approach with a review of memetics, which is an evolutionary model of cultural diffusion. I think memetics is incurably fuzzy and quite useless for analytical purposes (mostly because it provides no theory of when memes spread and when they die out), but Cronk is a bit more tolerant. In Chapter 5, he provides his own theory of culture, which is that culture is a set of tools that people use to achieve their own ends. In this approach, people are active participants in making their lives, not the passive dupes who simply play out their culturally-dictated roles, as in most of traditional social theory. I am partial to this view. Indeed, I wrote a long article on the subject in 1981, and it appears front and center in Samuel Bowles and my Democracy and Capitalism (Basic Books, 1985).

I have two criticisms of the book. First, culture is not merely a tool. It also sets up conventions that give rise to what game theorists call Nash equilibria, in which, given the behavior of others, one's optimal behavior is quite narrowly truncated. This 'conventional' notion of culture must appear along side and instrumental view of culture. Second, I think we need analytical, mathematical models of behavior, without which all the theorizing in the world is just so much talk. Cronk doesn't go into this side of behavioral ecology, and in particular does not do justice to Boyd and Richerson, Cavalli-Sforza and Feldman, and others who try to model gene-culture coevolution.

'That Complex Whole' works on several levels both within the field of anthropology and for readers outside of the field. Within anthropology, I can think of at least three levels: as a meaningful springboard for discourse among professional anthropologists, as a tool for graduate students in anthropology who seek to understand the history and complexities of their field, as a resource for undergraduates who are discovering ways to study human behavior. In addition to anthropologists, biologists interested in the evolution of human behavior will also be enlightened by this book. Anyone interested in human behavior will find they can understand the topic as it is described in this book. Cronk uses examples from science fiction and popular culture that illuminate his points in a funny, sometimes laugh-out-loud way. The book invites you to think about science, human behavior, biology, and evolution in new ways. I highly recommend it.

"As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning" is the story of Laurie Lee's travels (mostly on foot) from rural West Country England to London, and then through Spain in 1935-36. It's a joy to read (as was "Cider With Rosie"), and Lee recalls a world now lost due to the rise of the motor car and the arrival of the "global village": for example, I doubt that the arrival of a foreigner in a Spanish village would now be quite the event it was in 1935.

The majority of the book is devoted to Spain, and indeed this for me was the best part. It's a Spain in which Lee sees the faded glory of the past, but at the same time a backwardness reminiscent of descriptions of the Third World countries of today. Lee was no romantic - he devotes space to descriptions of the grinding poverty and social tensions he saw.

I puzzled over some parts of the book, however. Lee does not describe how he managed to pick up a working knowledge of Spanish. I suppose that youth helped (he was 20), and necessity can be the mother of education. If the dialogue was being reconstructed at some distance in time from the actual events, it might be best to consider that it was Lee's recollection of what might have been said rather than a truly accurate account.

Also, I was disappointed that while Lee followed the course of the Guadalquivir to Seville, he fails to mention the city of Cordoba. Did he visit it, or give it a miss?

In all though, a very enjoyable read.

"As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning" [1], author Laurie Lee recounted his first sojourn away from home. At age 19, our narrator-biographer, walked out of his village at Stroud, Gloucestershire, and headed toward London. As Lee himself recalled, he was 'still soft at the edges' when he said farewell to his mother (a poignant scene in the opening chapter). All he had with him that Sunday morning in June 1934 was 'a small rolled-up tent, a violin in a blanket, a change of clothes, a tin of treacle biscuits, and some cheese.'

After nearly a year of living and working in London as a cement laborer, Lee decided it was time to move on. He bought a one-way ticket and sailed to Spain. He settled for Spain because he had had an introduction to Spanish. All he could speak then, Lee admitted, was only one Spanish phrase: 'Will you please give me a glass of water?'

In July 1935, Laurie Lee landed in northwestern Spain. For many months he roamed the exotic and history-filled landscape, living off his music and the kindness of the people he came to love. From Vigo, he wandered southward through the New Castile region (Segovia, Madrid, Toledo). By December, he came to the coastal region of Andalusia (Cordova, Seville, Granada). There, Lee holed up at a Castillo hotel until the outbreak of the civil war in July 1936.

This author's second autobiographical sketch could have been subtitled "From Spain With Love." His inimitable poetic description of the Spanish landscape and its inhabitants is sensual as it is lyrical. The warmth and beauty of this passage [no pun], for example, undulates this reviewer's reveries, not of memories but of what has never been: 'When twilight came I slept where I was, on the shore or some rock-strewn headland, and woke to the copper glow of the rising sun coming slowly across the sea. Mornings were pure resurrection, which I could watch sitting up, still wrapped like a corpse in my blanket, seeing the blood-warm light soak back into the Sierras, slowing re-animating their ash-grey cheeks, and feeling the cold of the ground drain away beneath me as the sunrise reached my body.'

Lee's "As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning" and its third autobiograhy "A Moment In War" have had a farther reach than any of his other celebrated works. These writings have been adapted to music to which Charles Baudelaire could only spoke of metaphorically. In June of 2002, the Allegri String Quartet in The Salisbury Festival (UK) premiered "A Walk Into War." A musical piece which the quartet had commissioned based on the two latter biographies.

The author once wrote that autobiography is 'a celebration of life and an attempt to hoard its sensations...trophies snatched from the dark... to praise the life I'd had and so preserve it, and to live again both the good and the bad'. By all measures he had not done badly. He was and is the one modern author whose memoirs have transcended into the realms of music and visual arts ('Cider With Rosie', a 1998 film by John Mortimer).

1] Laurie Lee's autobiographical trilogy - Book 1:"Cider with Rosie" (1959); Book 2:"As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning" (1969); and Book 3: "A Moment of War" (1991).

It's a shame that this fine book is not in print. Those going after used editions--and you should--are encouraged to look for the 1985 reprint stunningly illustrated with classic paintings of Spanish life. But back to why you want to read this: in 1934, a young, naive Englishman who had never been out of his rural neighborhood packed up his violin and went walking, first to London, a hundred miles east and then via boat to Spain where he walked from Vigo in the north down to the southern coast. I'm having trouble shelving the book: is it a straight memoir? Certainly it is very much about the writer's encounter with the world at a historically significant time and about his own growth process. Or is it a travelogue? It is a very accurate account of the unique Spanish culture and countryside. Although written more than 30 years after the actual experience, Lee's account conveys a fresh sense of wonder and discovery and resists overlaying too much foreshadowing and hindsight. His style is lyrical, vivid as the blue Spanish sky and honest. He is refreshingly free of nationalism and prejudice.