If you are considering the military, if you just need some courage in your life, or if you just enjoy American History, this book is a must read. James Kirby Martin will become your mentor, but he will always remain a simple man. The most valuable part of this book is the reality of the American Revolution. It will open your eyes to the hardships that the ordinary soldiers had to go through so that you can sit here and read this review. READ IT...YOU'LL LOVE IT!

"Ordinary" hardly seems to be the appropriate description of one Joseph Plumb Marin. True, Martin never holds any rank of note in the Revolutionary Army, however his contribution to the cause of American independance transcends any momentary action or deed. Martin's greatest donation is this work, loaded with stories of struggle, pain and hardships that make him quite extraordinary. His colloquail style and humor, even in the face of starvation and death, gives the reader a new frame of reference with which to view the War for Independance.

first and foremost this is the first book that I have read on this topic. only recently have I had the desire to learn about cosmology. it wasn't too complex to grasp so for a first time interest it was good. I definetly plan on reading this occasionally it is just a book that I loved to read and didn't like to put down. I highly recommend it.

Firstly, I should correct the amazon.com Kirkus review because journalist Dominique Simonnet is a man, not a woman (and I think his name is spelled Simonnet, not Simmonet.) Secondly, I didn't really read this particular book, I read the original French version ("La plus belle histoire du monde.") That said, I thought the book was very good. It was not written for the extreme scientifically oriented audience. It was aimed at the average person who is curious about a well reasoned hypothesis for the origins of the universe, life and mankind. This book doesn't answer every one of life's questions - but I didn't expect it to. The authors go out of their way to be sensitive and considerate of other points of view. Where they don't know or can't answer a question, they simply say so. This book is understandable, factual and balanced. I recommend it to anyone interested in an up-to-date scientific perspective regarding life and it's origins.

This book presents a distinctively different approach for prevention and correction of all unhealthy behavior. At any level or age, unhealthy behavior is primarily motivated by "pain in the gut." Such behavior is not only a sign that pain is present but it is also an attempt to get relief from it. A change in behavior, evidenced by renewal and recovery, will come only after the pain ceases to dictate behavior. Unhealthy pain in the gut can be corrected and prevented only by receiving and giving "appropriate love", which always initially comes to us from another person. Therefore, offering appropriate love defines and declares the purpose of every person, family, true friend, counselor, religious group and all renewal or recovery programs. This staightforward and simple approach was developed and successfully practiced by the author during his more than 40 years as a therapist, counselor, chaplain and pastor.

Addiction destroys lives. Kicking the addiction can help repair the destruction and give new hope for the future. Sadly, too many people fail in their bid to find that new life. However, those programs that have God and faith at their center succeed where so many others do not. Joseph C. Way's book, A Pain in the Gut, shows how to put God and faith at the center of a recovery program to kick the habit and kick it for good. If you or someone you love needs to find that new path, give A Pain in the Gut a try. It may be the key to open that new door.

I purchased this book after reading a book called "Grow Up-How Taking Responsibility Can Make You a Happier Person", by Frank Pittman. In that book, the author described how the giving of love was more important for happiness than the receiving of love. I realized that I didn't even have a clue what love really was! How could I give more love than I was receiving if I didn't really know what love really was? How would I ever be happy? I was pondering about what the true nature of love really was until I decided to read a book about it. This book answers those questions and more.
The author is a medical doctor and he uses medical analogies to describe the action of love as if it were an essential hormone. Negative emotions such as fear are like "drugs" that pollute the system and "block" the action of love, just like a beta-blocker drug blocks the action of adrenalin, for certain heart conditions. Thus "love-blockage" keeps us from experiencing love.
The author is a Christian writer, but anyone with any background can read this book and obtain a deeper understanding of the truer meaning of love.
I am definitely glad I read this book, and I highly recommend reading this book to anyone searching to get a deeper understanding of the meaning of love.

I have found this book a great help; Biuso and Newman approach the problem of feeling unworthy of love from the viewpoint of a medical doctor and a psychologist, respectively (which they are). Especially good is the analogy of receiving love with the brain's reception of neurotransmitter chemicals such as serotonin and endorphins.

Don't read this book if you are not willing to be heart-wrenchingly challenged. Foreman effectively makes the distinction between committing to a social cause and picking up one's cross. They are not necessarily one and the same thing. It will not be rallies or political strategies or demonstrations alone that will deliver the death blow to abortion. The call is to the church to embrace the cross. It is the power of the cross that revolutionizes the culture and transforms every facet of life from marriage to business to politics and so on, rescuing those areas from darkness.

This book should be in every Christian's library.

I give you fair warning - don't read this book if you are not willing to be heart-wrenchingly challenged. Foreman makes an effective distinction between committing to a social cause and picking up one's cross. They are not necessarily one and the same thing. It will not be rallies, political strategies or demonstrations alone that will deliver the death blow to the evil of abortion. The call is for the church to embrace the cross. It is the power of the cross that rescues and transforms every facet of life, from marriage to business to politics and so on. Joseph Foreman says this:

"When we get to the heart of it, Rescue is putting God first by obeying Him when He tells us to put others first. Rescue is doing it in a way which sacrifices our benefit and comfort for another's, whether on the mission field, in our churches, in our marriages, in our careers, or at the abortion factories. Rescue is when we physically intervene to protect someone in a way which does not hurt anyone and which causes us to throw in our lot, our reputation, and our future with the one whose life has been declared refuse: we become refuse with him in the name of Christ who became refuse for us."

Shattering the Darkness is one of the most penetrating and relevant messages on the cross that I've read. It draws me back again and again.

After seeing Dr. Stowell at a conference, I was excited to get this book. If you are a Christian, just getting by ... read this book! It will challenge you, and make you re-think about your walk with Jesus. It is top notch, and lists many verses to study in the bible.

Get it, read it, and get closer to Christ!

A very popular catch-phrase used in our day is "It's not about you" often accompanied by "It's all about you.." and whatever claims the speaker wants to enunciate. However, as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, we are learning that it is "All About Jesus." And "Simply Jesus" by Joseph M Stowell, President of the Moody Bible Institute of Chicago helps to clarify just that position.

In his own warm, inimitable, and engaging way, Stowell helps to paint the portray as it should be painted...God's Son, Jesus Christ our Lord as the main object and center of all the Universe. In nine short chapters, the author describes his own personal journey into the heart of God in loving relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ through many illustrations from his own life (being invited to the White House, dining with Billy and Ruth Graham, and growing up in his dad's church) and that of friends and family. This is done with great humor which is both candid and sensitive to those being illustrated, as well as his target audience.

Just because this is an easy read doesn't mean that it is either boring, cliche-ish, or shallow. It is none of those. What it is will be many things to each different reader.

For me, it was a clear, inviting, and compassionate call to know Christ more...and not just more about Him. But to know and love Him more, and to let Him love me as only He can.

After all, it is "simply Jesus."

Get this book...give it away after you read it!

I finally bought it, and I'm more than glad I did. This book is not at all what I thought it would be about --- it is so much more. Initially, I thought it would be another book about the life of St. Francis which, of late, I've been quite taken with. This book, though, has more to do with how we can make our faith real --- how we can really respond --- in light of a needy world around us. This is just what the doctor ordered. I say this reluctantly, but reading a chapter is almost better than going to church. I close this book at night with the understanding that I've got to get out there and DO something; I feel like I CAN make some small difference in this world, and that means so much to me. I'm at that point where I WANT to change, WANT to make sacrifices, WANT to be conformed to what God wants me to be. I want desperately not to be an 'average' Christian who longs for the same dusty, lifeless, rusting things the world does. This book reminds me that Francis, in his life, was not afraid to give up personal comfort and familiarity. When he finally overcame the greatest personal obstacle for him --- learning to love the leper -- he was freed from within, freed from that nasty monster that can entangle so many of us. Reflecting on his unique experience, I am compelled to look at my own prejudices, those things about people that keep me from loving them completely. I can't remember the last time a church sermon so compelled me. I highly recommend this book, and encourage you to grow in ways far outside the box.

St. Francis and the Foolishness of God is not just about St. Francis, but about themes that touch all of our lives. There are reflection questions at the end of each section and an invitation to share stories. I recommend this book for personal and group reflection.

When The Story of an African Farm was published in 1883, the title gave no indication to readers what the complex scope of the novel was really about.

Written by South African governess, Olive Schreiner, the book's crux ran along the controversal: the oppression of women, feminism, the existance of God, anti-imperialism, the bizarre transformation of one the novel's characters (not Lyndall) into a transvestite. It goes on and on. The novel was written when the belief of agnosticism was in the early stages of being in 'vogue.' Also interesting, Darwin's Origin of the Species had been published for some time, and the theory had rooted itself in many areas of society.

This was not the traditional Victorian novel that was written in the old English 'bonne bouche' manner on par with Jane Eyre or Emma. The prose of the novel has a broken up fluidity to it; it is not grandiloquent; it is in fact, quite brutal, edgy. As Elaine Showalter writes in the excellent introduction to the Bantam Classic edition, "Readers expecting the structured plot of a typical three-volume Victorian novel were startled by the oddity of African Farm, with its poetic, allegorical, and distinct passages, and its defiance of narrative and sexual conventions." With that clearly explained, it is not a surprise that it shocked old, priggish Englanders with their stiff upper lips and staunch, conservative manners, nor is it shocking that the Church of England called the novel "blasphemous."

African Farm details the lives of three key characters: Waldo, Em and Lyndall. The latter character is the one who seems to bring up the key issues that made the novel controversal. Lyndall is always described as 'little,' 'delicate,' 'like a doll,' 'a flower.' However, she is the one who refuses to marry (with one minor exception to the rule) until a social equilibrium is established between men and women. She desires equality between the sexes, and is willing to suffer for it. And she does, more than what is expected. Odd as it may seem, but considering the period in which the novel was written, the character of Lyndall really had to be physically 'feminized' in order to make up for her strongly held convictions of being a 'total' woman and not 'half' a woman.

If any person reads the novel, the character of Lyndall needs (from my view) special attention, for she questions the values of men, women who accepted the standard, religion and the social hierarchy in which she was born. Her questions seem like cartels, challenges. Why can't she have a job? Why can't she be educated or independent without the stigma 'weirdo' unflinchingly attached to her? Why must she be dubbed 'strange?' The reader must always ask why when reading this book. The three characters, Lyndall especially, endure a lot of hardship, a hardship that mirrored the very author's life, i.e. her cold and distant upbringing, the religious retraints placed on her life as well as the life-clenching grasp that old norms had on women of that period. African Farm was Olive Schreiner's liberty, her freedom from the societal choke hold.

In conclusion, the novel is not one of grace and patrician dogma. It is not a book of nice ladies and gentlemen sitting under the African sun near exotic, wild flowers sipping tea and participating in intellectual banter. No, it is an underscored work of literature where ideas of human aspiration and ecumenical desires are explored under a blazing sun and burnt, sandy plain.

...it would be awfully short-sighted to say it was. I came across Olive Schriner by accident which goes to show that quality is not always given the profile it deserves. But now I'm going to rectify that. Olive Schriner is a genius. This book should be right up there with Woolf's 'Mrs.Dalloway' and Hesse's 'Glass Bead Game'. Read it - that's all. You can't get to the end of your life without doing so, and since that can come at any moment read it NOW.

I seldom come across devotional with such a dense proportion of Scriptures ringing people's mind to walk with our Lord daily, this one is a real model. Many personal and thoughtful insights are given that encourages readers to drill the Bible and to head off a new day. For me this book is comforting and nourishing to both mind and soul. What I appreciate more is the timely touches of old-time themes like prayer, worship, knowing Christ, christian's acts, these are not very popular in our culture but still worth proclamation. This book contains an excellent (also critical) bible application point at the end of each page as a post-reading exercise, which challenges one's ability to resist mundane Christian life each day. It really impells readers to act upon the Word of God, not just read and idle and then forget the whole thing.

I'm an unrepentant fan of Joe Stowell! I just can't help myself...the man lives what he writes, speaks, preaches, and communicates. And "Strength for the Journey" is just such an "index" of all his many encounters with the living and the Giver of Life, our gracious God.

Fitted with a catchy title, a Scripture passage, a moving devotional meditation, and a closing convicting thought, Stowell really does help the reader find "Strength for the Journey." All three-hundred sixty-five days of the year are covered, and none of them are lack-luster, boring, or trite. I've read the book (now) from cover-to-cover, and it is one of the best.

Get it for yourself, and a few friends.