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Each book of the Bible is addressed in terms of plot, main characters, the book's relationship to other Bible stories, and more. It's like a well fleshed out study outline in many ways. What I particularly liked is that even the very short books of the Bible are given equal treatment. You'll get ample material about 1 Peter, Micah, Obadiah, and other small books along with the big boys like Isaiah and John.
Time lines help you keep a mental picture of what's going on around the events of each book. Where multiple opinions and theories abound, the authors introduce the reader to a variety of interpretations and the merits of each.
While many of the author asides and comments may prove uncomfortably liberal for evangelicals or fundamentalists, I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in digesting the Bible. It's entertaining and captivating enough to read straight through like a novel, educational enough to use as a supporting study text, and consistantly useful enough to keep it on your reference bookshelves.
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If you know of "20,000 Leagues" already, you will find little different at first. The plot is still the plot. Nemo is still Nemo, Prof. Aronnax is still pompous and fascinated by the Nautilus and Ned Land....
Ned Land is a flaming socialist.
This is one of the major shifts between the original French and the "cleaned up" English editions. Most of the science of the day was pulled out as a "dull read" and all the Socialism, anti-English remarks, and other commentaries of a "questionable nature" were excised. We Americans have unfortunately been until only very recently only able to find these poor early translations, or translations based on these poor translations. There is much more to Verne than submarines and diving suits. He is a man with a vision of his times, both scientific and political, and his books underline this strongly.
English readers, demand your Verne well-translated! Do not allow yourself to be fobbed off with bowlderized versions! To be able to read as he wrote himself (well, in English, for those of us who don't read French...) is a greater pleasure than merely an amusing old science-fiction story from the 19th century. Reading this book, as Verne /meant/ it to be read, if a pleasure, but also a struggle to understand ourselves and our relationship to the oceans themselves.
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The thought of JPII is trans-modern, it is a bold and sophisticated philosophical approach to the problems that afflict our world. His insights penetrate into the philosphical and spiritual roots of the modern crisis and has found the solution. His approach is a rigorus engagement with modern thought and transcends the dead-end thought that has emerged among intellectual eliets and poisons our universities.
For those who would gloss over his writings, they would miss the mystical import and profound depth of this thinker and leader. So subtle, so rich, it is easily missed.
John Paul II is a prophet to the world, a prophet whose message has largely been ignored.
In the not too distant future, when our need for the TRUTH presses upon us ever more heavily, those who search will find John Paul's writings and be liberated and ennobled by this man's potent seed.
Take this and steep yourself in the truth and allow this man's spirit, the spirit of the Father, Child and Love to fill you.
This important book provides a study of 12 of Pope John Paul II's encyclicals, from the first of his pontificate, Redemptor Hominis, through the much discussed Evangelium Vitae and Veritatis Splendor, the not-to-be-overlooked Redemptoris Mater, and Ut Unum Sint.
Scholars and non-scholars will be pouring over the Pope's gifts for the next century to come. The encyclicals offer Pope John Paul II's brilliant blueprint for the third millennium. It is a blueprint fashioned from Scripture itself, but with modern insights to carry us forward across the "threshold of hope."
J. Michael Miller, C.S.B. offers an excellent introduction to Papal encyclicals and helpful notes prior to each chapter. In addition, an exhaustive index makes this a superb reference for pastors, teachers, writers, theologians, researchers, and the average layperson desiring to know more about the Church.
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Paul's journey to understand how Jesus loved others is well written with a vulnerability and transparency that lets you know it's okay to be on the path of learning to know and understand God. It's an eternal path, and one that doesn't come easily. We have to set aside all of our preconceived notions about others, "crucify" the very voices of our inner being that cry out to be right, to be loved the most, not to be inconvenienced or misunderstood, and instead to love as Jesus loved.
If you want a good read and some insight into Jesus, you will want to read this book!
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Specific strengths of the book are the critiques of literature, painting and cinema. The points of view regarding the works of John Ashbery, Andy Warhol and Jasper Johns are radical and creative. Miller's sophistication with poetry and painting is truly impressive. Also, the feminist critiques of the works of Toni Morrison, Adrienne Rich and Sam Shepard present new ways of looking at the texts which would benefit students and scholars alike.
It should be emphasized that the book will have value to the public at large (and not just scholars and students). The references to popular culture make the book quite appealing to the general public.
Miller knows his subject! Clearly, the book is the result of a lifetime of enthrallment with the subject matter. Highly recommendable! A tour de force!
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Also, while tempting to consider this "wise guy" poetry (and it is), there is an (often subtle) undercurrent of lyricism (e.g. the lines "It touches every facet/ of our lives in a way/ punch cards never could" or "The color of the day expands and springs through the checkerboard/ Where a truck twists in the wind") that is just one of the many ways this book offers a long-lasting, enjoyable resonance through multi-dimensionality.
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Her story is nothing short of amazing. An anti-war activist, Clark was not content to merely protest her government's action, she felt that there was something she should do. She packed up and moved to Vietnam, in the middle of the war, with seven children in tow. From her arrival, through Operation Babylift and the fall of Saigon, "After Sorrow.." is one woman's testament to love, faith, and courage.
For this reader, the book was a total page turner, and I was sorry to see it end. Fortunately, with two more volumes in the works, there is more to come.
Cherie describes her experience in such a way that I feel as though I lived through it all with her. My emotions ran the gamut from despair to hope, anger to determination, exhaustion to joy. And in all cases there was an overwhelming awe that Cherie was able to stay so focused on her one purpose of saving children - and through that find peace.
I found myself sitting quietly as I finished reading and reflecting on the glimmers of hope from people like Cherie Clark that shine through the tragic consequences of war.
This book was a total sensory experience and I'm anxiously awaiting the next two books in the trilogy!
For most of us whose lives were, in a large part, dictated by events in Vietnam during the late 60's and early 70's, the Vietnam war remains a mystery. We didn't understand it then; all these years later, we still don't understand it.
This book does NOT de-mystify the war. It simply gives a day-to-day, blow-by-blow account of how it affected the smallest victims of that war--the children, and the least of these--the orphans.
Cherie Clark, a normal, middle-class housewife caught up in a decision to adopt a child from the war zone, lived this story and has written, not a political treatise, but a heart-wrenching, heart-stopping diary of what happened as the government and the very fabric of Vietnamese society unraveled in those last awful days. How she has managed to write this with such honesty and detail without seeming to sensationalize any of it, or appear as if she's nominating herself for sainthood, is an amazing accomplishment.
I can hardly wait to read the rest of the story, the next two in the trilogy, about her work in India and her return to Vietnam.
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The books in this series are a great buy, presenting 13 well-written and potentially expandable adventures in a single accessory. In this volume we are offered quite a variety of creatures, some tied more or less to Ravenloft and its special creatures or cities, others from an "anywhere" background or originally from one of the other AD&D campaign worlds and dragged into the Mists of the Ravenloft Domain of Dread by evil circumstances. In either case, these adventures are readily adaptable to fit the flavor of any campaign, though the style of this first of the "Children of the Night" series seems to assume a greater familiarity with Ravenloft than the other volumes do.
Don't think that becauses vampires are so popular a subject that the possibilities are burnt out: In these adventures we are offered a scarred and wretched man divinely cursed to wander the desert in thirst, only able to briefly quench his thirst through fluid from his victims; a druidic vampiress whose thirsty habits run to tree sap; and a "penanggalan," a horrid female creature whose head flies free from her body and zooms around at night dangling a long black tail, looking for folk to drain. Demihumans and nonhumans are not exempt from the vampire scourge: Here we meet an elf originally from the Forgotten Realms who loathes all vampires--his problem being he himself has become one; an elven vampiress from Dragonlance's Krynn, whose terrible twisted face can stun or kill on sight; a greater vampiric Ixitxachitl; and a dwarven scholar, a "Vampire Sage" with unusual powers who once served the lich Azalin. In the entries specifically tied to Ravenloft are a vampiric slave who was once a Ravenloft Vistana, or gypsy; a sea vampire and his crew of undead pirates; a sadistic, permanently invisible vampire trickster; the scheming vampire niece of Ravenloft's powerful Count Strahd; a "vorlog," a vampiric monster who stopped just short of becoming undead; and a crime boss vampire with sewer alligators for friends. The cover art is good and so are the interior maps, though in general the interior art is not quite up to usual Ravenloft quality. All in all, a choice collection of adventures, tricks, and traps.
Highly recommended for vampire fans running any AD&D 2nd Edition campaign.
--Sharon Daugherty for Skirmisher Online Gaming Magazine
I really liked the way the book is set-up. I enjoyed the shaded boxes, which highlight famous lines and ask, "did you know" questions about each book of the Bible. The section titled, How We Got Our Bible, is helpful. That is followed by a section highlighting the main points of Bible. This can help those who may not be familiar with many Bible stories. Moreover it serves as a good overview.
This book is great because it is written for a variety of readers from different age groups. Teenagers on up could enjoy this book. You can choose to use the book as a reference book, read it as novel, or just read each review and then read the accompany book.