A CHAIR FULL OF HEART captures the essence of a mother daughter relationship...a relationship that is not always smooth, but one that is enlarged and strengthened as it embraces the changes we all undergo as we mature. It is also a story of friendship, quiet courage, and dignity. It touches your soul. Cavin's style is open and sincere and her text carries the reader back to a time when life was less hurried and more nurturing. It has a comfortable feel...like being home again. Sally Simmer's water color illustrations are a perfect fit for Cavin's prose. Her colors are both warm and vivid, and her artfully drawn pictures convey a sense of calm and inner strength. Her use of the human hand in her drawings not only ties the story together, on another level it reminds the reader of the ties that bind us all together."

A Chair Full of Heart is a heart-rending tale of the ups and downs a daughter and mother go through until they come full circle to realize what's really important. It's a there-but-for-the-Grace-of-God-go-I kind of story.

I highly recommend it for mothers, daughters, granddaugthers, and sisters.

Don't miss out on a Chair Full of Heart. I'm sorry it took me a year to find it!

A CHAIR FULL OF HEART is a beautifully illustrated. Through the author's words, women of all ages can identify and share the mother/daughter relationship--the struggles to reach womanhood, being on opposite banks of raging rivers during the journey, and, when blessed, coming together again as adults and the sorrow of losing a mother too soon. The illustrator caught the essence of the story's mother and daughter with beautiful accuracy and attention to detail.

The story of Eduard and Helene was so emotionally charged and passionate! I accidentally managed to miss a crucial passage in the book telling Helene's real backround which made the revelation Eduard has at the end all the more heart wrenching. Very emotional book, keeps you there and is so hard to put down. You really live in the hearts of the characters and really feel their emotions. A grand passionate love story with riches, intrigue, lots of steamy moments, and filled with real life feelings. An absolute MUST read book!

This was the first book I read from Sally Beauman. She is an excellent story teller, creating believable and intriguing characters within a complex plot. Her books just blow me away! After this, read Dark Angel. You won't be able to put it down!!

I could not put this book down! Beauman brings these characters to life! The journey is amazing... how the characters are so interwoven. I can't wait to read another one of her books.

I recommend this book to anyone who has a companion parrot. It contains a wealth of information about their behavior that can help even those who have been parrot people for a long time understand their bird(s) and be more appreciative of the animal which they are privileged to "own". I am a breeder and recommend this book to everyone adopting one of my babies. It has helped those who adopted a baby to be better parrot people and has influenced potential whim buyers to not undertake something for which they are not suited.

No matter how good the information in a book is, it's not useful if no one reads it. Sally Blanchard has put together a book that is FUN; the whole family can enjoy and learn from together. If only the pet stores were ethical enough to require this book be read BEFORE anyone buys a bird, perhaps there would not be tens of thousands of them needing new homes today! People who "impulse" buy a bird without this information are at high risk of giving up the bird within 2-3 years because they don't understand the nature of these vastly intelligent creatures or how to deal with the challenge of a wild animal in their home. Parrots are NOT domesticated pets, and Sally understands and bases her practices on that fact. Sally has described exactly how to have and keep a successful relationship with a parrot. Her up-to-date information and realism leave no doubt about the complexity of this relationship. Her knowledge of parrot behaviors in the wild helps readers get the "AHA" that goes with finally knowing why a parrot acts as it does. If you know anyone with a parrot, buy them this book!

I was very impressed with the scope of information in this book about general care and training for parrots and helpful insights for specific problem behaviors. The "Companion Parrot Handbook" is terrific for people contemplating adding a bird to their household, as well as a valuable reference guide for anyone who already owns parrots.

Sally's down to earth easy to understand compilation of her first hand knowledge, experiences and advice for living with companion parrots is entertaining and extremely well presented. She offers helpful guidance for maintaining a truly enjoyable long lasting relationship with these wonderful, intelligent feathered animals.

I read this book a few years back and found it fascinating. I decided to pick it up again two nights ago, and just finished my second reading. It's even better on the second go-round. Fans of true-crime/organized crime tales will find this book enthralling. I just hope I get to meet Ralph Ross sometime -- what a dedicated public servant!

This book tells the detailed story of how a handful of Lexington socialites organized a crime ring that became a (maybe *the*) major smuggler of cocaine and other drugs into the Eastern United States. Complete with cover-up and contract murders, the author pieces together an intricate story that, before it's over, includes state and federal government officials as well as organized-crime syndicates from all over the country. Also recounted in the book is the life of Ralph Ross, the Kentucky State Policeman and electronic-surveillance expert, whose single-minded perseverance finally brought about the end of the smuggling ring.

It's informative as well as it is entertaining, and I recommend it to all true-crime fans, mafia buffs, conspiracy theorists, and Kentuckians.

This story and the author Sally Denton reminds me of my favorite author's (Thomas Thompson) treatment of bizarre, fascinating true stories of immense complication made clear by the author.

Mayhem by the truckload, double-crossing by the numbers, and a large cast of evil characters make this a can't-put-down book. I can remember two "good guys" that lasted through the story from beginning to end, but a humorless good read by a talented author is beckoning to you in The Bluegrass Conspiracy.

This book, while written for beginner knitters, is excellent for anyone looking to add to their skills. Being an intermediate knitter myself, I found this book to be of great value to my hobby. There are always new tips and information to improve anyone's knitting techniques and this book is no exception. I found her directions and pictures(photos) to be of great help. Her patterns, although basic design, were well done and inspiring, as I have picked out a couple to do. I think this is a good book for anyone who enjoys knitting! I am looking forward to more of this series from Sally Melville.

First of all, this book has one of the best visual and textual explanations of knitting techniques that I've ever seen, and I have quite a library of knitting references. I believe that a beginning knitter could learn to knit from this book alone.

I consider myself to be an advanced knitter, and I'm not normally fond of garter stitch. But this book changed my mind! The designs are beautiful and classic, and not just for beginners. The sweaters are simple and elegant, so they will not go out of style anytime soon.

In short, this is a must-have book for any knitting library.

If the designs don't hook you as being absolutely charming and clever, then the whole attitude in which this book is written and the super instructions will. I love this book and would recommend it to anyone wanting to learn to knit or anyone (like myself) that is an expierienced knitter. If it were up to me, I would give this book to everyone coming into the shop where I knit and teach. Definitely worth having in your knitting library!

In the past few years there have been many new books written about the Holocaust. Some of these I've read, but none affected me as much as did "An Uncommon Friendship". I was so impressed that I read the book three times, - the first reading was difficult because at many points I had tears in my eyes because of the many horrors to which Bernie Rosner, a teenage Hundarian boy was subjected by the Nazis. The second reading was emotionally easier and I began to realize the strong character that Bernie had to develope to endure the mental and physical tortures to which he was subjected. I now realize that this period of Bernies life was the clay that molded him into a SURVIVOR, preparing him for future difficult periods of his life. The sadness of the concentration camp joyfully offset by the tender and loving relationship of the family that sponsored him in the United States. This love and support was the foundation that led him to eventually become a noted lawyer and respected business man.

What an inspirational story about facing the demons of our past through overcoming tragedy, adapting coping skills, and accepting tolerance. Bernie and Fritz have told such an intriguing story that it is hard to put the book down. The book bridges the opposite sides of the Holocaust through the eyes of youngsters, grabs your attention and doesn't let you go. It must be so therapeutic for the two survivors to talk about this horrific beginning of their life. A story very well written and a tribute to two wonderful, talented and successful men bonded by fate, forgiveness and an uncommon friendship.

This clearly written, compelling double memoir tells the story of Bernat Rosner, a Hungarian Jewish Holocaust survivor and Fredric Tubach, German son of a Nazi officer raised in the fervent pro-Nazi atmosphere of 1930s Germany. It reveals how they became friends after the war in the United States and in the course of their friendship how they began to explore their painful personal and national histories together. This book shares the results of this collaboration.

This book is fascinating on many levels. It gives first hand accounts of how the Holocaust was experienced at the ground level perspective. For the Jews of Hungary, an abrupt change from traditional Jewish life in rural villages to sudden deportation to unknown destinations, leading for Bernat and his family to the death camps. For Fred, one sees the normal life of the German countryside, with seemingly normal differences of opinion regarding one political party or another, all leading gradually to war. Who knew that the Nazis were leading them to commit the greatest crime in history? Both Bernard and Fred tell their stories from their respective childhood vantage points.

The book also tells the story of rebirth after the war, where both boys come to the United States as refugees and build new lives. How they befriend each other and gradually inched toward their mutual exploration of the past is facinating and fruitful.

I think that more than anything else, this book shows how it is impossible to make generalizations covering nations or peoples. There is often a tendency to blame whole nations for what occurred during the Holocaust: Germans, Austrians, Poles, the finger pointing list goes on and on. Yet within every Holocaust tale, when one comes down to the individual stories one finds that the widely cast blankets of blame are not accurate. My parents are both Holocaust survivors from Vilna Poland. My father survived execution by German and Lithuanian Nazis at the killing grounds of Ponari and was hidden by Polish peasant families who risked their lives to save him. My mother faced open anti-semitism by local Poles who often supported the Nazis in their efforts to find all the Jews in Vilna, but she and her parents were saved by the German Wehrmacht officer in charge of their labor camp who risked his life to save hundreds of Jews under his command from the murderous intent of the SS. .... How does one make sense of this other than to conclude that one must judge each person by the choices they make and the actions that they take. If Bernard and Fred can build bridges across the cultural divides of the Holocaust, maybe there is hope that humans will find a way to overcome suspicion, xenophobia and bigotry. The Holocaust demonstrates the worst that we humans are capable of. The story of this uncommon friendship gives us all hope that we can overcome our past with some measure of hope for the future of mankind.

I loved this book. Not only did the author "paint and picture with words" and make you feel like you were Willo and you were right there, the things happening to you and not only did the book relate to real life and true things but it was at the same time dramatic and captaivating but in a real life way. It wasn't all goody goody and win-all-the-time like alot of other books I've read are. Willo is an everyday girl with problems, choices and gifts and Tess reminds me alot of problems I have with my horse. It was a beautiful book and I reccomend horse-lovers and non-horse-lovers alike to try it, it's great!

This book is very moving to me being a fellow horse back rider. I understood it very clearly and could relate to many of the problems that Willo Jean and her family had to go through--loss of a loved one and trying to prove my parents wrong about something I knew I could do, especially about horses. I believed in Willo Jean just as though she were my best friend and I wish she was mine to help me get through my "no horse" dilemma with my parents. I rate this book a five star all the way because of all the realism and how it moved me. For instance, when Willo Jean was lunging with Diana, her instructor, I could imagine my own instructor, Mary, and me lunging at the canter. Five stars with honor.

Before Willo's mother died she promised her she could get a horse. Her grandfather told her not to get the first horse she saw. The first horse she saw was an abused ex-racehorse named Tess. The minute Willo saw her she wanted to buy her, but she had to prove to her father, who is always drunk and almost never home, she can control Tess. I liked this book. Willo worked really hard trying to reach her goals. To see if Willo reached her goals you'll have to read the book!

The book is cute and short. Is about silly Sally who goes to town walking backwards upsidedown. On her way she meets several animals and Neddy Buttercup who joined her on her way to town. I read this book to my second graders, and afterwards did a lesson on rhythming words,since the story is told in rhythming verses. I also used to book to teach them order, for example who followed Sally first and second and so on. The children loved the illustrations and the fact that they were able to read.

My 2 year old daughter loves this book. The short rhymes make it fun to read over and over. Pictures are colorful.

My oldest daughter received this book as a gift when she was about 2 and she loved it. I'm now reading it to her baby sister who can't get enough of it. The illustrations and the rhymes are delightful. This book makes a great gift.

This book is not very good. It's all line drawings, some photos, boringly presented and basically an adhoc production. Boring and uninspiring. It's written because Montano in her Crazy Quilt Book (superb!) tells how embroidery is the make or break deal in a crazy quilt but this book does not live up to those expectations.

Instead try Lucinda Ganderton's a Stitch Sampler, where colour threads are used and everything is easily viewed or if a Montano is what you are seeking go for the gold and get her Crazy Quilting book, where the main stitches are detailed and her methods outlined. Just pass this one by.

This is the only book you will ever need to buy for learning individual embroidery stitches. Never mind it was written with a bent towards silk ribbon embroidery. With hand embroidery becoming a lost art, especially in quilting, references are becoming harder and harder to find. I have spent alot of time (and money) accumulating a large library of turn of the century instructional embroidery references and in comparison, Judith Montano's book is right on the money. It is the most complete, comprehensive, and easy to understand book on the market. My first copy is so worn out, that I purchased a "back-up" just in case! It is a nice portable size with a spiral binding. FABULOUS for laying out flat when your hands are otherwise occupied with needle and thread. This is the ONLY stitch dictionary you will need to buy!!

The most complete how to book on using silk ribbon for embroidery. Written by world reknown author, teacher and lecturer Judith Baker Montano. Read it in French Japanese or English. This book shows each stitch with a how to line drawing as well as a blow up of it within a piece of finished art work. Judith's palette is one of a kind, her jewel toned floral designs are easy to duplicate with this timeless referance book. Everything you need to get started working with wonderful silk ribbons that are now available at most sewing and craft stores. Embellish a tuxedo jacket lapel, a pair of velvet flats, a matching pendent and more when you learn the how easy it is to do this wonderful handwork that began in the 1700's. Full color photos. Even a section for left handers. Judith even shows how to create your own unique designs in a wonderful chapter at the end. What a find

This book contains a great deal of material; it is in general an easy read, a credit to Swami Durgananda's journalistic ability. The questions I have are: Does it really meet its goal? What is the goal? What is the path? What are the stages on the path? What are the obstacles?

These are questions anyone embarking on a path of meditation needs to know. These questions are left largely unanswered by Swami Durgananda.

The goal of meditation is in the words of Patanjali "Yogas citti vrtti nirodhah" Yoga is controlling the turnings of the mind". In the words of the Dalai Lama, it is controlling one's mind. The reason to control our minds is that is the road to happiness and enlightenment. Meditation itself is single pointed thought. In reading Swami Durgananda's book it is hard to discern not only what meditation is, but also what the goal is and why we meditate and how her exercises lead us to that goal. I would have like her to be more explicit about these relationships.I think this is largely a problem of organization of her material, prioritization, and order of presentation.

Siddha Yoga is a guru based tradition and this book reflects that philosophy. It is also an experience based tradition and this book reflects that. While in the middle of the book Swami Durganada tells us that meditative experiences should only be used as road signs on the path, a great deal of this book is the relating of hers and others' experiences. The reader will have to make his or her own assessment, however, they should be aware that most masters tell their disciples to ignore visions and meditative experiences. The late Lama Yeshe was particularly vehement about that.

Swami Durgananda contends that the shakti will automatically come up with antidotes to negative emotions. Others believe that antidotes must be consciously cultivated that we may learn to control and in the end rid ourselves of negativity. The reader would be benefited by reading Stephan Bodian's MEDITATION FOR DUMMIES (Title forgiven) to see meditations on emotions.

Success on the path is not measured by seeing Blue Pearls or white light, or having great visions, but by attainment of concentrative focus, contentment, compassion, lovingkindness and wisdom.

The Dalai Lama's STAGES OF MEDITATION is helpful for understanding stages of meditation. As Swami Durgananda notes that there is a similarity of paths though there are cultural differences. Another book readers of this book would find helpful is Jack Kornfield's A PATH WITH HEART. Though Kornfield is a Buddhist, the book is written for all traditions.

Many of Swami Durgananda's exercises are very worthwhile. Her chapter on Mantra repetition is lacking. Mantra repetition is an exercise in concentration and later in practice important for diety yoga. Most teachers recommend counting mantras and noting points of distraction. Malas are for counting.

Her opinion that the guru gives the mantra chaitanya (enliving) is not shared by Sir John Woodroofe in A GARLAND OF LETTERS . Woodroofe states that it is in understanding the meaning of the mantra that it comes alive. It appears from Swami Durgananda's discussion of her own experience that this is the case. The Sanskrit language carries it's own power.

Her three week breakthrough program is quite intense for those without a previous meditation practice. Beginners would be advised to forgo the three hours of meditation a day and begin with half an hour. Should they decide to begin with three hours a day, reading Bonnie Greenwell's ENERGIES OF TRANSFORMATION: A GUIDE TO THE KUNDALINI PROCESS would be well advised before hand.

I found the "troubleshooting your meditation" chapter particularly inadequate. Hopefully, it will be improved in the next addition. One is referred to Bodian's, Kornfield's, or Greenwell's books which cover the problems more thoroughly.

The strong points of this book are the "coming out of meditation: contemplation, recollection and journal writing" and "daily life of the meditator" chapters.

I think this book is a valuable adjunct to one's meditation library. It should not be the mainstay of one's practice.

I am a poet and editor who has maintained a daily practice of meditation for over twenty years, during the course of which I have naturally read a number of books on meditation. Sally Kempton's "The Heart of Meditation" is quite simply the finest book on Eastern Meditation by a Western writer that I have yet encountered.
The book is clearly the work of an author possesing
a rigorous, wide-raging intellect, a generous heart, and uncommon common sense. "Heart" is both elegant in its overall structure and eloquently written, its clear and simple prose informed by a literary sensibility that makes it as compulsively readable as a good novel. It is both comprehensive and concise in conveying the intellectrual and metaphysical underpinnings of the Yoga of meditation, both inspiring and consistently practical in guiding the reader along pathways to a deeper meditative expereience.
Fittingly, the book is also beautifully designed, its expansive and elegant format reflecting its content. I expect to be giving it this Christmas both to friends who have expressed an interest in beginning to meditate and to experienced practitioners.
There is so much to be said about this book. For brevity's sake, I will mention three points in particular.
First, this is not a book about how to feel better about yourself as a person, how to be more compassionate to your fellow man, how to tap the wellspring of your greativity,
how to be more effective in the worplace etc. (though it is likely to induce any or allo of the above as side-effects!) As the author makes clear from the outset, this is a book about self-exploration, about how to access the deeper levels of consciousness and joyful awareness that our our birthright but that elude many of us, about how to expand our understanding of ourselves and of our world. It is a book by an experienced adventurer, herself for many years the disciple of two highly regarded Yoga masters, that invites the reader to go on a similar adventure, and is a book that is in many ways an adventure in itself. It is a book that is relentlessly focussed on the goal of life's adventure, the fulfillment of the Socratic injunction "know thyself".
Secondly, this is a book rooted in the experience Of Yoga meditation that draws on the teachings of several prominent strains of the Hindu tradition. There are a number of excellent books by Western writers on the practice of Buddhist meditation, but none that I am aware of of comparative quality on Yoga meditation - until now. Though meditation is a universal phenomenon, there are very real differences in the approaches toward the practice of meditation emphasized by different schools. Kempton's book is rooted in the experience of Kundalini Yoga which uses a seker's inner energy, his or her innate divine effervescence, as a guide to a more profound experience of the self. Kempton expertly describes the often surprising "pathways" this energhy can take as it guodes the seeker within, and provides the context through which we can understand ther variegated subtle inner realms they can lead us through (and beyond).
Finally, and most importantly, the book provides an extaordinary wealth of information about how we can become creative and "unstuck" in our meditation practice. Let me give just one example. Early in the book Kempton points out that people have different characteristic styles of processing information - she mentions the visual, the auditory,the kinesthetic, and the conceptual-schematic as examples. Depensing upon one's predominant styles some routes to deep meditation will be more easier and more effective than others. Through reading this book I realized that I major in the kinesthetic and minor in the auditory. Most of my mefditative experiences have involved sensing energy in different subtle centerts in the body, particularly the heart and throat, the seat of love and imaginative insight; mantra repetition has intensified these sensations. This book has helped me to value my own style of meditation, which is particularly well suited to my work as a poet. It provides a wide range of techniques, some drawn scriptural tradition and others drawn from the author's experience and experimentation, that will enable any meditator to discover and focus upon what techniques work best for him or her. Some of these techniques have had a major impact on my own practice.
In sum, I believe that this book amply deserves to become a classic modern text on the theory and practice of meditation. I truly hope it will find its way to the many readers who willl surely benefit from it.

I have read many many books on meditation and have participated in meditation retreats, classes and discussions. True to other writings of Sally Kempton, this book is one of the easiest and most concise teaching of mediation I have read.

Kempton's abundance of meditation experience combined with her skill as a writer and her ability to know what so many students of mediation and yoga are really looking for, make for a rare and precious combination in any teacher, let alone an author.

I urge anyone interested in mediation to read this book, if you don't recieve one answer or tool you were looking for I would be very suprised.