Why is it that you can be close friends with someone, and then inexplicably, something happens and that friendship just dies out? How could two people be so important to each other, and then... they just don't seem to make time for each other anymore? What happened? How do you fix it? Should you fix it?

Seasons of Friendship is a study of the Book of Ruth, of the relationship between Naomi, an aged widow, and Ruth, her young daughter-in-law, also a widow. The author takes us through their relationship, using the metaphor of the changing seasons to describe the changes in their lives and relationship.

The author also uses examples from her own life, and encourages the reader to examine his/her own life, to discover the changing seasons and the cycle of life. As the stories unfold, an understanding of the nature of friendship evolves, so that the reader begins to understand which friends have helped most at different times, and how better to be a friend to others at different stages of their lives.

Best of all, by understanding our own lives and the nature of friendship, the book encourages us to develop our friendship with our Creator, who invented the concept in the first place.

I have used this book in small groups, where it has been wildly successful. Women have commented on how healing it is to understand the friendships they have had, especially the ones that just seemed to stop for no reason. It gave them a new appreciation for their friends, old and new, and motivation to understand where they were on their journeys through life.

Of all the books I have used, this has been the one which has been the most effective in promoting group discussion, bonding, and enthusiasm. Whether you are looking for something to study with a group, or just for your personal enlightenment, you just found the right book! END

This book is nothing short of amazing. It will alter the way you look at the tragedies of Shakespeare. Dr. Liebler draws from diverse fields of study such as anthropology, sociology, history, linguistics, new historicism and many other modern critical schools to pull together an all-encompasing theory explaining the world contained in these tragedies and what happens when the social order comes under pressure and starts to crack and the tragic hero must be the sacrifice of the community in order to attempt to maintain stabiliity and tradition. The demise of the tragic hero is a necessay function to ensure the survival of the community even though it's necessarily changed after the hamartia (totally new conception of this than you've most likely been taught) of the hero leads to his tragic fate. Hamartia is not the usual tragic flaw that you are born with, but something you do; you miss the mark. It can be correctly translated (as opposed to the wrongly translated typical "tragic flaw" as Dr. Liebler points out) and defined as the attempt to do a right thing in a context or circumstances that will not allow the right thing to be done. [it's bad] to be in that situation when you're a Hamlet or a Brutus or a Coriolanus.
I cannot recommend this book highly enough. This book made Titus Andronicus an important work amongst Shakespeare's plays and development of tragedy and community before Taymor's movie version made people think twice about it. You'll also find yourself wanting to read Coriolanus again or for the first time. Pick this book up along with Rene Girard's Theater of Envy and a whole new world of Shakespeare will open up to you.
Now if only Dr. Liebler would write a book on the comedies or the romances.....

First produced by the Royal National Theatre in the Pit, Slaughter City presents the gritty world of a meat-packing plant in lyrical terms. The workers, grappling with issues of race, class, gender, and sexuality, are forced to reconsider their relationship to one another when a stranger, a time-traveler of sorts, appears on the kill-floor to labor with them. The play offers stark images of realism alongside surreal moments of dance, poetry, and raw sexuality. Drawing heavily on an expressionistic tradition, Wallace often tells the story through the subjective eyes of Cod, the time-traveler. Because of the political and unrealistic nature of Wallace's play, she was forced to look to England for production of this play, but I was happy to have discovered it in my travels to London. I treasure the sensual language that transforms everyday things like driving a pickup truck into a passionate race that reverberates coming off the tongue as much as the roaring engine she describes. Slaughter City is beautiful and disturbing in production, but it offers a message of hope as the workers in her play find liberaion throught their relationship with one another. As beautiful to read as it is to watch, Slaughter City marks the beginning of what should be a distinguished career as a dramatist. A prodigy of Kushner, Wallace follows up Slaughter City with One Flea Spare

hello sir; I am student sociology in shiraz univercity (A.M) and I working about social and cultural identity . please help me. sencierly tahereh

Information on the book:

This book is a valuable reference tool for the new social worker as well as for the experienced social worker new to the oncology field. Includes information on the emotional and social impact of cancer on children, the range of social work interventions applied in cancer care, professional issues in oncology social work, the identification and access of available resources, and the latest information about diagnosis and treatment.

Also includes a special patient information section on understanding and using support services.

Teach Yourself Tarot, by Naomi Ozaniec, is an insightful and thorough introduction to the use of the tarot deck as a tool for profound introspection and spiritual growth. The beautiful meditations provided for each of the cards of the major arcana are an inspiration in themselves. This single chapter is worth the price of the book, as it guides the reader to experience the Fool's Journey from the perspective of each trump. Although previous knowledge of the tarot is not necessary to benefit from study of this book, I believe that even experienced tarot enthusiasts will find it moving and enlightening.

if you want to learn japanies this is great i thought myself and my kids japanies and now we just booked a trip to japan for this summer hopeing to learn more hope that you all have as much sucess as i did.

The first drafts of the translations in this collection were written by Faiz himself. It is no wonder then that the translations retain the starkness of the originals. This is no easy task while translating between languauges as disparate in grammar and emotion as Urdu and English. I think this book is far better than the collection of translations of Faiz by Agha Shahid Ali (The Rebel's Silhouette). Agha Shahid Ali tries to retain the poetic sense and form of Faiz's poetry, and sacrifices starkness and overall feel in the process. Naomi Lazard's translations do not retain poetic sense, meter nor verse - seeing Agha Shahid Ali's attempts to do so, one can conclude that to retain the structure of the original is to adorn the poetry too much, losing in the process the starkness and honesty that are Faiz's trademarks.

This is one of those books that I wish I had written. Feil puts not only a human face on the diagnosis of dementia, but with that face, she explains the basic human need that lies within; to be validated. People are more than their age, their diagnosis, their care plans and their "issues", but all that is often lost, particularly in a long-term care setting and the individual is reduced to dehumanized terms. But Feil reminds us of the unique needs of the -individual- and illustrates effective means of communicating with -people- with dementia (not dealing with "dementia" as though it were some sort of creature divorced from the person) based on -their- comforts and abilities, not the caregivers. Comunication techniques using music, gentle touch accompanied with verbalization and a variety of other methods (custom fit to your client) proved successful when I implemented them for my clients. A wonderful book which puts the human dignity of each client front and center. Highly recommended!

This collection of lesbian fiction, not all by lesbian authors, is a marvelous assortment of voices from around the world. From such big names as Violette Leduc, Emma Donoghue, Makeda Silvera, and Dionne Brand, to new-to-American-eyes writers like Jeanne d'Arc Jutras, Yasmin Tambiah, and Ngahuia Te Awekotuku, this anthology has definitely opened my eyes to the diversity of lesbian fiction. I only wish there was more available by some of these authors here in the US! This book only whets the appetite like standing in the middle of an international food festival, not knowing which morsel to savor first.