This collection of Turner's poems shows his exceptional ability to create in all forms, traditional and free verse. He takes the eveyday, the mundane, the familiar and allows us to subtly go along on this journey with him, finding humor, insight, sometimes pain. By directly allowing me to see into his own core - bumbling "On The Burlington" , experiencing feelings "For Mother", considering the Japanese approach to kissing "Kiss o Kudasai" - he gently helps me to look at myself, at others and at the world. And it is a look I like, curious, intelligent, hopeful, spiritual, conveyed in delightful images that shine through even the saddest of content. My favorites? Many! Be sure to read "Your Casket Gleamed Like an Upright Piano" and "The Secret." Better yet, read them all!

Textbooks on the sumerians are often filled with with art and fail to communicate the tremendous contributions of these ancient people. This book provides an objective evaluation of the builders of mankind's first civilization. The reader is left wanting to learn more about the sumerians who were the first to develop writing, wheel, law, school, war, art, cities, ..., etc.

My interest in Jewish history was borne from my love of the Catskills in New York. Having grown up in a Jewish community provided me with a background that prompted many questions for which I never quite found answers. As a young person my favorite comedians were all Jewish-their sense of humor and timing was uncomparable. I could laugh and cry at the same time and it felt good. Upon venturing into the local library in my town upstate in the quest for answers to the whys and wherefores of the names around the Catskills and the pockets of Hasidic communities around my little town, I spotted Stefan Kanfer's hardbound book. A quick glance at the title and the jacket was all I needed to decide this was must reading. From the first few pages my fascination began with the accounts of the immigrants at the turn of the century from Russia settling in New York City and their reasons for looking for 'a land flowing with milk and honey'; their determination to make a living as peddlars of assorted wares; their 'at odds' relationship with other incoming Jewish immigrants; the origin of many of the words we use today; the notoriety of the little towns along Route 17 and the 'not-so-nice' goings on; the rise of the empires of the many Catskill hotels that started out as places for immigrants seeking a 'cure' from TB; the true (and perhaps unknown to many) story of the Grossinger family and others; how many famous comedians got their start in these hotels, (Daniel David Kaminsky for one) and learning the real names of these men and women was a pleasant surprise; and, finally, the sad decline of the summer exodus to the catskills by the succeeding generations as times changed. I would venture to say that the Catskills were "made" by these Jewish immigrants and the knowledge I gained from this book was worth its weight in gold. I cannot imagine it absent from my bookshelf and know that is truly one of the finest books I have ever read. This is a 'must read' publication for any Catskill dweller. Thank you Mr. Kanfer.

This is the type of book all historicals should be like. The heroine was great! She was funny and didn't hesistate to go out and kick some butt! The hero was also quite good. It is a rousing tale and very very hot! A must for any collection!

I highly recommend The Ten Commandments, from the Shadow of Eden to the Promise of Canaan. Dennis Ross interweaves traditional rabbinic teaching with his own life experiences as a rabbi to explain the true meaning of these often misunderstood commandments. Why have the Jewish people survived all these centuries when other cultures with their own laws have died? What about the contradictions in the commandments? Why does the 1st commandment remind us of our slavery when most other cultures want to forget their years of enslavement? I would recommend this book for Jews and non-Jews alike.

One of the few Christian book on women that is really insightful and funny. Here is an example, the author wonders why do lots of Christian throughout history thinks Man is better than Woman by baseing the argument on that Adam was created first. Well, if you look at Genesis closely, you'll find that the human race is the crown of all creation and it is created last. So logically, Woman should be the crown of all creation since she is created last. Many other insightful comments.

In the beginning, Spirit was only alone and blissful in infinite silent repose. In the formless purity of the Infinite there was nothing but empty clarity and radiance. There was nothing but a thoughtless, feelingless eternity of Love, and only one problem, one tiny problem: the Love wanted to share itself somehow.

And then a current of creativity began to act, to set a pattern, to stretch a rubber band of creation; suddenly, with perhaps a very big bang, Spirit threw itself out of pure unity and nothingness into a world of seeming multiplicity and somethingness. On the underside of time, in a process called "involution," it manifested itself in patterns of increasing density--from spirit to soul to mind to life to matter--and on the upside of time, in a process called "evolution," it has been progressing for billions of years to rediscover itself, fleshing out the involutionary patterns in unpredictable and creative ways, becoming more and more conscious of itself at each step, and heading toward that final level of absolute consciousness (or spiritual enlightenment) that is the only true goal of the game.

Volume 2 of Ken Wilber's _Collected Works_ traces this extraordinary journey of spiritual involving and evolving as it relates to humans in both ontogenetic and phylogenetic domains. Taking the ontogenetic perspective, the first book, _The Atman Project_, is an intellectually dizzying piece of work that explains the development of the human being from birth to adolescence to adulthood to death to between-life realms and beyond. Wilber defines the "Atman Project" as the "drive of God toward God," or the involutionary and evolutionary game that Spirit is playing. In tracing our own role in this cosmic sitcom, Wilber produces a map of human psychological development that is so comprehensive--covering all major schools of thought, both Eastern and Western--that no one interested in transpersonal psychology can afford to pass it by. From the fetus to the id to the ego to God, every step of personal evolution available as innate potentials to present-day human beings is outlined, explained, and backed with enough evidence (culled from orthodox clinical psychology for the lower and middle stages and orthodox contemplative spirituality for the higher ones) to convince anyone of the model's essential validity. The scope of the work--like most of Wilber's stuff--is simply astonishing. Mind you, however, it ain't light reading; a randomly selected paragraph says:

". . . Like the magical primary process, this paleological thinking frequently operates on the basis of a whole/part equivalency and predicate identity; but unlike the pure primary process, which is strictly composed of nonverbal images, precausal thinking is largely verbal and auditory. . . . Unlike the image of the primary process, it is a true type of thinking-proper, operating with protoconcepts, verbal abstraction, and elementary class formation."

The style of _Atman_ takes some getting used to, but once you've got it you're in for a remarkable ride into understanding the growth and ultimate goals of your own self.

The next book, _Up From Eden_, takes the phylogenetic (collective) view of human evolution, starting with the Big Bang and explaining how all subsequent development is simultaneously a transcendence and an inclusion of what went before it. As Wilber puts it, "early life forms (plants) went beyond but included lifeless matter and minerals in their makeup; and animals went beyond plant forms (simple life) but included life in their makeup. Just so, humans go beyond but include animal characteristics, and, by implication, humans include but transcend _all_ prior evolutionary stages." From the earliest hominids to modern _homo sapiens sapiens_, each evolutionary progression has been marked by one crucial factor: an increase in consciousness. Thus, extrapolating the obvious (and backing it with the claims of enlightened mystics), Wilber identifies the _goal_ of evolution as simply an _absolute_ transcendence of everything in the discovery of an absolute level of consciousness (which is Spirit itself). Those humans who have attained this degree of transcendence in their own ontogenetic development, such as Christ and Buddha, act as the "growing tip" of human phylogeny, stretching our potential into increasingly higher domains, and making the goal of this game just a little bit closer for the rest of us.

But _Up From Eden_ isn't just a historical documentary, tracing evolution up to the present, suggesting what might lie in the future, and leaving it at that. No, _Eden_, like _Atman_, is also an invitation for us to pursue our own further ontogenetic growth, and thereby contribute in potentially powerful ways to the growth of the species as a whole. Wilber has issued the map, described the party, and invited us to attend, but it is up to us to get in the car and drive there. And if we refuse--if we prefer instead to kick back and take it easy at our present level of consciousness development--"we contribute nothing; we pass on our mediocrity."

For those who have hesitated in buying this volume because you already have _Atman_ and _Eden_, perhaps the essay included with these two books will arouse your interest. "Odyssey," a 38-page account of Wilber's personal experience up to the early '80s, is a fascinating little gem that explains how Wilber became interested in mysticism, how he overcame the "pre/trans fallacy" that permeated his early work (see CW: Volume 1), how his meditation practice had progressed from subtle to causal levels, and how he developed a model for meditative development that explained culture-specific "surface structures" and their relation to universal "deep structures"--a model used in both _Eden_ and _Atman_.

In short, these books are two of the most important in the development of Wilber's later work, and it's hard to find anything to complain about. They're well worth the time and money for anyone who wonders even dimly what the heck we actually are, and has, at some point, stared into the starlit sky and pleaded into the silence: "Why, oh _why_, is there something rather than nothing?"

Living in a small space with no bed to call my own I picked up this book and read it. It was wonderful! Lots of information on gardening specifically for the urban dweller. The photographs were wonderful, as was the writing. Included information on raised beds, regular beds, container gardening, fruits and vegetables, flowers, and anything else the city dweller might want to grow. Also included really interesting information on pollution and its effects on the urban dweller's garden and information on pests and what can be done to control them. There was also a heavy influence of organic gardening and how this might be done in the city.

An excellent book all around, it's become my new favourite gardening book.

"Gumbiner and Hayden's photographs capture on film rapidly disappearing architectural treasures and capture in wonderful detail artistic elements from the past. The photographers skillfully blend documentation with powerful observations of the current social milieu of these roadside remnants. Recommended reading and viewing for anyone who ever slowed down at the sight of a neon sign!"---Teri Cleeland, Historian Arizona Historic Sites Review Committee

A great book. A-z on the rainforest, animals, plants, tribes, distruction, and much more,