Connor's account of a retreat to the Canadian outback is delightful and enlightening. Called as a priest in rural British Columbia to comfort the parents of an infant crushed to death by a boulder falling upon the rear of their passing car, Connor finds himself as unsettled and nonplused by the pathos and inscrutabilty of the event as the gieving parents. Seeking to regain his spiritual and emotional bearings, he finds refuge in a remote lake cabin where his slowly (and often comically) reawakened communion with the landscape and its few inhabitants clarify the continuum of suffering and serenity, death and life, and the salvation of replacing agitating, rational self-consciousness with accepting, spiritual self-awareness--with a truly contemplative life.

Rendered in graceful prose, Connor's memoir ranges from exquisitely lyrical to warmly humorous to intellectually rigorous. The landscape and characters are vividly drawn, and the informing scholarship of contemplative literature and tradition is brought to bear in a natural, delightfully anecdotal way.

Connor's account of a retreat to the Canadian outback is delightful and enlightening. Called as a priest in rural British Columbia to comfort the parents of an infant crushed to death by a boulder falling upon the rear of their passing car, Connor finds himself as unsettled and nonplused by the pathos and inscrutabilty of the event as the gieving parents. Seeking to regain his spiritual and emotional bearings, he finds refuge in a remote lake cabin where his slowly (and often comically) reawakened communion with the landscape and its few inhabitants clarify the continuum of suffering and serenity, death and life, and the salvation of replacing agitating, rational self-consciousness with accepting, spiritual self-awareness--with a truly contemplative life.

Rendered in graceful prose, Connor's memoir ranges from exquisitely lyrical to warmly humorous to intellectually rigorous. The landscape and characters are vividly drawn, and the informing scholarship of contemplative literature and tradition is brought to bear in a natural, delightfully anecdotal way.

Connor's account of a retreat to the Canadian outback is delightful and enlightening. Called as a priest in rural British Columbia to comfort the parents of an infant crushed to death by a boulder falling upon the rear of their passing car, Connor finds himself as unsettled and nonplused by the pathos and inscrutabilty of the event as the gieving parents. Seeking to regain his spiritual and emotional bearings, he finds refuge in a remote lake cabin where his slowly (and often comically) reawakened communion with the landscape and its few inhabitants clarify the continuum of suffering and serenity, death and life, and the salvation of replacing agitating, rational self-consciousness with accepting, spiritual self-awareness--with a truly contemplative life.

Rendered in graceful prose, Connor's memoir ranges from exquisitely lyrical to warmly humorous to intellectually rigorous. The landscape and characters are vividly drawn, and the informing scholarship of contemplative literature and tradition is brought to bear in a natural, delightfully anecdotal way.

This reading of the King James Version Bible by Alexander Scourby is a treasure! I own or have listened to most of the other audio Bibles out there and there just is no comparison. Scourby reads in a transparent manner that allows the Bible to come alive. With some audio Bibles I have a hard time listening through the reader's radio-announcer inflections to the underlying message. Not so with Scourby, he justly earns his title of the "Voice of the Bible".

I recommend this Audio CD highly. I don't believe you will be disappointed with it in any way.

I wonder when this will be available in CD format? My tapes have had it!

Ever had trouble reading the King James version? Alexander Scorby is the reader here and makes the KJV even more enjoyable. His deep, smooth vocals are great for the long drive, to make your work-day go by quicker, to relax to at home, or as an aid in studying the Word. I highly recommend this to anyone who has any reason to reading the Bible.

McDonald and Sanders have done an excellent job of convoking the best and brightest to discuss issues around the formation and understanding of the biblical canon.(Their use of the word "debate" for the title may be a bit of an overstatement considering the respectful collegiality of the participants.) Every contributor is a highly credentialed major player in the field. The editors express disappointment that Bruce Metzger, Roger Beckwith, Earle Ellis, Brevard Childs, and Gerald Sheppard were unable for various reasons to contribute articles. While their thoughts would have been interesting, the 31 Jewish and Christian scholars who did contribute are not to be considered second string (many of whom quote and reference the five absent giants anyway).

My enthusiasm for the thought contained in this 662-page book is based on having read the introduction and five randomly selected articles: "The Notion and Definition of Canon" (Eugene Ulrich), "Jamnia Revisited" (Jack P. Lewis), "The Old Testament Apocrypha in the Early Church and Today" (David J. Harrington, S.J.), "The Codex and Canon Consciousness" (Robert A. Kraft), and "The Problem of Pseudonymity in Biblical Literature and Its Implication" (Kent D. Clarke). As far as I can tell, these are new papers, not reworkings of existing materials. Harrington's thoughts on the Apocrypha, for instance, go far beyond anything he expressed on this subject in his own excellent book, INTVITATION TO THE APOCRYPHA (1999). Clarke's article on Pseudonymity answered a lot of questions I've had about this issue and I felt it did a good job of showing how a person's assumptions about a biblical book's pseudonymity (whether the practice is honorable, innocent, and licit or dishonorable, deceptive, and illicit) affects how a person is likely to judge that book's status within the canon. So far I've been impressed with everything I read. I look forward to savoring the remaining 26 articles.

Editor McDonald provided four interesting appendices and the bibliography is worth the cost of the book (they seem to identify English translations of scholarly works created in other languages when possible, though I noticed they did not do so with Trobisch's FIRST EDITION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT, Oxford, 2000; otherwise, the bibliography seems to be quite current).

If you're at all curious about how the Bible came to be and why different religious traditions have different Bibles, THE CANON DEBATE will give you lots to mull over. Accessible, but challenging.

As a singer and a teacher of singers, I found this book a great resource. It is written in common sense and easily understood terminology, which is very useful. I highly recommend this book as a superb addition to every serious singer's bookshelf.

McKinney is the direct descendant--vocally speaking--of the great pedagog, William Vennard. His technical bent and his ability to communicate in easy-to-understand language has made him indispensable to an increasing number of voice teachers, choral conductors and singers. His systematic approach to the subject, as illustrated in the table of contents, makes the book a resource to keep handy. I use this as the foundation for teaching vocal pedagogy to college music-voice majors. If you are looking for fundamental and thorough knowledge of singing; how to spot and correct vocal faults, this is the resource to have.

As a voice teacher I find myself frequently turning to McKinney's wise guidance. This is a great resource for teachers and students alike and avoids using obscure pedagogical terms that might confuse the reader. McKinney gives excellent overviews of the all aspects of the singing voice such as posture, breathing, phonation, registration, voice classification, resonation, articulation, the speaking voice, and coordination. He also includes useful diagrams of the voice mechanism to provide a an even more concrete idea of exactly how the voice works. It is an indispensible tool I would be lost without.

Jim Anderson is one of the better thinkers writing about the study of communication. Like his books on media and the epistemological foundations of communication theory, this work is a classic in the field as much because of its fugue-like writing style as its thorough overview of quantitative and qualitative research methods. His vision of both is washed with a strong moral vision. His discussion of member participation and marginality will give you a sense of his concerns. "Observational distancing can turn people into subjects -- objects of study. Membership requires passion. A stake in the outcomes that affect people. If the researcher is to achieve membership, what happens has to make a difference. the analyst cannot remain objective, detached from the scene" (p. 320). This book is highly recommended for graduate students in communication study.

This book is wonderful and easy reading for the just average person. It is filled with information about the inner healing we experience when we journal our most inner thoughts. Thank you for sharing this information.

Pennebaker's studies of people who wrote about their deepest traumas and hurts demonstrate that expressing feelings is helpful and healing. People who participated in the studies showed improved immune function as measured by doctor visits compared to controls groups who didn't journal or who journaled about daily events and omitted their feelings.

If you've kept a journal and written about what troubles you, you know how much this unloading can improve your mood. It's nice to have someone listen to you, or to have the compassionate attention of a paid therapist who can help you see your patterns. But it's also comforting to know that science has shown that journaling can be a way for you to be your own therapist. In this book, the author shares stories of people and their writing. This is a good book to point to if anyone thinks journaling is just narcissistic scribbling.

~~Joan Mazza, psychotherapist and author of DREAM BACK YOUR LIFE; DREAMING YOUR REAL SELF; WHO'S CRAZY ANYWAY? and 3 books in The Guided Journal Series with Writer's Digest Books/Walking Stick Press.

Expression of one's deepest thoughts and feelings has long been a staple of psychotherapy. Yet until Dr. James Pennebaker of the University of Texas published the results of his decades-long research program, little was known by the general public about the specific effects of self-disclosure. Dr. Pennebaker shows how writing down your thoughts and feelings (or dictating them into a tape recorder) can improve your physical as well as your mental health. In other words, it is not always necessary to confide in another person to obtain at least some of the benefits of self-expression. However, as the author makes clear, not all forms of self-disclosure are beneficial, and he gives specific guidance on what to do and what to avoid.

It was a hard decision to buy this Bible verses others that were offered. On the good side, this Bible is made of quality material and has a very good feel. There is plenty of room for your own notes. However, I purchased this Bible because it was supposed to have a good concordance and a reasonable glossary. Both were more incomplete than a very inexpensive Bible from [the store]. Perhaps I'll use the note pages to complete the concordance. The Bible was so highly recommended that I would have taken it if it had a picture of a building on its front cover. I was pleased to see that the cover is a normal black leather cover with Holy Bible across the front. Only its box has the picture of the buiding.

I have been a Christian for 13 years and I have had a few Scofields, Thompson Chain and even, the Cambridge competitor, the [$$] Oxford Wide Margin. All were KJV Bibles, of course, and all where nice Bibles. But, I have always admired the quality, workmanship and finish of a Cambridge WM. There is nothing like this Bible. From the lined note pages to the quality of the Calf Skin leather all the way down to the "Bible Paper."
My first Scofield lasted nine months. My second lasted through my first two semesters of Bible College. My Thompson Chain has been faithul and lasted me for 9 years! And the Oxford...I couldn't ever get used to it. But, now I must say I am ready to "settle down" with a Bible that could easily last until my new born child graduates high school and starts college!
I look forward to reading and studying God's preserved Word in this unique package!

None of the Christian book stores in the nearby metropolis seem to carry any kind of specialty bible like this. Same thing with most of the Christian book websites that I knew about. Why I had not thought to look on Amazon earlier I don't know, but I finally found this wide-margin Cambridge KJV1611 bible that I absolutely love! No messy commentaries to confuse and distract you from God's Word and I have found that the non-red letter actually adds so much to my reading. I have been able to spot check a handful of the references in the middle column with pictures of original KJV1611 leaves and the cross references are also from the original KJV1611 (in addition to other cross references). The original text of the dedication from the translators to King James, AND 18 pages of commentary about the translation from the translators to the reader is included. (According to Cambridge, this letter to the readers was rarely printed after 1611). If you are serious about growing in your Christian walk and are a person who likes to write notes, then I would encourage you to consider purchasing this bible. My comments from here would just repeat what most other reviewers have said.

"The Thurber Carnival" was a beloved companion of my early youth; I laughed out loud again and again at the stories of "My Life and Hard Times," the hilarious "Fables for Our Time," "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty," and other classics. What was really important to me about Thurber was that he came from the same part of Ohio that I did, and actually had had relatives and attended family reunions in Sugar Grove, Ohio, where I grew up. That meant all the world to me, because it showed me that someone who had ties to Sugar Grove could be a famous writer. Now, I love Thurber's work more than ever; as an adult, I can better appreciate the nuances of a story like "The Catbird Seat." Thurber's work is a precise, funny, yet deeply serious portrait of an America which had just recently completed the transition from a frontier to an urban society. Women, having just won the right to vote, were flexing new-found muscles; men, divorced from the need to wrest a living from the soil, felt suddenly unmoored and emasculated; a new breed of self-help authors arose to make a quick buck from the newly uncertain populace; and oceans of alcohol fueled the newly stirred resentments between the sexes.Thurber recorded it all, in a prose style as elegant and lucid as any in the history of American literature. "The Catbird Seat," "Fables for Our Time" and the self-help parodies of "Let Your Mind Alone!" are every bit as fresh and pertinent as when Thurber wrote them 60-odd years ago. Unfortunately, some aspects of his work--most glaringly his portrayal of African-Americans--have not stood up so well. But one can only say of Thurber what the Duc de Saint-Simon said of Louis XIV: "His virtues were his own, his faults were his times'." The best of James Thurber ranks with the best of Mark Twain, Ring Lardner, Woody Allen and any other American humorist you can name.

James Thurber is undoubtably one of America's greatest writers ever. "The Thurber Carnival" is an brilliant collection of his works.

I was introduced to Thurber's works two years ago,by a short story of his that was included in my English textbook. I was instantly charmed by his writing. Ever since, I have read everything of Thurber's that I can get my hands on. Through my readings, I have discovered several key things:

1. James Thurber was NOT just a humorist/satirist. Of course, I have stayed up late reading his stories laughing out loud, yet there is more to the stories. Thurber not only chronicled people of his time, but people of all times. His works show that the little eccentricities most people possess are the very things that make them interesting. Take this excerpt from the story "Recollections of the Gas Buggy", included in "The Thurber Carnival":

'Years ago, an aunt of my father's came to visit us one winter in Columbus, Ohio. She enjoyed the hallucination, among others, that she was able to drive a car. I was riding with her one December day when I discovered, to my horror, that she thought the red and green lights on the traffic signals had been put up by the municipality as a gay and expansive manifestation of the Yuletide spirit. Although we finally reached home safely, I never completely recovered from the adventure, and could not be induced, after that day, to ride in a car on holidays.'

2. That excerpt brings me to my next discovery: James Thurber had quite a way with words, which to my knowledge, no author since has been able to near. Thurber's words transport you to another world, an amazing world, where everyone even slightly insane is portrayed with kindly satire. The character Briggs Beall, from the story "The Night the Bed Fell," is a perfect example of Thurber's wit.

3. An additional point I discovered is that Thurber's works need to be shared. I treasure this book so much that I brought it with me as traveled to Nebraska to visit my friend, just so I could read parts of it aloud to her. Whether it is a driving adventure with a Russian boat specialist("A Ride With Olympy"), an amusing maid("What Do You Mean It Was Brillig?"), or the light bulb smashing Elliot Vereker("Something to Say"), Thurber's stories need to be shared.

For these reasons, as well as others, "The Thurber Carnival" is a most wonderful book. James Thurber's writing is nearly magical, as well as his characters. This is a great book to pick up again and again, if only to read one of its great stories.

I grew up with this book. First published in the mid-40s, it lived in the center of a built-in bookcase over my father's desk in the family room, and I was drawn to it time and time again during my childhood.

At first, I was convulsed by Thurber's uniquely hilarious cartoons. His dogs and his women are priceless...drawn in a style that nobody has ever been able to duplicate or capture.

It was only later, as I grew older, that I could appreciate Thurber's written humor. The "Thurber Carnival" (and it is) is a compilation of essays and excerpts from "My World--and Welcome to It," "The Middle Aged Man on the Flying Trapeze," and others. These were Thurber's earlier works that were very much a product of their times, but oh, so funny! Thurber was one of the great commentators on the vagaries of everyday life. Along with Robert Benchly et al., he set the tone for an entire generation. I still have this book, and I absolutely cherish it. It's hard to do Thurber justice in a review. All I can say is--buy this book and wallow in it. You'll be glad you did.

I have dozens of books that I recommend to clients, and a few that I suggest to friends. There's only one I have given as a gift a half-dozen to a dozen times. This is it.

Hollis is an insightful therapist with a hopeful AND realistic perspective on mid-life and the difficulties that can beset us as we realize that "this is it", that we're not preparing for adulthood anymore, that we are there and better make something of it. He is also a gifted writer who can take Jungian theory and bring it down to earth, explaining it clearly without oversimplifying. (I'm more of a hard-nosed research-based cognitive-behavioural type myself, and I still think the book is brilliant.)

Best of all, he is a judicious self-editor. Too many self-help books have one idea that gets padded out to 300 pages. (In the process of writing one of my own, I came across dozens of bad examples.) Hollis is concise and clear. The text of the book is 117 pages, worth twice as much for being half as thick as he could have made it.

My suggestion: Buy it, read it, apply it, and then go buy copies for your mid-life friends' birthdays. On a selfish note, it's great not to be stuck for 40th birthday present ideas any more.

This short, superb book is one of the best works on midlife that I've ever read. Hollis is NOT offering simple answers or formulas; instead, he's making clear just how difficult but rewarding the Middle Passage (as he names it) can be. I especially appreciate his oft-repeated dictum that the goal of life isn't Happiness so much as it is Meaning. Isn't this perpetual struggle to find & grasp an elusive happiness precisely what gets so many of us tied up in knots? His insistence that we must be willing to go into our own dark places, that we must be willing to acknowledge & discard out illusions, is far better advice than most of the Self-Help industry offers ... and far more helpful. A book that provokes thought & reflection, this slim volume of inner treasure is highly recommended!

I had read several books on the midlife crisis/middle passage before I got this one, and after reading it, I realized that this book was the only one I ever needed to read. This book says much more about the middle passage than all the other ones I've read, and it does it more eloquently and in far fewer words.

If I had read this book a few years ago, the last few years of my life would've made a lot more sense and probably been much easier to go through. Every person, especially every man, should read this book as soon as they turn 30.

I'm an aspiring promoter and I found this book simply outstanding. This book gave me a vivid picture on how to put on a fund raising event. It was very easy to read and gives valuable information for organizations to build a fund raising concert. I really don't like to read and I found Mr Hollan's personal experiences very interesting. I was further intrigue by the planning and professionalism outline in each chapter. For anyone wishing to put on a fundraising concert, I highly recommend this book. Thanks Mr. Hollan for writing such a great book!

I love cher's concert book becouse i love her and i love her concerts.cher is a GREAT person to be a singer,a acter,and to make her own books. Cher was so luck do be married to Sonny.

The author dispenses a complete and concise guide that can be used by any organization in planning the benefit concert. The arrangement of chapters allows the committee to walk through the process knowing full well what is involved. Hollan's sense of humor is evident throughout the book and it is apparent that he has an uncanny ability to attend to detail without losing sight of the goal. Much of the book can be used by individuals or organizations in planning events other than concerts; his tips for dealing with sponsors and the media are very helpful. A great resource for any event planner!