As a counsellor, I have found many individuals discover "anticipating retirement" and "living in retirement" are two very different things. In the next ten years, I, too, will be "growing up" and facing this new chapter of my life. However, there are so many plans for my future, I only hope my health, financial resources and stamina will allow me to fulfill these ambitions. To me, retirement is like planting and tending a garden. First, one must plan carefully (you do not want to waste your precious years on activities that do not bring you joy and fulfillment.) Then, one should decide what plants (projects, hobbies, activities) to sow, not only to keep you physically active, but metally alert. Finally, one must lovingly tend that garden (nourish the soul, maintain physical health, and weed the emotional clutter from the past.) If you have lost a spouse, partner or soul-mate during this planting season, it is important to grieve, but it is equally important to know when to let go and when it is time to plant a new garden. Remember, time waits for no one. Only then, will one be prepared to start the next chapter of their life. We all need to have hopes, goals and dreams, no matter what our age.

In this book, the author points out the positive ways of dealing with change and how to plan and approach this new period in the lifecycle. Anyone approaching mid-life can certainly benefit from this book; it is never to soon to plan for the future. If you are already into your retirement years, this book may be just the inspiration you need if the years are not as challenging and fulfilling as you anticipated. The author has a lot to say on the subject and it is a great book based on sound advice.

As a mid-sixties professional who retired about five years ago from my own business,and then found myself in a true depression until I sought help, I found this book remarkably acute regarding the questions that I should have thought to ask myself, the planning I should have done, and the problems that would arise for me when I no longer had the structure of my working life to support me. Doctor Cantor's amazing understanding of the dynamics of retirement has helped me immeasurably to understand myself in what is an exciting but very complicated period, and her practical advice is advice I wish I had had before I retired!! I cannot imagine anyone approaching the later stages of life who would not benefit enormously from Dr. Cantor's insights and help. GET THIS BOOK!

Dr. Cantor has written a brilliant analysis of the fears of facing retirement, and how to plan for a meaningful life after work ends. I keep giving this book to friends who are looking for more for their anticipated leisure than bridge and golf. Dr Cantor outlines practical ways to figure out our strengths and interests to craft together a blueprint for the last third of our lives.

My therapist recommended we use this book to enhance my counseling sessions.

I found the format extremely useful. The fact that I had "homework" kept me focused on the spiritual and psychological growth that I was experiencing and greatly enhanced the counseling sessions.

This book is a wonderful addition to one on one counseling and it gives the client and the therapist faster access to blocked and problem areas.

I highly recommend its use.

I first read Co-Dependency: Powerloss Soulloss six years ago. At the time I thought it wouldn't apply to me, I was "done" with all that stuff. Was I surprised! This book has been invaluable to me in continuing to build a stronger self. In the intervening years, I have reread Co-Dependency a number of times, and have never failed to discover something new. I have also given it to a number of friends who have found it as wonderful and helpful as I have.

Usually a self-help book is either an aid to meditation or a workbook. CODEPENDENCY: PowerLoss SoulLoss by Dorothy May is both. Pages on the right side of the text seem basically explanational on first reading. Deceptively simple. However, I returned to them again and again as I engaged myself with the exercises on the left side of the text. These are guides to writing or drawing ramifications of the ideas in the reader's own life. Thus, the book incorporates a journal. "What an ingenius system!" I found myself thinking; The explanation circles around from my logical, reasoning brain into the intuitive part of me that explores my own psyche and then back to the explanation for a deeper understanding.

I wonder how many such circles I shall make before the binding wears out.

Two friends who recently saw the book on my coffee table pounced upon it and immediately resolved to purchase a copy themselves.

Cheryl Dumesnil was one of my professors in college. I have not read this book yet, but based on her abilities as a teacher, I am totally looking forward to reading it.

Addonizio's and Dumesnil's anthology on writings on tattoos is a great collection of work. You can't go wrong with the writings inside.

There is some great (and at times surprising) fiction inside, which includes: an excerpt from Ray Bradbury's The Illustrated Man, Kafka's "In the Penal Colony," Sylvia Plath's story "The Fifteen Dollar Eagle," and Flannery O'Connor's "Parker's Back." O'Connor is always a joy to read, and this story is an especially good one. There's even a piece from Herman Melville (selected from Typee). Steve Vender has a most interesting piece on meeting one of the gang members he is to defend--this is a fascinating piece. And there are also vignettes scattered throughout where people discuss their tattoos, as well as other pieces of fiction.

And there's poetry by Thom Gunn, Kim Addonizio, Bob Hicok, Mark Doty, Cheryl Dumesnil, J.D. McClatchy, Tony Hoagland, Brenda Hillman, Laura A. Goldstein, Garnett Kilberg Cohen, Michael Waters, Joseph Millar, Katharine Whitcomb, Eliot Wilson, Bruce Bond, Virginia Chase Sutton, Lissette Mendez, Dzvinia Orlowsky, and Denise Duhamel.

Not only does it look impressive, it reads very, very well. I'm not surprised that Addonizio put together such a strong selection of work. I can't think of any other person who would have been more suited to this type of anthology. It's a great collection, one I'm sure everyone would enjoy reading.

Even if you are not a fan of, or have any tattoos, you cannot help immersing yourself in the assembled writings. The editors have done a great job. I found it hard to put this one down. Fascinating subject, fascinating writing. If you appreciate great writing, you'll love this book. You may even decide to go out and get your own tattoo.

Dorothy's Stormy Lake describes the life of an Englishwoman and her husband and their young daughter in the remote Kootenay Bay of British Columbia. Dorothy's story goes well beyond mere descriptions of surviving in the wilderness to a picture of a young woman of wit and wisdom.

Dorothy's experiences illicit a wisdom which is timeless and universal. While an inquiring mind can discern many lessons from her writing, one of the most interesting to me was the notion of community-building. Toward the middle of the book we realize that Dorothy has successfully laid the foundation for her marriage and is preparing to lay the foundation for her young child. Through her activities, which she shares in her journal, we see how she is also building a strong foundation for the community of neighbors. Her attitude and activities in building relationships are as important and relevant today as they were in the remote wilderness in the 1930s. She lives and describes a universal truth about successful living. She writes, "We must live with the spirit of neighborliness uppermost...And it all begins at home."

Dorothy's words caused me to think and to reflect and to examine my own life. A good read, indeed.

The author, Joan Wooliver, is my aunt, by marriage. I had heard about the book, and, based on what I had heard, I wanted to read it, to perhaps learn more about my aunt and the environment in which she was raised. I was not disappointed. "Dorothy's Stormy Lake" is the story of a near modern-day pio-neering family, set in Canada's British Columbia province in the early 1930s. Dorothy, a world traveler and teacher, living comfortably in San Francisco, gives it all up to live in a beautiful, but demanding, environment. Without electricity, candles supply light. Without natural gas or oil, wood supplies heat. Water comes from carrying buckets filled at the lake (Lake Kootenay). Roads do not exist; travel to buy supplies or visit friends is by boat to another part of the lake. This is life lived close to the earth. Yet, throughout the book, the hardship of living "off the grid" is downplayed, and the joy of life is celebrated. Dorothy learns to preserve meats, fruits, and vegetables. As time progresses, power is derived from flowing water in a creek, and water from the creek is pumped to the house. The time frame is during the Depression, yet, there is little reference to this economic debacle, other than an occasional mention of the public works for married men (10 days a month) to build a road into the region. For the most part, people get by; they raise fruits and vegetables, some raise chickens (for eggs to eat, and sell), some raise cattle (for milk to drink, and to slaughter). Through it all, Dorothy is mostly optimistic, describing everyday life in her letters. While one might think that a description of "everyday life" would be mundane, this is far from the reality of this book. I found it difficult to lay the book down; reading Dorothy's narration of her experiences was compelling. And, yes, I gained a better sense of my aunt and the environment in which she was raised. I highly recommend this book for its description of present age pioneering and for its facile and powerful read.

Dorothy's Stormy Lake is a great read on several levels. First, it is a great read because it paints such a vivid picture of rural life in the 1930s. From its account of the endless work associated with obtaining, preparing, and preserving food, to its warm depiction of the simple joy of listening to a radio, this book puts the reader right in the heart of a pioneer family's life.

Second, it is a great read because of the author's delightful writing style. Did ordinary people really used to write that well?!

Finally, Dorothy's Stormy Lake is a great read because of Dorothy's unwaveringly positive outlook. What a joy it is to read an author who loves life so completely. Despite having started out in a life of privilege and refinement, Dorothy embraces the hardships of her new life with enthusiasm and a sense of both wonder and adventure. This book is a great reminder of the wisdom of the old saying "life is what you make of it." Most of us would be well served by following Dorothy's example of paying attention to life's small pleasures and looking for (and finding) the best in everyone and everything.

On the book jacket it states that Dorothy wrote in her journal for many more years and that Joan Wooliver will be publishing those papers at a later date. I certainly hope that she is busy with that project because I can't wait to rejoin Dorothy in her life on her stormy lake.

A great read!

I have read several of Dorothy Garlock's books and this is definitely one of her best. This is a romance set in the days of the American Wild West. The heroine, Victoria McKenna, is appalled to discover that her devious half-brother has illegally sold the family ranch, deeded to Victoria in their father's will, to the hero, Mason Mahaffey, and his rather large family of younger siblings. While awaiting the outcome of the legal dispute over the property, the Mahaffey's take up residence at the McKenna Ranch. They soon discover that the ranch is a resting spot for various vagrants,and possible criminals, all of whom are welcome to rest, lodge, and eat with no questions asked at the McKenna Ranch, a precedent set by the Victoria's deceased father to prevent getting gunned down. A relationship develops between the main hero/heroine couple of Victoria and Mason, as well as the extremely well depicted romance between Mason's sister Nellie and one of the vagrant cowboys,Sage, who has a secret troubled past. It was actually the secondary character's romance that was especially endearing and had me reading page after page to find out what would happen to them. The story has plenty of action and adventure,a nasty villain, as well as danger and mystery. A very good story with lots of fun, humor, and touching romance. A keeper.

I know I say this with each and every Dorothy Garlock book that I read... but this is the best one yet!!! I think this is my all time favorite book!!! I just couldn't put this book down!!!

Mason purchases Victoria's ranch from her brother, while in England. However, the ranch was not for her brother to sell, as it was left in a last minute will to Victoria. Nevertheless, Mason shows up with the right paperwork, and deed of sale - and the will Victoria has that her father made out before he died, hasn't been recorded until she brings it in to her lawyer's office. The will was witnessed by an employee at the ranch, and although it appears to be valid as well... Victoria and Mason must wait out the lawyer's research to find out who actually has the right to the property. Only both Victoria and Mason understand that possession is nine-tenths of the law, so Mason refuses to stay anywhere but the ranch until things are settled.

In the meantime, Mason brings his two sisters and three brothers to the ranch... which further upsets Victoria, watching her home be taken over by this big family. The family, determined to be together, and Victoria determined to be alone... all have some sacrifices to make.

It's a fun story to read, with these strangers being forced on each other... all trying to claim their legal property, but finding much more than a new home. That's not all to the story, like classic Garlock quality, the story is full of gunshot wounds, villians and outlaws, and danger lurking from all corners.

I loved this book. The first time I read it, I could not put it down until I was finished, and I have read it many times since. I think Ms. Garlock develops her characters well. I can almost see them when I read the book. Victoria is a very independent woman with a definite soft side. Mason is a world - weary guy who just wants to settle down. The children and their suffering (unfortunately) is very real. This was the first Dorothy Garlock book I read and went on to read as many others as I could find - all of which were wonderful.

As far as I'm concerned, this book should probably receive three stars, instead of the four - but I just couldn't bring myself to do that. But that is only cause I love Dorothy Garlock's stories, and felt this one did not measure up to her usual quality. Nevertheless, this is a very good story, with a very unusual storyline that touches on some horrible family secrets, and how a stranger thrust into the middle of them copes as the secrets unravel. Without giving anything away, I'll stop here.

What surprised me was this is the story that people refer to as their favorite, when they speak of Dorothy Garlock books to me - and for the life of me, I can't understand why. Though this review sounds quite negative, don't let it influence your decision too much... as it is a very, very good book... just not Ms. Garlock's best, in my opinion. So, read it... and then tell me what you think of it!

This is the first Garlock book I read and it made me feel like I was actually there. It was one of the most beautiful love stories I had read and Dorothy made me see the west as it was at that time. I could almost taste the foods that were prepared and could see how difficult it was for women of the early west to survive. I own every book that was written by Dorothy Garlock.....she is the best!

Dorothy Garlock has written another wonderful book. This one looks at the family dynamics on a small farm in Missouri and the joy one woman brings into an abused family.

This is definitly heavier material than in most Garlock books but well worth it.

Very good book. A page turner chalk full of great ideas.

This is a very good book. It kept me very interested and I read it in a few days. It is full of stories and practical advice on how to speak.

I like Dale Carnegie's books that are published today. I recently discovered his textbook for public speaking, which could give Christians a deeper appreciation. It is called Public Speaking and Influencing Men in Business. It is worth borrowing through inter-library loan from your library or finding it at an auction. It gives you his complete text, and not the revision.

Sexual abuse of children by adults or other children is an ugly subject most of us would rather know nothing about...except statistics say it is at epidemic levels. In my experience, it is when those first inappropriate, almost casual, actions go unremarked ("It's just children being children!") & unstopped ("No harm done, they'll grow out of it!") that allows for the next & the next, & each successive instance of abuse will become more explicit & damaging. It ALWAYS does.

Dorothy M. Neddermeyer has put together a good primer on what sexual abuse is, how & how much it happens, what to look for, what to do when it happens, how to teach your children to watch out for themselves & how to build a bridge of trust upon which your children can report unwanted behavior.

IF I'D ONLY KNOWN... is an excellent handbook which everyone living & working with children needs to read & put into practice because it is a dangerous world out there & our children cannot protect themselves from older figures of "authority." & because the damage done by ignoring or pretending everything is ok has repercussions that bind child & adult into the dreadful cycle of doing unto others what has been done unto them.

The book's title says it all. While women can expect to know 75 percent of their attackers, the U.S. Department of Justice reports that 96 percent of rape victims under the age of 12 knew their attackers. While we might fear an attack on our children by strangers, Neddermeyer's work exposes the truth that your child is most likely to be sexually abused by the person you would least expect. Her book offers a step-by-step guide in teaching your child how to protect themselves from this heinous crime.

Brad Parker
Women's Self-Defense Institute

The sexual abuse of children can happen with most any youngster by most any adult but some children are especially vulnerable to being abused and some adults are particularly driven to violating them. Predatory adults threaten families and communities as safe havens and alert us to the need to be informed, vigilant, and clear about shielding children from harm. This timely guidebook is an important step in that direction by alerting parents, leaders, and caregivers to common dangers and calculated grooming that can threaten the well being of children in the home and community. This book is eminently practical and filled with a lot of common sense checks and reminders, the kind of guidance detail that can come from the author's experience as a therapist. With specific examples of how abuse occurs, the author expands her solid overview of the issues in the first half of the book. The last half is devoted to what to do concerns and checklists. This is a guide to prevention that includes also a nice bibliography for additional in-depth help.

Roman Paur
Executive Director
Interfaith Sexual Trauma Institute (ISTI)
www.csbsju.edu/isti
Founder
Faith Community Learning Resource (FCLR)
www.csbsju.edu/fclr

If you're off to Scotland in search of ancestral roots or the remains of them and want to travel the roads less taken, IN SEARCH OF ANCIENT SCOTLAND may prove useful. Gerald and Dorothy Ruzicki have collected material about Scotland from web sites and references guides (listed in an appendix section), and their own travel experiences, and created a somewhat unique guide.

The guide is organized into eight regions in Scotland and every site within each region is rated with 0-3 stars. The focus of the guide is historical places 5000 BC to 1700 AD, so Culloden Moor, for example, is not included in the 'Index of Sites'. Included selections are organized along a time line in an appendix so that if, for example, you only wanted to visit only Medieval places you could do so. Appreciative of the popularity of "Braveheart" the Ruzickis include a good deal of information about Stirling and Bannockburn and other locations associated with William Wallace and Robert the Bruce. Apparently, Stirling has much to recommend it beyond the 'Braveheart' connections, not the least of which is an easy drive from Glasgow or Perth.

What may be of great interest to the traveler with an "antiquarian" bent and plenty of time to drive to more remote areas, are ancient sites such as the 'Standing Stones of Callanish' (Calanais) that rival Stonehenge; 'Dun Trodden' and 'Dun Telve' in the Northwest Highlands; and 'Mousa Broch' that can only be reached by ferry across a temperamental sea. Later period sites closer to the central cities such as Jedburgh Abbey founded in 1138 by David I; Traquair built in 1107 AD and continuously inhabited since; or the ruins of Castle Tioram where Robert the Bruce once lived are also identified.

There are many interesting and useful books on Scotland, but if you're brave enough to travel independently and hankering to find ancient sites not always included in mainstream publications, check out this book. In addition to the "where to go" and "what to see", the Ruzicki's include much practical information about traveling independently, including a chapter on driving in Scotland.

I was so glad to have this useful book during my trip to Scotland! It has excellent descriptions, explanations, history, and stories for ancient monuments, most of which aren't covered in normal guide books. Without this book, I would have missed so many interesting places - never knowing there was a cairn right next to the road or megaliths in the next farmer's field! Plus, there are planning maps and excellent driving instructions, which you'll NEED for some hard-to-find sites!

We just returned from a visit to prehistoric sites in the Highlands of Scotland, Skye and Lewis. Of all the guidebooks we took along, this was by far the most helpful, with very accurate directions for finding the sites (many of which we would never have found without it!) and good descriptions of all the aspects of the sites as well. Don't even try to go there without it!

This is one of the most important feminist texts ever written. It's also, along with Mary Daly's "Beyond God the Father," one of the most neglected and underrated. Dinnerstein's influence, however, is far greater than the fame of this witty and intelligent but verbose and academic book: More than any one person, she's behind the idea of "Mr. Mom's," men who insist on equal involvement with women in the care of children.

Dinnerstein subverts the nuclear family like Daly subverts Christianity: Both writers expose the ugly misogyny at the core of old, venerable institutions. Dinnerstein was right to say the nuclear family of the mid-century was patriarchal and sexist. She is even right about the explanation for this, namely, that men are so humiliatingly indebted to women (who as mothers are their "first love, first witness, and first boss") that they grow up and say in effect "OK, now it's women's turn to feel inferior."

This is Dinnerstein's blazing truth: Women need to share their god-like maternal power, their be-all and end-all status in the eyes of helpless infants, toddlers, and children, if they are to escape the mutinous resentment this creates, resentment which later leads to adult male sexism.

But here is her glaring error: She assumes that as parents men and women play identical roles, that they raise children in a similar rather than complementary way. I think her ideas are like communism: good on paper but virtually unworkable in real life. Yes, many men since Dinnerstein wrote "The Mermaid and the Minotaur" in 1975 have taken a greater role in child-rearing (feeding, diapering, and singing lullabies) but usually they become their wives' junior partner rather than a coequal. This is because women for aeons have been slow-cooking the patience, compassion, and multi-tasking that parenting the very young requires. Men cannot just decide they're as skilled with babies and children as women are overnight, as a current film like Eddie Murphy's "Daddy Day Care" (2003) makes explicitly and hilariously plain.

I suspect that men have a different role in raising the young, one which ascends in importance as the mother's wanes. Masculinity, which has also been slow-cooking for aeons, is better suited than "sit still" femininity to an antsy, exploratory, risk-taking, lustful, transgressive lifestage called adolescence. It is here where men can make the best contribution to "child"-rearing, such as the mentoring of teen boys, which the Men's Movement has plaintively called for in the last 20 years.

Dinnerstein was right about one thing: Men and women deserve equal weight in the lives of the young. But since men and women are very different, even the opposite in some ways, we can expect their roles to be very different, even the opposite in some ways. Some of the best "fathers" I know exist outside of nuclear families, which tend anyway to turn adult males into bullies or eunuchs (or some strange combination of the two). These men are teachers, counselors, or simply "friends to the young." Their unfettered masculinity is a source of pride to themselves and excitement to their "sons" and "daughters."

If I don't agree with the conclusions of "The Mermaid and the Minotaur," why the solid 4-star review? Because this book is fiercely intelligent. Because it does the surprising, fusing Freud with feminism. Because of its unique organization: central text plus sidebars which develop certain thoughts further. Because it's a learned scientific text which is unafraid to call on the power of poetry. Because, except for her misplaced faith in a mass and permanent conversion to androgyny, Dinnerstein had it right: We need fathers.

I read this book twenty years ago when I was in college. I found (and still find) Dinnerstein's feminist argument for shared parenting to be one of those books that has the potential to change lives. She employs a variety of intellectual resources to make the case for a feminist social criticism that focuses on the dynamics of the nuclear family as the source of many, if not most, social problems. Her re-interpretation of Freud's work, and of the neo-Freudians who have moved beyond him (particularly Marcuse and Norman O. Brown) is sometimes difficult reading, but can with careful attention be followed even by those who have not waded through the original texts.

This is a book that combines crystalline prose and incisive rational argument with passion and emotion. She argues for nothing less than a radical restructuring of the human family, and of the social/economic relationships that undergird family life. The kernel of her argument is that so long as we all are raised (exclusively or predominantly) by our mothers or by female caregivers, children will grow up with a deep-seated resentment of the feminine (since no parent can perfectly anticipate a child's needs, and all children, in growing up, will be conditioned by our infantile rage at our parent's imperfections).

There's much more to it than this. I've read dozens of self-help and pop psychology books (think of Deborah Tannen and John Gray) which try to explain why males and females are the way they are; I've never read an analysis which goes as deeply as this one into a powerful and persuasive explanation of the role of sexuality in the formation of human character. If you read this book and pay attention, you will experience multiple shocks of recognition; you will suddenly understand your self and your relationships with the opposite sex in a new light; and you may even be persuaded to change the way you live your life and raise your children.

At the age of twenty, I was persuaded by Dinnerstein to be (when I did have kids) an active and equal participant in the raising of my children, from changing diapers to feeding and everything else. I was so convinced of the importance of her analysis, and of its potential to change lives, that I have, in the past few decades, bought and given away as gifts eighty-eight copies to male and female friends. (I figured that if I just told people what a great book it was, few would follow up, but that if I actually bought it and thrust it into their hands, they might be moved to actually read it.) I'm not sure how many of these were actually read by the recipients. But I can report that out of 88 copies given away, eight people came to me afterward and said something to the effect of, "This book changed my life." I think that's not a bad rate of return, especially when you consider that many people probably never got around to looking at it, or never had the patience to follow the argument through to the end.

One bit of advice: Dinnerstein frequently interrupts herself to continue lines of thought in footnotes, endnotes, and boxes which focus on various controversies, reviews of other authors, and parenthetical developments of the whole structure of her argument. It is worth your while to read this book through, if not on the first go-round, then at least once, in exactly the sequence she sets forth: that is, when you see a footnote, or a note saying "See Box F for further development of this point," stop the linear reading and follow her through all the eddies in the current of thought.

The book is a masterpiece of social criticism; a classic of feminist analysis; an important addition to the literature of psychoanalysis which rescues Freud for feminism; and a book that can change forever the way you view yourself, your relations with your partner, and your children.

I'm older and wiser now, and it remains to be seen how my children will benefit from growing up with a dad who changed their diapers, cooked for them, and took too long getting up in the middle of the night to attend to their needs. But I am convinced that this book is one of a handful which, if read and assimilated by everyone, would make the world a better place.

I'd second the reviews below. Dinnerstein also relates the fear of death to how women rule the infant's world and men the adult's world. Seem unrelated? Phrase "womb to tomb" captures it best perhaps.

I did not find her hard reading at all and I delighted in her sardonic humor, but another book that talks about similar issues, and in really nice prose, is Lillian B. Rubin's "Intimate Strangers: Men and Women Together." In a footnote of that, I discovered Dinnerstein. Anyway, I've never met anyone else who's read Dinnerstein--though I've pestered others to read it--so I'd be very glad to get email: snowden666@yahoo.com (for a character in Catch-22, but a lot of other people had the same idea).