Book Description
A new underwater investigation from the author of Swimming with the Dead...
Homicide detective Hannah Sampson has traded the Colorado Rockies for the sunnier climes of the British Virgin Islands. But a murdered tourist whose marriage may not have been all smooth sailing-and colleagues eager to sink her career-have left Hannah navigating the stormy waters of betrayal, greed, and murder as cold as the deep blue sea...
Customer Reviews:
Entertaining yet predictable, technical errors. .......2006-05-21
Dark Water Dive was a typical murder mystery & it was easy to figure out whodunit before the ending although the "why" had a nice twist. I would have liked to see al ittle more development of other characters in the book, specifically the boss & the love interest. The diving was well done except for a couple of technical errors that you wont notice if you arent a certified scuba diver. Easy beach read that wont tax your brain too much trying to remember alot of characters & plot twists...
You Had to Be There.......2005-08-21
This book is a must read for anyone who loves the British Virgin Islands. It goes very fast. The entire time you are reading your mind is actually in the islands. All the scenery is totally familiar and for a period of time you are enjoying your last vacation again.
Still Entertaining, But..........2005-06-09
Kathy Brandt has developed excellent characters and a strong sense of the British Virgin Islands in this second book in the series. However, as with her first, the mystery is a little thin. While still very entertaining and a must-read in my permanent library, I wish the author would stop revealing clues so early that the reader knows the solution before the main character. This one had a small twist that I knew was a clue but couldn't figure out; the rest was as clear as the Caribbean water.
Dark Water Dive Good Fun.......2004-10-27
Some books are made to take on a long plane or car trip. DARK WATER DIVE is one of them. The heroine, Hannah Sampson arrives in the British Virgin to take a job as an underwater investigator for the local police force. Ideally, she will escape the hideous crime scene she encountered regularly as a Denver officer. Of course, she promptly gets involved in a couple of murders, a bunch of robberies, and a dangerous dive into a cave off limits to tourists. While solving the crimes, she still finds time to romp on the beach, enjoy romance, make new friends, live on a sail boat, and play with her dog, Sadie.
A hot-shot young cop tries her patience when he drives the police boat full throttle, and an environmentalist gets into too many faces for her own good, forcing Hannah to keep watch on her.
All this action, set against the back drop of the British Virgin Islands makes a light and lively read. Ms. Brandt's experience as a skin diver adds a touch of reality to the book. She gives a good picture of diving procedures, and the sensaiton of diving, without boging the reader down in a technical manuel. She also talks about environmental issues and touches on mental illness. This adds depth to DARK WATER DIVE. The plot has plenty of twists and turns to keep the reder guessing whodun it. DARK WATER DIVE is perfect for the beach, the airport, or Saturday afternoon. I enjoyed it.
Plotting Needed Work, but an Enjoyable Story.......2004-08-09
Hannah Sampson has just moved down to the British Virgin Islands and taken a job with their police force. On her first day, she's sent to investigate a missing husband. She's sure he just spent the night with someone else, until his body turns up in the water with a bullet hole in his head. He doesn't seem to have any enemies. Furthermore, why would anyone want to kill a man on vacation?
When I read the first in the series, I complained about the characters. This time around, the characters seemed better, but the plot left much to be desired. It started off pretty slowly with some irrelevant things. There were two main sub-plots, one was under-developed and the other was over-developed and slowed down the main plot. In fact, it was just there to be preachy since the author admits at the end that it really isn't a problem in the BVI's. The main plot was enjoyable and had me confused for most of the book. I guessed the ending about 100 pages from the end and had to wait until Hannah could prove it to see if I was right. Even then, there was a twist I hadn't counted on.
This sounds harsh, but I really did enjoy the main storyline, characters, and setting. It's obvious the author loves the setting as she expertly brings the islands to life. I'm ready to hop a ship and spend some time sailing around them myself. This book is a great vacation read or a great read if you wish you were on an exotic vacation. Hopefully the author will perfect her plotting while continuing to bring the islands and their secrets to life.
Average customer rating:
- Surprisingly poignant!
- A very quick read, but not very engrossing
- One of Linda Howard's earlier novels - very enjoyable!
- Absolutely Awful
- I am starting to doubt amazon reviewers
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Almost Forever
Linda Howard
Manufacturer: Mira
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
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ASIN: 155166934X |
Book Description
He was the most fascinating man she'd ever met . . .
Claire Westerbrook found it hard to believe that Max Conroy was truly interested in her. Then she discovered he wasn't -- he just wanted information about her boss. Max was studying her company for a takeover and had decided the quickest way to make it happen was through her.
Now Claire wants nothing to do with a man who could deceive her with so little remorse. But Max isn't leaving Houston without acquiring everything he wants. And that includes Claire . . .
Customer Reviews:
Surprisingly poignant!.......2006-08-14
Afetr reading the reviews, I wasn't expecting much, but, I was in for a pleasant surprise! This seems to be one of Linda Howard's earlier works and considering that, the story was very engrossing and highly sensual. Max was incredibly hot and his passion and possessiveness for Claire just seemed perfect to me. This is one book romance lovers should not miss out on because you just might love this very tender yet sensual read!
A very quick read, but not very engrossing.......2006-03-29
This book was OK. Maybe that is all I should say about it. Max Benedict was a character to fall in love with, the type of "friend" every girl wishes she had. Max Conroy...well, he left me a little cold. He seemed the type of charmer that sweeps you off your feet in the beginning, but when you take a closer look, that charm is just a practice in being overbearing. Claire was intriguing at first; the way she carried herself during the "accidental" meeting at the party was great. But then...she was too judgemental, too naive, too wishy-washy...too cliched to be identifiable. (if EVERYONE can identify with a character in ONE way, the character quickly becomes infeasible)
There wasn't much in the way of passion in this book, either. Even without the scenes themselves, which surprised me as being very tame for Linda Howard, I never really felt that much of a connection between the two. I was never rooting for them (or booing at them, as in the case of Faith and Gray in After the Night). It just seemed so, blah.
I don't know. I've liked most of the Linda Howards books that I have read, but the more I read (going both earlier and later in her career), the more cliched they seem. The characters are always very similar. The situations very cut and paste. The woman is either slightly pretty or gorgeous, and the man is a pretty piece of eye candy who has been with tons of women, and can't understand why this one (who is often plain) moves him that way. The woman usually resists, making her more attractive, and the man often deceives her, but wins her back at the end.
Bottom line is that Howard fans will probably read it, but if it is your first jump into her novels, I would pick something else first (Kiss me before I sleep, after the night, Dying to please, to die for...)
One of Linda Howard's earlier novels - very enjoyable!.......2006-02-04
ALMOST FOREVER is a much earlier contemporary novel by Linda Howard about two people who find love amidst a tangled web of corporate lies and deception.
Max Conroy is an executive at Spencer-Nyle, a corporate conglomerate who has set its sight on acquiring Bronson Alloys. Yet not having learnt anything about their latest acquisition target, Max's boss thinks that they may have found the small company's weak link in the form of the owner's secretary - Claire Westbrook. And so with his model looks and seductive charm, Max's boss decides to send him to Houston to befriend Claire.
Having avoided the Houston society for five years after her divorce from her husband, Claire finally relents and attends a huge party. Until she gets there and finds that it was a cruel joke. Hoping to salvage her dignity, she never thought that her knight in shining armor would come in the form of the handsomest man she has ever laid her eyes on. And when "Max Benedict" proves himself insistent on courting her, Claire's defences melt.
But what happens when she finds out the truth about Max? How will she cope after having just managed to turn her life around after losing her baby just shortly before her husband divorced her?
After reading Linda Howard's more recent novels, I was eager to read this book to see what her earlier work was like. Well let me say that regardless of the 3.5 stars, I enjoyed reading this book very much. While other thought that this was a mediocre book, then let me say that Linda Howard's mediocre job is better than other authors' good novels. I liked both Max and Claire. As typical Howard hero, he is an alpha-male, but despite his arrogance, I felt the sincerity in his guilt about hurting Claire and his desperation to repair the damage he has dealt her by his deception. We see him torn between his loyalty to his company and his growing feelings for her. As for Claire, some readers might find her weak because of her insecurities and self-doubt, but having read of what she has gone through, I couldn't help but empathize with her. And the fact that Max knows why Claire has built a wall around her as a form of self-preservation, and how he longs to break it and nourish her with love was the best part of the story. I really enjoyed this story and my only gripe is the rushed ending and just the overall fact that it isn't long enough.
Absolutely Awful.......2005-11-28
I generally love Linda Howard books, but this one was not even close. I'm not sure what book some of the reviewers read, but it wasn't the same as the one I paged thru. I found the book to be basically trite from page one all the way to the end. Everything was embelished and quite frankly the lead characters disgusted me. I'll think long and hard before I buy a Linda Howard novel again.
I am starting to doubt amazon reviewers.......2005-11-21
I get so frustrated when I base my choice of purchase on Amazon's public reviews and it ends up completely the opposite of what the reviews reflected-especially when it comes to romance novels. Most of my orders on Amazon have been 80% romance novels and frankly I am starting to doubt if these reviewers know what constitutes as a bad, good, or an incredible romance story.
This was an incredible romance story and the best Linda Howard I have read so far (I have not read all of them but I have read a lot of her books).
I am an old-fashioned romance fan: I love a deep, heart-wrenching story that clings with you for a long time and makes you want to read the book again and again; I want deep, complex, and real characters with real human problems that plague the opposite sexes into heart stopping moments of intense emotions. I melt with hot and steamy sex scenes that add to the layers of complexity to the hero and heroine's turmoil and joy. And I feel Howard gave me that in Almost Forever and more.
Other than Judith Mcnaught's novels, I hardly ever get that heart-aching feeling every time the hero and heroine come into contact with each other- verbally, mentally, physically, or emotionally. However, Howard succeeded in doing exactly that in this novel and I really cannot ask for anything more.
I get so tired from these crazy so-called romances that are inundated by pathetic suspense story lines, laugh-out-loud antics that diminish the romance so completely you become more interested in the comedy, side characters that become more interesting than the main characters or become frustrated in reading these unimportant characters in the first place, gratuitous sex scenes to fill the pages or hardly enough sex scenes that leave you irritated; and most of all I am tired of dungeons and dragons, witches and warlocks, vampires and immortals, aliens and alien planets....you get my point.
If you share my opinion, pick up this book and do not bother with the paltry review this wonderful novel undeservedly received. The plot is pretty simple: Max is hired as an undercover "spy" from the company he works for in order to find out if the small business company they are interested in taking over is being threatened by a foreign take-over. Claire happens to be the boss's secretary in that small company and Max is assigned to get to know her in order to obtain valuable information. But do not be fooled by the premise, this novel is 90% character based and Claire was one of the most realistically portrayed heroine I have ever read with real insecurities and vulnerabilities that are reflected in so many women in real relationships that are not covered up by temper tantrums and ridiculous verbal abuse- like so many other heroines are portrayed these days.
Forget the reviews and PICK THIS UP TODAY!
Average customer rating:
- Would have made good short stories.
- With delicacy, sensitivity and extraordinary imagination.
- Almost Forever
- Beautiful!
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Almost Forever
Maria Testa
Manufacturer: Candlewick
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 0763633666
Release Date: 2007-02-13 |
Book Description
"Rapt readers don’t need to know anything about Vietnam to understand love, loss, fear, and waiting. A tour de force." — KIRKUS REVIEWS (starred review)
When the six-year-old narrator of this lyric novel watches her father march off to serve a year in the U.S. Army Medical Corps, a year seems like a very long time. A year is a long time when you’re waiting for letters, waiting for word. A year is almost forever when you’re wondering . . .and forgetting. Maria Testa has written a taut and tender American ballad of one family’s experience in the year 1968 — an ultimately heartening novel that has much to say to a new generation of readers.
Customer Reviews:
Would have made good short stories........2006-04-21
Maria Testa, Almost Forever (Candlewick, 2003)
First off: the sentiment that lies behind these pieces is not a bad one, certainly. This probably would have made a good book of short stories (or, god help us, this decade's literary buzzword: "flash fiction"). When reading a book of poems, a reader should be looking at the sentiment behind the pieces last of all.
Why? Because writing, and poetry more so than most writing, only starts off being about the conveyance of sentiment-- or ideas, or feelings, or anything else. Reading solely from the perspective of gleaning the sentiment, the ideas, the feelings, etc. is not a bad thing-- after all, if you're reading for pleasure at all, you're still ahead of the game-- but you may not be realizing what you're missing.
I'm not talking about all that stuff they told you in English class when you were in high school about symbolism, deeper meanings, that sort of thing. That's all analysis that you do consciously. And while deep reading makes that sort of analysis easier, I'm talking about something even deeper: the way you experience reading on an instinctual level, how you read subconsciously. How you feel the words, rather than simply how you process them.
No book has ever conveyed a feeling perfectly, and certainly not to every person. However, some books, without doubt, convey feelings better than other books to the vast majority of people who read them. Think about the enduring significance of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. Whether or not you're a fan of Shakespeare's, you have to admit that four hundred years after its premiere, Romeo and Juliet has stood the test of time; snatches of its dialogue have been cultural touchstones for the idea of forbidden love for centuries. Now compare it with the flash in the pan that was Robert Gover's The Hundred-Dollar Misunderstanding. This, too, was a piece of writing about forbidden love. It has been out in the wild for about a tenth of the time that Romeo and Juliet has, and there are, perhaps, as many people alive in the world today who remember it as there are number of dollars mentioned in the title (and I can guarantee you at least one of us does not remember it with anything approaching fondness). Why has Romeo and Juliet endured and The Hundred Dollar Misunderstanding died a relatively quick and painful death? Because of the way in which each is written, more than anything. Romeo and Juliet is full of insight into affairs of the human heart. It's witty, clever, it coined some phrases the we still use in common speech. It presents its young lovers as Everyman and Everywoman and surrounds them with a strong cast of supporting players; no one who has ever read the Nurse can forget her. Shakespare tells his story by telling his story; while his characters are wont to pause and explain a point or two now and again, the amount of time spent explaining points compared to the amount of time telling the story is small. (Compare to, say, Moby-Dick, in which a full, and horrible, third of the book is devoted to stopping plot for advancing theme-- one of the single most unreadable passage in the history of literature. But I digress, and as I'm already inside a lengthy digression... but I digress. Again.) The Hundred Dollar Misunderstanding first makes the mistake of being half-told in thick, garbled dialect, and is fully concerned with relating the events as they're being reflected upon by the participants. (Yes, folks, nothing actually happens in this book, we're just told about it.) When you stop and reflect on something that's happened to you, what do you do? You editorialize in your head. Of course you do; this is human nature, the mind's way of attaching significance to memory. What this style of presentation allows an author is a way for said author to also editorialize. This leads to the "message novel," where the author, believing you are an uneducated imbecile, will assume that you are incapable of understanding anything presented subtly, and proceed to ram his points home with all the style and grace of someone hammering a dead mackerel into your eye with a rubber mallet. Romeo and Juliet, to get back to the original point of this never-ending paragraph, is a play that allows its viewer to feel what Romeo and Juliet are going through; The Hundred Dollar Misunderstanding is a book that is quintessentially incapable of making its readers feel anything but annoyance and disgust with its writer that he could have produced such forgettable, inane, unreadable tripe.
"What does all this have to do with a young adult book of poetry?", you're likely asking yourself. Well, it's a very long way of saying that some forms of writing are more effective than others. Writers down through the ages have identified effective ways to write-- things one can do that heighten the conveyance of emotion to the maximum number of readers. And while it's an easy enough thing to list them, it's more effective to point them out. Consider:
"Mama was listening
carefully
to the news
on the radio
as she drove,
and raindrops were
drumming
loudly
on the roof
of our car,
and my brother was humming."
(--"Backseat Conversation")
First off, adverbs (here, "carefully" and "loudly") are widely, and correctly, considered weak words: they're easy to throw in and convey their feeling in the laziest of ways. Can you think of a better way to say "carefully" or "loudly"? Of course you can. Second, putting a single word on a line gives that word a sense of great importance in a poem; being set off by itself, a single word on a line requires great weight, often being the crux of the poem. (This is a great way to get one's point across subtly, by the way.) In this case, in a single strophe of this poem, we have three single-line words. How important can any one of them be? (And two of them, to top it off, are adverbs.)
Most importantly, perhaps, is the prose test. Take the poem and rewrite it as prose. If it does not lose any of its power being presented as prose, what you have is not a poem:
"Mama was listening carefully to the news on the radio as she drove, and raindrops were drumming loudly on the roof of our car, and my brother was humming."
What you have is a run-on sentence.
The book jacket calls Almost Forever "...a taut and tender American ballad...". First off, "ballad" is a particular style of poem, not a synonym for "poem." And were this actually a ballad, which involves a strict rhythm and rhyme scheme, it might well have been a better book. That it is tender is not something that can be disputed (and shouldn't be); "taut," on the other hand, is very much a function of form, and here the book fails. The single passage quoted above should be more than enough of an example of why, for the reasons stated.
Testa has good raw material to work with, but these poems are first drafts. They have the potential to be extremely effective, but at this point, potential is all they have. **
With delicacy, sensitivity and extraordinary imagination........2004-07-01
It is Christmas time in 1967 and a family is decorating the Christmas tree. Out of the blue a letter arrives telling the family that "Daddy" must serve in Vietnam as a doctor to the soldiers fighting there. Christmas seems to disappear. In fact, the warmth of life seems to vanish and is replaced with "Do Not" signs and worry for Daddy.
Each small chapter tells a story about what that year was like, as seen through the eyes of a child. The young narrator and her brother observe so many small things that an adult probably would miss. For example, the children notice that all of Daddy's army things are green. The brother asks his sister "What's not your favorite color?" to which she answers "Green." They hate the color that is taking their father from them.
As we read the short 'pictures' of that lonely year, we get a feel for the family's daily life. For the two children and their mother, the highlight of their days becomes reading Daddy's letters. The letters are their way of knowing that he is safe and doing well. For their mother the newsman on television becomes someone special because he gives her news about what is happening in Vietnam. Sometimes, when the family goes to the park to play, they see demonstrators there. These are the kinds of things that happen from day to day and from week to week.
But then normality and routine cease and Daddy is declared "missing." What follows is a dreadful time. Testa takes us into the hearts and souls of this terrified family and we can only sit on the edge of our seats and hope. We are able to feel the suffering and despair of this family and understand how war is the servant of generals and the heartbreak of civilians.
With delicacy, sensitivity and extraordinary imagination, Testa once again proves herself to be an exceptional wordsmith and has created a book that could be telling the story of any family, at any time, living through any war.
--- Reviewed by Marya Jansen-Gruber (mjansengruber@mindspring.com)
Almost Forever.......2004-04-23
I liked this book for many reasons,but I wont talk about all of them.I liked this book because it was short. Almost Forever was only 69 pages.The book was about a dad that goes to vietnam and leaves his family behindand this is another reason I liked this book , it makes you relize what life without a dad is like.This book talks about what the children think and since I am a child I thought that was interesting.
The worst part of amost forever was when they talked about the old man at the second window giving them lollipops .I didnt think that was very important it had nothing to do with the theme of the story.
The most vivid part of this bookwas when the little girl was saying how her brother would kiss the picture of their dad until you couldnt see his face anymore.Another vivid part was when the little girl was asking her brother if he thought their dad knew what they were doing.The brother would always say no bout the little girl just kept asking more and more questions.
Beautiful!.......2003-12-31
I was intrigued by this book's cover and quite touched by the excerpt on the back, but I didn't read it until a coworker told me how much she enjoyed it. I was surprised and delighted to find a children's book written in verse; children get too little exposure to poetry these days, it seems.
This little story could have easily been sappy and overly sentimental, but it is not. It is truthful and affecting. I like the way the lines are put together, the imagery used and the raw emotions conveyed with such touching understatement. I think this is an excellent read for children and adults.
Average customer rating:
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Flowers Are Almost Forever
Libbey Oliver
Manufacturer: Brandylane
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
General | Antiques & Collectibles | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books
Dried Flowers | Crafts & Hobbies | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books
Flower Arranging | Crafts & Hobbies | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 1883911354 |
Book Description
Breathe longevity into your cut flowers! This handbook teaches the latest techniques to extend the life of cut flowers. In easy-to-follow steps, learn how to cut and care for garden and florist flowers. Understand why certain techniques work. Gain the courage to try new flowers. Consult the extensive reference chart for garden and florist flowers and the useful lists of products and information sources. In one simple reference tool, Libbey Oliver has gathered the most practical, up-to-date information for gardeners and flower lovers.
Average customer rating:
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ALMOST FOREVER.
Manufacturer: Parragon
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: 0752500821 |
Average customer rating:
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ALMOST FOREVER
KAREN HARPER
Manufacturer: PARRAGON
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000S96I2M |
Average customer rating:
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Almost Forever
Karen Harper
Manufacturer: Jove
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
General | Romance | Subjects | Books
General | Contemporary | Romance | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0515106445 |
Average customer rating:
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Almost Forever
Linda Howard
Manufacturer: Harlequin Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
ASIN: B000HLN8G0 |
Book Description
This digital document is an article from New York Times Upfront, published by Thomson Gale on January 30, 2006. The length of the article is 2340 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
Citation Details
Title: Locked away forever: almost 10,000 Americans are serving life sentences for crimes they committed before they turned 18.(NATIONAL)
Author: Adam Liptak
Publication:
New York Times Upfront (Magazine/Journal)
Date: January 30, 2006
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 138
Issue: 9
Page: 8(7)
Distributed by Thomson Gale
Book Description
This digital document is an article from Tooling & Production, published by Nelson Publishing on June 1, 1999. The length of the article is 975 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
Citation Details
Title: PCDs are almost forever.(Brief Article)
Author: David Huddle
Publication:
Tooling & Production (Magazine/Journal)
Date: June 1, 1999
Publisher: Nelson Publishing
Volume: 65
Issue: 3
Page: 73
Article Type: Brief Article
Distributed by Thomson Gale
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A Soul in Search of Purpose
Don H. Miller
Manufacturer: PublishAmerica
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
General
| Fantasy
| Science Fiction & Fantasy
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| Fiction
| Religion & Spirituality
| Subjects
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ASIN: 1413770673 |
Book Description
Is Greg Miles immortal? When he died, his soul transferred to the body of a younger man, Klaus Hauptmann, who had recently died. The body revived, and Greg lived on as Klaus. Then Klaus died, and it happened again. Now in his third reincarnation as Enrico Ramos, Greg must come to terms with a new life and new family and friends. How does he integrate this life with his past lives? Who does he tell about himself? And finally, there is the question of his purpose. Why has God given him this immortality? The answer seems especially important in this life because he has been given powers that he did not have as Greg or Klaus. The reason that is eventually revealed to him is beyond anything that he had imagined and requires him to reveal his secret and take on an unexpected role in the world.
Amazon.com
Author Simon Weisenthal recalls his demoralizing life in a concentration camp and his envy of the dead Germans who have sunflowers marking their graves. At the time he assumed his grave would be a mass one, unmarked and forgotten. Then, one day, a dying Nazi soldier asks Weisenthal for forgiveness for his crimes against the Jews. What would you do? This important book and the provocative question it poses is birthing debates, symposiums, and college courses. The Dalai Lama, Harry Wu, Primo Levi, and others who have witnessed genocide and human tyranny answer Wiesenthal's ultimate question on forgiveness.
Book Description
While imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp, Simon Wiesenthal was taken one day from his work detail to the bedside of a dying member of the SS. Haunted by the crimes in which he had participated, the soldier wanted to confess to--and obtain absolution from--a Jew. Faced with the choice between compassion and justice, silence and truth, Wiesenthal said nothing. But even years after the way had ended, he wondered: Had he done the right thing? What would you have done in his place?
In this important book, fifty-three distinguished men and women respond to Wiesenthal's questions. They are theologians, political leaders, writers, jurists, psychiatrists, human rights activists, Holocaust survivors, and victims of attempted genocides in Bosnia, Cambodia, China and Tibet. Their responses, as varied as their experiences of the world, remind us that Wiesenthal's questions are not limited to events of the past. Often surprising and always thought provoking,
The Sunflower will challenge you to define your beliefs about justice, compassion, and human responsibility.
Customer Reviews:
Gets you thinking.......2007-08-25
A wonderful short story of 100 pages, written very well. The opinions of all the commentators afterwards on Wiesenthals dilemma is very intriguing. This book gets you involved, and could be the best book ever written on the topic of forgiveness. You just can't help but think deeply about the author's decision to forgive, and also about forgiveness in your own life.
Wonderful book!.......2007-08-13
This book is a must for anyone who wants to understand the mortal dilemas which affected those who suffered so much from the violence of the holocaust. Amazing that ther author was able to retain his huaminity in the face of such evil, and a testament to his moral character.
The Sunflower.......2007-02-19
This book focuses on a cogent question by way of a true story and invites response from all sorts of people with pertinent experience, providing biographies of these respondents. The topic is forgiveness. I found the analysis by Dennis Prager, an L.A. talk show host, the most understanding of Christian/Jewish outlooks and Jose Hobday's perhaps the best of the Christian contributions. I am eager to discuss it with members of my theology group.
A must read on forgiveness.......2007-02-14
The title of the book comes from the tall, bright sunflowers placed upon the German soldier's graves who are buried just outside the concentration camp where the Jewish prisoners must pass daily on their way to work projects. Each grave had one "as straight as a soldier on parade . . . . " The tall golden flowers stand in contrast to the unmarked, unidentifiable mass graves, in which most of the prisoners will end up
.
This revised edition was issued in honor of the twentieth anniversary of its publication. It is divided into two sections: an extraordinary request to Simon for forgiveness by a dying 21 old SS man and the 53 responses (ten from the original volume) from prominent theologians, political leaders, writers, jurists, psychiatrists, human rights activists, Holocaust survivors, and victims of attempted genocides in Bosnia, Cambodia, China, and Tibet. Their answers reflect the teachings of their diverse beliefs - Jewish, Christian, Buddhist, Muslim, secular, and agnostic - and remind us that Wiesenthal's question is not limited to events of the past. Certainly there are fundamental lessons that are as essential today as they were 60 years ago.
Who can forgive crimes committed against others asks Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, one of the most significant Jewish theologians of the 20th century.
Are there any similarities between the national guilt faced by the German people for the Holocaust and ours for the institution of slavery and the genocide of Native Americans wonders Martin E. Marty, religious scholar and Lutheran Pastor.
Are followers in committing atrocities as guilty as their leaders inquires Dith Pran, photographer and subject of the film, "The Killing Fields," about Cambodian genocide.
Is silence its own answer if we could but learn to listen to it? Are there questions that are unanswerable queries of the soul, matters too awe-full for human response, too demonic for profound rational resolution poses Hubert Locke, Dean Emeritus, Evans School of Public Policy, University of Washington
By not forgiving do we somehow remain victims wonders Harold Kushner, Rabbi and best-selling author.
One day as part of a detail working at a hospital, Simon it taken by a nurse to see a dying young SS officer named Karl Seidl, who wants forgiveness and absolution from a Jew for the terrible things he had done, in particular an incident in which he murdered 150 Jewish men, women and children who were herded into a small house that was set on fire and when those trying to escape or jump to safety were all shot. Simon has no answer and leaves. He refuses a package of clothing the officer wants him to have telling her to ship it to the deceased's mother.
During the next two years, Wiesenthal shared this story with fellow camp mates, ending each time with: Was my silence at the bedside of the dying Nazi right or wrong?
After the war, Simon visits the officer's mother living in a bombed-out apartment in Stuttgart. All she has left are the memories of her "good son." Wiesenthal wrestles with whether he should tell her the truth about her son, but leaves saying nothing about the atrocities he took part in. She is allowed to keep her memories.
Simon addresses the reader with this critical question: "You, who have just read this sad and tragic episode in my life, can mentally change places with me and ask yourself the crucial question, 'What would I have done?'"
Simon Wiesehthal died on September 21, 2005 at the age of 96. He and his wife Cyla lost 89 relatives during the Holocaust. Simon helped to bring more than 1100 war criminals to justice, including Eichmann, Stangl, and the Nazi who took Anne Frank from her home and sent her to her death. He has been honored with numerous awards for his work, including "Commander of the Order of Orange" in the Netherlands, "Commendatore della Repubblica" in Italy, a gold medal for humanitarian work by the United States Congress, the Jerusalem Medal in Israel, and sixteen honorary doctorates. The Simon Wiesenthal Center, located in Los Angeles, is named in honor of him.
The Sunflower will force you to think deeply about issues we rarely discuss but which are essential to building and maintaining relationships, with each other and with ourselves.
Beautiful, horrifying and sad, but beautiful........2006-12-14
I didn't read this book so much as experience it. Not meant, I think, to be read from cover to cover in a sitting, but to be reflected over - or if you are like me, pondered for a long time after. I thought I could define forgiveness until reading this; I was wrong. it's many things to different people. I guess that I am in the same camp as those writers who subscribed to the idea that it is a rank act to pontificate about what a man in Simon Wiesenthal's position should have done. Most of the contributors transcended "preachiness", however, and have shared their ideas with compassion, anger and insight.
A wonderful, truly worthy read.
Books:
- Daughter of the Blood: The Black Jewels Trilogy (Book 1)
- Death at Gallows Green (Robin Paige Victorian Mysteries, No. 2)
- Death Waxed Over (Prime Crime Mysteries)
- Deception on His Mind
- DESIRABLE DAUGHTERS: A NOVEL
- Diagrams for Living: The Bible Unveiled
- Falling Awake: Creating the Life of Your Dreams
- Focused for Bowling
- Folly and Glory: A Novel (Berrybender Narratives)
- High Country: A Novel (Literature of the American West)
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