Book Description
Tamar Feingold's life is haunted by the painful, yet unspoken memories of her parents' time in a Nazi concentration camp. Battling between her feelings and her religion, the secrets of her past threaten to explode and destroy everything she has.
Customer Reviews:
Excellent Book!.......2007-02-01
This was the very first book that I've read by the author, and I thought that it was absolutely amazing! This was such a compelling story, I read it all in one night. I've read other reviews here, and I totally disagree that Tamar's rapist was black simply because the author was trying to re-enforce the image of a "black criminal" or because she is racist herself. I think the fact that he was black was very essential to the plot. Had he been white, then Tamar would have had an option to pretend that the baby was her husbands. No one would question it, her husband would never suspect it, Tamar alone would know the terrible secret. Because he was black this was obviously no longer an option.
In the begining of the book Tamar is seen as good but extremely weak woman. Ever since she was a child the decisions which directly affected her life, were made for her. First, by her parents, then by her husband. She has choices when faced with pregnancy, but can't decide herself, and still choses to do nothing. Her faith seems to be rewarded at first, but we see how that affects the rest of her life. I loved her transformation into a woman who truly accepts herself and takes control of her life. I would highly recommend this book.
A compelling read.......2006-12-19
Tamar Finegold has a secure and predictable life , as wife of one of Brooklyn's leading ultra-orthodox rabbis , but when she is violently raped by an intruder , all of this is thrown into turmoil.
She turns to two childhood friends , but keeps the secret from her family , until years later , a strange turn of events forces her to confront her past.
Naomi Ragen's books deal with the struggle of Jewish communities and the various threats and dilemmas that face them.
I had previously read The Covenant and The Ghost of Hannah Mendes.
This book shows both the tranquility and beauty of religious life and the dilemmas faced. It is beautifully written and shows how Tamar deals witht he trauma of her rape by an intruder and how her life and that of her family develops, as well as that of her two friends, one who has wisely embraced all that is good in Judaism , and one that has divorced herself from her roots.
A very compelling and easy read , that gives us a rare insight into ultra-orthodox communities and their ways of being and thinking.
good book yet too predictible.......2006-11-05
the book in itself has a good story line yet it is too predictible and also has some parts where you just "get lost" in it...
being from israel also didnt help me understand some of the complex terminology of the book which made the reading a bit more harsh then fun.
Nice read, if a bit predictable.......2003-10-21
This book was loaned to me along with Naomi Ragen's other book, "Sotah." (Which I am currently reading.) The book does give a glimpse into a world seldom ever shared with outsiders, and I found this intriguing. The book certainly "grabs" its readers from the beginning. However, the flashback scenes to the main characters childhoods, even though providing necessary information, was almost a distraction. As well, the flashback takes up a good 1/3 of the book and I felt it might have been better stated at the beginning of the book.
When the book is half finished, it becomes rather predictible. The main character is raped by a black man, has sex with her husband the same night, and give birth to a white child. That would seemingly end the story, yet it continues. This leads the reader to pretty much figure what happens next.
Even with that, I enjoyed the book as a pleasant diversion. (And enough to go ahead and begin "Sotah" as well) 3 stars is lower than I would give this book, but it doesn't quite reach 4 stars, in my opinion. I would truly give it 3 1/2 stars, if that were possible.
I thought the more interesting points in the book were below the surface and how three differing points of view, from three very different women, were demonstrated: from the rebellious Hadassah, to the accepting Tamar, to the reflective Jenny. All three women are strong characters in their own right, and all follow different paths. The relationships between the three and within their own worlds is a fascinating character study.
A desilusioning "Ragen".......2003-04-29
I am not a complete fan of Naomi Ragen's style of writing, but from "Sotah" and "The Ghost of Hannah Mendes"I learned about a community foreign to me or a historical period. This book was too predictable, I do not like it when after the first chapter I stop being surprised. I thought the characters to be too limited and charicutaristic, the negative use of the "violent black genetic material" enoying.
Book Description
Kayla backed up for every step he advanced. Her heart pounded painfully against her chest. She swore she saw flames flickering behind the vibrant colors in his eyes. She had never felt so afraid, so...alive? When she realized she couldn't escape him, she stood her ground, lifting her head defiantly in challenge. Tray didn't move, standing over her like a warlord about to pass judgment. He had read her thoughts as if she had shouted them at him. He looked over the perfection of her body, missing nothing, not one line, not one curve, not one freckle. He then stared into her eyes till she met and held his gaze. He saw many emotions in their blue depths; there it was, fear. Good, she should be afraid of him.
Customer Reviews:
Great Follow Up.......2007-08-14
I loved the first book and was not disappointed with its follow up...strong men, sassy women...it's a good read.
Great!!!!!.......2006-05-03
I loved it!!!!!!!!! Both in this series are great!!!!!! When's the next one due out?
A very good follow up to Garden of Stones.......2006-01-18
This is the second exciting installment in Jody Offen's Guardian of the Night series about vampires who rid humanity of the low lifes who destroy it.
In this installment, Tray meets Kayla while hunting a criminial to find that she is seeking revenge for the death of her father by the very same man. He is instantly captivated by Kayla and the sparks fly despite the danger that surrounds them.
This second book was edited for a lot of the spelling and gramatical errors found in the first installment. There were still a few in there, but overall, these do not affect the story and are much fewer this time.
The book is thrilling and I am anxiously awaiting a third installment - hopefully with Dare and Tiannia's story!
Thank you and keep them coming!
To Love A Vampire.......2005-06-26
Jody Offen did an awesome job on this, her second book in the Guardian Of The Night series. Her first book, Garden Of Stones, from the same publisher is exciting and a fresh way of viewing vampire romance. My suggestion is read them both and then wait anxiously for the next one, which I am sure will be a hit as well! Keep up the great work Jody!
Average customer rating:
- Wet and Cold? This Earth is Still Worth Fighting For!
- Yamabushi's mini reviews XIX
- Cool Idea, Poor Execution
- Well executed stupid idea
- Addictive Alternative History Series Continues
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Tilting the Balance (Worldwar Series, Volume 2)
Harry Turtledove
Manufacturer: Del Rey
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Binding: Mass Market Paperback
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Similar Items:
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Upsetting the Balance (Worldwar Series, Volume 3)
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Striking the Balance (Worldwar Series, Volume 4)
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In the Balance: An Alternate History of the Second World War (Worldwar, Volume 1)
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Second Contact (Colonization, Book 1)
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Down to Earth (Colonization, Book 2)
ASIN: 0345389980
Release Date: 1995-12-30 |
Amazon.com
World War II screeched to a halt as great military powers scrambled to meet an even deadlier foe, armed with formidable technology that made victory seem inevitable. The menace worsens in this, the second novel in the four-book alternate-history saga that Booklist called "possibly the most ambitious in the subgenre's history and definitely the work of one of alternate history's authentic modern masters."
Book Description
NO ONE COULD STOP THEM--
NOT STALIN, NOT TOGO, NOT CHURCHILL, NOT ROOSEVELT . . .
The invaders had cut the United States virtually in half at the Mississippi, vaporized Washington, D.C., devastated much of Europe, and held large parts of the Soviet Union under their thumb.
But humanity would not give up so easily. The new world allies were ruthless at finding their foe's weaknesses and exploiting them.
Whether delivering supplies in tiny biplanes to partisans across the vast steppes of Russia, working furiously to understand the enemy's captured radar in England, or battling house to house on the streets of Chicago, humankind would never give up.
Yet no one could say when the hellish inferno of death would stop being a war of conquest and turn into a war of survival--the very survival of the planet . . .
Customer Reviews:
Wet and Cold? This Earth is Still Worth Fighting For!.......2007-07-03
In Worldwar: Tilting the Balance, spring is returning to the northern hemisphere. With the changing weather, the advantage in battle shifts back to the Race. The aliens come from a world drier and hotter than Earth, and even in summer they are uncomfortable. The winter was almost unmanageable.
But with the warmer weather, the Race finds itself facing other difficulties. Since the aliens planned for a fast conquest against medieval warriors, they find the unexpected resistance quickly draining their supplies. More importantly, they find themselves battling corruption within their ranks. To them, ginger is a highly addictive drug which creates a sense of overconfidence, and an underground drug trade has developed. Aside from the basic disciplinary problems, soldiers under the influence frequently commit blunders leading to human victories.
In the first book, the Russians and Germans managed to steal some plutonium from the Race. Polish Jews forced the German courier to give up half the German share, which they smuggled to the United States. No country yet understands how to make plutonium, and now only the Russians have enough to make a bomb. But Japan learns some key details from a captured alien pilot, and the other countries are progressing. The Race has already used nuclear weapons to destroy Berlin and Washington. Now the world waits to see which country will be the first to use nuclear weapons against the Race.
Turtledove's huge cast of characters is the focus of the second Worldwar volume. At this level, the novel is quite eventful. Turtledove gives readers an unfortunate love triangle that arises when one of the principals is mistakenly assumed dead. He also adds a major nuclear accident and the subsequent scapegoating, a subplot around unrequited love, several characters who go into hiding, and some effective use of real historical persons. He even kills off a couple of major characters.
Meanwhile, Turtledove's portrayal of individuals from the Race is commendable -- he manages to make them different from humans, but with analogous positives and negatives. Unfortunately, until an eventful final chapter, little of this seems to effect the global situation.
A larger problem with the ongoing saga concerns the motivation for the conquest of Earth. The aliens repeatedly complain about how wet and cold it is. Presumably their probes were sophisticated enough to report this. So why are they bothering? Turtledove emphasizes how carefully and deliberately they make their decisions, often taking centuries. Yet they've already sent a colony ship to a world unsuitable for them. Perhaps Turtledove can justify this, but after two volumes, it looks like a major plot flaw.
There is still much to like in Worldwar: Tilting the Balance, and Turtledove has plenty of time to overcome the present flaws. If he doesn't, at worst he will still have created an interesting work.
Despite my critical comments above, I am enjoying this series. Even where it seems padded, Turtledove still makes it entertaining.
Yamabushi's mini reviews XIX.......2007-02-09
Continuing to chronicle an alien invaded WWII earth. In just the second book turtledove numerous plot threads start to slow things down. Where, a chapter about 1 interesting character is followed by 2 you couldn't be the least interested in.
Cool Idea, Poor Execution.......2006-02-25
After reading the first book in this series I was pretty much hooked. I thought it was a very interesting idea to have invaders from space interrupt WWII. What is most interesting is that the aliens have our current level of technology.
However, In the second book I started abridging Mr. Tutrledove's writing pretty brutally. There are so many contributing plots that really don't contribute, and each sub-plot just rehashes the same themes. When I came to the sections with the Russian Pilot Ludmilla, I knew we would hear about how her German mechanic was always trying to get in her pants but he was such a good mechanic she'd put up with it. Every Time. So I'd read the first paragraph and the last in her section. Yawn.
Heavy handed abridging was the key to enjoying this series. The idea is fantastic, and I'm still tempted to read further into the colonization series.
Well executed stupid idea.......2005-09-09
The whole idea behind this serie is kind of lame. What if during the second world war aliens invaded our planet? I mean, come on, you got to be kidding, right? No? You'r serious?
But it works great. The combination of that well familiar WW2 flavour, the historical characters in bizarre situations (Molotov negotiating with the Lizards was worth a laugh) and a well executed what if scenario is highly entertaining. Its a fun read and I enjoyed it a lot.
About part II in particular, the story simply continues, it is not worse of better than part I and I haven't finished part III yet. It doesn't really make sense to review the independant parts, its one story in four booklets.
Addictive Alternative History Series Continues.......2005-05-13
Basically taking up where the first book of the series left off, TILTING THE BALANCE continues in the same vein of interesting characters, plus exciting war-time situations & sex/romance, aliens, and technology development.
The subplot I found most interesting in this book is the ginger drug habit developed by a significant number of the lizard-like aliens. Mr. Turtledove does an excellent job of describing the mindset of the addicts - for some reason I especially enjoy following the progress of the Veteran Alien Tank Driver Ussmak (who has to face both Nazi Panzer tactics as well as his ginger addiction), and the Alien pilot/prisoner Teerts (whom the Japanese purposefully addict).
This 2nd book from the series literally "ends with a bang", and I'm looking forward to continuing with this series - which is turning out to be almost as addicting to me as ginger is to the Lizards.
Book Description
THE BLOG AHEAD One of the Internet pioneers takes a look at the impact-and future-of the Blog Revolution. Ideas are flashing around the world at light speed, and R. SCOTT HALL, an Internet pioneer from the early days at CompuServe and online entrepreneur, explores and brilliantly illuminates the way blogs are transforming the way human beings connect minds. Bloggers, Hall maintains, are at the forefront of the greatest change in the life of the mind since the Gutenberg press. Individuals with no establishment connections or entrie can connect with millions worldwide, relying solely on the power of their ideas and their prose to get-and influence-an audience that print journalists and authors could only dream of. Communities of interest, unlimited by time and space, are springing into existence: now they are even exerting force on the traditional levers of power. Hall gives a trenchant, often humorous, analysis of this revolution in the human Zeitgeist, ranging from politics, to media, to the arts. Here's some of the fascinating terrain he covers in his analysis of how blogging is reshaping the world of ideas, affecting global public opinion and mass media: This new form of horizontal communication is examined and compared to its (feeble) predecessors Blogging runs smack-dab into the Rear Guard, and both sides end up blinking The remunerated wordsmiths test the new blogging waters for unmined gold Businesses from the Drucker Era bow down to the great god Gates The next generation of leaders master the tools they will use The dank world of geekery meets the high-wattage expectations of aesthetics The blogosphere auto-assembles-andbecomes a powerful force for change Finally, Hall assembles a list of "Axioms of Blogosophy": principles for the first true citizens of the world. This survey of the world of blogs is only a sampling of the wonderful, surprising, and occasionally repulsive experiences that await the undaunted armchair explorer of the blogosphere. -R. Scott Hall
Book Description
This digital document is an article from Basketball Digest, published by Century Publishing on June 22, 2003. The length of the article is 4162 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: Tilting to the West: just like the balance of power among teams, the majority of our year-end honors are landing in the Western Conference. (2002-03 NBA Awards).
Publication:
Basketball Digest (Magazine/Journal)
Date: June 22, 2003
Publisher: Century Publishing
Volume: 30
Issue: 8
Page: 38(10)
Distributed by Thomson Gale
Book Description
"White china" is Molly Wolf’s personal shorthand for the kind of religious language and ideas that often seem abstract and daunting. Those of us who don’t know how to break the code of words like hermeneutics are left to struggle in a landscape of abstraction and purity, intimidated and uncomfortable with our ability to handle them. We might mispronounce the words or use them wrongly, and then what would people think of us? They’re pure like white china; we might drop and break them or get them dirty. And they certainly aren’t something we can consume–who can eat china? In this beautifully written collection, Molly Wolf serves up her unique brand of what she calls God-Talk. She takes the language of Christian faith and religion, sets it in the context of her keen observations of everyday experience, and unpacks it, opening it up to make it real and close up and important. Revel in Wolf’s juicy metaphors and rejoice in the fact that she serves up a feast for all those who hunger to eat.
Customer Reviews:
White China, Finding the Divine in the Everyday, Molly Wolf, Jossey-Bass, ISBN 0-7879-6580-4, pp. 211........2006-03-22
White China is Molly Wolf's personal short hand for God-Talk. In multiple, short essays she unpacks the presence of God in our daily lives in everyday concepts and terms. She struggles with tough issues such as "where is the biblical God who always answers prayer, who punishes the wicked and comforts the afflicted and rewards the good?" She does not believe for a moments that God wills suffering. Her response is that this is a world still subject to the three great necessary wild cards of biology, physics and human free will. She sees God working through all this when we break through our constraints of fear, prejudice or the need to control. She tells us how God's grace is so deeply unjust that sinners never get what they deserve. Thank God. At the same time God does not put a particularly high value on comfort. Everything that is spiritually right is messy, and virtually everything that is extremely neat and orderly probably hasn't been kicked hard enough yet to show how messy it really is. God can look terribly two-faced at times. But this isn't God's problem. It's our perception, which is clouded by our own confusion to keep love for ourselves. We load our own issues, baggage, and confusion onto God and then complain that God has a problem. I highly recommend these well written essays about life and God in easily understood, every day language.
doing the daily.......2005-08-03
A competent and thoughtful book for women needing to look at how they perceive their days and roles. Edited from radio talks, it reads well out loud.
Mud and Mercy.......2005-05-22
In this book of short essays, Molly Wolf takes us on a faith journey through the seemingly ordinary events, places and experiences of life. She is able to see under and beyond the ordinariness, to glimpse the extraordinary in a frog, a failure or ferry ride. It is a journey refreshingly free of dogma (although a cat plays a starring role). Her writing neither talks down nor dumbs down; she walks with her readers and does so with intimacy and grace. The book moved me to to laughter, tears, frequent nods of understanding and agreement -- and more than once it shook my soul to the core.
This is a book best read slowly, each essay rolled around in the heart and mind as one would taste a fine wine. It seems especially at home on the bedside table.
Seeing the sacred in the everyday.......2005-05-22
Some people would look at something and just see what is there. Molly Wolf has a way of seeing something and finding things behind and beyond it, things that speak of and to faith as it really is, full of bumps, bruises, dry spells and triumphs. From the first essay, "One Loud, Heroic Frog" to the last in the collection, "Kyrie Eleison (2)", each one offers an opportunity and an unspoken invitation to stop and look about, seeing God and grace in everyday things that we might just overlook.
"White China" is a continuation of Wolf's journey through life and faith. If you're looking for dogma, rules or "Do this and everything will be fine," this isn't the book for you. But if you're looking for one woman's experience that can serve as a window to a new way of seeing and experiencing faith, order this one now.
Book Description
This digital document is an article from National Catholic Reporter, published by Thomson Gale on October 7, 2005. The length of the article is 968 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: Looking for God by temperament.(The Importance of Being Foolish: How to Think Like Jesus; White China: Finding the Divine in the Everyday)(Book Review)
Author: Carol Luebering
Publication:
National Catholic Reporter (Magazine/Journal)
Date: October 7, 2005
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 41
Issue: 43
Page: 16a(1)
Article Type: Book Review
Distributed by Thomson Gale
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- The Truth About Celia
- The Vampire Armand (The Vampire Chronicles, Book 6)
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- The Whore's Child: Stories
- The William Faulkner Audio Collection
- The Woman in the Dunes
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Books Index
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