Book Description
"How Like an Angel is a powerfully imagined, lyrically wrought novel, overflowing with the senses. Jack Driscoll is a marvel."
---Rick Bass
"How Like an Angel is a lyrical, lonely ode to fatherhood, an aria in words that looks forward and backward at once. Jack Driscoll is a writer of deep heart, relentless honesty, uncanny gentleness, and irresistible spirit."
---Pam Houston
How Like an Angel is the story of Archibald Angel. With his career going nowhere and a marriage in decline, Angel retreats to a rustic cabin in northern Michigan to make a new life for himself.
In spite of his forward thinking, Angel's move is in many ways a journey into the past. Besides lacking modern comforts, the cabin conjures the ghost of Angel's troubled childhood, when his undertaker father took the cabin in trade as payment from a widow who couldn't otherwise afford the cost of her husband's burial. After Angel's mother subsequently fled, abandoning her family to recover from a mental breakdown, the cabin was an escape for father and son.
While Archibald Angel revisits his knotted and difficult past, his ex-wife and young son contemplate their future. Slowly, with unexpected help from an unpredictable woman, Angel realizes he too must find a way to begin again or risk failing his son as his own father failed him.
With pathos, humor, and unflagging generosity of spirit, How Like an Angel takes us deep into the hinterland of the human heart and discovers there the source of the love that keeps us holding on against all odds.
Customer Reviews:
How Like an Angel is factastically spun fantasy.......2007-04-05
How incredibly spun are Jack Driscoll's words in this novel. Wrapping around the words, I found myself mesmorized by the author's style. Each sentence was poetry and I felt almost as though, if I could just somehow close my eyes and still be reading, I would be right there. The richly verdant scenes of seasons passing, rivers flowing, and delicate, intricate interactions between human beings held me completely spellbound for the ride. I loved it!!!
I Wanted to Love This Book.......2006-06-23
Having read all of Jack Driscoll's books, I bought this one hoping to completely immerse myself in the work of a favored author who hadn't published in awhile. After the first fifty pages, it was hard to keep going. Luckily, the poet in Mr. Driscoll breaks through often, so there are stretches of beautiful prose which could almost stand alone as poetry. In between, though, are the drawn out ruminations of a protagonist who was hard to get into and stick with. While son Rodney is boyishly lovable and zany girlfriend Rhea intriguing, Archie Angel is almost emotionless--at least in the parts of the story where it counts most. Instead, Driscoll uses symbols from nature (such as a dying swan) to "speak" for the main character.
A Must Read.......2005-08-20
Jack Driscoll is an original for the ages. How Like an Angel is the most compelling novel I've read this year. I simply could not put it down. The main character, Archie Angel, is as achingly human as any fictional character I've encountered in a long time. Angel has my highest recommend. Don't miss this book!
Angelic Prose.......2005-08-12
Jack Driscoll's fourth novel, How Like An Angel, begins with a deceptively simple epigraph by Larry Levis:
Look. It's cold.
Cold enought to reconcile
even a father, even a son.
There's nothing simple, however, about Driscoll's story of Archibald Angel and his son Rodney as they grow definably older sorting though a painful divorce and family ghosts in Michigan's upper penninsula.
I've been following Driscoll's work since he won the AWP award for short fiction with Wanting Only to Be Heard (1991). He shows a powerful gift for driving a story with clear prose and rich metaphor. His work has gotten even better as his female characters (here in the form of Z and Rhea, the ex-wife and new love interest of Archibald) have become even more complex and vivid (no small task).
The latest novel beautifully portrays the trials of love and family. During one scene, the apparition of Archibald's mother hovering in his memory caused me to literally put the book down, to appreciate the intensity.
However, there's a more comic struggle for his characters, to preserve their most childlike selves as their world falls apart. Watching Archibald race a rebuilt hearse in a demolition derby, driving with abandon to win over his new girlfriend, Rhea, and his son, Rodney, there's a madness to the scene, but one that we can't help but root for.
This novel constantly surprises and inspires. The prose is stunning, and ultimately, we can only be grateful for such painstaking attention to detail and the redemption it allows.
I loved this book.......2005-07-06
I loved this book, even though (or maybe because) it broke my heart several times, beginning with the dying swan that gently lays its head on Archie's shoulder as he carries it to his car. Now that I've finished the book, I find myself still thinking about the characters, even some who make only brief appearances, wondering what happened to them. I also loved the novel's seamless merging of past and present, the breathtaking landscapes, and the lyrical prose. I just wish I hadn't read it so fast. Now I'll have to wait a couple of years for Driscoll's next wonderful novel.
Book Description
Welcome back, graduates of the 1964 class of C. Estes Kefauver High School in Dacron, Ohio! They're all back in glorious black and white with color Magic Marker-Chuck U. Farley, Maria Teresa Spermatozoa, Purdy "Psycho" Lee Spackle, Faun Laurel Rosenberg, and, of course, Dacron's most famous son, Larry Kroger. Learn everything there is to know about Kroger's past before he became the pop-culture legend Pinto (Tom Hulce), the virgin fraternity pledge in National Lampoon's Animal House. With a hilarious "Where are they now?" addendum and a brilliantly funny new introduction by P. J. O'Rourke, the 39th Reunion Edition is sure to be the talk of the baby boomers who grew up with National Lampoon and of the new generation of comedy fans spawned by the success of The Onion.
Customer Reviews:
Still Really Funny.......2006-08-12
The planets lined up when the editors of the National Lampoon Magazine decided to create this brilliant parody of a mid-1960s high school yearbook. The names they made up are still classic, the grainy b/w pix a masterpiece, and the banal but funny text lives on.
This edition may not be an exact duplicate of the beloved softcover edition we all knew, but it's really great anyway. Enjoy!
One of the funniest things in the English language.......2004-08-27
Let's state it simply -- this is perhaps the funniest book ever published, even though the year 1964 is getting more distant all the time. Ingenious in its construction (a multi-level reconstruction of a typical high school yearbook), it is a hilarious, scathing, understanding, and even sort of poignant look at the kids of one year, one generation, in America long ago. Absolutely brilliant! (If you can find it, NatLamp also did an amazingly detailed town newspaper parody in the late 1970's that is also great.)
A parody that still delivers!.......2004-08-07
First things first: I am an admitted P.J. O'Rourke buff (the dude inspired me to start writing, which is either a good thing or bad), so I was interested to check this out. Plus, after reading Tony Hendra's book about the Lampoon and the creation of the Yearbook by Doug Kenney and O'Rourke, I decided to quit putting off my hesitancy to buying it and purchased it about two months ago. I haven't laughed as hard at anything in print since.
The context of the Yearbook is essential to understanding it; rather than just a "hey, look how crazy we were!" sort of Porky's approach, there's an underlying theme of "Animal House"-style anger at the authority structures that made social conformity and Vietnam possible. The writers had lived through the Vietnam era of the late Sixties, and they looked back in anger at the controls high school placed on them. There's real venom in these pages, if you know where to look.
But what struck me, and what made me appreciate this on the terms of being a simply good artwork, was the similarities to high school yearbooks even today. Sure, the layouts and hair/fashion styles change, but the general idea is the same: there are the popular kids, and then there's everyone else (including the "hero" of the piece, future Delta member Larry Kroeger). They all exist in the mythical Dacron, Ohio, and their school is really everybody's school. I can say, coming from a similarly awful school here in the great state of South Carolina, that nothing made me chuckle more than the laugh of recognition. I graduated in '97, yet I could identify and pick up on things that would've been true of any year (the snarky tribute to a fallen classmate, the peppy rememberence of a fallen President, the losing sports teams buoyed by a sense of "better luck next year").
The yearbook is so spot on, when I went back to my senior year yearbook I could immediately see such parallels. Our football team was(still is) a walking disaster, and little good could be said for the other sports. Our school play was just as clumsy as Dacron's "Julius Caesar", and our talent shows didn't improve much on the 'entertainment' provided by the 1964 class. It was these hilarious occurances that made me appreciate the book as simply more than a rant against the complacency of the Fifties; it was at long last a genuinely funny ghost of what it mocked.
I can't vouch for whether the "new" material takes away from the old (as this was indeed my first run-in with the parody in total), but I will say it seems a bit tame compared to what's part of the original. Plus, the "literary magazine" struck a chord, as I can remember my own sophmoric contribution to a similar publication in my high school (which sold about one copy, I believe). The "where will they be in ten years" list seemed like it could've been written by the idiots in my class, and the crude names assigned to the underclassmen (shown with the same exact photo every time) would not have been out of place in my school's tome either.
Overall, I enjoyed this far more than I imagined I would. There are obvious sight gags (the basketball team's hapless conduct had me in stiches), but the real meat is in the writing (whether or not O'Rourke can really claim a majority of the material, it seems a bit arrogant to take top billing over the late Kenney), which is dead-on. No matter when you graduated, you will recognize the figures in this book. And you will laugh your ass off, even as you cry tears of recognition.
Timeless genius.......2004-07-28
I am at a loss trying to recall another book that has ever been published that comes close to this towering achievement of humor. This thing is timeless in its genius. I first got a hold of this gem while in high school in '77-'78. I, too, had to resort to buying a used original copy on Ebay for about $120 a few years back. And now, here it is, in all its glory.
It is as funny today as it was back then. The new material is amusing, but the original stuff is the prime mover. There's just so much here, that it's difficult, if not impossible, to adequately describe this thing. Every single page has something (if not many, many things) that will make you laugh out loud, and hard. I gave my younger brother a copy a couple of weeks ago. He is still struggling to get through it (he laughs so hard he can't breathe).
I must agree that the pictures, which are impossibly funny on their own, look as though they were an afterthought in this reprint. They are, in a word, horrible. Dark at times, washed out in others. They look as though they were Xeroxed. Some pics (like the classic Spaz Leaking proudly holding his MEN sign for the Woodburning Club) are almost useless. Such a tremendous shame. I hope this problem is rectified in subsequent printings.
These shortcomings aside, the 1964 Yearbook Parody remains the book by which all other parodies or anything claiming to be humorous should be judged.
Just 'cause P.J.'s in it!.......2004-06-16
I don't care who you are, that reviewer Edward G. Nilges is funny! So, based on his recommendation, I would have had to get this book, even if P.J. O'Rourke wasn't in it. Keep up the good work Edward!
Customer Reviews:
Planning Your High School Reunion: Making It Fun and Easy.......2000-03-01
Having never planned any kind of reunion before, I was clueless as to where to start organizing my 10-year class reunion. I had a general idea of what needed to be done but no idea about the details. Planning Your High School Reunion, laid it all out for me! It gave time lines of when to do what (get the committee together, rent facilities, send out mailers, etc.) and ideas of how to do each part (who lives in town, what are the nice facilities in your area, different designs for mailers, etc.), too. My committee has even asked me, "What does your book say about....?" for various topics. It has been a wonderful resource!
Book Description
Roma's ten-year high school reunion is approaching fastnbsp;-- and she's not ready. She knows it's shallow but she wants to set her old classmates on their ears when the boasting starts. Especially the toxic Ellie, who bullied her in the old days. She has a good job but she needs the whole package if she's going to make that killer entrance -- including having a toned body, a great outfit and, most importantly, a mouthwatering guy on her arm. An eventful visit to the gym shows her that she may be able to kill two birds with one stone, as personal trainer Jake Logan turns out to be the perfect eye candy she needs. A course of hard training begins, with Roma keen to impress Jakenbsp;-- but what are his plans-- She can't help noticing that he flirts with all his female clients. And there's one particular female client who could scupper all Roma's plansnbsp;-- and she's getting far too close to Roma's quarry.
Customer Reviews:
Hilariously Fun and Sexy Reading.......2006-01-21
Kimberly Dean's books have always been a plus for me and "High School Reunion" was no exception. High school is almost always a traumatic experience at some point for teens and I know I idenified with the main character's need to prove herself to her old classmates.
Roma was the typical awkward klutz in high school and unfortunately paid for it through the mean spirited attacks of the school's head cheerleader, Ellie. Ten years later, Roma has three months to get in shape for their high school reunion. With no willpower to call her own and little self confidence, Jake's Gym is her answer to that dilemma. Putting down her doubts long enough to enter the gym, she immediately meets Jake, the owner, but in a very unconventional way. After both have picked themselves off the floor, Roma is soon on her way to a better bod, better self-confidence and possibly a sexy to-die-for trainer. Jake didn't know what hit him at first, but he's not about to let the blonde dynamo out of his sight. When he finds out she's an accountant to boot he jumps on the opportunity to trade services - he'll train her for the reunion while she trains his financials into some semblance of order. Roma agrees and soon the gym is heating up with more than just sweat.
Overall the book was endearingly sweet and a lot of fun to read. Roma's character was too funny. Down to earth, with a great sense of humor, she's nevertheless still anxious to prove she's not still some geeky, klutzy girl anymore. She pulls it off with enormous class and style. Jake sees right through her insecurities to the crux of the matter. He's gorgeous, confident and knows where he wants Roma - in his heart. Top their steamy storyline off with two equally interesting supporting characters and "High School Reunion" makes for a very satisfying read. There's more than meets the eye going on at Jake's Gym and it's all good. I came out very pleased with Dean's latest contemporary and all I can say is she needs to keep 'em coming. Great keeper shelf material.
Book Description
Menacing, nerve-racking, uncomfortably intrusive, the high school reunion has become a dreaded encounter with past and present for many Americans. It is a moment of both heightened self-awareness and public presentation, insisting that we account for ourselves, not merely to our own satisfaction, but to the satisfaction of others as well. For sociologist Vinitzky-Seroussi, the high school reunion presents an ideal forum in which to explore the ongoing construction of identity in American society, and, perhaps, to ascertain just how we have managed to make sense of our lives, from then to now.
As autobiographical occasions, reunions prompt us to examine our own life narratives, the stories we tell ourselves about who we are and how we have come to be that person. But at the same time, they can threaten the integrity of those very stories, subjecting them to the scrutiny of others whose memories of the past and ourselves may be altogether different from our own. Reunions, then, engender a fragile community held together by the resources of a shared past, yet imperiled by the tensions of competing histories. Inevitably—for both those who attend and those who choose not to—the reunion forces a kind of biographical confrontation, an unavoidable and often pivotal engagement between a carefully constructed personal identity and the socially prevalent standards of success and accomplishment.
Though many see in today's culture the gradual demise of personal identity, Vinitzky-Seroussi's carefully researched study reveals something quite different— After Pomp and Circumstance explores a struggle we all experience: the desire to resolve the tension between public conceptions and internal understandings, to maintain a sense of continuity between past and present lives, and to lay claim to both an integrated self and a unified life history.
Customer Reviews:
Excellent book on high school class reunions.......2006-01-29
As someone that was the historian at my 10-year high school class reunion in 1998, I can relate to this book. I saw this book at a library three years ago and ordered it a few times. I have noticed the excitement from people who did come to the reunion and the resistance from those who didn't. I would have liked it if they included something of classmates writing 20-page letters to each other after the reunion. Writing about what they were doing at 16, 17 and 18, past memories, favorite subjects and teachers at school, what the first 3 months after graduation was like, adult life,moving so many times to other states, career changes, being married (if possible) and having 2 to 3 kids and so forth. I did that too, but only wrote one or two-page letters to classmates. Class reunions do change people's lives drastically, myself included. You might end up calling your fellow classmates every day from now on, instead of your usual round of friends. They become your friends for LIFE. So it's beyond just the giddiness or gushiness or the "Oh my God!" reactions of seeing the classmates again after a 10-, 15- or 20-year hiatus. I found after my own class' reunion that they are very busy and hard to catch up. I make the best with writing and E-mailing to them as well as meeting them. I have to understand that they're in their late 30s (33-38) now and not 18 anymore. That they're very committed to their current careers and families and going for higher goals. And they're thinking forward, not looking back too much. So I am pleased that someone wrote this book to explain the impact high school reunions have on people who attended them. The writer does a good job analyzing and describing several reunions she attended. Some reactions are happy, some are bitter and some wished that they didn't attend their reunions at all. To me, going to class reunions is another big step for anyone, to confront their past, to accept your present and to be with your fellow classmates for future times.
Product Description
Muncie Central 1935 50th Class Reunion publication.
Average customer rating:
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High School Reunion
Carol Stanley
Manufacturer: Point
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
 General | Literature | Children's Books | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0590335790 |
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High School Reunion
Nathan Storm Hirshberg
Manufacturer: PublishAmerica
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
Action & Adventure | Genre Fiction | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
General | Thrillers | Mystery & Thrillers | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 1424158222
Release Date: 2006-10-16 |
Book Description
When two high school friends reunite for the first time in years, they decide to embark on a cross-country road trip. As bits of suspect behavior start to emerge, it becomes apparent that what began as an attempt to renew their friendship and relive some old memories is taking a turn for the worst. This innocent adventure quickly transforms to a maleficent escapade. Follow this descent through social deviance into the depths of madness.
Book Description
A cult novel in France, this sci-fi thriller is now being made into a movie by Mathieu Kassovitz. Set in the hidden "flesh and chip" breeding grounds of the first cyborg communities and peopled by Serbian Mafiosi, Babylon Babies has as its hero a hard-boiled leatherneck veteran of Sarajevo named Thoorop who is hired by a mysterious source to escort a young woman named Marie Zorn from Russia to Canada. A garden variety job, he figures. But when Thoorop is offered an even higher fee by another organization, he realizes Marie is no ordinary girl. A schizophrenic and the possible carrier of a new artificial virus, Marie is carrying a mutant embryo created by an American cult that dreams of producing a genetically modified messiah, a dream that spells out the end of human life as we know it.
Inspired by Philip K. Dick, William S. Burroughs, Gilles Deleuze, and other extrapolationists of the future, Babylon Babies unfolds at breakneck speed as Thoorop risks his life to save Marie, whose brain -- linking to the neuromatrix -- loses all limits and becomes the universe itself. Exploring the symbiosis between organic matter and computer power to spin new forms of consciousness, Maurice Dantec rides Nietzsche's prophecy: "Man is something to be overcome."
Customer Reviews:
Too Many Dreams.......2007-09-20
At first I thought this might be a bit of a talking dog act. (You know, the marvelous thing is not that it's done well but that...) By this I mean that, maybe, the book was an almost-readable post-apocalyptic novel.
For some reason, after spinning off fantasy and its various genres, the old field of science fiction seems to have settled upon producing unreadable post-apocalyptic novels as the the acceptable media for what is to be called science fiction these days.
I'm not sure why science-fiction needs to be unreadable, (as well as depressing; while still boring, repetitive and above all, obscure), but this means that science fiction has basically come to a dead end.
After a few pages I thought that this novel might actually go somewhere. It has a plot of sorts, (an obscure one naturally), and actually has differentiable characters. I haven't seen that in years.
Sad to say it still manages to eventually bog itself down in nothingness. I've had to give up reading it somewhere in the middle, after hitting about 30 solid pages of dreams and nightmares by various characters. I just got tired of skimming and speed reading. Having gotten to the end of one meaningless, meandering dream I was plunked directly into another meaningless meandering nightmare. Too much to put up with.
b.t.w., in my opinion, the dream sequence is always a cop-out by the author. In lieu of figuring how to make something happen, he or she, (the author), just plunks it into the middle of a dream. It's just a cheapo' version of dies ex machina. If the author can't write a book with anything more than a minimal reliance upon dreams, I'm not willing to exert more effort in reading than appears to have been expended in writing.
I guess I'd end with the note that the Amazon blurb that was meant to highly praise this novel said that the reader who could perform the "arduous" task of finishing the novel would be rewarded. I'm not sticking around for my reward. I agree completely that reading this book is an arduous task, and I'm not being rewarded nearly enough to put up with it.
Yawn...........2007-06-26
Call me old-fashioned, but breathlessness, incoherence and a hectic pace do not a novel make. Characters are introduced almost every page, and the author seems to take pride in the fact that they are totally one-dimensional and generally disposable. Dantec has lots of ideas - so many, in fact, that none wind up being important, and few are developed beyond a sentence or two. If the author paid a bit more attention to narrative coherence and character development, he would be interesting. But as is it, I'd suggest skipping this and reading someone who makes this kind of technique work - Steve Erickson.
unique cyberpunk.......2006-05-04
Originally written in French several years ago, this novel does seem just a bit dated as it is finally released in English in 2005. Many of the flashbacks are to time periods that have already passed and that serves to break the reader out of the illusion at a few points. Other than that this was an enjoyable read.
The cloak and dagger form of other cyberpunk is evident here except it is metted out at a more measured pace. Dantec creates a unique cast of characters who evolve over the life of the story. The unusual locations (at least for most American fiction) like ex-Russian states and China set the novel apart from similar titles.
The central mystery slowly builds to a satisfying conclusion wrapping up the major plot points while leaving open the otion for a sequel. It would be interesting to see what the author would do in a sequel further expanding on the fascinating philosophy of evolution just touched on at the end of the novel.
Babylon Babies Blows!!.......2006-03-07
What started out as a different and exciting sci-fi story, after about 150 pages started to point towards dullsville.
Interesting concept, no action and adventure to drive it.
If Hollywood is thinking of making this a into Vin Deisel's next movie - then they better amp up the exciting aspects of this borefest.
The author held such promise too...
Cyberpunk meets Ballard, Dick and Deleuze.......2005-10-27
Babylon Babies is a vortex, blending the eurasian conflicts, the future of biological warfare, DNA, genetic manipulation, philosophy of the fold, schizophrenia, TAZ, urban guerilla...
Babylon babies is the french answer to Gibson, Ballard, Philippe K. Dick., an answer that links american's cyberpunk to the french philosophy of Deleuze, and the chaotic geopolitic of diying Europe.
Babylon babies is a ride in a sputnik over Tchernobyl and Canada in 2012, with NIN, Portishead, Laibach played loud on an old radio connected to the 80's ColdWave era...
Babylon Babies opened my mind to unclassical SF, underground litterature, avant-garde phylosophy, scientific research, and religions.
This book connects you towards unexpected new directions. It is not a book that enclose your vision, it is an explosion that expands your mind.
I can't wait for more translation of Maurice G. Dantec books.
Average customer rating:
- What By the Waters of Babylon represents
- Interesting Indeed...
- sucky
- A Sophmore's Opinion
- Complex, Intersting!
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By the Waters of Babylon (Creative Short Stories)
Stephen Vincent Benet
Manufacturer: Creative Education
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Library Binding
General
| Classics by Age
| Literature
| Children's Books
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General
| Literature
| Children's Books
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General
| Baby-3
| Children's Books
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General
| Science Fiction
| Science Fiction & Fantasy
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ASIN: 0886822947 |
Customer Reviews:
What By the Waters of Babylon represents.......2005-11-16
I remember when an English teacher of mine read this short story to my class(in high school). Though I did not grasp it THEN, when I READ it MYSELF it made sense. What the laws forbidding traveling to the Eastern U.S., crossing the Great River (the Hudson), and visiting the Place of the GOds (New York City), mentioned in the story, referred to were attempts to coerce people to be happy to live as people did in the Stone Age and forget that there was civilization. Apparently, the young priest
(whose father was a priest) defied these stoopid laws, traveled eastward, and floated down the Hudson, passing ruins of the "god roads across it"(George Washington, Bear Mountain, and other bridges). At the Place of the Gods there were mentioned a "washing place but no water"(meaning tub-shower combo)"cooking place but no wood"(a gas or electric range), "things that looked like lamps with neither oil nor wick"(electric light fixtures).
What was enlightening was that the priest and his priest-father
SAW the light, realized that there WAS civilization before the Great Burning, sought to visit Dead Places (buildings where people had lived, worked, and worshipped) to learn throught the writings) and even go to the Place of the Gods (New York), to build again.
Interesting Indeed..........2005-09-22
We've read this story last week in class. Although I'm not American I could easily pick up the clues referring to New York in the city. I really liked the story in general. I don't want to analyse the story here now, I just wanted to recomend others.
sucky.......2005-09-12
i hated this book because it was too deep i didnt understand most of it. i think this would be better for adults to read.
A Sophmore's Opinion.......2005-02-15
The depth of this book is immense, in that Benet foreshadows the darkest moment of mankind's time. The utter destruction and then, the rebuilding of a society that learns from the old, and moves on. I would hope that one would not be forced to read this book, but join in Jon's adventure through our time, trying to understand our downfall. I am currently writing a 7-8 page research paper on the book, and find that is hard to stop speculating what it means, and the message hidden under the encription. Again, I am sorry for those poor souls who do not see the depth of this prophesy.
Complex, Intersting!.......2004-06-15
I just read this book as the reading comprehension part of my ILA final! It is amazing how deep this novel is. As a piece of science fiction, it gives a great theme. Basically, humans create without understanding the consequences. (Similar to The FLying Machine by Ray Bradbury). The elements of foreshadowing are evident everywhere, and it teased me throughout. It makes people think about the direction our country and world are headed in! Even people who are not science fiction fans will probably like it, contrary to what other reviewers have said.
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How Many Miles to Babylon
Paula Fox
Manufacturer: Independent Pub Group
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
Fox, Paula
| ( F )
| Authors & Illustrators, A-Z
| Children's Books
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Baby-3
| Children's Books
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: 0872504158 |
Book Description
Ten-year-old James, doted on by his three aunts, is haunted by the loss of his mother. He doesn't know where his mother is—only that she is sick and he has to live with his aunts in a shoddy city apartment. One day he skips school to go to his secret place, a deserted house. What follows is a roller-coaster-like adventure story ride through the streets of New York City.
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Marie-Jo Lafontaine: Babylon Babies
Paul Ardenne ,
Hawa Djabali ,
Charles Dreyfus ,
Robert Eichhorn ,
Willem Elias ,
Romuald Hazoume ,
Adolph Muschg ,
Simon Njami , and
Marie-Jo Lafontaine
Manufacturer: Hatje Cantz Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
General
| Photography
| Arts & Photography
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Photographers, A-Z
| Photography
| Arts & Photography
| Subjects
| Books
Photo Essays
| Photography
| Arts & Photography
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Portraits
| Photography
| Arts & Photography
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General
| Artists, A-Z
| Arts & Photography
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General
| Arts & Photography
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ASIN: 3775791191
Release Date: 2003-05-02 |
Book Description
Amid her current explorations of multilayered topics such as identity, the city, cultural spaces in urban areas, and youth culture, Belgian artist Marie-Jo Lafontaine presents her newest series, Babylon Babies. Comprised of large-format portrait photographs of teenagers superimposed on brightly colored monochromatic backgrounds, Babylon Babies performs an iconography of youth that goes beyond the usual clichas, confronting the viewer with independent young people whose photographic representations refuse any context and are therefore open for projection. In her multicultural cast of head shots, Lafontaine goes far beyond the United Colors of Benetton, presenting a familiar, beautiful array of youths, but never on the suspicious level of the ber youth.
Book Description
The most comprehensive guide to chakra meditation and the ancient spiritual science of layayoga ever created.
• One of the great works on yoga, available for the first time in the United States.
• Full-color plates illustrate each chakra.
With the growing interest in energy medicine in the West, the ancient Hindu tradition of chakra meditation has become increasingly important to both healers and spiritual seekers. While new to us, the chakras have long been studied in the East, with the spiritual science of layayoga having the profoundest knowledge of these energy centers. The fundamental aspect of layayoga is the arousing of dormant energy within the body through concentration and breathing exercises and the movement of this energy through the chakras to achieve supreme consciousness. Unlike kundalini yoga, which starts with the lower chakras and moves energy upward, layayoga meditation starts with the Sahasrara, the spiritual chakra that crowns the aura, and brings energy down to spiritualize each chakra in turn. Layayoga has long been viewed as the most comprehensive and deeply researched examination of the chakras available in the West. Its detailed, illustrated look at each of the chakras and the various meditations and mantras that go with them makes it a must for serious students of yoga.
Customer Reviews:
NOT FOR BEGINNERS.......2007-02-24
Although I am sure this is a great book, as other reviewers have stated, it is definately not for beginners, such as me. That is why I only gave it 3 stars. This book is difficult to read if you are not well versed on the terminology used, but I will continue to poke away at it. With that being said, I have no doubt it will become very useful in the future when I become more familiar with the subject.
Extraordinary! Stunning Insights Into the Truth About Chakras and Kundalini.......2007-02-05
There are dozens of forms of yoga, but Laya Yoga (Layayoga) is one of the most accessible for Westerners. It is one of the four great systems of yoga, and deals with the supersensible functions, forces and centers of the inner world of the body. The other three are Hatha Yoga, the most familiar, which deals with the physical body, its power and functions. Hatha Yoga seeks to affect the subtle systems through control of the gross physical body. Mantra Yoga is concerned with the forces and powers outside the body, but which affect it nonetheless. Raja Yoga is the system for disciplining and stilling the mind so that we can unite with and know what lies beyond. The four together comprise Maha Yoga.
Laya Yoga forms the core of Kundalini Yoga, which in turn lies at the heart of Tantra. Why it is one of the most accessible, is that in contrast to systems that teach that the body is an obstacle on the Path to Enlightenment, it teaches that the body is a manifestation of the ultimate Reality and must therefore be fully integrated into our spiritual development.
This book focuses on the process by which the human body can be transmuted into a divine one, in which every organ and every cell is suffused with consciousness and develops capacities far beyond the "normal." These processes underlie some of the documented feats of yogic adepts. The word "Laya" means "dissolution," in the sense of melting away the limitations and karma that have accrued over time. The word can also be used to refer to the absorption and transmutation of the elements that constitute the body. This process occurs when kundalini is awakened and rises from the base of the spine and ascends toward the top of the head.
This book is technical, academic and comprehensive. It truly is a "definitive guide." It draws on over 280 Sanskrit texts and is based not just on words on books, but many years of precise yogic experimentation and ever more subtle realizations.
This is a book for the serious student. It is not a quick guide to raising kundalini or achieving powers. The book also corrects some of the common misconceptions that litter some of the New Age books on chakras and kundalini.
As an example, in most people only some of the chakras are active. It would not be a good idea for someone to learn how to open them all up without having done the necessary preparatory work first. Many health care practitioners have seen the consequences of people doing too much chakra or kundalini work too quickly and without guidance.
If you are interested in spirituality, yoga or the subtle anatomy of the body, this is a superb book that will repay a few hours of study. I have bought extra copies for students who have already covered the basics about yoga, spiritual development and subtle energies, and each has found it to be a treasure trove.
Highly recommended.
Kundalini kindred.......2003-09-30
I spent many hours reviewing as well as studying this book. Its content is extensive and illuminating. The problem with authoritative and even ancient sources is that these "road maps" to Power are best understood for those who have already traveled "these roads". The map is helpful but far from sufficient. The author does a fine job of giving the reader tools as well as a complete overview of the roots of this important and real discipline. The only criticism I have is that the philosophy extolled at the beginning and end of the book fails to drive home one important point, that is, that mind and body are of the same essence. Also, the explanation of the philosophical impetus and practical results lack clarity, noting that it is not always possible to make what is alogical lucid to limited human capacity. To complicate what is in essence simple, the words on the written pages of the sources are not what is always meant, for these words are simply there to "shine light on meaning". Therefore, relax and take your time reading this wonderful book. In any case this book is highly recommended for all serious students of yoga, meditation and the martial arts as well.
This is the one. . ........2002-10-26
You will find that there is much truth in this book. Take ancient knowledge and update the delivery in a manner suitable for advanced practitioners of Yoga and you may begin to understand the approach of the author, Shyam Sundar Goswami. Not for the novice, and not for those with a typical western view of Yoga. The author quotes the ancient text and delivers it with scientific and medical terminology. The author also holds fast to the way Yoga is supposed to be practiced, written in a way a teacher would instruct a student. "The Definitive Guide..." is essentially what this book is.
Better than my local bookstore.......2002-04-05
My copy of Laya Yoga arrived in pristine condition exactly as advertised. I was surprised at how quickly it arrived. And to top off the benefits, the cost was at least 20% less, including shipping, than what I would have had to pay at my local bookstore.
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