Amazon.com
Ana Castillo's voice is one of self-confident, hypnotic melancholy. Peel My Love Like an Onion, her fifth book, often reads like a diary rather than a novel--full of dashed-off midnight eloquence but unformed. It's the story of Carmen Santos, a flamenco dancer whose right leg is shriveled from polio. Her family moved from Mexico to Chicago before she was born: "My first language was Spanish but I am not really Mexican. I guess I am Chicago-Mexican." Castillo sees the immigrant experience as a minefield of ironies. Carmen works at the Domino's in the airport as a way of being a productive American, thus gaining her father's respect. One morning on a "power walk" she realizes that the shoes she is wearing may have been made in a sweatshop by some distant relative from "somewhere... very foreign, like seaweed-and-black-fungus-in-French-Vietnamese-soup foreign."
As the book moves back and forth between Carmen's dreams of economic and emotional freedom and her erotic life (in which passion often feels as much like a trap as a release), Castillo's fluid style often lapses into carelessness. And there is a blurred quality to many of the images, like photographs taken from a moving car. Carmen's story is most engaging when she experiences isolated moments of independence: flamenco dancing, for instance, for the customers at a hair salon where she is working, dragging her bad leg around in front of the ladies under the hair dryers. The scene--a moment to relish--is almost heroic in its defiance of the exhausted world. --Emily White
Book Description
The seductive world of flamenco forms the backdrop for a classic tale of independence found, lost, and reclaimed. Like Bizet's legendary gypsy, Carmen "La Coja" (The Cripple) Santos is hilarious, passionate, triumphant, and mesmerizing. A renowned flamenco dancer in Chicago despite the legacy of childhood polio, Carmen has long enjoyed an affair with Agustín, the married director of her troupe--a romance that's now growing stale. When she begins a new, passionate liaison with Manolo, Agustín's grandson and a dancer of natural genius, an angry rivalry is sparked. Carmen finally makes her way back to happiness in this funny, fiery story that's equal parts soap opera, tragicomedy, and rhapsody.
Customer Reviews:
Wholly depressing and utterly incomprehensible.......2005-11-21
While there are many books that provide us with beautiful and harsh truths about our culture, this novel is not one of them. A chaotically written story that bounces around the life of the central character, combined with weak character development and far too many adjectives in every sentence, make this the worst book I have ever had the misfortune to read. The book is wholly depressing and utterly incomprehensible and Ana Castillo is the lazy man's Sandra Cisneros.
Hard to put down.......2005-08-15
Sandra Cisneros described it best in her review: this book is like a Chicana telenovela. Well, probably not the most melodramatic and tangled one, but a telenovela all the same. You have a crippled woman who rose above her disability to become a renowned flamenco dancer. You have her lover/mentor, a man who helped her get her bearings in the world of dance but runs around with other women--and runs back to his wife--but with whom she spends 17 years. You have the young, charismatic dancer who enthralls her--but who is the godson of her lover. You can probably guess how things can get so complicated, but you have to read this book to know that it's not merely about a love triangle.
A Healing Book........2004-03-16
My son gave me this book last year. Actually, he gave me the Spanish version, Carmen la Coja, which he picked up after spending a year in Spain and wanting to keep up with his Spanish. He is second generation madrileno growing up in New York. Our other connection with this book is that I suffered from polio as a child in Madrid. My parents moved to the United States when I recovered with my bout of illness in hopes of my getting better treatment here. This is not to review my life but Carmen la Coja's--brave, fierce and in touch (finally) with herself, with no advantages whatsoever. As I read, I asked myself, What would I have done if I had had such an insensitive mother as Carmen? What would I have done if I had no way to make my living but by my own wits and with the illness I personally knew and understood? Despite the many adjustments I had to make here in the States, I came to understand how fortunate I was all along. It is a courageous testimony to woman's strength. I am in the medical profession and I have recommended this book to many patients and colleagues. They have all thanked me for it later.
Sleepless in Seattle.......2004-03-16
Many years ago I remember reading an interview with Los Lobos, a group I have enjoyed for their diversity in music regardless of being labeled as a Chicano East L.A. Garage Band, where they were asked about their success with "La Bamba". They said they could have gone on recording pop hits cowtowing to the gringo public but have always enjoyed doing what they like to do best, playing music. Castillo's last novel came to mind with this recollection. She has never cowtowed to anyone but writes from the heart, from the gut. A truly complex and stylized writer. I have read her four novels, the first, The Mixquiahuala Letter was required reading when I was an undergrad. I read the rest on my own. All we went to know is when is she moving to Seattle so she can base one of her marvelous novels here!
The Scent of a Woman..........2004-03-16
I admit from the start, that sometimes as a man, I wonder what it would be like to be a beautiful woman--not the kind that Hollywood manufactures but the kind that moves her beauty from inside out. Reading this erotic, culturally and politically senstive made me imagine all these things and more. For instance, how it feels to be a man, truly loved by such a beautiful woman--complex, independent, ornery, gifted. My daughter gave me this book last year as a birthday gift. I was starting to play the guitar. It is a book about music, about timeless love set in modern times. Since reading this, I have purchased Castillo's earlier novels. They are all so different and all so fascinatingly different. I look forward to her next one.
Amazon.com
Don Snyder had a plum academic job, a peaceful, almost perfect life, and plans for far more success in the future. Teaching English and creative writing at Colgate University couldn't have been more stimulating; he sought ever more work and thrived on student contact. When his contract was suddenly not renewed, Snyder was uncomprehending. Nonetheless, he responded immediately--thinking his efforts and accomplishments would pay off, as they always had in the past. Interestingly, he took some time before relaying the news to his pregnant wife, hoping that he could match the bad news with that of another appointment. After almost 100 rejection letters, Snyder found himself helping (not necessarily the word his fellow laborers probably used) to build a house in Maine, and worrying about being able to afford heavier boots. This book might have been preachy or self-indulgent. It is neither.
Book Description
Don Snyder had a plum academic job, a peaceful, almost perfect life, and plans for far more success in the future. Teaching English and creative writing at Colgate University couldn't have been more stimulating; he sought ever more work and thrived on student contact. When his contract was suddenly not renewed, Snyder was uncomprehending. Nonetheless, he responded immediately--thinking his efforts and accomplishments would pay off, as they always had in the past. Interestingly, he took some time before relaying the news to his pregnant wife, hoping that he could match the bad news with that of another appointment. After almost 100 rejection letters, Snyder found himself helping (not necessarily the word his fellow laborers probably used) to build a house in Maine, and worrying about being able to afford heavier boots. This book might have been preachy or self-indulgent. It is neither.
Customer Reviews:
Hits close to home .......2005-04-20
I just read this book while still mired in a job search going on three years. The emotional tailspin the author displays is heart-wrenching and familiar; the tone of the first 200 pages felt like reading my own journals. I did not identify with the author's deceptions and strange behaviors, however, such as lying to his wife or to an insurance company, or considering selling a new baby. But everyone has their own threshold for going haywire, and the point of this book is that Don Snyder got through it and learned something about life, work, and family.
THE CLIFF WALK, beyond the author's personal journey, raises excellent questions about the "American Dream" and what it means in our modern age. It also looks at the meaning of work, and how we draw self-esteem -- even identity -- from what we do for pay. This is a courageous book, even if you don't always approve of how the author responds to his plight, and it offers a strong dose of perspective on what really matters.
Finding strength in vulnerability.......2005-02-25
This is the ultimate victory story...with a twist. Unlike most autobiographical profiles, this one doesn't stand tall and tell you how great it is to be great. The thing is, it doesn't wrap itself up neatly either; the ending doesn't suddenly justify everything that has happened along the way. It's a formula all it's own, one that carries you up and down through the vulnerable channels this man had to endure.
What's so refreshing about this book is kind of what I liked about the movie "Fargo"--the realization that a good story is as much the cumulitive value of the bits and pieces as it is the linear value--of this happening, then this, then this. Moments like his talking to a stranger while chipping golf balls capture the true feeling, the mixed combination of killing time with his genuine fear of being unemployed for even one more day. It's a strange loneliness that we all feel from time to time, even when we're not truly alone. Again, most writers need to have scaled great mountains before they'll write a story where they hang themselves out like this. Don Snyder makes an exception. In today's world, most nonfiction books succeed based on what they emphasize, leave in, or leave out. Snyder tells it all--even the bits that aren't exactly flattering.
And in the end, he shows his true grit: not with eagles or birdies, but simply by making the pars he's supposed to make. And don't let my analogies fool you: it's not about golf. It's just your typical combination of fear and pride and confusion that somehow lead us to where we are today. And it's that kind of simplicity that makes a book like this stand the test of time, whether it be now or 50 years down the road.
One of the best.......2005-02-08
My husband and I both read this book a few years ago and agreed that it was one of the most profound memoirs we'd ever read. Snyder was born to write and we are blessed to have his thoughts recorded for posterity.
Liked it in the end.......2004-12-27
I am in a situation similar to the character in the book to a lesser degree. So it was with great interest that I dove into this book. I was curious to read about Don Snyder's feelings and actions while he was unemployed. Probably many of us share his overconfidence about the ease of finding another job. And many of us subconsciously or not, look down upon those who have to earn their living in lower level jobs. Some of his thoughts and actions I could understand, some I could not. For example, why wouldn't he let his wife find a job and he stay home and watch the kids?(which would much harder than working, let me tell you!) And why didn't he take a job while waiting for responses from the colleges he applied to, since his wife wasn't working? And he stands by and watches his savings go lower and lower. Some of these actions caused me to lose sympathy for him while reading a good portion of the book. One could say he was arrogant and a snob. But by the end he learns valuable lessons about family, work, life, and himself. It does read like a story rather than a clinical assessment. A worthwhile read.
it could happen to you.......2004-06-20
A brutally honest and intriguing look at the stages we go through when employed. The writer wasn't just unemployed, however, his former life as a college professor was golden enough to give a deep-set but false sense of security that things would always continue to be that good. But whatever you chalk up other people's unemployment, too, you can't dismiss Snyder's with an easy explanation. Finally, he moves his wife and children and began doing manual labor. Snyder doesn't shy away from portraying his less than flattering side, but when he finally tells his son, "You do the work right even when you're working for a jerk," you're on his side all the way.
Book Description
It animates the History of the Gilded Age Era along this three-and-one-half-mile path, 30 feet above the Atlantic Ocean, by telling the story, not only of the path and of the development of Bellevue Avenue, but also that of 23 cottages along it: tales of their extraordinary owners: the Vanderbilts, the Astors, the Belmonts, their friends...their fortunes...their frailties and their extraordinary architects.
It includes a numbered map to guide the visitor--with margin numbers in the text to correspond. There are photos of 23 mansions as well as six 2-page photo spreads, illustrating that Gilded Age Social Life.
More than one third of tourists visiting Newport, R.I., explore at least a part of Cliff Walk during their stay.
The author researched this material to inaugurate the Newport Historical Society's two-mile, guided tour of this walk--then expanded it into this book. It features humor in addition to historical facts. More than 2,000 copies have been sold since publication in May, 2000.
Customer Reviews:
A guide to Newport's Cliff Walk.......2006-12-01
New York High Society beginning in the 1860'sto World WarI built their summer Palaces in Newport, RI along Belleview Avenue along the fabled Cliff Walk.
"A Guide to Newports Cliff Walk" tells about this "Gilded Age" summer resort-- The Astors, the Vanderbilts, the Belmonts-- their fortunes their foibles their architects, their architectural styles.
But this 90 page illustrated guidebook also ties these Newport developments to the contemporaneous social, architectural and even political hapennings of this time in New York City Itself.
It mixes in the exposure of Boss Tweed, the election of Teddy Roosevelt as president, the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge, the Statue of Liberty, the Washington Memorial Arch the fight to give voting rights to women and the assassination of architect Standford White of the roof garden of the first Madison Square Garden Building which he had built!
With 29 illustrations and a healthy dose of facts the guide book will give any New York tourist a clear insight into the Holy of Holies of High Society during the American Industrial Revolution!
Newport's Cliff Walk Mansions: Architects and Residents.......2005-12-17
Ed Morris brings the varied architectural structures along Newport's Cliff Walk to life by providing brief, often amusing insights of the personalities who comprised this exclusive neighborhood. His commentary on the personal "eccentricities" of several members of this neighborhood is especially entertaining. A must buy for anyone who plans to visit Newport's Cliff Walk and desires to know the history of who built and who lived in this Guilded Age oriented neighbornood!
Interesting and Entertaining.......2005-02-23
Ed Morris, in this self-published work, offers a detailed 2-mile jaunt around Newport's famed Cliff Walk and surrounding neighborhood. Along the way, he links Newport and some of her better known summer residents to one of American history's most dramatic and interesting eras. Morris introduces his readers to the architectural, industrial, and socially ambitious giants of turn of the century America as he shares tales of their Newport-styled approach to the "strenuous business of leisure." This book is chock-full of anecdotes that share Morris' unique insights with locals and visitors alike.
A pleasurable read.......2004-09-07
Ed Morris has done a wonderful job in bringing Newport's history to life! It really is a must have for anyone who is thinking about visiting Newport. The cliff walk is on a beautiful stretch of coastline, and as I was reading the book, I felt as if I was given access to all of the wonderful mansions along the way. Thank you for letting me take a glimpse over the hedges of Newport's elite and seeing how the other half lived!!!
Informative and Interesting.......2002-07-04
Anyone walking along this gorgeous path has wondered about the families,this book tells about the people and the history in a most interesting manner. A very well written book.
Average customer rating:
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Cliff Walk
Margaret Dickson
Manufacturer: Houghton Mifflin (T)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
 Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
General | United States | World Literature | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0395411068 |
Customer Reviews:
AuthorZone.Com Book Review.......2003-07-20
Another maid has been found laying dead on the cliff walk. Or is she, maid that is.
A repeat murderer must be at work. Maids have been dying. However, Detective Matt Devlin realizes that while the battered woman lying along the cliff walk is wearing maid's uniform she has hands much too soft and unblemished to be that of a maid. Before long Devlin is thrown together with one of the well-to-do inhabitants of the 'cottages' to work toward the solving of this puzzling mystery.
Brooke Cassidy and Devlin had been childhood friends during the years before the death of her working class parents to a carriage accident and Brooke's subsequent leaving of Newport, Rhode Island for a very different life in New York City. Now Brooke is back and living as the ward of her affluent relatives, the Olmsteads.
When all the clues begin pointing to Uncle Henry as the murderer, Matt has no choice but to arrest him. Brooke's `damn the torpedoes full steam ahead' tenacity coupled with Matt's superior, thought plodding, investigative ability do uncover the true killer. Their discovery comes too late to prevent the death of another but not before another woman falls prey to the mad man.
What an interesting tale is to be found on the pages of Death on The Cliff Walk .
Set in 1895 Death on The Cliff Walk is a suspense filled historical novel. This is a gripping tale filled with intriguing well developed characters, credible dialogue and plenty of uncertainty. Duplicity abounds as the pair works toward solving the conundrum. Brooke as the bemused amateur sleuth is a sensible young woman who knows that she cannot simply live the life of the idle rich as her wealthy relatives want her to do. Rather she is determined to help solve the case. I've known people like this peppy girl!
Matt Devlin is the perfect quiet, introspective foil to Brooke's headstrong determination. Kruger's Brooke Cassidy is reminiscent of Brenda Bolden's Bird Series' Alex Masters. Both girls are determined, impatient and intent upon finding answers, right now. It is their willingness to rush forward despite all odds that often brings Cassidy and Masters both face to face with real, personal problems in addition to the one they were trying to solve.
Watch those red herrings. Do not fall into their grip or you may find yourself surprised when you reach the last paragraph of this action packed thriller. Good book for a `lazy afternoon on the porch reading day.'
I hope this is not the only book in which we will find Matt Devlin and Brooke Cassidy working together to solve a perplexing case.
Reviewed by: molly martin
Download Description
Romance, Suspense, Gothic: The 1895 Newport summer season is off to a smashing start-in spite of the recent murders of several maids along the town's famous Cliff Walk. Then the body of wealthy, beautiful Rosalind Sinclair is found, dressed in a maid's uniform; a single long-stemmed rose lies beside her. For homicide detective Matt Devlin, the case fast becomes one of his most baffling.
Customer Reviews:
well done.......2007-10-08
The mystery was well thought out. The few red herrings the author strew in our trail made sense. I look forward to reading other titles by this author.
An engaging historical mystery........1998-02-03
If you're a mystery buff who also happened to love the movie Titanic, you'll find much to appreciate in this book. I read this mystery shortly after seeing Titanic, and many of the same Gilded Age themes of class conflict and proper society are in evidence here. Kruger has done her homework and provided a believable depiction of the era, as well as a well-written and satisfying mystery with enjoyable and well-developed characters. Two thumbs up.
Average customer rating:
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Cliff Walk
John C. Pine
Manufacturer: Moveable Feast Pr
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
United States | World Literature | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books | 18th Century | 19th Century | 20th Century | African American | Asian American | Classics | Collections & Readers | Drama | General | Hispanic | History & Criticism | Humor | Jewish American | Letters & Correspondence | Native American | Poetry | Short Stories | Women Writers
Poetry | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books | African | Ancient, Classical & Medieval | Anthologies | Asian | Australia & Oceania | British | Canadian | Carribean & Latin American | Chinese | Criticism | Epic | French | General | German | Inspirational & Religious | Irish | Japanese & Haiku | Limericks & Humorous Verse | Love Poems | Middle Eastern | Norse & Icelandic Sagas | Poets, A-Z | Russian | Single Authors | Spanish | United States | Writing
ASIN: 094343002X |
Book Description
A masterwork by Philip K. Dick, this is the final, expanded version of the novellla The Unteleported Man, which Dick worked on shortly before his death. In Lies, Inc., fans of the science fiction legend will immediately recognize his hallmark themes of life in a security state, conspiracy, and the blurring of reality and illusion. This publication marks its first complete appearance in the United States.
In this wry, paranoid vision of the future, overpopulation has turned cities into cramed industrial anthills. For those sick of this dystopian reality, one corporation, Trails of Hoffman, Inc., promises an alternative: Take a teleport to Whale's Mouth, a colonized planet billed as the supreme paradise. The only catch is that you can never comeback. When a neurotic man named Rachmael ben Applebaum discovers that the promotional films of happy crowds cheering their newfound existence on Whale's Mouth are faked, he decides to pilot a scapeship on the eighteen-year journey there to see if anyone wants to return.
Customer Reviews:
PHILIP K DICK IN WONDERLAND.......2005-06-15
Unlike a lot of PKD fans I really like this book. I've read the original novella (The Unteleported Man) once and the 1983 Berkeley version (also titled The Unteleported Man) with the additional 1965 chapters included, three times. I am a hard core Philip K Dick fan having read most of his novels, stories and a couple of volumes of his non fiction, as well as two biographies. He was a genuis for writing mind blowing novels that posed fundamental questions were "What is Real?" and "What is human?" The hard sciences didn't really interest him nearly as much as philosophy, theology and politics. At the same time his work blends the comic, the absurdist and the surreal in very strange and wonderful ways. For those new to PKD I would recommend starting with Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, Now Wait for Last Year, The Martian Time Slip, The Man in the High Castle, or Ubik. If you like those you might enjoy LIES INC. as well. Or if you want to dive right into his most bizzare and experimental work, go right ahead.
Actually the previous version, "The Unteleported Man", was one of the first I read by Dick. And I've always enjoyed the second portion (here inserted into the orginal novella instead of tacked on at the end as it was previously)which consists of an interstellar war fought with psychedelic drugs and time warping weapons, cephalopod-like alien invaders, murderous androids, diabolical nazi scientists, and multiple paraworlds. Several explanations are offered as to the reasons behind the unfolding events. All of them are contradictory and none of them difinitive.
For PKD fanatics only.......2005-05-26
Despite the claims of the afterword, this is NOT one complete novel, but rather two separate novellas - neither of which is particularly good. While Dick is capable of some truly fantastic writing, this is easily his worst and least coherent effort. Supposedly this is a story about a mysterious Eden planet to which emigration was encouraged by the government. However, teleportation to this planet is one-way only and no one ever comes back. Our hero decides to make the journey the hard way (18 years in hyperspace) in order to see if anyone wants to come back. This may have been an original meme back when Dick first wrote it, but it's nothing particularly interesting now. The story is also horribly dated by Dick's heavy-handed use of Jewish characters, neo-Nazi Germans and concentration camp imagery. Yes Phil, the emigrants are just like those Jews walking into the showers in Auschwitz - we get it already! The novella finally concludes with an unclear, off-screen and unsatisfying battle that continues to rage with WWII-esque overtones as the minor characters decide to enlist. Yawn.
This would be a big enough waste of time for all but fanatical PKD afficianados, but it's made even worse by the attempt to cram an almost completely unrelated novella into the middle of it. With no transition or explanation, the reader suddenly finds that the character's names have changed, the plot is completely different and nothing makes much sense. A combination of PKD's most incoherent stream-of-thought prose, an ill-considered plot involving multiple levels of reality and a character in the middle of an LSD trip adds up to page after page of nearly incomprehensible gibberish. If you've the intestinal fortitude to wade through all the badly-dated psychedelia, then you'll end up finding the aforementioned corny ending to the first novella. Someone badly needed to shoot the editor here. If, as claimed in the afterword, this was what PKD actually wanted the novel to look like then he must have been tripping on LSD when he rammed these novellas together. Avoid this like the plague unless you're a rabid PKD fan or unless you really enjoy head-trip psychedelic SF from the 60's.
What The? Huh? Say Again?.......2005-04-20
Ok you know the problem. It all started off just fine, people taking a one way trip to an eden like planet. Or so the commercials would have you believe no one really knows what happens because no one ever comes back to say. So how do you find out for sure?
Well I wish I could tell you. I'm not too certain myself. I read the whole thing and still don't really know. Then I tried reading it without the extra installed portion, which the book clearly points out in the end.
It helped...a little. I'm a fan of PKD so I feel kinda guilty giving him 3 stars but I'll comfort myself by putting the blame somewhere around the publishers midsection and leave it at that.
Overall the beginning is great but when the acid trip kicks in just shut the book and make up your own ending... really.
I know you can do it!
TO TELEPORT OR NOT TO TELEPORT?.......2005-02-04
LIES, INC. was thoroughly distorted by the screwy editing. Despite the declaration in the last paragraph of the AFTERWORD by Paul Williams, the insertion of 100 pages into the middle of Dick's novella, THE UNTELEPORTED MAN, couldn't be the way PKD intended. It makes no sense as published. The reader should skip from page 73 to page 173 and, thus, read one coherent story. Then, as Williams fails to suggest, read the 100 page insertion (P 73 to P 172) as a second novella. It is two books in one. Yes, there are overlapping characters in both books, but it just doesn't fly as published. Each story has a different plot.
The broken up 100 pages of THE UNTELEPORTED MAN tells the story of ben Applebaum attempting an 18 year journey to the planet, Whalesmouth, in a regular old space ship. Applebaum wants to prove that the one way teleporting is a phony, German scheme to start up a military force that could one day conquer earth. The other inserted 100 pages tells the story of the same character being teleported to Whalesmouth, then shot up with a drastic hallucinogenic. The LSD visions open up the possibility of inhabiting several gruesome paraworlds. The theme there was to fit in or die. There really is no coherent plot flow connecting the two stories. The naive attempt to combine them amounted to an unforgivable distortion of both. Someone must speak out for the deceased Dick.
fascinating story - with a small quality problem.......2004-11-22
i really don't want to give away too much in respect for all those who haven't read the book yet. just this: written between WWII and the german reunion in '89, the story confronts the reader with a very frightening and amazingly visionary view of a possible future world. i personally found it most fascinating, including its weird detour into psychedelic paraworlds.
the only negative aspect i feel i should mention here are the annoyingly numerous grammatical and spelling mistakes whenever dialogs or narrative is in german language - as a native speaker, i really got tired of stumbling over them, and i think it's a pity the editor - vintage books - didn't have a translator check the foreign language in the story for the sake of its overall quality and credibility ... given the fact that this is not the first edition of the story, and there is an existing german translation for cross-checking!
other than that, it's a great and very consuming book.
Book Description
A remarkable study that shows how dwelling on the truth of God's Word enhances your immune system and provides a crucial link in the chain of good health. Brings biblical balance to the often confusing mind/body issues.
Customer Reviews:
The Healing Power of a Christian Mind.......2004-06-27
I am currently fighting cancer. Someone handed me this book and it has been great in helping me keep my focus on Jesus Christ the one who has my life in His hands and the one who is calling me to LIVE LIFE, even as I battle with this cancer. The book has been a tremendous help to me and I have been passing it on to other fellow cancer strugglers. Praise God for he shows us life and the miracles in them each day that He gives us! Thanks so much for writting this book Dr. Backus!
A Biblical and Balanced Approach to the Topic.......2001-07-28
This book provides a biblical and balanced approach to an otherwise misunderstood and controversial topic: the healing power of the human mind. Dr. Backus is aware of the misunderstandings, especially among Christians, that cloud the issue so he renders due cautions and clarifications during his exposition. Although he believes that miracles and instant healings through prayer do happen today, he distinguishes between a supernatural healing (a miracle) which is entirely an act of God and the natural process of healing which involves our cooperating with God to create a healthy inner life based upon truth, especially and ultimately God's truth revealed in the Bible. He disagrees with those Christians who think that God always wills the healing of our bodies here on earth and think that healing always happens if the person praying has "enough faith" (pg. 110). These same Christians usually "see God's promise to preserve the health of his people, as recorded in Exodus and Deuteronomy, as a pledge to perform miracles routinely" and "think that by 'claiming' these promises they can unleash miracle-power as if by magic from heaven" (pg. 51). Instead, Dr. Backus believes that "the Exodus and Deuteronomy promises assume that God's people will live in a relaxed state of trust - a state of inner peace and rest and obedience" (pgs. 51 - 52).
Dr. Backus also distinguishes between spiritually unhealthy false religions (including New Age and Mind Science cults) and the scientific (and Biblical!) fact that "your health and your healing can be made better or worse by what you do with your mind" (pg. 63). Regarding "positive thinking," he asserts: "If you must choose between a positive thought and a true thought, always choose what is true." He adds: "Sometimes truth has a negative effect - angering us, causing grief, frightening us. But the whole truth transforms those negatives into positives, because God turns evil into good. When you tell yourself the whole truth you don't deny pain or illness, you defeat it" (pg. 129). He gives examples of "illicit positive thinking" that deny reality and also gives examples of confronting negative reality with positive culmination (the "whole" biblical truth) that brings hope and can contribute to one's physical healing. Dr. Backus clearly points out that "most diseases do not result from a single causal factor" and that "even so-called 'terminal' illnesses are not, in themselves, sufficient to cause death. Nutrition, exercise, and rest make a significant difference, as does a sense of belonging to a group of other people" (pg. 53). Also, renewing our minds with Christian truth as taught in the Bible promotes healing; hence, the (revised) title of the book: The Healing Power of a CHRISTIAN Mind.
Although many of the health principles expounded in this book are natural and supported by scripture, Dr. Backus also promotes prayer and the possibility of supernatural healing from God. I highly recommend this book. It is practical, easy to read, and lifts one's spirit with the biblical hope that grounds the Christian gospel.
Books:
- Quicksilver & Shadow
- Ravishing of Lol Stein
- Remind Me Again Why I Married You
- Searching for Caleb
- Sleeping Arrangements
- Soñar en cubano
- Soldados De Salamina/Soldiers of Salamis (Coleccion Andanzas, 433) (Coleccion Andanzas, 433)
- Someone I Loved Died (Please Help Me, God)
- Summer in Baden-Baden
- Sweet as Sugar, Hot as Spice (Warner Forever)
Books Index
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Massacre of the Dreamers: Essays on Xicanisma
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So Far from God: A Novel
