Book Description
From 1884 to 1939, the Great Porter Circus makes the unlikely choice to winter in an Indiana town called Lima, a place that feels as classic as Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio, and as wondrous as a first trip to the Big Top. In Lima an elephant can change the course of a man's life-or the manner of his death. Jennie Dixianna entices men with her dazzling Spin of Death and keeps them in line with secrets locked in a cedar box. The lonely wife of the show's manager has each room of her house painted like a sideshow banner, indulging her desperate passion for a young painter. And a former clown seeks consolation from his loveless marriage in his post-circus job at Clown Alley Cleaners.
In her astonishing debut, Cathy Day follows the circus people into their everyday lives, bringing the greatest show on earth to the page.
Customer Reviews:
Read this instead of WATER FOR ELEPHANTS.......2006-12-02
This book of interconnected short stories related to residents of the old circus town of Lima, Indiana (it's real life counterpart is Peru, Indiana) is just excellent. Great writing, great characterizations and great stories that seem like they could have really happened. Do yourself a favor and read THE CIRCUS IN WINTER instead of WATER FOR ELEPHANTS which is more romance novel than literature but for some unknown reason is reaping a lot of positive buzz.
I do love the circus!.......2006-06-27
This is a wonderful,short book that I really enjoyed.
The author brings you into the world of circus folks. Sometimes funny,sometimes sad but always interesting. She gives us the story many different ways,which at times can be trying.
Her characters are well fleshed out making you want to know more. She carries thru with this by bringing you from the past to the future and back. A good fun read!
A wonderful little book.......2005-12-30
THE CIRCUS IN WINTER by Cathy Day purports to be a book of short stories, but it's much more. The stories, told in chronological order, tell of a circus and its performers over several generations, all linked together like charms on a bracelet.
Just as a circus has different acts going on in its rings, the book has various "acts" that interplay with each other, though each can stand on its own. They circle around the center ring of the Great Porter Circus and Menagerie and its owner, Wallace Porter, from 1883 to 1939.
Most of the action takes place in Lima, Ind., where the circus spends the winter. So we see the characters at work and at rest, where the animal trainers, clowns, acrobats or "freaks" get to be just people and show us that we are all "freaks" in one way or another.
I would say these pieces are primarily mini essays on life, character studies with stories wrapped around them. They are strong, moving stories about human need and emotion, though interestingly perhaps the strongest act of emotion is performed by one of the circus animals.
At one point the narrator tells us, "Be warned. This isn't a pretty story." And, indeed, some of these show the worst side of man -- a tale of slavery, another of murder -- and nature -- a devastating blizzard and a horrifying flood that kills most of the animals, leaving their carcasses to be found when the waters recede.
But the book is filled with wit and wisdom, such as these little gems: "The truth ain't nothing but a lie that folks learn to live with" and "I don't think we live just once. We live when things first happen and every time we remember that first time, we live it again."
At times, the writing reminds me of John Irving at his best, with quirky characters and poetic irony: "They cried for a while, then went downstairs to make pancakes." And some of it is just, plain beautiful: "Suddenly, she remembers love; it is a bird inside her heart that flies out the top of her head."
This is a wonderful little book.
A Well Crafted Book.......2005-12-28
There is no hidden agenda in the title "The Circus in Winter". It is what it says it is. This is a book about life when the lights fade down and the tents are rolled up. Cathy Day works off the story of her family and other families (the circus familes that settled in the small mid-western town of Lima, Indiana- the winter headquarters for the Great Porter Circus) and breathes life back into them as she traces their lives from the late 1800's to present day.
The book seems at first to be a collection of short stories, but as we become acquainted with the sons and daughters of the circus we discover that it is really a non-liner novel. It traces the families of several of the circus performers, Ollie the circus clown, his father Hans the elephant tamer, Pearly and Bascomb the Zulu Queen and Boela Man respectively, as well as others. Their stories are no-where near as exciting as the thrills they produced under the big top, some are sad, some tragic, few are surprising. Day writes of life, she's not looking for a big twist or surprise ending, she's just showing us another aspect of the existence we all lead.
an astounding achievement, brilliantly written, thematically compelling.......2005-08-01
Some fifty years from now, literary critics will judge Cathy Day's debut novel, "The Circus in Winter," as a masterpiece of early twenty-first century American fiction. So that there is no misunderstanding my opinion of "Circus," I believe her writing is exquisite, luminescent and profound. In the same manner that Sherwood Anderson captured the essence of a small Midwest town in "Winesburg, Ohio," Day, with compassion and extraordinary insight, has drawn a portrait of a physical and emotional community in our heartland. Lima, Indiana, the wintering spot for the Great Porter Circus, emerges as a microcosm of the human condition. Through Day's assured and courageous interrelated stories, we learn more than we want, not just about circus life, but the dreams, disappointments and desires that motivate our behaviors.
Psychological tensions abound in this multi-generational novel-in-stories. There is the tension of an America in transition from its agrarian past to its industrial, technological present. There is the tension between men and women, between love and loss, between hopes and despair. There is the tension between illusion and reality. There is even unspoken tension in the names of the characters, particularly the Perdido family, whose Spanish surname signifies being "lost."
One of Day's most significant triumphs is her revisionist interpretation of the ringmaster's oft-repeated benediction: "May all your days be circus days." Said as a blessing, the words often indicate a curse. The author understands the conflicting impulses which draw us to the circus. We wish to be disgusted as much as we wish to be entertained. We hope to be made afraid as much as we want to laugh. We admire the singularity of circus performers but are repelled by their transience, aberrance and recklessness. These contradictory impulses of mirth and menace, of delight and death, of hope and helplessness appear and reappear in the characters whose lives we come to understand in "Circus."
Each story contains its own truth, and every character discovers some essential epiphany. The founder of the circus, Wallace Porter, purchases a floundering circus in 1885 as a result of unbearable loss. Deprived of love, Porter intends to redeem a broken promise made to his terminally-ill young wife. He learns that no endeavor can replace a cavernous hole in the heart. Jennie Dixianna has escaped a brutal childhood and has perfected a "Spin of Death," in which she repeatedly swivels from a hanging rope, leaving her wrist perpetually bloody. She understands men's wants and needs, but is unable to love. Instead, he collects what her lovers have left. In a cedar box is "contained the flotsam of men's pockets, the skeletons that hung like ghosts in their back-hall closets." Her story is a "collage of broken glass from a thousand shattered bottles, and each new shard made her stronger and more beautiful."
Day is unafraid of tackling the circus' perpetuation of racism. Bascomb Bowles emerges as a living symbol of our national need to humiliate African-Americans. His career with the Great Porter Circus ironically begins as an African "pinhead," a perceived promotion from his previous job of cleaning human waste from "honey buckets." Bowles is aware that he is perpetuating a stereotype; yet he brings a quiet dignity to his own struggles for economic and emotional survival. We watch with predictable horror and shame as Bowles' family evolves over the next four generations. The author also shows how one singular event, the death of an elephant trainer, transmutes itself into story and myth over time, affecting the descendants of the deceased and influencing their perceptions of possibility, obligation and purpose. Day compels us to acknowledge that we prefer illusion to truth, interpretation instead of facts, comfort over conscience.
Although "The Circus in Winter" ought be read as written, you could pick any story as a point of origin. Cathy Day's prose is so seamless that each chapter could stand by itself but remains essential to the novel's whole. Her characters, painstakingly drawn and honestly rendered, compel us to examine ourselves, to learn how much we wrestle with the same dilemmas, how much we are circus people. After the greasepaint is removed, after the illusion is replaced by the everyday, after the excitement is tempered by frustration, the characters of the Great Porter Circus must face themselves. When we confront them, we see ourselves.
Average customer rating:
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Lucy's Winter Tale
Amy Ehrlich
Manufacturer: Dial
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
 Picture Books
| Ages 4-8
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ASIN: 0803706618 |
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Winter circus
Peggy Gaddis
Manufacturer: Arcadia House
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
General
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ASIN: B0007FWYCK |
Average customer rating:
- Enjoyable Regency fluff with a feminist twist and thin plot
- Truly Enjoyable - Take some Notes!
- 4.5 star review from Timeless Tales Book Reviews
- Strong wills collide with happy results
- Once a Scoundrel
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Once a Scoundrel
Candice Hern
Manufacturer: Avon
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
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Just One of Those Flings (Signet Eclipse)
ASIN: 006050563X
Release Date: 2003-07-29 |
Book Description
When Anthony Morehouse wins The Ladies' Fashionable in a card game, he thinks it's piece of furniture. But he soon learns that it is actually a women's magazine. He plans to sell it to the editor, but when he sees the beautiful Edwina Parrish behind the desk, he changes his mind. Edwina was his childhood Nemesis, besting him in many competitions and winning from him a family heirloom. He's never forgotten it and so proposes another wager: If she wins, he'll give her the magazine; if he wins, he keeps the magazine and gets his heirloom back.
Customer Reviews:
Enjoyable Regency fluff with a feminist twist and thin plot.......2004-10-25
Edwina Parrish, the feminist reformer and ex-tomboy, is sorely disappointed in Anthony Morehouse, the dissolute gambler and still-sensitive boy she once knew. Turns out, Eddie did quite a bit of wagering when she and Anthony played together. Anthony, who is, of course, smitten with Edwina, bets her that she can't double her subscriptions in three months. If she can, she'll own the magazine her aunt started as an amusing fashionable and gossip rag. For independent Edwina, this wager is too good to resist.
Anthony's new magazine, The Ladies' Fashionable Cabinet, is the Marie Claire or Vanity Fair of its day, minus the fashion reports. Edwina labors under the illusion that so many of today's feminists still do: you can't be into the latest high-society or haut ton fashion and still write reviews on Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley's A Vindication of the Rights of Women. Fortunately, Anthony, who's feeling the need to break out of his role of good-for-nothing privileged son, actively tries to help Edwina---not without a few wagers of course---for example, appointing as her new editor Flora Gallagher, the Heidi Fleiss of the day. The notorious courtesan becomes Edwina's ally and best friend as Edwina and Tony head toward the typical Regency ravishment...except Edwina seduces Tony!
The inevitable boy-loses-girl moment is a ridiculous falling-out between Anthony and Edwina just before the hero proves his love and the heroine realizes her pride (and prejudice) got in the way. Nevertheless, this predictable-but-fun romp into publishing and steamy romance contains a little gem of wisdom on the merits of both beauty and brains.
Truly Enjoyable - Take some Notes!.......2003-09-24
Mr. Anthony Morehouse had been celebrating the ultimate win of a magnificent pair of matched gray high stepping horses, probably drinking a bit too much yet still on a winning streak. He had, in his inebriated state, just won what he thought was a piece of furniture, `The Ladies' Fashionable Cabinet' only to find that it was not a piece of furniture but a woman's magazine. Thinking to rid himself of the magazine Anthony set out to visit the `spinsterish' niece of the man he'd won it from only to find the most incredibly beautiful woman sitting behind the editors desk that he had ever seen!
Not only did he discover that this beauty was his childhood nemesis, Edwina Parrish, but she still possessed the one thing she'd won from him over 20 years ago that had caused a giant rift between he and his father - a priceless roman head. Now, with the precious magazine that was for Edwina, a labor of love, they would agree to a wager that could finally, win him back the priceless artifact. Edwina had almost always been the winner of all their former bets, only this time Anthony knew he could win. What Anthony soon came to realize though, was that what he most wanted to win, was Edwina's heart!
This was for me a totally delightful story, filled with intelligent dialog, wit, and charm. The two protagonists seemed to pick up where they'd left off from years before with most things between them amounting to a wager. As many more wagers are made throughout the story Anthony plans his seduction. One of the most sensuous and amusing scenes I have come across in some time was the result of Anthony's taunt to Edwina that she didn't have any idea on how to `please a man'. My, oh my, oh my! I took notes on that one! The reader will find much to enjoy in this book including an amusing and colorful blend of secondary characters adding wit and wisdom to the storyline. This was just a totally satisfying read - one I sincerely hope you get a chance to read for yourself.
4.5 star review from Timeless Tales Book Reviews.......2003-09-15
By TT reviewer Nancy Arant Williams
With a well-deserved reputation as a scoundrel, Anthony Morehouse is at it again, in an alcoholic stupor. But at least he's won his wager. That's something. But what on earth has he won? A cabinet, a wardrobe of some kind? Even after reading the note describing the prize, the description makes no sense to his bleary brain, and he's sure he's been taken for a ride. Tony has the surprise of his life when he signs the papers to take over his cabinet. In fact, it's not a cabinet at all, but a women's magazine, entitled The Ladies' Fashionable Cabinet. Actually, Victor Croyden, its former owner, doesn't look the least bit sad to part with it, and why is that?
It just so happens that a woman, a very forward-thinking woman, is the magazine's editor. And she's no stranger to our hero, either. She drove him nearly to distraction as a small girl. Even back then, she had no intention of following traditional feminine roles. Tony still has nightmares about the years when Edwina Parrish dared and wagered him into more than one tight corner. When the inevitable meeting time comes, Tony barely recognizes the stunning creature before him. What's happened to the freckles and the pigtails, the skinny tomboy he knew so well?
Fortunately, Eddie no longer bears any resemblance to that brat. However, to his chagrin, he finds that Edwina is the same old competitive female he's always known, and she still has something of his. A tiny gilt bronze head of the Roman goddess Minerva--Eddie won it in a wager after Tony said he found it on his father's estate. Even now, it galls him to admit it, but he had actually stolen it and was boasting to her about it when she won it away from him, and he paid dearly--with stripes to the seat of his pants--for the privilege.
Now that the tables are turned, what might he be able to win from her?
Minerva, certainly, but dare he try for her heart? Edwina has little use for men these days. The love of her life was executed in the French Revolution, and she spent years behind bars, emerging singularly independent and afraid to love again. Tony has his work cut out for him, but in wager after wager, which she can't seem to resist, he wears down her resistance, and finds himself changing in the bargain, falling hard for her. When a secret exposes Eddie's betrayal, Tony can't forgive or forget. Who is she really, and will he be able to live with the truth?
In fine fashion, Candice Hern brings to life characters who are, at the same time, wild, witty and charming. Their love is both passionate and tender, changing them both forever. If your passion is historical fiction, grab a copy of Once a Scoundrel. You won't be sorry. Rated R.
Strong wills collide with happy results.......2003-08-20
Tony, the scoundrel of Once a Scoundrel, has learned to be a charming rogue to live down to his father's expectations. He can't resist a wager, carries his betting book with him everywhere, and wins more often than not. When he wins a ladies' magazine run by the brainy, beautiful self-reliant Edwina, he's finally met the person who can push him to become the man he was meant to be. He, in turn, can help Edwina, who has tightly leashed her passionate energy, to let go and soar again. This is Candice Hern's sexiest and most character-driven book yet. Funny and moving, a page-turning pleasure.
Once a Scoundrel.......2003-08-14
Laugh out loud funny, excellent historical detail, wide range of intriguing characters. Clever plot with subtle message. Mature heroine and hero with lots of sparks and sparring as they wager their way past their deep-rooted rivalry. Candice is a wonderful writer who has outdone herself in this second installment of her current trilogy. I'm eagerly awaiting the sequel and subsequent offerings.
Average customer rating:
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Once A Scoundrel
Manufacturer: Avon
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: 0739435930 |
Product Description
author of Once a Dreamer. Great romance book.
Product Description
Seven massmarket paperbacks. Malory Series Set of 7 - Love Only Once - Tender Rebel - Gentle Rogue - Magic of You - Say You Love Me - The Present - Loving Scoundrel
Book Description
Here it is, just what the 100,000 fans who bought Barry Trotter and the Shameless Parody have been waiting for: the inevitable and thoroughly hilarious sequel to the bestselling spoof of the Potter phenomenon.
Not wild about Harry? Or just had enough of the hype? Try Barry, who, having saved the Hogwash School of Wizards from the unwelcome attention of Hollywood, is now ready to move on. He has married Ermine Cringer and they now have two relatively delightful children. The eldest is a skilled magician, but the youngest just seems to lack that conjurer's touch. Have Barry and Ermine given birth to...a MUDDLE?
Michael Gerber, a writer whose work has appeared in the New Yorker, Playboy, The Wall Street Journal, and on Saturday Night Live, once again produces a parody that will have readers--regardless of their views on Harry Potter--laughing uproariously.
Customer Reviews:
funny & clever.......2005-10-07
This is the 2nd book in this series I've read and GERBER continues to make me laugh and find clever ways to spoof Harry Potter. You must be a fan of Harry Potter to really enjoy these books or you won't get half the references.
I defninitely recomend this book.
Don't Read This Book. Ok, do........2005-07-27
Barry Trotter returns with another 'shameless parody', along with the furry Ermine Cringer and the dog brained Lon Measly. Raunchier, funnier, better, and has more of the arouma of cheese. Don't buy this book. Ok, do.
Not Just Another Sequel.......2004-09-07
This parody is much more than a parody. At one point near the middle of the story the plot (if one can discern one) noticeably changes from simple random comedic parody to an independent commentary on prejudice and society which is more hard hitting than either the original of which this a parody or the first installment of which this is a sequel.
Also, it includes a very disturbing, yet pervasive explanation of conjuring as magical stealing of things already manufactured and owned by "Muddles." I remember such an explanation being proferred during an episode of the TV show "Bewitched" when Darin received a new space-age automobile prototype conjured up by a witch relative - which in actuality disappeared from its "mortal" testing facility the very same day initiating a nationwide search. Likewise in Hogwash, everything conjured is, in effect, instantaneously stolen from "Muddles."
It seems that the "Magickals" and the "Muddles" never were able to reconcile their mutual historical hatred for each other and this story comes very close to recounting a "final solution" whose end is the complete extermination of .... Well, you must really read the book. Not just an other sequel.
Love is the Secret, Barry.......2004-07-28
This book is three or four things at once, and is surprisingly effective at more than one of them. Most of the attention it's received focuses on how it's an adult-themed and very reverent parody of the first three or four Harry Potter books. Names and so on are sometimes funny ("Girlrboy Rockhard" for the swishy Gilderoy Lockhart, played by Kenneth Branagh in the movie) and sometimes just dull ("Lon Measly" for Ron, Harry's pal). (In this review, I'll give Gerber's and Rowling's words together to help you along) Gerber wisely chose to make his Barry Trotter an older man, married, balding and with children, to make the sexual humor more amusing and less frightening. The plot of the book takes Barry to Hogwash/Hogwarts, where he's enchanted and becomes the head of the school amidst a mystery subplot which parodies the prep-school mystery atmosphere of the first three HP books. (The more dark and violent stories which begin with book four are not part of this spoof.)
The second thing that Gerber tries to do in this book is to make comments on the HP series and its relative worth. Unfortunately, he is too respectful of JK Rowling to feel as though he can really tear her apart for her clumsy tell-rather-than-show writing style, her reuse of plot devices and ideas, such as Animagi being the point on which the plots of books 3 and 4 turned, and her often very visible moralizing (on race, on the British class system, on the values of loyalty and love). It wasn't always clear to me why Gerber did the things he did, such as making Lon (Ron) a moron with a dog's brain. Was this because he thinks Rowling makes Ron stupid? I don't think that she does, although the movies basically edit the character (played by Rupert Grint, a much better actor than Chris Columbus allowed him to be) down to Harry's funny sidekick. The Ron of the books is the heart of the trio: a brave and handsome man who loves Harry as a brother. (Hermione is the head, Harry the hand)
This second goal includes Barry being the hero of a series of books which exposed the wizarding world to Muggle eyes, ending centuries of separation. This play-within-a-play theme is cute, and allows for a lot of funny bits, such as the scene in which a bunch of boys confuse Harry/Barry with Frodo and so on.
The third goal Gerber has, which is an admirable one, is a moral critique of the whole idea of a secret world of wizards and witches with powers which Muggles /Muddles do not have. In Gerber's madhouse-mirror of the Potterverse, wizards "conjure" things by stealing them from Muggles: the item disappears from a Muggle and reappears for the wizard. Likewise, castles and such are drafty, cold, and without toilets; the wizard village of Hogsmeade/Hogsbleed is a slum of casinos and brothels. Is Gerber saying that Rowling's dream-England of manors and castles and teashops is a sickly-sweet romantic dream, the work of a welfare mom living in Council housing? But Rowling's wizarding world sees poverty, bigotry, war and death...the critique fails for most of the book. The secret, for Harry Potter, is love. I find this more beautiful and moving than the coarseness that Gerber relies on.
The one place in which it succeeds is a passage which isn't funny at all. Mumblemore/Dumbledore is telling Barry about how magic brought about the Christmas truce in World War One, and the Muggles then began to fight again; the message is that if magic cannot make the world a better place, then it's useless and that wizards are morally bankrupt. Here Gerber sermonizes as fiercely as Rowling has been accused of doing. Rowling's wizards did not stop the world wars or the Holocaust, but the non-magical rulers of our world didn't stop them either. But in both worlds, when evil arises, good people fight it and often give their lives and sanity; Gerber's parodic tone would have been totally unable to cope with the harrowing scene in St Mungo's in the fifth HP bookm when the reader sees Neville Longbottom's parents, tortured into madness by a follower of Voldemort. (In general the darker tone of books 4 and 5 would be less suited for a parody of this type). Harry's forgiving (or at least showing mercy to) Peter Pettigrew for causing the deaths of Harry's parents is another almost shocking scene in the depth of its moral reasoning. The evil of Voldemort, who relishes torturing and even killing his own followers, is patently contrasted with the goodness of a man like Dumbledore, who heroically enters in the fifth book to rescue Harry and his friends from Voldemort. These aren't simply two morally equivalent groups in a struggle for power. They are true good and true evil, and Rowling makes the distinction between them very clear, as well as the fact that moral choices make us good or evil: there are no 'evil' races of beings here, as in Tolkein's world.
Overall, this book is funny in some places, silly in others, in one place, terribly profound. Not the funniest parody of this type, which is *Bored of the Rings*, and Gerber can offer nothing as deep, and, almost, as holy, as Rowling's lessons on tolerance, mercy, forgiveness and love. But the goals are admirable and this book was a lot of work. Not bad, Barry.
On BT 2.......2004-06-08
Barry Trotter 2 by Michael Gerber is a facinating
and yet oh so dumb parody of Harry Potter. Unlike
the first book, Barry is 38, has kids, and is
balding. The main characters are basicly twisted
versions of Harry and co. For instance, Barry is
mean spirited, hot tempered, and other things I
shouldn't say. Ermine,(to some Hermione) Barry's
wife, is kind yet destructive, has a tendency to
show the faults in Barry and other things an average
wife would do. Their kids Nigel, a non-magical 11-year
old going to hogwash, and Fiona, a magical geinus, are
somehow unscaethed. There is also Lon, a quasi-canine
man-child that has a dog brain. You might be thinking
"What about Voldemort!?", well, this time, Valumart is
now a family friend. On to the actual story. The
book coins itself as an intriguing parody with
sphincter-tightening eroictisim. This is false,
the true plot is of Barry and co. going to Hogwash for
a class reunion. But as tragedy (not really) would have it
theheadmister, Dorco Malfesance dies. So, Barry and Ermine
become the new headmister. Then Barry somehow contracts
youthniasia and will die soon. I don't want to give away the story, so, I won't. The book has a lot of jokes and satire
that will entertain the ages of 13-27. Although the book
is good, the ending of the series so prematurely is
bad. Lets just hope Michael Gerber writes more books.
Book Description
These ruminations, assembled in the form of a journal and here published in paperback for the first time, were written at Alan Watts' retreat in the foothills of Mount Tamalpais, California. Many current themes are discussed, including meditation, nature, established religion, race relations, karma and reincarnation, astrology and tantric yoga, and the nature of ecstasy, but the underlying motif is the art of feeling out and following the watercourse way of nature, known in Chinese as the Tao. Watts suggests a way of contemplative meditation in which we temporarily stop naming and classifying all that we experience, and simply feel it as it is.
Customer Reviews:
Writing about the Unknowable.......2004-10-20
It's a little hard to write about something that can't be written about, but Watts gives it his best shot, and he seems to pull it off.
He writes, for example, "Yet the intention of the guru himself is simply to exhaust the energy of the illusion by bringing his disciples again and again to experiences of the absurdity of trying to transform mind with mind."
Watts, as his readers know, started as an Anglican (Episcopalian) priest, and then studied at a Zen monastery in Kyoto, Japan. His metamorphosis is evident in these writings (he died in 1973, right after this book was published).
Watts has little sympathy for the established Christian churches and instead finds sustenance in Zen, Taoism, and Hinduism.
Personally, I found sustenance in his writings here. He doesn't give a whole lot of what we might call "practical" advice, except to meditate, but that's the point of his teachings: "So long, then, as we are concerned with powers, we are still aiming at increased control of nature and aggravating our frustrations." The "Western" efforts to control nature, Watts feels, are self-defeating.
"You, as ego, cannot change what you are feeling, and you cannot, effectively, try not to change it."
You may get the dichotomous drift of what he is saying in these few quotations. When you read the book, you'll get much more. Like other books with a spiritual theme, but moreso, this book will fulfill and feed your spirit. Diximus.
rebel with a cause.......2002-10-21
Timeless wisdom wrapped in beautiful language that soothes the soul. Alan Watts was a brilliant storyteller who managed to stir things up a bit before leaving on an optimistic note.
This work is edgier than his others and will satisfy the more rebellious new agers.
just marvelous.......1998-12-27
This is perhaps the best of the half dozen or so Watts books I've read. Watts is a brilliant philosopher of the "Big Picture", and it is all wonderfully laid out here: Cosmic consciousness, Tantric Buddhism, the Hippies, Tao... he nails them all in splendid fashion. Highly recommendable.
A concise summary of Watts' enlightening lectures........1998-08-24
Unlike "The Book", one of my favorite books of Watts, "Cloud-Hidden..." is a collection of short essays that can be digested in a brief sitting. Some of these essays are direct transcriptions of his lectures. Yet, I find myself returning to this book quite often for a quick "Watts fix".
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A Woman in Amber: Healing the Trauma of War and Exile
Immigrant Voices: New Lives in America, 1773-1986
Rule of the Bone: Novel, A
Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant: A Novel (Ballantine Reader's Circle)
Little Scarlet
