Book Description
The residents of Ebb, Nebraska, could use another miracle. The last time they needed one, their salvation came in the form of a mysterious, well-dressed traveling salesman named Vernon Moore. Though he turned the town around in six days, now Ebb is right back in the soup, and plucky Wilma Porter–owner of the Come Again Bed and Breakfast–is praying for a return visit from the famous Mr. Moore.
Wilma’s prayers are answered, but not everyone is happy to see Vernon again. Clem Tucker, the richest man in town, is cooking up a business deal that could have dire consequences for Ebb–and he doesn’t like Vernon’s meddling. Nor does the recently arrived Reverend Gault, whose Divine Temple of the Everlasting God Almighty may have something to do with the town’s current troubles. Vernon aims to set them straight, even if it means putting himself and others in danger. But it’s Loretta Parson who needs his strange brand of magic the most–and in the end, Vernon just might need her even more . . . if he’s going to save the little town of Ebb.
Customer Reviews:
Bravo!.......2006-07-09
In George Shaffner's `In the Land of Second Chances' he introduces us to Ebb, Nebraska. There we meet the Quilting Circle; a group of strong, mature women who run the town. As the first story unfolds, even though tragedy occurs, there is a constant sweetness about the story and the characters. Mr. Shaffner has surpassed himself in `One Part Angel. The gang from Ebb is back, but in book two we experience the reality and complexities of big city life creeping into the fabric of this small town. The good and the bad are not so easily distinguished. We are forced to accept the fact that `things just aren't the way they used to be'. It takes the entire community to begin rebuilding lives and, ultimately, the town. A beautiful story, and a lovely second chapter in the continuing story of Ebb, Nebraska. .
What a Wonderful World!.......2006-06-03
Starting this book was like coming home to a place warm and familiar. The characters, just like friends and family, are both loving and loved, despite their flaws, missteps, and serious transgressions. George Shaffner introduced us to the people of Ebb in his first novel and his second novel delves deeper into their personalities and daily struggles--they become even more "whole". We meet other town "folk" as well. I agree with the quote on the cover jacket that "George Shaffner does for writing what Louis Armstrong and "What a Wonderful World" did for music." When I initially read that I thought "that's a tall order!" But just as the song can stop me in my tracks on those days when the world seems overwhelmingly negative, "One Part Angel" is also a balm for the soul.
One Part Angel - A Charmer .......2006-06-03
One Part Angel, the sequel to In the Land of Second Chances, is a continuation of the charming and quaint tale of Ebb and its residents with an intriguing and moral twist. Having grown up in Nebraska, I relate to the pride of the Nebraska Cornhuskers-Nebraska's claim to fame, the comfort of neighbors looking out after one another and the importance of good Midwestern values.
Wilma, the narrator of the story and the owner of the local bed and breakfast, is torn between loyalty to her best friend, Loretta, who has been the victim of a serious crime and is in the hosptial fighting for her life, and her beloved grandson, one of the perpetrators of the crime. "It breaks my heart...". The story explores the depth of friendships and tests the power of hope. Vernon returns to Ebb at the request of Wilma...or was he already on his way? At any rate, he brings with him the hope that all will be resolved. Everyone is looking to Vernon to make things right. The guilty parties must be brought to justice, but how does Vernon convince Wilma's grandson to divulge his secrets? The manner in which Vernon saves the day is through logical deduction and thoughtful and divine reasoning. Truly, an artful expression of charity.
The relationship between Clem and the Quilting Circle and its members, who are always at odds with each other, reaches new and intriguing heights. The financial future of Ebb is in question and Vernon is one-step ahead of the game, with Clem trying to figure out how and why. The characters who we came to know in Shaffner's first novel are completely humanized, and you begin to feel you are an intricate part of the community of Ebb. His story-telling is masterful and he has created a cliff-hanger which makes it difficult to put the book down.
I am awaiting the third book in the trilogy with great anticipation. The question of the day is: Will we finally learn who this Vernon Moore actually is?
It Makes Me Excited To See The Third One!.......2006-05-02
This highly-anticipated second novel in the trilogy by George Shaffner was everything that I had hoped for. We got even closer to the characters from In The Land of Second Chances and got to meet a whole new set of characters who were equally interesting. It is a thought-provoking book and Vernon Moore -- our hero -- brings us wonderful insights about charity and what it actually means. George, hurry up with the third one!
Who is that masked man?.......2006-03-12
Vernon Moore is back, and boy is he needed. Once again, he is being asked to deal with one of life's hardest problems--in this case "the good kid gone bad", Wilma's grandson Matt, the archtype of the alienated, non-communicative, angry teenager who has done something both henious and inexplicable, namely participating in the senseless beating of his grandmother's best friend, his mother's employer, and the woman Vernon loves. While Loretta lies in a coma, Vernon sets to work on Matt, pulling patience, humor, common sense, role playing, bad banjo playing, and circular foods out of his bag of tricks. In the end Matt understands the difference between being strong and being smart, and is able to exercise some charity, for himself, the other perpetrators of the crime, and his family.
Ever the multi-tasker, Vernon renews his sparring with Clem, the richest man in three counties, who is once again involved in a mysterious business deal that has the potential of destroying Ebb, placing Wilma uncomfortably smack in the middle between the Quilting Circle spoiling for a fight and her "fiance of perpetuity". As if that isn't enough, Vernon also crosses swords with Reverend Gault, the mysterious and sinister leader of a uber religious cult that has taken up residence near town.
Once again, Shaffner deals with a most difficult delimma with humor, wit, and sound argument. This is a must read for all parents whose teenagers seem to have suddenly been replaced by pod people, and angry ones at that. Actually, it's a must read for anyone who enjoys an entertaining page turner that actually makes you give some thought to what is happening. "One Part Angel" is a delightful sequel to "In the Land of Second Chances" and treats the reader to the same level of humor, quirky characters, and surprising twists and turns.
By the end, Vernon has performed his magic, and Ebb and its residents are safe once more. And, as Vernon disappears over the horizon in his muscle car de jour, the residents are left shaking their heads and doing their best impression of "who was that masked man?". Some good clues are offered in this book, but guess we'll have to wait until the third in the series to find out.
Average customer rating:
- A Wonderful Read
- Masterpiece
- Well written
- Deeply Flawed But Nonetheless Brilliant
- Couldn't put it down
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Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes. Part One : Millennium Approaches; Part Two : Perestroika
Tony Kushner
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Amazon.com
Tony Kushner's Angels in America is that rare entity: a work for the stage that is profoundly moving yet very funny, highly theatrical yet steeped in traditional literary values, and most of all deeply American in its attitudes and political concerns. In two full-length plays--Millennium Approaches and Perestroika--Kushner tells the story of a handful of people trying to make sense of the world. Prior is a man living with AIDS whose lover Louis has left him and become involved with Joe, an ex-Mormon and political conservative whose wife, Harper, is slowly having a nervous breakdown. These stories are contrasted with that of Roy Cohn (a fictional re-creation of the infamous American conservative ideologue who died of AIDS in 1986) and his attempts to remain in the closet while trying to find some sort of personal salvation in his beliefs.
But such a summary does not do justice to Kushner's grand plan, which mixes magical realism with political speeches, high comedy with painful tragedy, and stitches it all together with a daring sense of irony and a moral vision that demands respect and attention. On one level, the play is an indictment of the government led by Ronald Reagan, from the blatant disregard for the AIDS crisis to the flagrant political corruption. But beneath the acute sense of political and moral outrage lies a meditation on what it means to live and die--of AIDS, or anything else--in a society that cares less and less about human life and basic decency. The play's breadth and internal drive is matched by its beautiful writing and unbridled compassion. Winner of two Tony Awards and the 1991 Pulitzer Prize for drama, Angels in America is one of the most outstanding plays of the American theater. --Michael Bronski
Book Description
HBO Films will present Angels in America, directed by Mike Nichols from Tony Kushner's own adaptation of his Tony and Pulitzer Prize-winning play Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes. The remarkable cast features Al Pacino, Meryl Streep, Emma Thompson, Mary Louise Parker, Jeffrey Wright, Justin Kirk, Ben Shenkman, Patrick Wilson, James Cromwell, Michael Gambon and Simon Callow.
Angels in America is one of the most remarkable and celebrated plays of our time. Over 350,000 copies have been sold in paperback since their original publication in 1993.
Praise for the play:
"Angels in America is the broadest, deepest, most searching American play of our time."-Jack Kroll, Newsweek
"A vast, miraculous play . . . provocative, witty and deeply upsetting . . . a searching and radical rethinking of Ameri-can political drama."-Frank Rich, The New York Times
"Something rare, dangerous and harrowing…a roman candle hurled into a drawing room . . . "-Nicholas de Jongh, London Evening Standard
"Playful and profound, extravagantly theatrical and deeply spiritual, witty, and compassionate, furious and incredibly smart . . . It's impossible to imagine anyone captivated by the beginning not wanting-needing-to go back for the end."-Linda Winer, Newsday
"An enormously impressive work of the imagination and intellect, a towering example of what theatre stretched to its full potential can achieve."-Clifford A. Ridley, Philadelphia Inquirer
"Perestroika is a masterpiece."-John Lahr, New Yorker
Customer Reviews:
A Wonderful Read.......2006-12-19
After watching the Angels in America DVD, I wanted to see how it was originally as a play, and it does not disappoint. In many ways, I think it's a better experience reading this play than it was to see it on my tiny television. Angels in America is essentially a theatrical work, and the miniseries came off just as that, a filmed stage play, espcially in Part 1: Millenium Approaches, so that it seemed really static, even with, if not because of, Mike Nichols' direction. It was, on the other hand, tremendously faithful to the play script. As far as I could tell, not a word was changed.
Part 2: Perestroika, however, had a few changes from the script to screen, and those changes worked well, making the filmed version far more dynamic than Part 1. There's some additional backstory that got dropped in the translation, but the spirit is very much the same.
Ultimately, I recommend that you watch the DVD to get an idea of the characters' mannerisms and the staging, then read the script to fully appreciate the poetry of Tony Kushner's language. Buy it and love it!
Masterpiece.......2006-10-01
Angels in America is probably one of the most important pieces of American theatre of the last twenty years. Outside of musicals, probably one of the few contemporary plays of the period that has had a significant mainstream impact outside of an adapted form (and probably significantly more important then a large number of the adapted ones even before it became an excellent miniseries). And for that reason alone, it is worth reading.
But there is more then that.
The play actually is one of the most influential plays for a reason. It speaks to a number of socially relevent themes about the American experience. It deals heavily with the roles of gays in society giving a fascinating dialectic about the potential roles that gays can play in society. One of the most interesting social arguments in the play has to be the complete failure of the traditional nuclear family on every level, a statement that can echo the larger social issue where the image of the nuclear family has failed. As a tangent to that, the play deals heavily with the Mormon church, being both one of the only major religions founded in America and one of the religions with the heaviest focus on the family (and one of the ones with the harshest line towards homosexuality).
This probably isn't a great play to read if you like to read things out of a larger social context. Honestly, though, I really can't imagine how any American could read this play without connecting it to the larger social issues (and I think that would be true for people of a lot of other nationalities as well, though to what degree I'm not sure).
In terms of the actual play, its quite good. But I found (and just about everyone I've asked) has said that they found Part I to be much stronger then Part II.
Well written.......2006-07-08
Wow, I don't usually read plays, but this one is the exception, its astonishing! I even went out to rent the play from HBO studios! I strongly reccomend this book.
Deeply Flawed But Nonetheless Brilliant.......2004-10-05
A playscript is a blueprint for a performance--a document that is intended to be interpreted by those trained in theatre arts. For this reason most non-theatre people find reading a play akin to a tour of purgatory: it is often extremely difficult for the layman to imagine how these strings of words on a page will actually play on a stage before a live audience. This is particularly true of Tony Kushner's ANGELS IN AMERICA, a play which even many theatre arts people (myself included) find very, very flat on the page; consequently, I do not really recommend it for those without a background in theatre arts.
Set in 1980s New York and subtitled "A Gay Fantasia on National Themes," the play concerns a group of largely homosexual men who find themselves caught up in series of disasters that range from love to religion and from politics to philosophy--and most specifically caught between the rising tide of AIDS and a generally unsympathetic society. In the midst of this, AIDS patient Pior Walter begins to have a series of visions, which may be fever dreams, medicine-induced hallucinations... or, most unnerving of all, real. His long dead ancestors rise to speak to him, the floor cracks open to reveal a burning book--and at the conclusion of the play's first half a beautiful woman with majestic wings crashes through his roof. She is the Angel of America. He is, she tells him, a prophet, and she has come to bring him a message for mankind.
Intertwined with Prior's other-earthly experiences are oddly parallel lives. Joe and Harper Pitt are a deeply dysfunctional couple doubting their faith in the Mormon Church, Joe a closeted homosexual, Harper a valium-addicted and mildly psychotic woman given to visions as strange as those of Prior Walter's. And as further counterpoint historical figure Roy Cohn (1927-1986), among the most sinister figures of 20th Century America, finds himself taunted by the ghost of Ethel Rosenberg as he drifts toward his own AIDS-induced death. The characters swirl in and out of each other's lives and dreams, playing to stereotypes and yet defying them, arguing politics and philosophy and love and death--and it is fascinating stuff. And the play, which ran six hours and had to be performed across two consecutive evenings, astounded theatregoers: nothing similar had been seen on Broadway since the days of Eugene O'Neill's MOURNING BECOMES ELECTRA.
But for all of this remarkable vortex of dreams and realities, issues and ideas, there is a tremendous problem with ANGELS IN AMERICA, and even the most casual reader should be able to spot it. When an angel crashes through the roof you naturally expect startling revelations to follow--but having spent the first half of his play building to this amazing climax, Kushner seems to have painted himself into a dramatic corner. The ideas, issues, and characters continue to swirl as brilliantly as before, but the angelic revelations and their gradual unraveling seem to be born more of desperation than of true originality.
Is ANGELS IN AMERICA a play that will resonate through time? It is possible, but I think it unlikely. To return to MOURNING BECOMES ELECTRA, that play is very much of its era in terms of style--but it deals with themes and ideas that are of all times and places, and in consequence it remains as powerful today as it was when it startled Broadway some seventy years ago. But ANGELS IN AMERICA is not only stylistically of its place and time, it is also a play that deals specifically with issues peculiar to its place and time, and as our thinking about these issues change the play's authority begins to fade. While it remains required reading (and ideally required viewing) for any one who is seriously interested in theatre, it seems unlikely that it will forever maintain that status.
GFT, Amazon Reviewer
Couldn't put it down.......2004-09-16
As an actor I have a very discerning eye when it comes to plays, and i was amazed with this piece of literature. I decided to read the first few pages before bed, and before i knew it i had finished and it was almost dawn.
No matter what personal views you have on the subject of politics, AIDS, or religion there is a clear message aimed at all of us as Americans, regardless of beliefs. I found Kushner's ideas compelling, making me think and even more so, feel. there's nothing like reading a great book and becoming enveloped by it and this is one of the best plays of our time; hands down.
Customer Reviews:
Like Plays of Old.......2007-05-21
This play is very accessible to the reader accustomed to reading prose. Contemporary situations are embellished to make this play a work of art.
A Piece of Garbage.......2007-04-17
This book was assigned to me as college reading and all I can say is that I am offended with the language and feel verbally abused by the content. The author is abusing the audience. I have friends whom are gay and they never talk like the trash that represnt them in this book, they hold themselves to a higher level and have class. The author creates gay hatred instead of encouraging people to embrace the gay culture. This book makes you think gays have no sense and that they are wierd instead of just average people. I believe the author has hurt the gay community more then he has helped.
The 'Angels' have come!.......2004-12-17
This remarkable play writen by the best playwrite since Shakespeare has achived not only rocking your mind with it's beautiful prose, language, and story, but also has gained the title of the most wonderufl play in modern liturature (counting plays). Its star-stricken plot will not make you put it down! It is truly wonderful.
The 'Angels' have come!.......2004-12-17
This remarkable play writen by the best playwrite since Shakespeare has achived not only rocking your mind with it's beautiful prose, language, and story, but also has gained the title of the most wonderufl play in modern liturature (counting plays). Its star-stricken plot will not make you put it down! It is truly wonderful.
I love this book!.......2004-04-16
I'm a college student majoring in Theater Design. I had to read this play for one of my classes my freshman year. So I sat down expecting to plod through a story that I'd never read again. Boy was I shocked! I loved it! I couldn't put it down until I'd read the last page, and then I got right online and ordered the sequel. Honestly, I'm not as big a fan of the second book. I haven't read it in a while, but from what I remember it's more offensive, and honestly, a little more like smut. There's an angel with 7 vaginas and it has sex with one of the characters...one of the gay characters..go figure. The second book also seems to take more pot shots at God, which I didn't appreciate as a Christian. Anyway. This is a review of the first book, not the second. (just reminding myself!) I have 7 big bookcases of books at my parents' house, plus my dad is a librarian, so I do a LOT of reading. This book is ALWAYS one of the few "Chosen" books that I take to college with me to keep in my dorm. And just as a side note, I'm not gay, so this book is NOT just for gay people like some of the people whom I've talked to seem to think. BUY IT! You'll be enlightened and inspired to think.
Product Description
Memory, Sorrow and Thorn Trilogy (in four parts) Complete set. A war fueld by the dark powers of sorcery is about to engulf the peaceful land of Osten Ard - for Prester John, the High King, slayer of the dread dragon Shurakai, lies dying. And with his death, an ancient evil will at last be unleashed, as the Storm King, undead ruler of the elvishlike Sithi, seeks to regain his lost realm...
Customer Reviews:
It is a great Read.......2005-09-29
I am reading the book right now. It truly is a great read, 186 pages I'm on page 113 and no sex yet just kissing it makes it all the more fun . . . you can really feel the heat in between these two characters. I feel Holly Greenaway (the female lead) is at times a little to sensitive and irrational. But I love Richard Crawford (the male lead) why can't men like that exist in real life.
Heroine not strong at all.......2005-09-17
Holly has worked in her father's floral shop since she was fifteen. Low pay, six days a week, no partnership in the business. She has been doing this for eleven years and she wants to say her stepmother is the villain? What about the nine years she put in before her father died - he seems just as much to blame! Is Holly just plain stupid? I hate when there is just total "roll over and die" attitude in a woman. She should just gotten on with her life WAY before this! But then there would be no story!
Our hero, Richard, a rather egotistical millionaire figures all women are gold diggers including his cheating (now dead) wife and has that theory confirmed by the women he dates from the matchmaker "Wives Wanted." An interesting concept, this unique dating service matches wealthy men with attractive sophisticated women with marriages of convenience in mind. I'm not sure what he expected ... but .... then Richard meets pitiful Holly who happens to be friends with his widowed mother. A couple of fancy dates, fantastic sex and the threat of losing her livelihood by the selling of the flower shop leads Holly to say YES to his marriage proposal. And later HE gets angry cause she is marrying him for his money??? Oh please!!!
OK for a quick read. This is the first of a trilogy. You meet the two other men and one is already married to his "bought wife" even though his story is the second one. It is ok but I wish Holly had been stronger and Richard less manipulative. Judged against similar books, it holds its own. Oh, I forgot -- of course there is a pregnancy at the end -- my sympathetic morning sickness is returning again.
Book Description
By the middle of the 21st century, humanity has finally landed men on Mars-only to watch helplessly as the first two missions end in catastrophe and death.With resources running out, a third-and perhaps final-mission to Mars is hastily mounted, with a crew of four men and two women. But from the moment of their arrival on Mars, everything begins to go wrong. The fuel tanks that were to have supplied their return trip are found corroded and empty. Their supplies are running out and their life support systems are beginning to fail. And any rescue mission won't reach them for months, or even years-if at all.The crew's only hope for survival lies in a desperate plan: an agonizing trek halfway across the surface of Mars to a ship designed to carry only half their number. Torn by conflict and dissent, and troubled by secrets that endanger them all, they must embark on an ordeal that will test them to the limits of endurance.
Customer Reviews:
Not Free SF Reader.......2007-08-20
Accidents will happen, but when it is on another planet, it is a killer.
The third Mars mssion leaves for the Red Planet after the first two have 100% casualty rates due to problems.
This mission encounters similar issues, and they have to cross the planet to get to the spacecraft left by the others to have hope of any of them surviving. along the way you get vrey short flashback chapters of how each of the people involved came to be there.
3.5 out of 5
Interesting premise never really catches fire.......2007-03-20
Astronauts stranded on Mars trying to find a way home is a potentially exciting premise, but this book a disappointment.
Part of the problem is that the characters are not drawn with any depth - the author doesn't get inside them and make them living, breathing people.
And Mars is well...boring...as portrayed here.
Competently written but it just never catches fire.
I thought the book was a fun read.......2006-08-02
Synopsis: The third manned mission sent to mars after two other failed missions. Upon arrival a massive failure in the return vehicle forces the crew to make a long trip over the surface of mars to make it to the return vehicle of one of the earlier failed missions. However their supplies are not designed for such a journey and the return vehicle they are trying to reach is only designed for two people. There are six crew members. If they all make it to the return vehicle who gets to go home and who must stay?
I just finished this book a few days ago. I rather enjoyed it. I thought that the plot was simple and that the story was well done. The short chapters make putting down the book hard. You mentally think just one more chapter. Before you know it you have been reading for an hour longer then intended. Geoffrey A. Landis jumps back and forth between the story and the characters back story. This helps to keep the back story from becoming boring. However it breaks the plot up making it hard to fully dive into the story. The technology in the book was believable. The light descriptions of mars could have been improved.
For a first novel I think Geoffrey Landis did a wonderful story. I would advise this book to any one that is looking for a scifi book with believable space vehicles and an interesting plot.
The ending of the story is really clean, almost to clean. However I found that I wanted to know a little more about what happened to the characters.
Hard sci-fi? Hardly........2006-08-01
Seriously, how hard is the science in a book that has a blurb about somebody getting lost because he forgot to take his GPS unit into a cave? (Don't believe me? - use the Amazon search function).
OK, the science, which is supposed to be the centerpoint here, is now very very suspect, but how is the writing? Not great. Not a bad book, but not great either. The old plotline of "who will give up their life for the others" has been done before. Lately, better, by Michael Flynn in "River of Stars". There is a lot of babble with not very interesting characters. Hey, if I had to choose between "Paris Hilton - My life story" and this book, I'd choose Mars again. But that's not saying much, is it?
Most Realistic Mars Exploration Novel I've Come Across.......2004-07-27
Geoffrey Landis does a fine job portraying the dusty, desolate Martian landscape in his first novel, "Mars Crossing". Alas it lacks much of the lyricism present in his best Hugo Award-winning short story fiction, but nonetheless, Landis does a fine job recounting a story which could be seen as "Captain Robert F. Scott on Mars" (Scott was the ill-fated commander of the British expedition that arrived at the South Pole after the successful visit by fellow explorer Roald Amundsen and his team.). The characters are credible, behaving realistically during a desperate trek across most of Mars. To be frank, the ending is a bit too neat, and disappointing, with a surprising revelation or two by one of the characters. Still, this is the most realistic novel I've come across describing a manned expedition to Mars. Hopefully Landis will fuse some of his lyrical writing with scientific detail in his next novel.
Book Description
This digital document is an article from APS Diplomat Recorder, published by Thomson Gale on March 25, 2005. The length of the article is 472 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
Citation Details
Title: ARABS-ISRAEL - Mar 20 - Israel Briefly Reopens Gaza Crossing.
Publication:
APS Diplomat Recorder (Newsletter)
Date: March 25, 2005
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 64
Issue: 12
Distributed by Thomson Gale
Book Description
A leading authority on religion and spirituality in America recounts the changes she witnessed from 1992–2004, a period she compares to the tumultuous years of the Reformation and Peri-Reformation in Europe.
As the founding editor of the religion department of Publishers Weekly, Phyllis Tickle was a key figure in bringing discussions about religion into the nation’s cultural and intellectual mainstream. Prayer Is a Place is her insightful first-person account of the people she has met and the trends she has observed over twelve crucial years of change in American religion.
Tickle writes about her face-to-face meetings with such luminaries as the Dalai Lama, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the Chief Mullah of Jerusalem; describes speeches and conferences that redefined traditional religions; and chronicles the birth of new approaches to religion and spirituality. The result is a fascinating overview of the reconfiguration of religion in America and its impact on our culture.
In charting the changes, passions and innovations that have occurred, Tickle remains a clear-eyed, unbiased and sympathetic observer. From her lively reminiscences of the 1003 Parliament of the World’s Religions—a seminal gathering of Christians, Jews, Muslims and Buddhists—to an intriguing look at the rise of Gnosticism in the country to a cogent analysis of the spirituality movements that swept through America during the last decades of the twentieth century, Prayer Is a Place reminds readers that reverence can be expressed in many different forms and in many different settings.
Customer Reviews:
America's Religious Landscape Observed.......2007-02-16
I had the pleasure and honor of hearing Ms. Tickle give a presentation to a small group here in Memphis. She won me over with her knowledge and grace, so I requested one of her books for Christmas. Much to my delight, I received Prayer is a Place.
For those who know Ms. Tickle through her meditational writing, this is a bit different. The book is autobiographical in nature, covering a period from 1992 through 2003. As religion editor for Publisher's Weekly, she was exposed to many of the trends that have rocked faith communities over the decade. She examines these trends and provides unexpected conclusions that leave the reader hopeful for the future. She is also frank in her journey, exposing hurt and fear that we all face in our daily lives. Her writing is truly about America's Religious Landscape Observed.
If you are interested in this religious and sociological subject, then this book is very highly recommended.
I just had to put it down ..........2006-04-05
I just had to put it down ...
After it grabbed me, I had to break its hold so I could stop and contemplate what it said for a while before I could continue. It was much more than I expected.
I expected a handbook on prayer, but it was instead an autobiography on me. And you. And also -- the author. It was our story of faith through this part of the twentieth century into the new millennium. It was the remembering of all we have lived through together in the unconscious forgetting of daily life into the remembering of a storyteller recounting a shared adventure.
At first it was like a rich meal that I could only nibble. Then intrigued, I went back for ever more substantial and surprising feasts.
Here were all the confusing fragments I had struggled with and dropped in my life of blind labyrinthine faith now organized for me into an objective whole. Like a map from above to see where I had been.
All in a personal and very human story of the stuff of real life on this bizarre planet in this confusing time. A life of faith and questions through illness, death, love and loss. Of the wandering in the wilderness of faith to the knowing that God brings in his way, in his time.
But the author lied. A very big lie. She said she was no novelist. What is this book but a novel of the journey of shared lives and shared faiths in the greatest of adventures?
Book Description
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Citation Details
Title: Two authors assess America's liberal spiritual traditions.(Restless Souls: The Making of American Spirituality From Emerson to Oprah; Prayer is a Place: America's Religious Landscape Observed)(Book Review)
Author: Jeffrey Marlett
Publication:
National Catholic Reporter (Magazine/Journal)
Date: January 13, 2006
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 42
Issue: 11
Page: 15(1)
Article Type: Book Review
Distributed by Thomson Gale
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