Shut the Door

Average customer rating:

Lots of Set-Up, Little Occurs

good premise, dragging writing

I can relate

Shut the Door

intriguing look at a middle class family

Shut the Door
Amanda Marquit
Manufacturer: St. Martin's Griffin
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 0312319304
Release Date: 2006-02-21

Book Description

In the vein of American Beauty, Shut the Door offers a glimpse into the world of a family in crisis. It focuses on two teenage sisters struggling to carve out their identities as young adults, taking risks and undergoing disturbing transformations that go unchallenged by their emotionally absent parents. Meanwhile, their parents marriage is disintegrating and no longer provides the support the girls so desperately need. Their fathers prolonged absence on a business trip provides the impetus to reevaluate family roles and relationshipsand the choices made are shocking. This evocative family portrait reveals just what happens when our support system falls away and we become disconnected from the ones we love the most.

Customer Reviews:

Lots of Set-Up, Little Occurs.......2007-06-14

Initially I was intrigued not only by the premise of "Shut the Door" (a family who didn't understand each other, let alone communicate), but also by the notes on the author, who is a teenage girl living a privileged life in New York City, which is something with which I am very familiar. I, too, wrote when I was fourteen-- I wrote short stories, novellas, poems, and even screenplays-- but most of what I wrote was very repetitive and sophomoric, feeling like I had to drill a point home in order to make it, and that is exactly what Amanda Marquit has done here. The difference is, Marquit should have had an editor to point out those flaws because the characters are all there: the plot just needs an overhaul.

The opening pages set up the characters and the story nicely: a family living under one roof but in very different worlds. The mother, Beatrice, dotes on her husband and is almost OCD in her cleaning of the house and of cooking meals. She goes so far as to prepare favorite meals for her husband, who is absent from the home, and then she sits across from his empty chair and talks to him, hearing return praise and seeing an invisible smile in her own mind. She is a woman who does not even try to connect with her two teenage daughters: she refuses to even enter their rooms. She still talks about her husband like the puppy love of her younger years: she is truly a woman in denial. She would, however, be the most interesting character if Marquit ever bothered to explore her. Instead of looking at a woman who was once a youthful free spirit dreaming of a perfect familial life, she showed us a woman in a routine, and she never once strayed from that routine, so we were forced to endure pages after pages of those meal preparations-- each time a different food, a slight variation on the one-sided conversation she'd have with her husband as she prepared said food but never a new action. It didn't just make me want to slap Bea but also Marquit: to slap her out of the slump and make her give us a change of scenery if nothing else. I just couldn't accept that Bea was so one-note on purpose: that she really had nothing else to her; I couldn't believe this she was deliberately written as so shallow.

In fact, all of the characters needed to be more complex. It was all food and sex to them and nothing else. And if Bea was supposed to be incapable of more than one thought, the father of the story, Harry, certainly shouldn't have been. Hundreds of miles away from his wife on a business trip, he blows off business meetings, drinks himself into stupors, and avoids his wife's calls. He curses his family and his responsibilities and repeats how he doesn't love his family and should just not go home. He is adolescent and whiny, and he manages to fall into a similar puppy love to Bea's while out in Cleveland, only his is more like the lust of a boy first discovering the opposite sex and letting the wrong head make his decisions.

The girls, Lilliana the "rebel" and Vivian "the good one" each think they are nothing like the other but actually share many of the same insecurities and fears, as all teenage girls do. Lilli engages is meaningless sex with various boys, and when that no longer gives her enough of a high, she resorts to cutting herself to feel something, while Vivian starves herself, pierces, tattoos, dyes her hair, and basically acts as a lackey to some high school girl just to be talked about and desired. She goes from being a bookworm with her head on straight to a kid getting trashed every weekend and in desperate need of a boyfriend so she can lose her virginity. What they fail to realize, and what the author fails to point out (perhaps because she, too, is just a teenager and cannot look at their situations objectively), is that they are doing all the conformist things to stand out one would do when they really just want to fit in.

One major problem with the flow of the book is that Bea and Harry's "chapters" are written in such adolescent tones I couldn't take them seriously as adults, and I found myself skimming through their sections. All four characters are childish when they open their mouths and also when they are alone with their own thoughts, and to me it did not feel like a conscious decision on the author's part to give them all that similar voice (in order to say we're all screwed up in the same ways, no matter the age), but rather it sounded like an amateur writer who herself was juvenile in age as well as experience.

The story takes place over a period of two weeks, and at least when reading the girls' "chapters," it feels like time is moving, although at an uneven pace when compared to their parents. Vivian goes through a complete physical transformation, and while she spends quite a few pages agonizing over getting her tattoo and befriending Katerina, who is her "Queen Bee," when you consider the time frame of fourteen short days, how much thought could she really have given anything? The same goes for Lilli's escalation in her self-mutilation and her infatuation with the music store clerk/guitar teacher Paul: she visits him at the store what has to be every day in such a short time frame, going from thinking he was kind of cute but not the guy she'd normally go after to professing her love for him (even if only to the readers).

Marquit spends about one hundred and fifty pages setting up these characters and their flaws and their "desires." She repeats the imagery of each so much, it is almost like she is trying to get the characters straight in her own mind. When things finally start to happen, around page 216, all you feel is: "Finally!" And then you're on 225, and you turn the page, and it's the acknowledgments. Nothing feels finished. Nothing feels even remotely wrapped up or "dealt with." It's like a stream of conscious world that just ran out-- perhaps due to boredom. Again, it is a problem a good editor should have pointed out: the first two acts are way too heavy, and the third act doesn't get going until nine pages before the end (in film terms): it is completely unbalanced, which is quite poetic, considering it mirrors the mental states of the characters.

Marquit does set up an extremely unique and fascinating world, but unfortunately there is no pay off: she never dives in and explores that world. We as readers are always ahead of the characters: we are figuring out their psychology when they can only wonder. Is it because we have an objective third-party outlook? No, it is because we are adults, and each one of these four characters are juvenile, petty, and living on the surface. And for a story that spends so much time in each character's head-- inner monologue-style-- that is not okay.

I didn't simply want to shut the door, but also the cover of this book.

good premise, dragging writing.......2006-09-25

great characters but this book dragged. i skimmed the last 40 pages to see what happened. it was much of the same...

I can relate.......2006-09-22

I think it is false when I hear people say that teenagers can't identify with the characters or that the characters in the story are exaggerated, because I am sixteen and can relate completely with the characters Amanda Marquit created. I would recommend this book for people who enjoy the movie "thirteen" or the book by Rebecca ray "Pure". This novel is extremely realistic in my opinion and i think the average teen would enjoy it very much.

Shut the Door.......2006-09-01

I like Marquit's style, absolutely hated the book as a whole.

Someone earlier mentioned that teenagers cannot identify themselves well with this novel. I believe this is completely false. While the characters in this novel might be a bit exaggerated, the emotions each character displays are certainly things one can relate to from time to time...especially teenage girls. Desperation, hopelessness, loss of direction, superficial goals, confusion; they are real problems that don't just exist in the world of books, hollywood and soap operas. I enjoyed Marquit's portrayal of these emotions through the characters (who are all deliciously troubled and screwed up).

The thing that killed the book for me though is how repetitive Marquit got after the first thirty-ish pages. After being so moved by the first thirty pages, I then half-heartedly read/skimmed through the rest of the book.

I look forward to reading Marquit's writing in 5-10 years.

intriguing look at a middle class family .......2006-03-08

Harry is in Cleveland on business for two weeks. His wife Beatrice misses making him breakfast as their daughters seventeen years old Vivian and sixteen years old Lilliana make their own meals. To pass time as she waits for Harry to return, Beatrice continues to prepare her spouse's favorite meals.

Harry, on the other hand, is elated to escape his two tedious roles of husband and father. He plans to risk everything to find some fun and perhaps even purpose while in Cleveland.

Neither seems aware that two teens live in their household. For instance Lilli has sex with older males in her bedroom while mom cooks. However, she has met her match in her guitar teacher Paul who rejects her siren's lure so she reacts by mutilating herself. The studious virginal Vivian decides to reengineer herself with a piercing, dye, a tattoo, and a food disorder so that she can gain entrance to the in crowd, but that fails when high school Queen Katerina tricks her into lesbian posing. Still she is on her way to sexual freedom even as her sibling turns to chastity.

SHUT THE DOOR is an intriguing look at a middle class family whose set roles no longer provide solace so except for Bea still making brisket each seeks something new that devastates the "truce" between them. The character driven story line is at its strongest in the first three quarters of the novel as the audience becomes intimately involved with each character as perspectives rotates between them. Ironically the tale loses a bit of steam once the cast is fully known though the plot contains a surprisingly powerful closing twist. Amanda Marquit provides a fascinating family drama starring four individuals who no longer know one another though they live under the same roof.

Harriet Klausner

Shut the Door (First Little Golden Book)

Average customer rating:

THIS ONE WILL MAKE THAT BOOK A DAY THING EASY
Most requested book at Auntie's house ...
I could read this book again and again...

Shut the Door (First Little Golden Book)
Golden Books
Manufacturer: Golden Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Ages 9-12 | Children's Books | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0307301354
Release Date: 1993-12-06

Customer Reviews:

THIS ONE WILL MAKE THAT BOOK A DAY THING EASY .......2005-02-27

WHAT A FUN BOOK TO READ.
IF YOU HAVE TO READ EVERY DAY LIKE I DO,WHY NOT ENJOY IT.
HERE IS WHY I LIKE THIS ONE.
1) QUICK
2)SIMPLE SENTENCES
3)GOOD RHYMES
4)WORD REPETITION
5)FAMILIAR WORDS AND PHRASES
6)THEY LEARN A LESSON (SHUT THE DOOR)

Most requested book at Auntie's house ..........2002-10-11

Oops! Someone forgot to shut the door. What will come inside? Quite a few of my small friends (around 3 to 5) have sat spellbound as the book's cute creatures appeared, and caused some surprises for their host. It's written in lovely rhythmic rhymes. You get to the end and they want it read again straight away. If you can find a copy, grab it - it's a gem!

I could read this book again and again..........2000-10-27

When my first child was about 4 this was her favorite book. It has a catchy rhyming story that is silly and entertaining. It is also has wonderful silly illustration. I loved it so much that when my second child was born 9 years later and I couldn't find our copy of this book I started searching the internet for another copy.

Average customer rating:

Alone with God the Shut Door
John S. Huebschmann
Manufacturer: Parthenon Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000NJ4MBQ

Average customer rating:

Alone with God;: The shut door
John Simon Huebschmann
Manufacturer: Parthenon Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

Prayer | Spirituality | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books

Are Americans Extinct How This Nation of Immigrants Shut Its Golden door- and the Struggle to Reopen it

Average customer rating:

Are Americans Extinct How This Nation of Immigrants Shut Its Golden door- and the Struggle to Reopen it
Jethro K. Lieberman
Manufacturer: Walker
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000OTBAWE

The Case of the Worried Waitress, A Door Fell Shut, The Midnight Man (Detective Book Club)

Average customer rating:

The Case of the Worried Waitress, A Door Fell Shut, The Midnight Man (Detective Book Club)
Martha Albrand, Henry Kane Erle Stanley Gardner
Manufacturer: William Morrow and Company, Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000UOFWJ0

Product Description

470 pages. 3 separate stories.

Average customer rating:

A Door Fell Shut

Manufacturer: Signet
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
ASIN: B000CSXKHK

Average customer rating:

A Door Fell Shut

Manufacturer: Hodder And Stoughton
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: 0340029153

Average customer rating:

A Door Fell Shut

Manufacturer: New America Library, Inc
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000AV58AQ

Product Description

Suspense novel

Average customer rating:

A Door Fell Shut

Manufacturer: Signet
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000E498AU

Customer Reviews:

Love it!.......2007-05-07

Mercedes Lackey at her best, love the adventure, strong, smart, and magic women.

Tries a bit too hard...........2007-03-08

.... and I may be mixing up my Tarma/Kethry books, but isn't this the one that contains a story about a child training a horse, BLATANTLY (and rather poorly) ripping off Monty Roberts & similar famous trainers? That story annoyed me so much!! Gah. It was like she took a transcript of one of their clinics & changed the names.

Actually, four and a half stars.......2003-06-16

"Oathblood" is a very good short story collection.

Some previous reviewers have been rather upset that two of the short stories were put into the original "Oathbound" book. I'm not; I figured that Ms. Lackey needed to put all her short stories in one place, as they were originally published, for two reasons.

One, it helps fans get all the stories in one place.

Two, it helps to understand Tarma and Kethry chronologically if you're buying one of Ms. Lackey's books for the first time. Not everyone who picked this book up had read anything about Tarma or Kethry before; Ms. Lackey basically had to do this.

Although I have nothing wrong with the "commercial" instinct some folks seem to be decrying, I really don't think that's what this was about. (More than any other writer wanting to make a living, that is. And really, what's wrong with that?)

Tarma is a super warrior with a twist; she's a Swordsworn votary of the Shin'a'in goddess, and as such, is "as neutral (sexually) as the blade she bears." (Hope that isn't too bad a paraphrase.) She likes men personally, but has no interest or desire in them, and likes it that way due to a personal tragedy in her past. (Plus, the Shin'a'in goddess takes people as her votaries for various reasons; they're all turned effectively neuter -- the Swordsworn, that is, not others -- so it's just as well Tarma had no real intention to marry after all that anyway. She can't miss what she doesn't want.)

Kethry, on the other hand, is very beautiful, intelligent, spirited, and a strong magic user. As Tarma's partner, originally you'd think they'd never get on. But they do, and quite famously in every respect.

These stories show how their relationship started, how it developed, and the last two stories show Kethry's family (sworn to help Tarma rebuild her lost clan of Tale'sedrin) and how they interact.

I really enjoyed the last two stories. The one about Forst Reach and it's horses (and horsetalking) was very, very funny, and it featured the welcome return of Beaker and Jodi (now paired off) from "Oathbreakers." The very last story featured Jadrie, Kethry's firstborn daughter, and how she helped her mama and Tarma save her two best female friends.

Very uplifting story; very powerful in its own quiet way, and some of the best recent writing Ms. Lackey's done in the Valdemar and related seria since 1996. ("Exile's Honor" is also excellent. I'm really looking forward to "Exile's Valor.")

I'd give this book five stars except for two things: one, the other reviewer is correct that some of these stories were already available in "The Oathbound."

But it's the second that really gets to me, and it's not Ms. Lackey's fault. The second is this; why is the cover so odd? Kethry doesn't look old enough (even if magic does delay the onset of full maturity, she should look older than _this_, and actually, she looks quite the little ... on the cover, doesn't she?), and Tarma looks too beautiful for her characterization. And, more importantly, Tarma looks completely different than she did on the previous two books, "The Oathbound" and "Oathbreakers." (At least Kethry's face is the same. Tarma's isn't.)

What was up with _that_?

Oh, and who's brilliant idea was it to show Warrl not as a wolf-like creature, but as a Siberian husky?

That's the main reason this book doesn't get five stars, and like I said, it had nothing to do with Ms. Lackey. But, as it's a part of the book DAW put out, and I have no other way to complain about it, I'm doing so this way.

Anyway, if you come to this book cold (without reading any previous Tarma and Kethry books), you should be able to understand it. But if you've read the other Tarma and Kethry books, you'll enjoy it more, no question.

"Oathblood" delivers what it promises.......2003-04-21

When I picked up this book, I knew what it promised -- on the back cover it says that there is a new "short novel" and the collection of all of the Tarma and Kethry stories in one place. I was thrilled. I have been trying to read all of the Sword and Sorceress volumes, but I'm never sure if I've read them all, since most of them are out of print. I knew, as anyone who is familiar with this form of literature should be, that the "short novel" advertised would be a novella, or a long short story. Fine with me! I love short stories, and I frankly have preferred Tarma and Kethry in short story form to novel form. Even their novels read as a string of adventures, most of the time. And for those reviewers who said that some of the chapters were directly out of one of the previous novels? Well, I direct you to Sword and Sorceress, where they were originally published. This is a nice collection of short stories for those of us who are interested in the characters of Tarma and Kethry and would like to get all of their stories in one place.

It was okay.......2002-12-29

I was rather disappointed in this book. I bought it a couple of days after I had read the first book in the series, and thought it would be along the same lines, but I was disappointed to find out that it was just a collection of short stories.

Bottom line: If you want to read it, check it out at the library.

Average customer rating:
OATHBLOOD
Mercedes Lackey
Manufacturer: Daw Books, Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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Oathblood

Manufacturer: Tandem Library
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ASIN: 1417647299

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Manufacturer: DAW Books
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Amazon.com

"In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort."

The hobbit-hole in question belongs to one Bilbo Baggins, an upstanding member of a "little people, about half our height, and smaller than the bearded dwarves." He is, like most of his kind, well off, well fed, and best pleased when sitting by his own fire with a pipe, a glass of good beer, and a meal to look forward to. Certainly this particular hobbit is the last person one would expect to see set off on a hazardous journey; indeed, when Gandalf the Grey stops by one morning, "looking for someone to share in an adventure," Baggins fervently wishes the wizard elsewhere. No such luck, however; soon 13 fortune-seeking dwarves have arrived on the hobbit's doorstep in search of a burglar, and before he can even grab his hat or an umbrella, Bilbo Baggins is swept out his door and into a dangerous adventure.

The dwarves' goal is to return to their ancestral home in the Lonely Mountains and reclaim a stolen fortune from the dragon Smaug. Along the way, they and their reluctant companion meet giant spiders, hostile elves, ravening wolves--and, most perilous of all, a subterranean creature named Gollum from whom Bilbo wins a magical ring in a riddling contest. It is from this life-or-death game in the dark that J.R.R. Tolkien's masterwork, The Lord of the Rings, would eventually spring. Though The Hobbit is lighter in tone than the trilogy that follows, it has, like Bilbo Baggins himself, unexpected iron at its core. Don't be fooled by its fairy-tale demeanor; this is very much a story for adults, though older children will enjoy it, too. By the time Bilbo returns to his comfortable hobbit-hole, he is a different person altogether, well primed for the bigger adventures to come--and so is the reader. --Alix Wilber

Book Description

THE GREATEST FANTASY EPIC OF OUR TIME

Bilbo Baggins was a hobbit who wanted to be left alone in quiet comfort. But the wizard Gandalf came along with a band of homeless dwarves. Soon Bilbo was drawn into their quest, facing evil orcs, savage wolves, giant spiders, and worse unknown dangers. Finally, it was Bilbo–alone and unaided–who had to confront the great dragon Smaug, the terror of an entire countryside . . .

This stirring adventure fantasy begins the tale of the hobbits that was continued by J.R.R. Tolkien in his bestselling epic The Lord of the Rings.

Customer Reviews:

Barrel Rider.......2007-10-11

"The Hobbit" by J.R.R. Tolkien is commonly referred as a classic. While this is an often over-used term, it definitely applies in this case. Of the four books Tolkien is known for primarily, "The Fellowship of the Ring", "The Two Towers", "The Return of the King" and "The Hobbit", this is the most satisfying. I t introduces and sets up key characters for "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy consisting of the three books previously named.

In Tolkien's Middle-Earth, the principle races are men, elves and dwarves. There also goblins (orcs), giants dragons, wizards and assorted odd characters and fantastic beasts. Then there are hobbits who have as little to do with the rest of Middle-Earth as possible.

They like it that way.

Hobbits are interested in green growing things, eating and smoking pipe weed. When they aren't being industrious, they enjoy their comforts. They are very short in stature and move through the woods efficiently and silently. This isn't so they can sneak up on someone so much as it is to stay out of adventures.

Of these conservative, predictable folk, there is one Bilbo Baggins. The Bagginses are prosperous and respectable as hobbits go. Which means Bilbo is perfectly happy leading his boring comfortable life. The only mild eccentricity noted in Bilbo's line is he's related to the Tooks through his mother. Tooks had been known to get into little adventures from time to time and as such were of questionable respectability.

Central to this connection is Gandalf the Grey, a wizard. For some reason he has developed a curiosity and a fondness for these little people. Maybe it`s because in his adventure-filled life, it's nice to have a little peace and quiet. Gandalf is also renowned for his fireworks of which everyone enjoys.

One day the family friend shows up on Bilbo's doorstep. Shortly after this, Bilbo finds himself hosting not just Gandalf but also twelve dwarves lead by Thorin Oakenshield. Not long after this, Bilbo finds himself `assigned' to this motley crew as a "Burglar". They are on a quest to recover Thorin's lost fortune.

This is when the book really begins. This is a journey tale. That means Bilbo goes through transformation in the process of this quest. Relationships are developed and tested in a way none can predict. This being a fantasy they see and do fantastic things.

Eventually Bilbo returns home no longer respectable. Along the way he has picked up a ring...........

Tolkien at his best!.......2007-10-09

As the prelude to the Lord of the Rings, the Hobbit or There and Back Again, is a magnificent tale of magic, fantasy, and adventure. I found that I could not set this book down. With each page, I was that much more drawn into the realm of Middle Earth, and I made myself put the book down for a little bit in order to enjoy it.

The characterization in this book is phenomenal. Both the protagonists and antagonists throughout the novel help creat the landscape of the book, as well as set the foundation for Middle Earth. Bilbo Baggins, the hobbit, displays the ideal character in that he is forced into a world of adventure of magic. As an innocent creature unaware of the outside world, Bilbo matures throughout the book, and is a classic example of a character who, by the end of the book, has developed into a great intellectual character. Bilbo continues to display this intellect throughout the Lord of the Rings.

I have experienced many a conflict with other readers who did not enjoy the Hobbit, and I'm not saying that this book is in everyone's favor, but any reader of fantasy, magic, and adventure will love this book. I recommend the Hobbit to every person no matter what age. As a timeless tale of Tolkien, I give this book five stars (although, it probably deserves more).

The Hobbit.......2007-10-06

This book was boasting with the great imagination of J.R.R Tolkein. About 60 years before the lord of the seires Bilbo Gandlaf and a gang of Dwarfs travel through the misty moantians to get to a treasure stolen from the Dwarfs. As the gang travels through the land they meet tons of epic characters (elfs dwarfs goblins trolls). Tolkein could have written more voilence like its sequel Lord of the Rings. Overall it was a epic classic.

--.......2007-10-03

I generally do not read books if there is a possibility of a movie being made on the same. However, this is a really very interesting book. You can not keep it down once you start reading.

Tolkien Set the Stage.......2007-10-02

Though I grew up reading fantasy, playing Lone Wolf books and sometimes joining an AD&D game, I had never read any of Tolkien's works until recently. The Hobbit sat on my bookshelf for seven years because I couldn't get past the first chapter. Now I breezed through it, soaking in the rich world of Tolkien's imagination and discovering where most modern fantasy has its roots. Though I've seen the first two Lord of the Rings movies, I'm now going to get and read those books and anything else JRR Tolkien wrote in the way of fantasy.

The Hobbit (The Authorized Edition): The Enchanting Prelude to "The Lord of the Rings"

Average customer rating:

The Hobbit (The Authorized Edition): The Enchanting Prelude to "The Lord of the Rings"
J. R. R. Tolkien
Manufacturer: Houghton Mifflin/ Ballantine
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

The Hobbit (The Enchanting Prelude to "The Lord of the Rings")

Average customer rating:

The Hobbit (The Enchanting Prelude to "The Lord of the Rings")
J.R.R. Tolkien
Manufacturer: Houghton MIfflin Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Average customer rating:

The Hobbit The enchanting prelude to the Lord of the Rings
J.R.R. Tolkien
Manufacturer: Ballantine Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Average customer rating:

The Hobbit: The Enchanting Prelude to "The Lord of the Rings"
J. R. R. Tolkien
Manufacturer: Ballantine Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Average customer rating:

The Hobbit: The Enchanting Prelude to The Lord of the Rings
J.R.R. Tolkien
Manufacturer: houghton miffin/Ballantine,01532.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback

Book Description

It is widely known that the monks of early Christian history, called the desert fathers, held an abounding wisdom of the nature and aspirations of the human person. Drawing on their own experience in the cloisters of the desert they became sought after mentors, teachers and spiritual guides. This book is filled with poignant wisdom stories relating their message to modern daily life.

Customer Reviews:

An essencial book.......2002-01-19

I have just loved reading this book because the author has provided us with essencial knowledge which means being closer to one's self,and finding God in happiness and sadness. The moving way he writes make us closer to ourself's , stimulates us to meditate about our shadows and lights and slowly incorporate everything that comes to us, transforming it all into a higher dimension.Finally, I would say that I have come to feel and experience God closer after reading this book.

Heaven Begins Within You.......2000-07-31

An Outstanding book, that we can incorporate into our daily lives, even though we are not monks. The practical knowledge is extremely useful in dealing with the human condition. It offers a fascinating perspective that wholeness with God can be obtained by exploring the depths of the human soul, instead of trying to reach the hights of God by our own works. The advice can certainly give us a new alternative to our debilitating habbits of unforgiveness and judgement. When something is over, it's over. These are words to live by. Also who am I to judge another when we are all so uniquely different. A tollerance and a compassion can be achieved with our fellow human beings with this new compelling philosophy. I highly reccomend this book.

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