Disobedience: A Novel

Amazon.com

Disobedience is Naomi Alderman's richly told, endearingly evocative tale of two women and the choices they make as they come to terms with their identities in a traditional Orthodox Jewish community. In this groundbreaking debut, Alderman puts her characters to work, forcing them to confront issues of rebellion, isolation, loneliness and self-acceptance in a place where deviating from the norm often results in cold stares and hushed whispers at the kosher butcher shop.

Ronit Krushka is a lapsed Orthodox Jew, who fled the confines of Hendon, England, and her traditional upbringing for a secular lifestyle on Manhattan's Upper West Side. When her father, the community's revered Rabbi passes away, Ronit returns home to retrieve her mother's precious Shabbat candlesticks, and to revisit her troubled past. She reconnects with Esti, a former lover, whose choices have left her unsure and unfulfilled. As Ronit and Esti navigate through the demons of their past, each woman is forced to decide what kind of life she wants to lead, and with whom she wants to share it.

Alderman alternates between a lyrical and familiar style, introducing each chapter with a page of religious commentary that relates directly to the novel. While the commentary is interesting, readers may find themselves skimming it as the plot thickens and these introductions become more like diversions from the story's main message. Still, interruptions aside, Disobedience marks an important debut, and one that extends outside the lives of these characters to personify the struggle between conformity and individualism for everyone who has felt like an outsider. --Gisele Toueg

Book Description

For Ronit Krushka, thirty-two and single, who lives on Manhattan's Upper West Side, Orthodox Judaism is a suffocating culture she fled long ago. When she learns that her estranged father, the pre-eminent rabbi of the London Orthodox Jewish community in which she was raised, has died, she leaves behind her Friday night takeout, her troublesome romance, and her boisterous circle of friends and returns home for the first time in years.

There, amid the traditional ebb and flow of the community -- the quiet young women returning from their kosher shops and the men with their tightly clutched prayer books -- Ronit reminds herself of her dual mission: to mourn and to collect a single heirloom -- her mother's Shabbat candlesticks. But when Ronit reconnects with her complex and beloved cousin Dovid and with a forbidden childhood sweetheart, she becomes more than just a stranger in her old home -- she becomes a threat.

Driven by wit and beautifully rendered detail, Disobedience pulls back the curtain on a devout and closed world. Set at the crossroads of tradition and modernity, of personal desires and the demands of God, Disobedience is about the importance of moving on and what we lose when we do -- and it is about the tendency toward disobedience that we all have.

Customer Reviews:

I could not put Naomi's book down til I finished it........2007-09-23

Naomi's book answered many questions about my own sexuality. From my background comes homosexuality and bisexuality. Not by me but from members of my own family. I have had many questions about my own sexuality that Naomi's book answered for me. I appreciate Naomi for her willingness to write a novel exposing the issues of these things that most people are not willing to talk about. It takes courage to speak out and I give Naomi much credit for stepping out of the norm.

Well written but should rate either 3 plus or 4 minus!!.......2007-07-21

I found this to be an engrossing read. It explained some areas of "orthodoxy" that were unknown to me. I really liked the way in which the author explained "silence." Found the characters [except those like Hartog, etal.] rather likable -- enough so that I cared about them, as well as what would happen in their lives. I really liked Esti & that she had spoken to Ronit's father -- that's all I can say without spoiling the book. It validates/reinforces the importance of our choices, and the impact of same in our lives, as well as in the lives of others. There was, at least for me, something missing. There is potential here & I would consider reading more of this author's work. This is an engrossing read which should satisfy many.

Ultimately, moving and insightful.......2007-06-25

Two childhood friends/lovers: one comes to terms with an Orthodox Jewish community which is rigid in its views, one rebels against it. The novel has its limitations, but ultimately succeeds in being moving and insightful. While Alderman does not paint a very nice or balanced picture of the community at large, she clearly appreciates the positives in the Orthodox Jewish tradition. She is also able to make meaningful a marriage in which the physical aspect is lacking. The rebel is a flawed character who still retains our sympathy and interest, although we need to dismiss as the author's error one incident: where the rebel is almost ready to "rat" on her friend just to get back at her chief antagonist in the community, and never seems to acknowledge the evil of such a deed. I found the rebel's vindictive streak refreshing, not normally found in a work of this type.

Alderman fails, in my view, in her introductory chapters on the rebel's life in New York. Even the prose in those chapters is frequently not up to par, and the emphasis on the relationship with her married lover is there for lack of something better .

A clash of cultures, both of which are flawed.......2007-05-27

This novel is the story of Ronit Krushka, the rebellious 32-year-old daughter of an Orthodox rabbi in Hendon, an insular Jewish neighborhood in London. The death of Ronit's father forces her to come home for a short time from New York and from her nonobservant life style, and it forces her to confront her past and decide exactly who she is and who she wants to be.

Alderman, who grew up in Hendon, succeeds in portraying both the fervently religious lifestyle and the secular lifestyle without exaggerating or caricaturing either. Hendon can be stifling, but it can also enfold its inhabitants in a warm embrace, and for Ronit it is home. New York City is exciting, free, and tolerant, but city dwellers lack roots and lack a firm basis in ethics and morality. (Ronit is the only one of her circle of friends who knows what's in the Ten Commandments!) At the end of the novel, all the main characters seem to be moving away from either extreme and making their peace with a life replete with contradictions.

Another theme is silence and speech. British Jews are doubly silent -- both because they are far more insecure in their place in society than American Jews, and because they are, after all, British and keep a stiff upper lip. Ronit's father was a master of silence, yet in an important lecture, he points out that God created the world with speech. Yet speech, in the form of lashon ha-ra (the Jewish concept of slander or gossip) can be terribly harmful.

Ronit's New York world is a noisy, speech-filled world, yet much of the speech is meaningless or harmful. Esti, Ronit's former lover, is always quiet, so much so that she is considered odd even in the Hendon synagogue. The denouement of the book is a reconciliation of the ideals of speech and of speechlessness.

Great subject, shallow characters.......2007-02-20

I was very excited to read this book about London Orthodox Jews and their lifestyles. I did discover some interesting traditions but I found the characters too sketchy. They needed to be fleshed out so I would believe their plights. Ronit, the main character, fled to New York leaving her London orthodox community for a life as a lesbian without the disapproval of her father, the Rav. However, we find Ronit in one of the first scenes having an affair with a married man!

When the Rav dies after a long illness, Ronit returns to London for the shiva. The story of Esti (a married lesbian) unfolds. Esti appears to have pined away for Ronit for years and years. This old relationship appears not to have affected Ronit the same way but as the story progresses, Ronit is once again drawn to Esti. Esti is married to a weak rabbi, Dovid, (who is next in line to be the Rav). Dovid suffers from debilitating migraines. I wasn't sure how the reader was to interpret the migraines but Dovid experiences this exquisite pain in diverse situations, holy and marital. Ronit is also obsessed with finding her mother's candlesticks. Her mother died when she was four and Ronit truly was cheated out of loving parents. The Rav was a cold, inflexible father but he was a smart man who seemed to understand his daughter.

The end of the book was comical when Esti, who never conversed with the other congregrants, addressed the congregation about her lesbianism and how people should understand. Dovid stood by her like a nebbish and his lack of assertiveness was never more apparent. Why would they want him to be the Rav? The most interesting character was the head of the congregation who was trying to buy off Ronit so she would leave before the hesped and go back to New York. Instead, she arrived at this tribute in some type of orthodox disguise and she later left with the candlesticks and some revenge.

Reading W. G. Sebald: Adventure and Disobedience (Studies in German Literature Linguistics and Culture) (Studies in German Literature Linguistics and Culture)

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Reading W. G. Sebald: Adventure and Disobedience (Studies in German Literature Linguistics and Culture) (Studies in German Literature Linguistics and Culture)
Deane Blackler
Manufacturer: Camden House
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

All Titles | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
ASIN: 1571133518

Product Description

W. G. Sebald was born in 1944 in Germany. He found his way as a young academic to England and a career as professor of German. Only between the late 1980s and his untimely death in 2001 did he concentrate on nonacademic writing, crafting a new kind of prose work that shares features with but remains distinct from the novel, essay, travel writing, and memoir forms and gaining elevation to the first rank of writers internationally. No less a critic than Susan Sontag was moved to ask "Is literary greatness still possible?," implying that it was and that she had found it embodied in his writing. Deane Blackler explores Sebald's biography before analyzing the reading practice his texts call forth: that of a "disobedient reader," a proactive reader challenged to question the text by Sebald's peculiar use of poetic language, the pseudoautobiographical voice of his narrators, the seemingly documentary photographs he inserted into his books, and by his exquisite representations of place. Blackler reads Sebald's fiction as adventurous and disobedient in its formulation, an imaginative revitalization of literary fiction for the third millennium.

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A tough read from such a great author
Disliked most of the characters
First third is great.
maybe you had to be there
Disobedience and Selfishness

Disobedience: A Novel
Jane Hamilton
Manufacturer: Anchor
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

Psychological & Suspense | Thrillers | Mystery & Thrillers | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 0385720467
Release Date: 2001-07-10

Amazon.com

A wayward wife, an Oedipally obsessed e-mail snoop, a pint-sized Civil War reenactor (oops, make that living historian), and a cheerfully oblivious cuckold comprise the Shaws of Chicago, the decidedly quirky characters of Jane Hamilton's fourth novel, Disobedience. An unlikely family to fall prey to the vagaries of modern life, the Shaws are consumed with clog dancing, early music, and the War Between the States. But they do possess a computer, and when 17-year-old Henry stumbles into his mother's e-mail account and epistolary evidence of her affair with a Ukrainian violinist, he becomes consumed with this glimpse into her life as a woman, not simply a mother.

To picture my mother a lover, I had at first to break her in my mind's eye, hold her over my knee, like a stick, bust her in two. When that was done, when I had changed her like that, I could see her in a different way. I could put her through the motions like a jointed puppet, all dancy in the limbs, loose, nothing to hold her up but me.

While his mother (whom he refers to variously as Mrs. Shaw, Beth, and her e-mail sobriquet, Liza38), dallies with her pen pal, whom she calls "the companion of my body, the guest of my heart," Henry experiences his own sexual awakening; his 13-year-old sister, Elvira, retreats into gender-bending historical fantasy; and their father remains determinedly absorbed in pedagogical responsibilities.

Ironically (and not completely convincingly) narrated by an adult Henry, Disobedience has a rollicking tone somewhat at odds with the somber prospects that loom for this family. A very worldly teenager in some ways, despite the hippie wholesomeness of his family, Henry tells his tale in abundant, almost flowery prose, imagining his mother's private life with elegiac fervor. As in her earlier A Map of the World, Jane Hamilton writes with affection and insight about the darker side of apparently ordinary Midwestern folks. --Victoria Jenkins

Book Description

From Jane Hamilton, author of the beloved New York Times bestsellers A Map of the World and The Book of Ruth, comes a warmly humorous, poignant novel about a young man, his mother's e-mail, and the often surprising path of infidelity.

Henry Shaw, a high school senior, is about as comfortable with his family as any seventeen-year-old can be. His father, Kevin, teaches history with a decidedly socialist tinge at the Chicago private school Henry and his sister attend. His mother, Beth, who plays the piano in a group specializing in antique music, is a loving, attentive wife and parent. Henry even accepts the offbeat behavior of his thirteen-year-old sister, Elvira, who is obsessed with Civil War
reenactments and insists on dressing in handmade Union uniforms at inopportune times.

When he stumbles on his mother's e-mail account, however, Henry realizes that all is not as it seems. There, under the name Liza38, a name that Henry innocently established for her, is undeniable evidence that his mother is having an affair with one Richard Polloco, a violin maker and unlikely paramour who nonetheless has a very appealing way with words and a romantic spirit that, in Henry's estimation, his own father woefully lacks.

Against his better judgment, Henry charts the progress of his mother's infatuation, her feelings of euphoria, of guilt, and of profound, touching confusion. His knowledge of Beth's secret life colors his own tentative explorations of love and sex with the ephemeral Lily, and casts a new light on the arguments-usually focused on Elvira-in which his parents regularly indulge. Over the course of his final year of high school, Henry observes each member of the family, trying to anticipate when they will find out about the infidelity and what the knowledge will mean to each of them.

Henry's observations, set down ten years after that fateful year, are much more than the "old story" of adultery his mother deemed her affair to be. With her inimitable grace and compassion, Jane Hamilton has created a novel full of gentle humor and rich insights into the nature of love and the deep, mysterious bonds that hold families together.

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From Jane Hamilton, author of the beloved New York Times bestsellers A Map of the World and The Book of Ruth, comes a warmly humorous, poignant novel about a young man, his mother's e-mail, and the often surprising path of infidelity.

Henry Shaw, a high school senior, is about as comfortable with his family as any seventeen-year-old can be. His father, Kevin, teaches history with a decidedly socialist tinge at the Chicago private school Henry and his sister attend. His mother, Beth, who plays the piano in a group specializing in antique music, is a loving, attentive wife and parent. Henry even accepts the offbeat behavior of his thirteen-year-old sister, Elvira, who is obsessed with Civil War reenactments and insists on dressing in handmade Union uniforms at inopportune times.

When he stumbles on his mother's e-mail account, however, Henry realizes that all is not as it seems. There, under the name Liza38, a name that Henry innocently established for her, is undeniable evidence that his mother is having an affair with one Richard Polloco, a violin maker and unlikely paramour who nonetheless has a very appealing way with words and a romantic spirit that, in Henry's estimation, his own father woefully lacks.

Against his better judgment, Henry charts the progress of his mother's infatuation, her feelings of euphoria, of guilt, and of profound, touching confusion. His knowledge of Beth's secret life colors his own tentative explorations of love and sex with the ephemeral Lily, and casts a new light on the arguments -- usually focused on Elvira -- in which his parents regularly indulge. Over the course of his final year of high school, Henry observes each member of the family, trying to anticipate when they will find out about the infidelity and what the knowledge will mean to each of them.

Henry's observations, set down ten years after that fateful year, are much more than the "old story" of adultery his mother deemed her affair to be. With her inimitable grace and compassion, Jane Hamilton has created a novel full of gentle humor and rich insights into the nature of love and the deep, mysterious bonds that hold families together.

Customer Reviews:

A tough read from such a great author.......2007-10-07

I absolutely loved The Book of Ruth and was very surprised to find such a difference in this book. I found the obsession the son (narrator) has with his mother's affair to be overdone at times. It was difficult to keep reading his continual questions and concerns about the affair. Without the background story of his sister, there would not be much excitement at all.

If you aren't expecting suspense or too much excitement, you'll enjoy this one. If you come off the high of The Book of Ruth expecting the same, you'll be disappointed.

Disliked most of the characters.......2006-08-21

I've always enjoyed Jane Hamilton's books and still think she's a gifted writer, but had to force myself to finish this book. The main character's voice isn't remotely believable for a 17-year-old, then 20-something-year-old young man. His use of "Mrs. Shaw," "my mother," "Liza," "Beth," etc. etc. etc. for his mother is likely a metaphor for a life lesson, but I found it extremely mannered and annoying. Why change her name 8 times in one paragraph?

Absolutely detested the Elvira character--also totally unbelievable for a 13-year-old. I never found myself warming to her and was quite unmoved by her "ordeal." His father was never anything more than a vague presence, which is possibly the point.

The basic premise is a great one and could've been a thought-provoking, insightful, more enjoyable read without the self-conscience intellectualizing and the Civil War obsession.

First third is great. .......2006-06-10

I loved the set up of this novel but about 2/3s of the way through the story, Hamilton loses site of her characters. Henry's narrative becomes less and less believable as coming from a 20 something male, and sounds instead like Hamilton is speaking in her own voice; this is especially true in the scenes where he is thinking about his girl friend. These scenes of teen angsty love get in the way of the over all theme of the disfunctional family. My favorite character in the family was Elvira but her choice of "Elviron" as an alternative personality was just silly; why didn't she use the name Elvis? I wish Hamilton had spent more time on Elivra's development into her teenage years and less on the unbelievable development of Henry into adulthood.

maybe you had to be there.......2005-11-10

this book reads like an argument that ony makes sense to the people having it. despite the fact that most of this book is in the narrator's head, all the introspection does not give me a clue into who this character is. i finished the book without an understanding of what any of the preceding story meant. he seems to be obsessed with a time in his life (years ago) when his mother had an affair. while it is certainly understandable that that might affect a kid, he never really gets to the bottom of it. why is this important? the main characters are odd; the secondary characters bring nothing to the story. why the feminist poet best friend? why the hated book club member whose worst sin appears to be an intellectual pretension? the dialogue and action scenes come from nowhere and aren't believable. i trudged through this book and was glad when i finished it so i could read something else.

Disobedience and Selfishness.......2005-04-14

Throughout my course of life I have aspired to nurture my intellect with literature. It is quite romantic to learn about the lives of others and the world, past and present, from the gifted and talented souls who made the effort to record their stories. The best part, however, is that when learning about others I'm ultimately learning about myself. Hamilton has introduced me to a part of people, that until now, had been an unrecognized factor in how we form and maintain relationships with others. In the end, Hamilton's "Disobedience" was not so much for me a novel, but rather an invaluble lesson in what one of the book's peripheral characters called the "inviolate self," a somewhat primal part of ourselves that fuels our fantasies.
"Disobendience" is the story of a Liza38's (her email name) act of adultry told by her 17 year old son, Henry, who learns of the affair by reading her emails. The ripples caused by the plunging of his mother into her lover's arms are felt by everyone who has anything to do with the Shaw family. Apparently Liza38 thought that she would be a silent sufferer with the guilt. The climax of the book is not when the secret is revealed, but instead much later when Henry learns to accept his mother's human flaws and realize that he was not the only one who was hurt. His forgiveness is point the story was driving for.
Hamilton's plot is simple, but the characters are complex. There is little predicability in anyone (perhaps maybe a bit in her husband because he never once engages in the numerous arguments she tries to start with him) which gives more insight to the characters than anything else. Ironically though, Henry's biggest complaint about his mother is the selfishness of her act, however all Henry can seem to think about is how her actions have effected him.
I found this book a few years ago while browsin at a used bookstore and it piqued my curiosity, however I did not purchase it. Finally, I made my way down my list and its turn came. It was well worth the wait and I will seek out some of her other titles.

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The Quintessential California Novel
calif prose quanta
Wow! What a book!
An imaginative first novel with a strong sense of history.
The best book on California counterculture available

Disobedience: A Novel
Michael Drinkard
Manufacturer: W. W. Norton & Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

Domestic Life | Women's Fiction | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 039303478X

Book Description

Not since Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49 has there been as unsettling a fictional journey into the Southern California state of mind as Michael Drinkard's Disobedience. It is a darkly funny and unhingingly brilliant multigenerational novel set in the orange groves of Redlands, California, one that shuttles effortlessly from the late nineteenth century to the day after tomorrow.

Customer Reviews:

The Quintessential California Novel.......2003-08-20

Michael Drinkard's Disobedience seamlessly weaves together the wacky stories of several generations of the Tibbets family, a Southern California clan who initially cultivated the orange in the Golden State.

The Tibbets, and the characters drawn into their lives, are beautifully rendered and utterly believable, no matter how comedic Drinkard's portrayal (from Grandma Gortex, an ex Las Vegas showgirl who parades around with an artificial hip, eye, and chest; to Luther Tibbets the down-on-his-luck, infertile engineer who can't impregnate his wife but eventually fertilizes the Imperial Valley by delivering water to California's deserts).

Underneath the surface of Disobedience's narrative lay brilliantly complex symbols and themes related to California's past, present, and future--if you choose to read them as such. Yet, these complexities do not detract from the stories, which are overwhelmingly imaginative and entertaining. As a writer, Drinkard's unique eye for detail, dialog, and diction far outweigh any of his references to structuralism, postmodernism, or any academic ism. The author is simply a marvelous, talented storyteller.

Anyone interested in a good yarn and the simmering conflicts within California would enjoy reading Disobedience. I look forward to reading Michael Drinkard's next novel.

calif prose quanta.......1999-03-12

This book is a throbbing fun chant, a glockenspiel, an information tsunami, a benevolent dose, a purple eye pouch, a navel orange, a sexy sprawl, a fanatical consumer, a big fat violent happy face. I laughed, I cried, I got wet.

Wow! What a book!.......1999-02-22

This book had me hooked from the start. At first, I thought Drinkard was deconstrucing history but what he's really doing is *reconstructing* history. I was most impressed with how the author shows the linneage of traits within this very screwed-up family. This work also has a great sense of humor without sacrificing the humanity of the characters- most notably, the teenage son of the near future.

An imaginative first novel with a strong sense of history........1998-09-06

From the Bear Flag Revolt to the mini-mall present, the military and industrial powers of white California have consistently attempted to define the state's future by redefining (or obliterating) its past. This is certainly not a unique characteristic of the powers-that-be, but in California, especially Southern California, they seem intent on rubbing it in our faces. Thus it is not surprising that young California writers are increasingly turning to the state's past, at a level beyond supermarket historical realism or postmodern surface-nostalgia, to attempt to come to grips with this region's unsettled and unsettling present. Drinkard succeeds in crossing the seemingly impenetrable haze that separates one generation's California from the next. Jumping from parent to child, womb to grave, the novel encompasses the boosterism, booms and busts of the McKinley era, the corporate greed of the nineteen-eighties, and a near-future setting so plausible that it barely qualifies as science fiction. The author shows how the emotional lives and destinies of the characters in each present are created in a history that is largely unknown to them, revealed only when disasters both man-made and natural literally turn up the bones of the past. The book is an enjoyable read, especially in the near-future setting, whose characters are the most lovingly detailed. Drinkard has not quite learned to write the distant past, though his treatment shows promise. The nineteenth-century portion is lovingly researched, but the speech and mannerisms of the characters did not ring true enough to immerse me in the setting. The near-future part is full of gizmos and knick-knacks (some would say "gimmicks") that resonate with both DeLillo at his more whimsical (White Noise) and Jonathan Lethem. I am not personally fond of the former writer, but anyone who is--you must be out there--will certainly enjoy this aspect of Drinkard's book. By far my favorite part of the book was set in the corporate high-rise culture of the nineteen-eighties, amidst the early growth of the "information superhighway" and the cocaine-fueled careers of its builders. In this part of the story Drinkard portrays the emotional and moral development of a young man in a way that any writer could be proud of; and he certainly surpasses most of the other writers dealing with the same subject matter. More importantly, it is the part of the book that gave me the greatest sense of time past, of history both made and in the making.

The best book on California counterculture available.......1996-08-29

Michael Drinkard is not only the most original and literate chrnonicler of the Southern Californian landscape writing today, but also an insightful, poetic, and innovative traveler of the territory of childhood, of work, and of the psyche.

Garfield Goes To Disobedience School(Tr)

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This Book Has The Best Pictures

Garfield Goes To Disobedience School(Tr)
Nancy Davis
Manufacturer: Troll Communications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Humorous | Literature | Children's Books | Subjects | Books

General | Ages 4-8 | Children's Books | Subjects | Books

General | Comics & Graphic Novels | Subjects | Books

General | Graphic Novels | Comics & Graphic Novels | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 081674291X

Customer Reviews:

This Book Has The Best Pictures.......1998-03-06

This Garfield book isin`t as funny as others but it does have a pretty good story and great pictures.

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Disobedience : A Novel
Jane Hamilton
Manufacturer: Doubleday Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000O2GBPC

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Disobedience: A Novel
Michael Drinkard
Manufacturer: W.W. NORTON
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000OKFPSI

Set of 3 Novels By Jane Hamilton : The Book of Ruth, A Map of the World, Disobedience

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Set of 3 Novels By Jane Hamilton : The Book of Ruth, A Map of the World, Disobedience
Jane Hamilton
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000UZZVH2

Product Description

Set of 3 standalone novels by Jane Hamilton.

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Magister Negi Magi Vol. 2 (Mahousensei Negima!) (in Japanese)
Ken Akamatsu
Manufacturer: Kodansha
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Comic
ASIN: 4063632768

Customer Reviews:

Excelent choice........1998-12-14

This book starts out well, and is an excellent lead into the Mutant Cronicles universe. Stackpole wrote this book quite a while ago, but it is up to his usuall high standard. One of the greatest things about this book is that it stands on it's own quite well, but also fits the other two books from the trilogy in quite well, wrapping it all up into a strong conclution. I defentally recomend this book, and the other two in the series to anyone that enjoys science fiction in the slightest.

I thought this book was excellent........1998-08-02

I thought this book was a great book. In kept you at the edge of your seat. Never a dull moment. The characters were excellent. I think that Michael A. Stackpole wrote a great book. I also read this because Stackpole is one of my favorite authors. I really recommend this book to other readers.

Book Description

Fresh with contemporary relevance, this classic of positive thinking from one of the world's great motivational writers offers galvanizing insights on self-transformation. Based on Emmet Fox's simple message that "thoughts are things" and all potential lies in their creative and constructive use, these thirty-one inspiring essays how to have it all -- health, healing, happiness, and a liberated spirit -- through the power of constructive though. First published in 1940, Power Through Constructive Thinking has been a never-failing source of strength and renewal for generations of readers.

Customer Reviews:

Metaphysics.......2007-07-03

This was a Very thought provoking book, but I would not expect anything less from Sheldrake and Fox. I highly recommend reading other books by both of these men. They are both "fringe" thinkers but so was Galileo.

Lot's of talk, but no delivery.......2004-03-05

I was disappointed with the delivery of this book based on the title. The only part I liked was the Thomas Aquinas part. There is nothing scientific about it. I expected more form Rupert being a biologist. Where's the Physics??? The authors assume alot but back none of their assumptions up. This book is so flawed on the angel debate, I could be here all day. It really annoys me when authors spew out thoughts and ramble on but don't offer any evidence. The pages on Satan & the dark angels are utterly laughable!!! These guys should of done alot more research!!! There's nothing here I didn't know already but I sure wish I was there when they were doing this book so I could correct them on the blatant mistakes & contradictions they made.

Finally, a real angel book without the New Age pap!.......1999-10-22

If you, like me, believe that angels exist but are sick to death of mass-market New Age pablum books on angels, this book is for you. A highly respected theologian (Fox) and an equally respected biologist (Sheldrake) talk about science, nature, and angels, both the good and the bad. I think even an agnostic or skeptic would enjoy this book.

VERY GOOD CONTENT AND SCIENTIFIC.......1998-06-26

I THINK, THAT THE CONTENT OF THIS BOOK IS VERY HIGH QUALITY, AND I SEND PERSONALLY MY BEST REGARDS TO MR, RUPERT SHELDRAKE AND MR. MATHEW FOX AND I HOPE THEY WRITE MORE ABOUT IT

THANK YOU PEDRO MANUEL DE MELO MARQUES GOMES

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