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![THE POTENTIAL PRINCIPLE [Paperback] Sanborn, Mark](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1511095539l/36623229._SX50_.jpg)
| 1404106642
| 9781404106642
| 1404106642
| 3.90
| 195
| unknown
| Jan 01, 2017
|
it was amazing
|
While it is not too uncommon to encounter self-help books that seek to encourage the reader on to further success in life [1], this book seeks to prov
While it is not too uncommon to encounter self-help books that seek to encourage the reader on to further success in life [1], this book seeks to provide a context for self-help and personal improvement that puts such efforts into a 2 x 2 matrix and into a context. Its purpose can very easily be seen to be part of a tendency among many people to look for greater formalism in life, and how one feels about this book will depend in large part on one's attitudes toward this formalism. The author candidly discusses his faith as well as his flexibility in looking towards and improvement and offers an ideal world of constant toil and effort under the sun that would likely earn it the sobriquet 'vanity of vanities' had it been around during the time of Solomon. In particular, the author straddles some serious lines that point to the most important conflicts of our time, praising our society's love of what is new and up-to-date, which is responsible for a great deal of the waste that we see around us and the decline of people building things that are made to last, while also encouraging the use of the past to disrupt the present because of the tendency of others to be chronological snobs without a knowledge of history. In terms of its organization and structure, this book has a strikingly formal one as one might expect from its approach and purpose. The first part and the first two chapter of this book are devoted to explaining why one should improve in light of current conditions and the fear of falling behind after an introduction of the potential principle as a whole. The whole book and the author's whole argument is premised on the fact that we as individuals and institutions can achieve far more than we believe possible, and that selling ourselves short discourages us from making the efforts that would make great improvement possible. The second part of the book discusses the path to improvement, as the author introduces the 2 x 2 matrix of potential dividing one's opportunities for growth into four qualities: performance, learning, thinking, and reflection. The third part of the book looks at the means of improvement, with chapters on various strategies for growth such as personal disruption, refocusing, engaging others, and increasing our own capacities. The book closes with a personal look at what matters in driving our personal improvement as well as some appendices that give sixteen combinations of matrix and breakthrough improvement that combine the four strategies given into the four areas the author had posited, as well as eight questions for making oneself better. I found this book to be a useful one as well as a deeply personal one, and also enjoyed the way that there were discussions at the end of each chapter where people who have achieved success gave testimonials of a sort on how they made great strides and great improvements in their lives. In general, I found this discussion to be focused on worldly success based on current contemporary trends towards continuous improvement with the lack of stability that we find in our contemporary world. This is not a book that is directed towards the kingdom of heaven, whatever the religious beliefs of the writer, but rather one that is written to encourage people to be better in our present world here and now. Those who are interested in such success will find much here to enjoy, but not all readers will feel equally sanguine about the author's relentless focus on how to achieve more and better through constant efforts at growth and changing one's habits ruthlessly and having a drive for constant and ceaseless personal improvement. The author seems not to want to dwell on the larger reasons for resistance to change or on the power of the habitual for a great many people. Perhaps that would make the subject for another interesting book. [1] See, for example: https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017... https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017... https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017... https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017... https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017... https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016... https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016... Merged review: While it is not too uncommon to encounter self-help books that seek to encourage the reader on to further success in life [1], this book seeks to provide a context for self-help and personal improvement that puts such efforts into a 2 x 2 matrix and into a context. Its purpose can very easily be seen to be part of a tendency among many people to look for greater formalism in life, and how one feels about this book will depend in large part on one's attitudes toward this formalism. The author candidly discusses his faith as well as his flexibility in looking towards and improvement and offers an ideal world of constant toil and effort under the sun that would likely earn it the sobriquet 'vanity of vanities' had it been around during the time of Solomon. In particular, the author straddles some serious lines that point to the most important conflicts of our time, praising our society's love of what is new and up-to-date, which is responsible for a great deal of the waste that we see around us and the decline of people building things that are made to last, while also encouraging the use of the past to disrupt the present because of the tendency of others to be chronological snobs without a knowledge of history. In terms of its organization and structure, this book has a strikingly formal one as one might expect from its approach and purpose. The first part and the first two chapter of this book are devoted to explaining why one should improve in light of current conditions and the fear of falling behind after an introduction of the potential principle as a whole. The whole book and the author's whole argument is premised on the fact that we as individuals and institutions can achieve far more than we believe possible, and that selling ourselves short discourages us from making the efforts that would make great improvement possible. The second part of the book discusses the path to improvement, as the author introduces the 2 x 2 matrix of potential dividing one's opportunities for growth into four qualities: performance, learning, thinking, and reflection. The third part of the book looks at the means of improvement, with chapters on various strategies for growth such as personal disruption, refocusing, engaging others, and increasing our own capacities. The book closes with a personal look at what matters in driving our personal improvement as well as some appendices that give sixteen combinations of matrix and breakthrough improvement that combine the four strategies given into the four areas the author had posited, as well as eight questions for making oneself better. I found this book to be a useful one as well as a deeply personal one, and also enjoyed the way that there were discussions at the end of each chapter where people who have achieved success gave testimonials of a sort on how they made great strides and great improvements in their lives. In general, I found this discussion to be focused on worldly success based on current contemporary trends towards continuous improvement with the lack of stability that we find in our contemporary world. This is not a book that is directed towards the kingdom of heaven, whatever the religious beliefs of the writer, but rather one that is written to encourage people to be better in our present world here and now. Those who are interested in such success will find much here to enjoy, but not all readers will feel equally sanguine about the author's relentless focus on how to achieve more and better through constant efforts at growth and changing one's habits ruthlessly and having a drive for constant and ceaseless personal improvement. The author seems not to want to dwell on the larger reasons for resistance to change or on the power of the habitual for a great many people. Perhaps that would make the subject for another interesting book. [1] See, for example: https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017... https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017... https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017... https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017... https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017... https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016... https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016... ...more |
Notes are private!
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2
|
Sep 04, 2017
not set
|
Sep 05, 2017
not set
|
Sep 21, 2023
|
Paperback
| ||||||||||||||
| 052139810X
| 9780521398107
| 052139810X
| 4.40
| 5
| Mar 27, 1992
| Mar 27, 1992
|
liked it
|
It ought to come as little surprise that this book is not strictly rational in its approach. It is clear that this author has an agenda to push, and m
It ought to come as little surprise that this book is not strictly rational in its approach. It is clear that this author has an agenda to push, and manages to have a surprisingly strident ax to grind against those who question the rational and scientific basis of the psychoanalytical school, for reasons that appear puzzling. Although reading about international conflict and calls for peace is far from unusual for me [1], this book managed to be a bit strange by its desire to defend bounded rationality while also defending the legitimacy of psychoanalysis. The author seems aware of the tension he is caught in, but his agenda of trying to discredit realism and neo-realism (a common issue among these writers from what I have seen) leads him to engage in dangerous fallacies. What could have been a great book instead ended up merely being an okay book that sometimes overstayed its welcome by a considerable degree. At least the book was not bad, and at times it was genuinely entertaining, but I would rather not waste my time reading globalist propaganda if I can help it. The author takes about 250 pages to cover a variety of subjects The first part of the book looks at conflict, from concepts of conflict to social science and the study of conflict. The second part of the book looks at rational behavior in the study of rationality and conflict, conflict and the paradoxes of rationality, zero sum games, emotion and rationality, the warping of rationality in international crises, followed by a brief assessment on rational choice. The third part of the book covers some topics in conflict analysis like the statistical analysis of warlike behavior, arms and arms races, ecology and the free rider, and the theory of alliances. The fourth part has the author dealing with his critics in classic straw man fashion and looks at the connection between social science and values. Clearly, the author wants to say things about ecology even though these do not deal precisely with conflicts, at least not as they are described. The author also wants to have his cake and eat it to, by presenting rationality in such a way that avoids moral judgments while also allowing himself to make moral judgments that support his own political worldviews while simultaneously showing a great deal of dislike for those who judge international relations by moral standards. In all, this book is demonstration of the mental gymnastics that people do in order to behave like hypocrites. No stone is unturned if it can help the author plead for his own particular narrow causes. No reasonable opportunities are missed to make the author appear to be rational and statistical and to show off, even though in some cases this demonstrates just how dodgy the measurement of arms races and conflicts happens to be. If the author is trying to show the legitimacy of social science approaches to international conflict as he so strenuously claims, he goes about it in a rather odd manner, and in one that alienates at least as many potential readers as it appeals to. In fact, this is not a very appealing book at all, even if it is at least a reasonably decent primer on the way that statistical analysis works in the social sciences, and that is worth reviewing from time to time. It is likely one can find more congenial and less hypocritical books to read and review, though. This book finds the author more interested in scoring points than in being fair-minded, and that makes for a tough book to read for someone like me. [1] See, for example: https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017... https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017... https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017... https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017... https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016... Merged review: It ought to come as little surprise that this book is not strictly rational in its approach. It is clear that this author has an agenda to push, and manages to have a surprisingly strident ax to grind against those who question the rational and scientific basis of the psychoanalytical school, for reasons that appear puzzling. Although reading about international conflict and calls for peace is far from unusual for me [1], this book managed to be a bit strange by its desire to defend bounded rationality while also defending the legitimacy of psychoanalysis. The author seems aware of the tension he is caught in, but his agenda of trying to discredit realism and neo-realism (a common issue among these writers from what I have seen) leads him to engage in dangerous fallacies. What could have been a great book instead ended up merely being an okay book that sometimes overstayed its welcome by a considerable degree. At least the book was not bad, and at times it was genuinely entertaining, but I would rather not waste my time reading globalist propaganda if I can help it. The author takes about 250 pages to cover a variety of subjects The first part of the book looks at conflict, from concepts of conflict to social science and the study of conflict. The second part of the book looks at rational behavior in the study of rationality and conflict, conflict and the paradoxes of rationality, zero sum games, emotion and rationality, the warping of rationality in international crises, followed by a brief assessment on rational choice. The third part of the book covers some topics in conflict analysis like the statistical analysis of warlike behavior, arms and arms races, ecology and the free rider, and the theory of alliances. The fourth part has the author dealing with his critics in classic straw man fashion and looks at the connection between social science and values. Clearly, the author wants to say things about ecology even though these do not deal precisely with conflicts, at least not as they are described. The author also wants to have his cake and eat it to, by presenting rationality in such a way that avoids moral judgments while also allowing himself to make moral judgments that support his own political worldviews while simultaneously showing a great deal of dislike for those who judge international relations by moral standards. In all, this book is demonstration of the mental gymnastics that people do in order to behave like hypocrites. No stone is unturned if it can help the author plead for his own particular narrow causes. No reasonable opportunities are missed to make the author appear to be rational and statistical and to show off, even though in some cases this demonstrates just how dodgy the measurement of arms races and conflicts happens to be. If the author is trying to show the legitimacy of social science approaches to international conflict as he so strenuously claims, he goes about it in a rather odd manner, and in one that alienates at least as many potential readers as it appeals to. In fact, this is not a very appealing book at all, even if it is at least a reasonably decent primer on the way that statistical analysis works in the social sciences, and that is worth reviewing from time to time. It is likely one can find more congenial and less hypocritical books to read and review, though. This book finds the author more interested in scoring points than in being fair-minded, and that makes for a tough book to read for someone like me. [1] See, for example: https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017... https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017... https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017... https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017... https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016... ...more |
Notes are private!
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2
|
Mar 2017
not set
|
Mar 03, 2017
not set
|
Jun 28, 2023
|
Paperback
| ||||||||||||||
| 145662864X
| 9781456628642
| 145662864X
| 4.50
| 46
| Sep 12, 2017
| Sep 12, 2017
|
it was amazing
|
[Note: This book was provided free of charge by Books Go Social. All thoughts and opinions are my own.] Although I do not read books about World War [Note: This book was provided free of charge by Books Go Social. All thoughts and opinions are my own.] Although I do not read books about World War II all that often [1], I tend to be greatly fond of unknown and obscure stories, and this was certainly an excellent book about an effort by the United States to train some 300 Soviet airmen in how to fly the Nomad, a large seaplane that was designed to help improve the logistics of the Allied War effort in the Arctic front. This book is the sort of book that is filled with personal reminisces on the part of the lone survivor among the leaders of this effort, and while that makes the book a bit scattered and not entirely chronological in its basis, this is a book about a long-forgotten effort that deserves to be remembered and that demonstrates the abilities of ordinary soldiers (and extraordinary ones in the case of the princely Gagarin) to get along with those who are uncertain allies and future enemies in the recognition of common humanity and the way that governments (especially the Soviet one) have lied about others in an attempt to maintain social control. This book tells a series of tales about how the Soviet Union faced extinction from Hitler and how the United States saved them, not only through supplying them with planes, tanks, and other materials but also through training. Most of the book consists of a group of Americans and Russians in the small town of Elizabeth City, North Carolina, engaging in a delicate act of cultural communication. We this effort through a variety of perspectives, from the point of view of squabbling political elites who want to help the war effort but are engaged in a lot of political gamesmanship, officers seeking advancement and supporting a hierarchical relationship with often nameless enlisted men, the lure of American consumerism and the intense productivity of the American economy when compared with the Soviet one, and a struggle for communication and understanding and well-being that ends up working remarkably well despite some tragedies. The author uncovers a lot of material that somehow makes the Soviet Union look particularly poor for being unable to accept its need for help, and yet this particular story may have had a great deal more importance than is often recognized, because the ability of America to succeed at providing guns and butter may have deterred the Soviets during the long years of the Cold War. Whether or not that is the case, this story was kept hidden for far too long, and the book has a deeply bittersweet feeling about it, showing Russians engaged in an almost religious fervor at Kitty Hawk, showing a love of sexy Hollywood starlets in musicials, and trying to bring as much french perfume and other luxury goods to profit on the Soviet black market. The book has at its core a set of people that includes a Russian officer looking to recover his reputation after having been a victim of Stalin's brutal gulag archipelago, a Russian prince turned American naval officer and translator, and some resourceful Americans and talented Russians. The book is good at showing the military significance of the efforts of trainers, translators, and logistics in the course of World War II, and the book does a good job at presenting Elizabeth City as a friendly town that was surprisingly discreet about the Soviet airmen that it hosted for several years. The genuinely touching stories of romance, of family, of patriotism, of ambition, survival, tragedy, and friendship are framed in a sense of loss over the passage of the time and the way that the memorable sites discussed often no longer survive and neither do the people who trained here and learned that they had friends on the other side of the nascent iron curtain that was about to descend over the world. [1] But see: https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017... https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017... https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017... https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017... https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017... ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Dec 30, 2017
|
Dec 31, 2017
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Dec 30, 2017
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Hardcover
| ||||||||||||||
| 1633570576
| 9781633570573
| 1633570576
| 5.00
| 3
| unknown
| Sep 11, 2017
|
it was amazing
|
[Note: This book was provided free of charge by BookCrash. All thoughts and opinions are my own.] The obvious answer to the book's titular question i [Note: This book was provided free of charge by BookCrash. All thoughts and opinions are my own.] The obvious answer to the book's titular question is yes. What is more interesting about this book is that not only does the author affirm the question as yes, but he answers the questions by setting God's past behavior of working against terrorism in sharp relief and asks us whether we would be willing to obey God if He commanded us to preach a message of grace and judgment to the terrorists of the world today. I found this book to be quite intriguing, not least because the subject of terrorism comes up from time to time in my own writing [1] and because the author took a strongly biblical approach to the subject that I thought to be very worthwhile. Obviously, if you are a reader who takes the Bible seriously and wants to see what it has to say about terrorism, this is the sort of book that will contain at least a few surprises, as it is not commonly known that the Bible did deal with terrorist states before, most notably the nation of Assyria, which coincidentally happened to be in the location of a great deal of contemporary terrorism in Iraq and Syria today. In a short book of about 130 pages or so, the author manages to make an extensive use of Jonah and considerable use of the more obscure book of Nahum in order to shine a light about two contrasting ways that God dealt with the problem of Assyria's terror in the ancient world. The commentary on Jonah, which takes up most of the book, shows the author dealing insightfully as well as sympathetically towards the people around Jonah, demonstrating how Jonah was all for the grace shown to Israel during its expansion but how Jonah was not willing for grace to be extended to Assyria. What separates this from an ordinary Bible commentary is the way that the author takes the contents of Jonah and not only provides historical insight into their 8th century original context but also points to their relevance in our contemporary context and urges the reader to think about what one would do if we received a similar task ourselves. Would we be any more faithful and trusting in God? The last third or so of the book is where the author approaches the judgment of total destruction on the city of Nineveh and the Assyrian Empire that God warned through the prophet Nahum and points out that if God wanted to defeat contemporary terrorism in this way that He could do so. Each chapter of this book ends with questions that serve as faith gauges to test the reader's ability to relate these books to contemporary troubles. If I had to make one recommendation for this book it would be to make the commentary nature of the book more plain. A reader might assume that the author would take a current events or prophetic speculation approach with the book only to find that its approach is based firmly in a dual approach to prophecy that depends a great deal on historical insight. Likewise, the concept of a faith gauge suggests that this book is only the first in a series and that this concept would be a useful one to discuss the way that we apply other scriptures. Perhaps the author will make this a trend with later books, as I was unable to find that he had written any other works other than this one. This is an excellent first book, though, and certainly one that contains a great deal of encouragement and insight about the ability of God to defeat terrorism through either the conversion of terrorists or the destruction of their regimes and themselves or through whatever other means He wishes. The question that remains for us is whether we have the faith to believe that He is in control of events, even if they are not always according to our own preferences or wishes. [1] See, for example: https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2012... https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017... https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017... https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017... https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017... https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016... ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Dec 28, 2017
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Dec 28, 2017
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Dec 28, 2017
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Paperback
| ||||||||||||||
| 4.35
| 34,049
| Jun 1976
| 2009
|
really liked it
|
My roommate gave me this book because he somehow ended up with more than one copy of it, which happens from time to time with books. This particular
My roommate gave me this book because he somehow ended up with more than one copy of it, which happens from time to time with books. This particular book offers readers a course on experiencing God, and it is meant to be taken with a small group as part of a congregation. The authors assume that those taking the course will be married and parents, which is more than a bit irksome for those of us who are neither. It can be said that the authors wish to deal with the subject of experiencing God through Bible study and obedience and are decidedly anti-mystical in their approach [1]. As might be imagined, I am somewhat ambivalent to the authors' approach, not least because the authors seem to be Calvinist in their approach, caught in a tension between emphasizing God's initiative in calling people and the way that we should be rather than do and a need to emphasize obedience to God and action conducted in faith, something the authors fail to explain as deeply as they wish. In about three hundred pages or so the authors manage to include twelve weeks of five lessons apiece as part of a course. Course topics include God's will, looking to God, God's pursuit of a "love relationship," God's invitation, God speaking (in two parts!), the crisis of belief, how we adjust our life to God, how we experience God through obedience, the relationship of believers and churches, how we become Kingdom people, and how we experience God in our daily lives. Each of the units ends with some notes and plenty of questions that come from a dvd that I did not have, which was a bit irksome. The book also has a closing section with names, titles, and descriptions of God, some simple artwork throughout, and encouragement for the people taking the course to sign an Experiencing God group covenant (!) and keep a spiritual journal as a discipline in helping them to hear God's prompting in scripture reading, which I suppose would be akin to the practices of medieval beginning mystics, as anti-mystical as the book is in general. Throughout the book there are also a great many times where the author references how important the book was to other people, which is a bit off-putting and definitely humblebragging at best. All in all, my feelings about the book are mixed. I am in favor of the authors' approach towards obedience and seeking to study the Bible, but find their viewing themselves as examples of faith and obedience to be rather irritating, especially considering their frequent use of the NIV translation rather than the superior M-text and their frequent references to the fictive and unbiblical Trinity. In one drawing the authors even manage to claim that the Holy Spirit is a person, protesting a bit too strongly. This is a book that offers a great deal of encouragement to obey God, but the authors as usual are pretty unspecific about what that means. This is a book that tries to browbeat the reader into feeling bad about their depraved nature and making them distrust their own feelings and experiences while puffing up the pride and ego of the writers, which is all kinds of unsettling. In many areas, the authors are simply contradictory in their approaches, urging ecumenical harmony with other congregations while slamming unspecified 'cults.' One wonders if the authors failed to read the book to ensure a continuity of approach or if they were genuinely unaware of the tensions and contradictions inherent in this work and their feel-bad approach. [1] In stark contrast to most of what one reads about experiencing God. See, for example: https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2012... https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017... https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017... https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017... https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017... https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017... https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017... ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Dec 28, 2017
|
Dec 28, 2017
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Dec 28, 2017
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Paperback
| |||||||||||||||||
| 0553351990
| 9780553351996
| 0553351990
| 3.53
| 91
| Nov 01, 1994
| Nov 01, 1994
|
liked it
|
It should come as little surprise that I would read a book like this given my fondness for reading books by Christian mystics [1], but I found this bo
It should come as little surprise that I would read a book like this given my fondness for reading books by Christian mystics [1], but I found this book a surprisingly unpleasant read. The best part of the book is when we get to read from the four medieval English mystics themselves, but those selections are framed by a deeply unpleasant introduction from the editor, who manages to give too little of the texts that I had come to read and give too many reasons why I feel deeply ambivalent about the popularity of mysticism in the contemporary world. The author presents these mystics as representing a spiritual elite that strikes of gnosticism on the one hand, while also playing up the similarities between the works-based religion of these Catholic mystics and the works-based mystical traditions among the Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, and others. In appealing to one-world religion that is simultaneously the same around the world and also something that people apparently create for themselves, the editor makes these mystical works far more unappealing than they would otherwise be, simply because she frames them as relevant and timely in all the wrong ways. Thankfully, though, the four English mystics whose works are excerpted here are far more interesting and enjoyable than the editor herself, who is apparently a lapsed nun. The first of the selections is from Richard Rolle of Hampole, whose "Fire Of Love" is a discussion of his own private and egotistical journey into mysticism with all of the fervor of a bipolar solitary in the vein of the Gospel of Thomas. This book sets the whole work off in a bad frame, showing the need for discipline as well as charity towards others that the author does not have. After this comes excerpts from the generally excellent Cloud of Unknowing [2], which shows a heavy influence of Greek mysticism and shows a considerable amount of humility from an author who has successfully remained anonymous despite the fact that many have tried to pin a name for the book. The third work, "The Ladder Of Perfection" by Walter Hilton, has a feel similar to St. Theresa of Avila with the progressive nature of the journey of the mystic from reading and memorizing scripture and discipline in prayer to deeper explorations of the mystery of the psyche. The fourth and final work, "Revelations Of Divine Love" by Dame Julian or Norwich, shows the fragile emotional state that many mystics had and the way that dreams and visions could serve both to bring people closer to God in their mind but also close to despair, making an unusual ending to this book. This book is clearly aimed at an audience that wants to read selections of work with a contemplative and ecumenical focus. It seems very likely that the author wants the reader to believe that their interest in or skill in contemplation of the mysteries of God and the unconscious make them a spiritual elite in a world that has floundered in its attempts to live apart from God. Yet as a reader who dislikes being pandered to, I found that this book floundered particularly badly, especially as it included so little of the works itself by the medieval mystics that I came here for. This would have been a much more enjoyable work had the editor written far less and attempted far less ambitiously to show the reader that she was an agnostic expert of the history of religion, and included far the complete texts of the mystics rather than snippets of them which fail to satisfy the curious reader and only lead them to want to read more of the original works, and less writing by Karen Armstrong. [1] See, for example: https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress... https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress... https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017... https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress... https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress... [2] https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017... ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
|
Dec 27, 2017
|
Dec 27, 2017
|
Dec 27, 2017
|
Paperback
| ||||||||||||||
| 1335424695
| 9781335424693
| 1335424695
| 3.87
| 5,232
| Jun 05, 2018
| Jun 05, 2018
|
it was amazing
|
[Note: This book was provided free of charge by Edelweiss/Hanover Square. All thoughts and opinions are my own.] The title of this book is not entire [Note: This book was provided free of charge by Edelweiss/Hanover Square. All thoughts and opinions are my own.] The title of this book is not entirely accurate. While this was the last sensational case that Lincoln handled as an attorney before his nomination for the presidency, he had a few smaller cases after this one finished in the summer of 1859. Also, it is a bit of a stretch to say that this case propelled him to the presidency, although it could have done a lot of harm had he lost the case or embarrassed himself in how he handled it. Even so, this book manages to do something unusual, and that is provide something new to say about Lincoln studies by focusing on a long-lost court transcript written by a noted court reporter named Hitt who serves as the center of this particular story. Lincoln's relationship with the law [1] serves as a fertile place for people to write about for largely unknown insights about the man given the large amount of his life that has been picked pretty clean by writers. The author does a good job here of placing the murder case and its political complexities in a larger societal context as well as the history of law, all of which I found to be handled well. The book takes a generally chronological approach to the case at its center, beginning with an introduction about a feud between two young people that ended up in the violent death of one of them, who had been a clerk for Lincoln and Herndon and whose grandfather had been a longtime political nemesis of Lincoln in Illinois politics, itinerant Methodist preacher Dixon Cartwright. The author follows the course of the case and allows the detailed court transcript to make the hot and stuffy Springfield courthouse come alive, as well as the offices and taverns afterward where stories are swapped. The author manages to keep tension alive about the case's outcome and also includes a few flashbacks about Lincoln's previous behavior of the law or how he was thought by others as well as Hitt's background and his work as an expert stenographer. The author also engages in a bit of puffing up of the book's length to close to 300 pages by adding information about Lincoln's importance to malpractice law and the history of the laws of self-defense and the somewhat informal nature of the legal practice in antebellum Illinois, all of which allow the reader to gain some understanding about the context of the law in early American history. What separates this book from a decent and competent book, though, is the deeper pathos to which this book is filled. Somewhere around the middle of the book I was feeling slightly irritated by the fact that the author included so many reconstructed conversations about the stenographer with other people until I realized that the author was making a subtle point drawing the fate of two hotheaded young men whose feuding led to a fight that neither could back down from while preserving their honor, and how someone who did not want to fight felt forced in self-defense to use deadly force against his assailant with the fate of the United States as a whole. The warring factions in the outskirts of Springfield are connected to the warring factions within the United States as the Civil War approached, with honor and pride forcing a conflict that most people would have preferred to avoid, and where many men knew what was right but were unable to keep the nation as a whole from having a fight every bit as tragic as the one which led to the court case by which Lincoln turned from a man trying to make peace in his own community to a man who presided over the most destructive war that we have ever fought as a nation against ourselves. [1] See, for example: https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017... https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017... https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2015... ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Dec 26, 2017
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Dec 27, 2017
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Dec 26, 2017
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Hardcover
| ||||||||||||||
| B076CVMVZL
| 4.00
| 14
| unknown
| Oct 10, 2017
|
really liked it
|
[Note: This book was provided free of charge by Author's Den. All thoughts and opinions are my own.] In reviewing this short book of devotional poetr [Note: This book was provided free of charge by Author's Den. All thoughts and opinions are my own.] In reviewing this short book of devotional poetry [1], I will focus my attention on the poems themselves because the illustrations did not really add anything of value to this book. One can tell that this particular book was self-published by the odd pagination and inconsistent formatting as well as the document outline and blank page notes left at the back which have not been removed yet, something that would be pretty basic if someone was proficient at making a book. Even though the book was obviously not formatted by someone who is skilled at making books, the poems themselves are competent if a little bit self-absorbed at times. If you want free verse poetry that resembles that of, say, Emily Dickinson or someone of that sort and that expresses the author's reflection on scripture and creation, this book will certainly provide something of interest. These poems are certainly well worth sharing and are not embarrassing to the author, unlike the poems of, say, the singer and songwriter Jewel. The subjects of the poems are well chosen and competently delivered. Many of the stories are written from the first person perspective and the amount of time that basic pronouns like I, your, her, and his, for example, appear is a bit distracting. The poems lack any discernible rhyme or meter, but there are internal punctuation--especially dashes--as well as the use of alliteration to provide these books with something poetic in nature. The subject matter chosen for the poems includes some biblical stories, some observations of God's creation like the desert and moonlight and the Jordan River and benevolent skies. The author reflects as well on the fickleness of relationships, offering perhaps her most deep observations on the way that people say that they care too much when they do not appear to care enough. Overall, the author offers deeper insights about matters of feelings and relationships than she does in terms of more abstract observations, and on at least a couple of occasions she tries to understand the perspective of people from the Bible and how it was that they were able to live their godly lives in the face of the difficulties that they faced. For the most part the books lack a set of coherent themes even if, as noted, there are some consistent concerns that the author returns to several times. The author appears to reflect on Sunday and Christmas in the belief that these are Christian rather than pagan in origin, suggesting that she is not very knowledgeable about the deeper law of the Bible but is probably a fairly ordinary Hellenistic Christian. Overall, these poems offer some pleasure in reading and are generally short in nature. Few of the poems are playful, and in general the mood is fairly serious, ranging from serious and reflective in a sense of trying to understand the Bible and what it is saying or trying to draw insight from commonplace observations of the night or various aspects of creation to serious in these sense of trying to make sense of the complexity of human life and relationships. This is not the sort of book that will likely make the author a candidate to be a poet laureate of any kind, but neither is this the sort of poetry that is a discredit to the author and this book is rather the sort of book that can be read as a modest pleasure and given the appropriate modest praise. This is also the sort of book that may well encourage the reader to publish their own works of poetry in the knowledge that they can probably write just about as well, and that is not a problem either. The world could certainly use more poetry of faith and devotion and attempting to understand the world outside and the world within. [1] See, for example: https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017... https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017... https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017... https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017... https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017... https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017... https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017... https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016... ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Dec 26, 2017
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Dec 26, 2017
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Dec 26, 2017
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Kindle Edition
| ||||||||||||||||
| 160142888X
| 9781601428882
| 160142888X
| 4.08
| 146
| unknown
| Nov 07, 2017
|
it was amazing
|
[Note: This book was provided free of charge by Blogging For Books/Waterbrook Press. All thoughts and opinions are my own.] Normally when reading a w [Note: This book was provided free of charge by Blogging For Books/Waterbrook Press. All thoughts and opinions are my own.] Normally when reading a warts-and-all memoir like this one, I would not be prompted to wonder if the author was really honoring God as he is commanded to do, but since this author is presenting himself as a Christian, that thought came to mind given the way the book dealt frequently with the dysfunctional dynamic between the author and his father. To my surprise, the author himself directly addressed this subject at the end of the book and dealt with it in a thoughtful manner. As someone whose relationship with my own father was certainly complicated, I have often pondered whether my own candor about my childhood and my father's issues as a father when I was small was honoring him even after he died. As someone who was a casual fan at best of the American Choppers series of which the author was a part in that I've seen a few episodes, I enjoyed this film based mostly on my fondness for the Christian reality television memoir subgenre that this book is a part of [1]. This memoir itself takes a while to get going, but it fortunately is a fast read. The author feels it necessary to write a large amount about his family background and upbringing which can be pretty unpleasant to read. This is especially true with the author's admissions about his drug addictions during his youth and his comments about his father's continual verbal abuse. Once the author starts talking about his native creative streak that led him to help his family prosper in creating custom choppers, the book starts taking off, as the author comments on his design philosophy and his willingness to build long-term reputation with short-term costs. The author's discussion of how he met his wife is somewhat entertaining and a sign of his growing realization about the need to live in a godly fashion even if it requires dealing with some awkwardness. The author also gives some discussion about the nuts and bolts of reality television as it related to his show and the unscripted nature of their many on-camera fights, which tended to increase the interest of the show to Discovery and many viewers who found it necessary to take sides. The author discusses the positive sides of fame with all of the famous people he got to know as well as the downsides of fame in losing privacy and having to deal with somewhat overly friendly fans who transgress the boundaries of politeness. There are many ways in which this book has a somewhat odd subtitle in light of its contents. The author spends a lot of time talking about choppers, family, and faith, but much of that process does not seem to have been designed by the author himself but rather was something that was accidental for him. The author does not talk about having found his creative tendency as an aspect of divine providence that illustrates the imago dei, but he does not strike me as someone who has deeply read such matters of divine providence as his book would seem to indicate. The author strikes one as someone who tries to live as best as they know how to read without being a particularly intellectual person, despite a great deal of artistic and design talents. Overall this book was a fine read and it includes a large number of pages so that one can see some of the author's notable designs, including Spiderman and 9/11 themed motorcycles and ones honoring the Armed Forces as well as other vehicles like the Comanche helicopter. Those who enjoy reading about dysfunctional families, the design and building of custom motorcycles, or a gradual path from addiction to faith will find much to appreciate here. [1] See, for example: https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016... https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016... https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016... https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2015... https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2014... ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Dec 26, 2017
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Dec 26, 2017
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Dec 26, 2017
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Hardcover
| ||||||||||||||
| 1496429494
| 9781496429490
| 1496429494
| 4.48
| 58
| unknown
| Jan 09, 2018
|
it was amazing
|
[Note: This book was provided free of charge by Tyndale House Publishers. All thoughts and opinions are my own.] Given the tendency of many writers t [Note: This book was provided free of charge by Tyndale House Publishers. All thoughts and opinions are my own.] Given the tendency of many writers to look at prayer as the source of spiritual power on a level akin to magic [1], it would be easy to be concerned about a book with a title like this one. Thankfully, though, the author manages to avoid such pitfalls and has created a book of surprising subtlety about the subject of prayer. Of particular interest to many readers will likely be the author's experience as a young man growing up in a single parent black household and as a husband and father, his service as a Navy chaplain rising to the rank of Rear Admiral, and his service as the chaplain of the U.S. Senate. The author, somewhat slyly, tries to position Congress as a place far more interested in godliness than is commonly understood or believed to be the case by those of us whose views of that august institution range from cynical to outright scornful. Even those who may not agree with the author's sanguine position on the place of godly virtue in our nation's Congress, the author has a great deal to offer concerning his own understanding of the complexity of the subject of prayer. This short book of about 150 pages or so begins with an introduction and has fifteen short chapters on how people should pray and a bit on what they should pray for. These topics include: praying with assistance, praying the Model prayer (often known as the Lord's Prayer or the Pater Noster), praying with purity, praying fearlessly, praying with effectiveness, praying to escape the squeeze of temptation, praying when God is silent, praying when you don't feel like being good, praying with patience, praying with celebration, praying with intimacy, praying with fervency, praying with perseverance, praying with submission, and praying with a partner. Throughout the book the author shows himself to be aware of his own struggles to pray effectively over the course of his life as well as the greater body of Christian literature about prayer written by others before him, including a great deal of reliance on the biblical record and a fondness for using poetry and even song lyrics to help make his points about prayer and what we should do as well as what we should avoid. The chapters of the book begin with quotations from various writers as diverse as Brother Lawrence and Paulo Coelho and Charles Spurgeon, and end with some advice that summarizes how the reader can apply the lessons of each chapter. Overall, this book offers the reader at least a few sources of comfort and encouragement when it comes to prayer and our struggle to pray effectively. Most importantly, this book looks at prayer from the complex point of view of the Bible, showing that ultimately prayer is about doing the will of God and not trying to nag or coerce God into enacting our will. To this end the author frequently points out that the life of believers should be blameless and upright according to the biblical standard, lest our own lives and wicked examples hinder the ability of God to work for us and through us. In addition to that, the author points to his own example and his personal struggles given his background and difficulties in life as a way to encourage others tat a great deal of progress is possible with the help of God. Not only this, but the author's references to other writers and thinkers points out that prayer, like so much else, is the subject of great conversations in which this book is a small part, giving the reader the opportunity to think about prayer from the point of view of others who have come before us, an opportunity we should be very willing to avail ourselves of. [1] See, for example: https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2015... https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2015... https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016... https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017... https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017... https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017... https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017... ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Dec 23, 2017
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Dec 26, 2017
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Dec 23, 2017
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Hardcover
| ||||||||||||||
| 4.06
| 9,870
| 1926
| 2008
|
it was amazing
|
I must admit that I have not been as familiar with the works of Bulgakov as I have with other Russian writers. A friend of mine recommended him as an
I must admit that I have not been as familiar with the works of Bulgakov as I have with other Russian writers. A friend of mine recommended him as an author and I have to agree that after reading this short story published on its own despite being only about 50 pages long that I plan on reading a lot more by the author. Even in translation there is something exceptional about this work--and no doubt I would think him an even better author in his native Russian. The author was not only a novelist but also a physician and this novel gives a chilling tale of addiction [1] that is far scarier than the campy films that are produced to discourage drug use in afternoon specials. Given the short length of this story, the book is one that suggests the power of the novelist rather than giving it in full glory, but it also shows an author in command of his work and aware of how long he needs to tell the story he sets out to tell, without any additional puffery to make it look longer to impress others. There are plenty of contemporary writers who would do well to follow the author's example, and it is to his credit that this author does not act as if he is being paid by the word. The story itself is told as a frame story. Dr. Bromgard is an ambitious doctor who has moved from a rural district to a small town with hopes and ambitions of being a doctor in a large Russian city when he receives word that a former colleague of his, Dr. Polyakov, has fallen deeply sick. Prevented by the harsh Russian weather from leaving as early as he would like, he finds Polyakov brought to him with a mortal gunshot wound. Receive the diary of his dead comrade, Bromgard becomes the first reader and eventual publisher of a tale of descent into morphine addiction that is deeply chilling but told in a clinical fashion. Included is the paranoia of the addict about how others view him (or her), the feeling that one is in control until one has slipped dangerously out of control, the way that addicts attempt to reduce the suspicion that others would have and the way that addicts often depend on people to serve as enablers of their addiction and find it unable to go cold turkey if and when drug supplies are insufficient for their habit. The result is a chilling short story told from the point of view of both an addict as well as a clinical person not given to excessively gracious bedside manner. What makes the story particularly interesting is the way that the author manages to efficiently deal with a variety of related concerns. The story is set during the period of the Russian Revolution, with political issues and the misery of the Russian people being an important element of the story. Likewise, the author places the two main characters in an interesting juxtaposition with each other. While Dr. Bromgard seeks to rise in stature and prominence despite the challenges of his time, Dr. Polyakov finds himself undone by a weakness that is prompted by the generous act of a nurse with whom he is in love, despite being married to someone else. Thus his moral weakness in being an addict is related to another moral weakness of being a disloyal husband and having a tragically loving paramour, something that seems particularly Russian or at least European in its conception. The result is an excellent short story that offers a great deal of food for thought in a brief and economical package. One wonders why more writers do not seek to excel in this format given the tendency of many writers to bloat their books beyond all reasonable limit. [1] See, for example: https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017... https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017... https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017... https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016... ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Dec 23, 2017
|
Dec 26, 2017
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Dec 23, 2017
| ||||||||||||||||||
| 0998457302
| 9780998457307
| 0998457302
| 3.25
| 4
| unknown
| Feb 11, 2017
|
it was ok
|
[Note: This book was provided free of charge by Books Go Social/Net Gallery. All thoughts and opinions are my own.] When I saw the title to this book [Note: This book was provided free of charge by Books Go Social/Net Gallery. All thoughts and opinions are my own.] When I saw the title to this book I wondered if the author was some kind of quack doctor engaged in healing that I would have a pleasure in debunking. As it happens, the healing discussed is supposed healing for spirits along their supposed journey. The author shows herself to be strongly influenced by all kinds of bogus occult thinking, from reincarnation and karmic debt to astral projection and chakras and the supposed "law of attraction" and spirit guides and even close encounters of the paranormal kind [1]. There is a lot here that one will be familiar with if one is familiar with contemporary New Age thought. Given the openness with which the author exposes herself to ridicule by talking about engaging in spiritualist practices, one wonders how she could have been so clueless not to know what blogging was, although as someone who has blogged for well over a decade, perhaps I am not the most sympathetic to people who have no idea what it is I spend so much time doing. This book consists of the rather loosely organized and somewhat meandering thoughts of someone who fancies herself a reverend of some kind and a suitable guide to New Age practice for those who are interested. The author talks about how she moved from a fairly ordinary Methodist background into a belief in New Age spirituality and a real hunger for close interaction with angels. The author discusses soul ties and her efforts at bringing healing to those who feel estranged by God for the various disasters and trials they have suffered. Of course, the healing that she brings is largely illusory, as she give stories about a supposedly higher astral form of herself that heals spirits even when her physical body is sleeping or otherwise occupied. It would be nice if I could write book reviews even when I was asleep myself, but I cannot vouch for the quality of the work. This book is the result of someone who wants to be recognized for being a writer and has a lot of very weird stories to tell but is someone who is clearly writing for people that are going to be more favorable to what she has to say than her family would be. I must admit that I am not the most favorable audience for a work like this. In reading this book, I saw that the author had been influenced by some spirits masquerading as angels of God and that she had found out that her spirit guides who are normally so nice and so friendly could be extremely possessive and territorial and upset at her interacting with some lilac-colored spirits. The author appears to admit that she had a deep interest in angels that was not satisfied by her experience in mainstream Christianity. Unfortunately, her interest in the occult has shown her to be susceptible to demon influence which she remains blissfully unaware of, while still seeking for reassurance from her supposed spirit guides. Rather than feeling angry at this author, I feel a great deal of pity for many people who long for a loving relationship with God and whose longing for spiritual insight and intimacy leads them into vulnerability with demons of one kind or another who serve as lying guides and spread false doctrines about supposed false lives and their own dubious insights. This book should be an encouragement to churches to take spiritual warfare more seriously, and to be compassionate on those whose curiosities and their own loneliness and brokenness make them easy prey for such spirits. [1] See, for example: https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2015... https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016... https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2013... https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2011... ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Dec 21, 2017
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Dec 22, 2017
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Dec 21, 2017
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Paperback
| ||||||||||||||
| B017VDWWQS
| 4.18
| 17
| unknown
| Jan 20, 2016
|
it was amazing
|
[Note: This book was provided free of charge by Moody Publishers. All thoughts and opinions are my own.] From time to time I read about martyrs and m [Note: This book was provided free of charge by Moody Publishers. All thoughts and opinions are my own.] From time to time I read about martyrs and martyrdom and my thoughts about the subject are not unlike that of many others [1], including the famous Dwight L. Moody, who said that he did not seek out martyrdom but believed that if he had been called to be a martyr that God would give him a martyr's grace to deal with it. As a religious educational institution that has been important in missionary efforts throughout the world, Moody's has had a lot of martyr's over its time and this book seeks to recover the memory of some of them and put their deaths in the context of the spread of Christianity over areas as well as the encouragement of local brethren as to the seriousness of their faith, both of which this book manages to accomplish in a thoughtful way. This is not the sort of book that one reads for laughs, but if you want a serious book that reflects upon the relationship between physical and spiritual warfare, this is certainly a worthwhile one and it would be interesting to see other influential seminaries write their own martyrologies. This book is divided pretty simply in that it tells the biographies of 21 Moody Bible Institute alumni who were martyred by a pretty strict definition of the term, and they are organized by the place where they were martyred: the Middle East (1), China (8), Africa (5), Southeast Asia (3), and Latin America (4). Most of the martyrs are Americans but some come from Canada and Sweden, for example. Among the Americans, most come from Greater Yankeedom, including one from Portland, Oregon and some from the Midwest and New England, as well as one from Virginia. Most of the martyrs died during military conflicts--including the Boxer Rebellion, the Hut Tax War of Sierra Leone, and World War II, but some died because of the hostility of local heathen cultures to the new beliefs of Christianity or the mistaken belief that missionaries were decimating their local population with diseases like the flu in one case. The author manages to do a good job at putting martyrdom in a context and shows how varied it can be and how many reasons missionaries can find themselves the victims of violence, where not one of the perpetrators was ever brought in for earthly justice. The book does lead to some interesting and thought-provoking insights. For one, we see that physical warfare and conflict is often related to spiritual warfare. Many martyrs die in the midst of popular uprisings where missionaries are assumed to be working in cahoots with imperialists or run afoul of Communists. At times martyrs have been critical of local customs like female genital mutilation, which has led to societal conflict, and the book does a good job at reminding us of the relationship between the physical world and its conflicts and the deeper dispute over spiritual worldviews. The author also does a good job at showing how the faith of local brethren often gave encouragement to honoring the memory of martyrs and being inspired by them, and how some martyrs lived and died in an obscure fashion, some were quite controversial figures, and still others were lauded as being heroic believers almost immediately upon their deaths. Although the reader will likely have no interest in being a martyr, it is a noble thing to honor martyrs and this short book of about 200 pages does that in an excellent fashion, being honest but not excessive in its discussion of the circumstances of the life and death of these brave men and women for Christ. [1] See, for example: https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2011... https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016... https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2015... https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2015... https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2015... https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2015... ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Dec 21, 2017
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Dec 23, 2017
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Dec 21, 2017
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Kindle Edition
| ||||||||||||||||
| 0802413854
| 9780802413857
| 0802413854
| 4.33
| 52
| Jan 05, 2016
| Jan 05, 2016
|
really liked it
|
[Note: This book was provided free of charge by Moody Publishers. All thoughts and opinions are my own.] This book was an ambitious aim, and that is [Note: This book was provided free of charge by Moody Publishers. All thoughts and opinions are my own.] This book was an ambitious aim, and that is to inspire and encourage readers to help protect every child in America from poverty, hunger, isolation, abuse, and trafficking. It should go without saying that these are ambitious aims and they place the authors in a place with a lot of other idealistic Christians associated with the social gospel [1]. This negative impression is furthered by the way that the authors focus their attention nearly exclusively on systemic and societal problems rather than on personal responsibility. One example should suffice. One of the many stories in this book is from a former sex worker who found herself assaulted because of her line of work, freely entered into for the purpose of earning money, and the framing of the story seeks to absolve her of any blame or responsibility for her poor life choices. In general, the authors seem to think that it is a bad thing that the United States has a culture that focuses more on personal responsibility than the rest of the world, and that worldview tends to make me think less of the authors themselves. The book consists of fourteen chapters that are divided into five parts. The introductory chapter claims that this book and its reader, whom the author assumes will be swept up into an idealistic social cause to address these issues, will make a difference. After that the first four chapters deal with the question of poverty, after that there are two chapters that deal with hunger and food insecurity, after that there are four chapters on isolation, and then two chapters on safety followed by two chapters dealing with trafficking. Most of the chapters contain stories, usually of a person who struggled with these problems in childhood and found the authors' social efforts to be a help, mediated through the author's expression. At other times the authors give the stories of fellow volunteers who sought to help with these problems through their own idealism. Every part of the book is ended by action that one can take to identify with the people here, by dressing up in ugly clothes and cooking strange food to model the experience of foster children or being homeless for a day to see how it is like, and the book is closed with a couple of chapters that encourage hope and urge the reader to be a spark that sets the world on fire. This is a book that I think gets half of the matter right in that it is very tender-hearted towards the many who suffered from horrific and broken childhoods filled with privation and trauma. In reading this book I found many people whose stories were not so far removed from my own. To be sure, as someone who can already relate to the people in this book, I found myself offended by the various poverty tourism techniques encouraged by the author to help the book's target middle and upper class reading audience to have some sort of empathy for the plight of the suffering people in this book. What I found the book missing was the sort of tough-mindedness that people need as well. Perhaps that sort of thing is addressed in a sequel, but this book was missing a sense of grim realism that is necessary as well as the authors' soaring idealism when it comes to living successfully in a fallen world inhabited by people whose native inclinations and family backgrounds lead them to rebel against God's ways time and time again. [1] See, for example: https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017... https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017... https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017... https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017... https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017... https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017... https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016... https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2015... https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2014... https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2014... https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2014... ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Dec 21, 2017
|
Dec 22, 2017
|
Dec 21, 2017
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Paperback
| ||||||||||||||
| 0692664440
| 9780692664445
| 0692664440
| 3.40
| 5
| unknown
| 2017
|
it was ok
|
[Note: This book was provided free of charge by Books Go Social/Net Gallery. All thoughts and opinions are my own.] I must admit that I was surprised [Note: This book was provided free of charge by Books Go Social/Net Gallery. All thoughts and opinions are my own.] I must admit that I was surprised and not particularly pleased by the content of this book. Although I am no stranger to photography books [1], which this is, this book had at least a few unpleasant surprises. It is hard to tell what I was more disappointed by, the content of the photographs themselves, or the way that the book seemed to presuppose an audience that viewed the eating of animals as being related to pain or the Buddhist and related Eastern worldview that the author was obviously trying to promote in the expectation that the reading audience would be favorable to this sort of approach. Given that very little of the book was appealing to me, I was clearly not the ideal audience for this book on a variety of grounds. It should be noted, though, that the book's title of Bodies On Raw is a bit more literal than may be initially assumed, and the reader ought to be aware of that fact. This book consists of a bit shy of 200 pages of mostly artistic nude photographs of people who are mostly aging hippies who experimented with various vegetarian and vegan diets before going to the raw diet. The people involved are mostly from North America, Europe, South America, and Australia, although one was born in Thailand. All of them seem to be into world travel and view the eating of meat as contributing to suffering and therefore some sort of karmic debt. The author and photographer are keen to connect the raw food diet to a particular New Age worldview that repels just as easily as it attracts, assuming that readers will be among those attracted to this mindset. The people talk about their digestive problems and the way that they deal with their cravings by eating raw fruits and vegetables, or, when these are not available, explore the various plant pathways of various peoples around the world. Some of the bios are more detailed than others, and show the way that people try to overcome the flaws of packaged food and deal with broken families and the pressures that children face where parents have different views on food and life, and these are probably the most thoughtful aspects of the book, even if few of the people appear to be reflective in a way that goes beneath the surface. It seems as if everything about this book is an attempt to recover Eden. I am not sure that the people in the book or the writer or photographer would admit outright to having that thought, but it seems to motivate a great deal of the book's contents. That includes the fact that a great deal of the photography of the book involves nude photography taken in a state of nature where what is raw and "natural" is associated to be good. The people involved in this book appear to be of the mindset that they can return to Eden through shedding clothing and cooking and eating meat and other aspects of life in a fallen world that no longer caters to our wants and needs and requires toil and effort. Thus the book's aesthetic as well as its content reflects a particular worldview that is hostile to a recognition of the fallen and corrupt nature of unredeemed mankind, which these particular people represent particularly strongly. This book is a particularly strong reminder of the importance of worldview to the way that works are conceived and created and how they are interpreted by audiences. There will no doubt be some people for whom this book is immensely appealing, but many more who will not find much to approve of here. [1] See, for example: https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017... https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017... https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017... https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017... https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017... https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017... https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016... https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016... ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Dec 20, 2017
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Dec 21, 2017
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Dec 20, 2017
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Hardcover
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| B075ZYSLWW
| 4.12
| 8
| unknown
| Sep 27, 2017
|
really liked it
|
[Note: This book was provided free of charge by Books Go Social/Net Gallery. All thoughts and opinions are my own.] Anytime one reads a book on diet [Note: This book was provided free of charge by Books Go Social/Net Gallery. All thoughts and opinions are my own.] Anytime one reads a book on diet and nutrition and health in general [1], it is worthwhile to take note of what approach the author has concerning health and what his or her agenda is. There is always going to be an agenda, and usually the agenda of the author is to set himself or herself as an authority on good health with some kind of radical ideal that will provide better health across a wide variety of health issues, including weight, blood pressure, diabetes, and related concerns. This author of this book certainly has an agenda, and he has a lot of negative things to say about the official line on health that is promoted by the FDA. Admittedly, this is not too surprising as the uncomfortable relationship between food regulation and companies like Monsanto in the United States is something that would make few people feel confident about the truthfulness and competence of our government to make suitable health regulations for diet, which this book focuses on. As to whether or not this author's agenda is a good one, the jury is definitely still out on that one. This book of about two hundred pages is focused on diet and exercise, as one would expect with this type of book, but it leans heavily on diet. The author begins by talking about ways to think about food and some of the sources of diet confusion in food politics and business. After that the author has some critical things to say about modern medicine and a lot to say about contemporary scientific debates regarding healthy diets, including the proliferation of Mediterranean diets as well as various low-cab diets--one of which the book reveals the author to be largely in support of, specifically the ketogenic diet. After that the author spends several chapters talking about sugars, grains, fats and oils, and how one cannot judge food by its label because much about its context matters a great deal in how healthy it is. At this point the author transitions to talking about clean eating and the need to make changes gradually so that they do not become overwhelming, showing how small changes over time can be leveraged into considerable health benefits. It is at this point that the author talks about a variety of exercises that are meant to help someone lose weight around the belly while also building strength, which makes sense since the author is a bodybuilder. To be sure, the author has a lot of wise advice to give about food and exercise that would likely improve the health of many people who read this book and takes its counsel. The author also does a good job in lowering the stress level that people would have about the level of improvement and closeness to perfect that people would need to adopt a healthier view towards their diet and exercise in the author's mindset, an important aspect of what makes so many diets so difficult to continue on for the long-term. Even so, there is much to question about concerning the author's approach, as he seems somewhat inconsistent in his hostility towards contemporary authorities in science and medicine while also seeking to draw authority from science and medicine where possible, especially in other nations like Israel. The author's evolutionary paradigm is also certainly a dubious one, as it tends to focus attention on supposedly drastic changes in diet rather than the harmfulness of what is changed, as if the human body could develop, if given enough times, the means of digesting properly the sort of poisons and toxins that are inflicted upon us by the companies and institutions we rely upon to bring us safe food from the farm to the kitchen or restaurant. As is often the case with books like this, there is some wise advice here and some folly, and one must be discerning in sifting among them and judicious in applying the author's supposed insights. [1] See, for example: https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017... https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2015... https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017... https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017... ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Dec 20, 2017
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Dec 20, 2017
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Dec 20, 2017
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Kindle Edition
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| B06XF3H9Y9
| 3.78
| 65
| Mar 03, 2017
| Mar 03, 2017
|
really liked it
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[Note: This book was provided free of charge by Books Go Social/Net Gallery. All thoughts and opinions are my own.] I liked this book a lot more than [Note: This book was provided free of charge by Books Go Social/Net Gallery. All thoughts and opinions are my own.] I liked this book a lot more than I thought I would, and that is without agreeing with the author's worldview concerning weed [1]. This book is a true crime book, the sort of book written by people who have compelling and dark life stories, and in this case the author's adventures are largely due to his desire to sabotage the United States through importing massive amounts of drugs. Mission accomplished, you jerk. This setup, which the author repeats in both the introduction and conclusion to the book, undercuts at least some of the partially valid points he makes about the legitimate uses of hemp and marijuana when it is not smoked, and which it gives me at least some annoyance in considering legitimate in the face of the massive abuse of weed in contemporary culture. At any rate, if you're fond of true crime narratives about unsympathetic but particularly lucky criminals, this book is certainly one that has some compelling stories and the author does not sugarcoat the sort of business he is involved in or its risks and dangers, and there is certainly some value in that. The book as a whole is a fairly short one at less than 100 pages in the version I read, and the author claims throughout that he will be writing a sequel that is just about his escape from prison, which sounds like it would be a dramatic story to read as well, and likely one that explores the corruption of the justice system in Mexico. The author is wise to present himself as an antihero in these pages, a dissatisfied Vietnam veteran whose disillusionment and drug issues lead him to risk his life flying planes between the United States and Mexico as well as other marijuana growing regimes. The author deals with unreliable partners whose idiocy threatens his own life and has a respect for the ordinary people of the countries he visits as a drug smuggler. He takes advantage of corruption on both sides of the border and attempts some creative marketing of drugs in order to maximize his own sales. Meanwhile, he finds himself caught up in political business that he appears not to have any interest in and has a sense of intuition throughout these stories. One would scarcely think that someone could be lucky enough to survive what the author has experienced, but so far he has. This book certainly has the ring of truth about it. The author doesn't brag about his prowess and openly admits his own mistakes and misjudgments, including being involved in the drug trafficking business at all. Yet much of this book does feel like humblebragging, the sort of narrative that would be turned into a movie by the likes of the makers of Pineapple Express or Tropic Thunder or Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle. Given the popularity of stoner culture, it is probably only a matter of time before someone options this into a film about a lucky drug smuggler and his idiotic business associates. I can't really say that I like this book, or the way that the author tries to sell the benefits of marijuana at the beginning of every chapter, but this is a book that accomplishes the author's task of telling his own life story from his own perspective. If it's not a perspective I share, at least I think it is worthwhile that the author is not a total waste of space and has some compelling stories to tell from a thoroughly disreputable profession. [1] See, for example: https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017... https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017... https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2014... https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2014... https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2014... ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Dec 20, 2017
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Dec 20, 2017
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Dec 20, 2017
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Kindle Edition
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| 0349117624
| 9780349117621
| 0349117624
| 3.67
| 15,202
| Oct 17, 2002
| Feb 05, 2004
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it was amazing
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About fifteen years ago I read this novel for the first time and I was reminded of it when I got around to playing a nation on a game that is based on
About fifteen years ago I read this novel for the first time and I was reminded of it when I got around to playing a nation on a game that is based on the novel, Nation States. Now, I am quite fond of imaginary nations [1] and this book provides an example of a dystopia that is quite consciously different than most dystopias which focus on the power of government. Here, the focus is on a vestigial and limited government that, thanks to the power of the titular character, has just enough power to overcome a loose cannon among the business community that wants to turn corporate competition into actual warfare and ends up going too far for the businesspeople in his corporate alliance and pays the price for it. What is appealing about the novel in particular is the way that the author is able to juggle a variety of compelling characters in a story that takes advantage on the fact that the characters are closely connected to each other with short chapters that are full of cliffhangers that drive the plot to its satisfying conclusion with a surprising degree of optimism. The book itself is a bit more than 300 pages long and contains six parts that are like acts. The novel begins when a guerrilla marketing executive decides to make his shoes cool by ordering some of his company's customers killed, one of whom is a young girl who is given the money for the shoes by an intense stockbroker, who is guiltstricken over his role in the death of an innocent child and becomes suicidal. Hacking and violence as companies grapple for market dominance lead more people to be caught up in the midst of the maelstrom, while the book's villain is pursued by a government agent who is a bit too intense for most of the people she works with and around. Some of the characters here are pursuing their own private vendettas, some are caught up in circumstances beyond their control and trying not to keep getting screwed over, and some think that they are the ones in control only to find out otherwise. The result is a compelling look at a possible future where companies have moved into the role of authorities and where people take their identities from the companies they work for or are associated with and justice depends on having enough money to be able to pay off a drastically weakened government. If you like fast-paced dystopian novels that have a wise and wiseacre view of government and business, this is certainly a worthwhile one. It is easy to see this novel becoming an excellent movie and it certainly makes the basis for a compelling game, so there is a lot of cross-platforming here as well. Jennifer Government, whose tattoo has a mysterious and hilarious meaning that is revealed towards the end of the novel, is a deeply interesting center of a novel that is full of intriguing characters who wrestle with questions of freedom, authority, and the worth of local culture and the lengths that people will go to impose their will on others or resist the impositions of others. Whether or not anything like this future happens, and I think it a bit unlikely, this is certainly an intriguing story of corporate cronyism run amok with dangerous consequences for everyone else involved in their shenanigans. The book even comes to a humorous conclusion that brings the reversals of the novel to a pleasing conclusion that ought to please all but the most libertarian readers. It's easy to see this novel being a very appealing one given our contemporary political and economic concerns. [1] See, for example: https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016... https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2014... https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2011... ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Dec 19, 2017
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Dec 20, 2017
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Dec 19, 2017
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Paperback
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| 0140291873
| 9780140291872
| 0140291873
| 3.88
| 5,630
| Jul 1999
| Jul 01, 2000
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it was amazing
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About fifteen years ago I read this novel when it first came out, and I remember finding it entertaining then, and it was certainly entertaining to re
About fifteen years ago I read this novel when it first came out, and I remember finding it entertaining then, and it was certainly entertaining to read now, albeit on a somewhat different level and with a bit more sarcasm and irony about it. At its heart, this is a book that was written in order to skewer marketing [1] campaigns and the way that entertainment and advertising work to influence people based on psychology rather than on anything that is considered to be real and genuine, while also simultaneously skewering a hipster mentality that despises anything for being popular or related to money making. What is perhaps most revealing about the book is the groveling disclaimer at the beginning of the book that suggests a strong need to avoid some lawsuits from Coca Cola based on the way that this film pokes fun of how sodas are marketed, far beyond the usual authorial dodge that all portrayals of people in the book are imaginary even when they are not. The strongly worded, even cringy disclaimer is evidence of just how sharply the satire must have stung some of its early readers. A basic and largely spoiler-free summary of the story goes as follows. A struggling young man whose parents moved to Iowa comes up with an idea for marketing an edgy soda with an unpronounceable name but fails to do his homework and allows his roommate and former friend to swipe the idea from him. Meanwhile, he finds himself in love with a fake lesbian who has her own struggles with the supposed patriarchy and receiving the respect that she feels she deserves while also having an aspiring actress and model that he crashes with whenever things go wrong as they frequently do. An increasingly improbable series of events and manipulations forces the people to work with famous actors in the creation of a film that is funded in large part by Coca Cola in order to promote its soda, and the reader cheers on our group of underdogs as they attempt to claim their place in the world of marketing and overcome the deeds of traitorous enemies who try to exploit the weaknesses they see in rivals. Whatever claims that this book does not reflect reality do not matter as much as the way that they appear to reflect reality, especially when one considers the massive amount of niche guerrilla marketing and product placement that goes on in our world. This is, without a doubt, a pretty edgy story and not one that will receive universal acclaim. Even so, this book is like red meat to those who want to make fun of the way that business concerns and the practical psychological approach of marketing and advertising trump a great deal of what people think should be the case. The tale is told in snappy short segments for those who appear to have short attention spans and many of the main characters and even minor characters of this novel have annoying issues with their identity, choosing the most odd names as ways of distinguishing themselves. It is as if the author is not only trying to lampoon marketing techniques in our world and the ubiquity of product placement and the way that the behavior of people in films and televisions influences our own, but also the way that our identity is malleable and often used as a cheap way of making us appear different by joining the trends of covering up our true selves and our true experiences with all kinds of lies and fictions and subterfuges, as if we do not want anyone to know us or to accept that we are part of a common humanity worth being respected on our own merits. [1] See, for example: https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016... https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017... https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017... https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017... ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Dec 18, 2017
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Dec 19, 2017
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Dec 18, 2017
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Paperback
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| 178383157X
| 9781783831579
| 178383157X
| 4.33
| 6
| unknown
| Feb 19, 2015
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it was amazing
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None
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Notes are private!
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1
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Dec 18, 2017
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Dec 18, 2017
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Dec 18, 2017
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Paperback
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my rating |
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|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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| 3.90
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it was amazing
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Sep 05, 2017
not set
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Sep 21, 2023
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|||||
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| 4.40
|
liked it
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Mar 03, 2017
not set
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Jun 28, 2023
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|||||
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| 4.50
|
it was amazing
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Dec 31, 2017
|
Dec 30, 2017
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|||||
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| 5.00
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it was amazing
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Dec 28, 2017
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Dec 28, 2017
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|||||
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| 4.35
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really liked it
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Dec 28, 2017
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Dec 28, 2017
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|||||
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| 3.53
|
liked it
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Dec 27, 2017
|
Dec 27, 2017
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|||||
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| 3.87
|
it was amazing
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Dec 27, 2017
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Dec 26, 2017
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|||||
|
| 4.00
|
really liked it
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Dec 26, 2017
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Dec 26, 2017
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|||||
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| 4.08
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it was amazing
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Dec 26, 2017
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Dec 26, 2017
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|||||
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| 4.48
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it was amazing
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Dec 26, 2017
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Dec 23, 2017
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|||||
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| 4.06
|
it was amazing
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Dec 26, 2017
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Dec 23, 2017
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|||||
|
| 3.25
|
it was ok
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Dec 22, 2017
|
Dec 21, 2017
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|||||
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| 4.18
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it was amazing
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Dec 23, 2017
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Dec 21, 2017
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|||||
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| 4.33
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really liked it
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Dec 22, 2017
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Dec 21, 2017
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|||||
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| 3.40
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it was ok
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Dec 21, 2017
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Dec 20, 2017
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|||||
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| 4.12
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really liked it
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Dec 20, 2017
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Dec 20, 2017
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|||||
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| 3.78
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really liked it
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Dec 20, 2017
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Dec 20, 2017
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|||||
|
| 3.67
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it was amazing
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Dec 20, 2017
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Dec 19, 2017
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|||||
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| 3.88
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it was amazing
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Dec 19, 2017
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Dec 18, 2017
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|||||
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| 4.33
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it was amazing
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Dec 18, 2017
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Dec 18, 2017
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