Give Me Your Hand: Traditional and Practical Guidance on Visiting the Sick

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bad book

Give Me Your Hand: Traditional and Practical Guidance on Visiting the Sick
Stuart L. Kelman , Jane Handler , Kim Hetherington , and Stuart Kelman
Manufacturer: Eks
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Saying Kaddish: How to Comfort the Dying, Bury the Dead, and Mourn as a Jew

ASIN: 0939144263

Book Description

Originally published through the National Center for Jewish Healing, this compact volume explains the Jewish practice of Bikkur Cholim, visiting the sick. As with all EKS products, this volume provides clear, concise, and easily accessible information about traditional practices. Give Me Your Hand describes the historical and theological context for this mitzvah and includes traditional prayers, new prayers, and a checklist of practical advice.

Customer Reviews:

bad book.......2007-01-18

I bought the wrong book, so I didn"t like this one.
I bought a toaster from amazon , that is my daughter tha t lives in Coral gables Florida in
440 costanera road 33143 and she bought for me. When I came back to Brasil and opened the box the toaster was bumped in the top.

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A timeless, enchanting travel memoir
A Great Travel Memoir
You'll feel like you're there
Given the world in a lovely book
The best travel book ever, period!

Give Me the World (Adventura Books)
Leila Hadley
Manufacturer: Seal Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Asia | Travel | Subjects | Books

Essays & Travelogues | Reference & Tips | Travel | Subjects | Books

General | Travel | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 1580050913

Amazon.com

This travelogue about the mystery-shrouded Far East is a must-read book. However, there are hazards in doing so. Originally published in 1958, Give Me the World clutters up the tidy notion that women in the '50s were all Donna Reed clones. Leila Hadley, a 25-year-old divorcée with a plum PR position in Manhattan tossed aside conventionality and shipped out to Hong Kong--her 6-year-old son in tow. Hooking up with characters from scholars and mystics to a quartet of American sailors, she traveled to locales such as Ceylon, Bombay, Bangkok, and Delhi, sailing much of the way on a schooner on which she was a bona fide shipmate.

Her danger-filled, 18-month trek is remarkable, but it's her skill at observing details and capturing them on paper, creating a dreamy world that plays to all senses, that makes her memoir extraordinary. Of a Bombay street, she writes: "The women floated through the traffic like butterflies. The men ... leaped and darted, tentatively jumping forward and back in the path of onrushing motorcars, cyclists and oxcarts. Rickety gharries hurtled past driven by whip-cracking turbaned charioteers." Whether writing of food, rituals, or topography--"the mazing side streets were soft and muddied by the monsoon rains"--Hadley unleashes images so rich you can't help thinking that if everyone wrote like this, we wouldn't need TV. Like TV, Give Me the World is habit-forming: you ignore pressing work simply to curl up with this intoxicating memoir. When asked what's new, you may answer: "Well, today Leila Hadley stumbled into an opium den with a camera, and someone chased her out with a knife!" or, "Leila nearly died from a dust storm that gave her a fever of 107, but she survived and met Indira Gandhi." You may sniff at the books of other travel writers, as though they're phonies who aren't even trying.

In short, this is a wonderful book filled with such luxurious prose and so many cultural insights and wild experiences that you finish it feeling enriched and realizing that Hadley has set a standard for travel writing--and traveling--that few, including her ancestor Boswell, can match. --Melissa Rossi

Book Description

At the age of twenty-five, Leila Hadley, bored with her New York PR job, buys two tickets aboard a cargo ship headed for Hong Kong: one for herself and one for her six-year-old son Kippy. This decision sets her life on an entirely new course. After Manila, Hong Kong, and Bangkok, their travels take an unexpected turn: She meets four young men sailing their boat around the world, and convinces them to let her and Kippy join them. Seal is thrilled to release the paperback edition of this lush and richly evocative travel narrative, first published in 1958, in which Hadley offers sensuous descriptions of the places she visits, as well as lively accounts of the people and traditions. It’s not only the luminous vitality of her prose that makes this travelogue such a pleasure to read but also the courage of her decision to toss expectations to the wind and embrace all the adventures the world has to offer. Give Me the World is the gold standard by which all travel memoirs are judged—it endures as an inspiration to the adventurer that lurks within us all.

Customer Reviews:

A timeless, enchanting travel memoir.......2007-07-27

Written in 1958 and out of print for more than 25 years, Hadley's timeless story of traveling the Far East enchants the reader with the beauty and clarity of the writing, its confiding tone and the author's honesty and enthusiasm.

But Hadley, 25, divorced, and the mother of a six-year-old boy, is assailed with doubts when she finally boards the cargo ship that will bear her and Kippy to Manila and Hong Kong. Dissatisfied with her life as a public relations executive in New York, "which seemed to claim from me barely more than an acceptance" she had expected departure to confer immediate elation. It doesn't and tossing off the smart scarlet coat "that still wasn't paid for," she frets that "all my preconceived ideas would turn out the same way, flattening with experience into dim shadows."

She needn't have worried. Relaxing into the unstructured languor of shipboard life, invigorated by Kippy, "artless, untroubled and reacting in accord to a single heart and a single mind," her sense of wonder blossoms. Hadley has a gift for description, for making the sights, sounds and smells she perceives come alive in the reader's mind.

In Manila and then Hong Kong, everything fascinates her - the rooms, the people, the sights, the food. She remarks guiltlessly on the service. "I felt too light-headed and too comfortable to reflect philosophically on the social implications of cheap labor" and marvels at the oddities in the food market. "Centuries of famine and overpopulation have driven the Chinese to experimental extremes in nourishment....Nevertheless...I prefer Chinese food to French - it's prettier, the flavor is more subtle, and it's much less fattening." Treated to a restaurant banquet, she gamely tries everything. "Until I had almost eaten the last of them, I didn't realize that the lima beans were newborn mice coated with honey."

Hadley is easy with people (most of the boors she runs across are Americans), with a blithe expectation of mutual respect which seems to work. Though most helpful acquaintances are men the prospect of inappropriate sexual advances is scarcely mentioned except for one tongue-in-cheek, "as I was protected by a small child instead of a husband."

It's one of those ugly Americans who, in Bangkok, introduces her to the California, a schooner which seizes her imagination and becomes the real soul of her trip. "How wonderful to travel with uncertainty...to come slowly and quietly to places where there were things you did not know." After three and half years the four American crewmembers are a close unit and want no part of a woman's disruptive influence. Though Hadley begs and pleads for them to take her to Singapore, they refuse.

But when she and Kippy show up at the docks in Singapore, they capitulate. Hadley has a rare gift for visceral communication. With her we feel the efficient organization of the boat, the camaraderie among the crew, the damp, the lousy food, the accumulation of grime and salt on skin, the harsh rasp of a moldy cigarette, the heart-soaring joy of being aboard.

She takes a keen interest in getting to know the crew, surprised at how their disparate personalities contribute to shipboard harmony. Kippy's easy acceptance of everything new, from a delightful shower of squid to the draconian rule that he remain silent during all meals, charms without resorting to cuteness.

The difficulties of everyday tasks, from using the head to preparing a meal are described with good-natured humor and her description of their attempts to teach her to sail are hilarious. Coming into an anchorage one day, the crew takes down the sails. "I smiled to myself, because I finally knew what the Genny meant. It was the general term aboard for the Genoa jib, which I thought was a beautiful name for a sail."

In each port Hadley takes everything in, letting sights, sounds and smells sink into her. Kippy finds sightseeing with his mother boring but will tag behind the crew endlessly. Hadley conveys the bustle and crowds and smells of Eastern markets, the Tamil's annual painful penance day, the luxury of a bath.

On her customary dawn watch she reflects: "On land there was such an infinite variety of people and things over which my consciousness could flow, but now all my consciousness and senses were suddenly confined and focused on the minute area of a schooner...a universe that I could walk around in seconds."

In Ceylon her stint was over, to be resumed again in Beirut, five months later after an interlude amid the wonder and squalor of India. Though she is dazzled by a meeting with Indira Gandhi, it's Kippy's amah, Lucy, who becomes the complex embodiment of India. The quirks, customs and personalities of individuals and the happenstance of traveling, whether it be the aftermath of a violent dust storm or the intricacies of bargaining or the play of light on the Taj Mahal, hold her attention in the moment.

Though Hadley is open to people and seems to expect (and get) the best from locals, she does not hesitate to vent disapproval or dislike. But when she gets to Beirut and meets the usurper George, the fussy provisional addition to the California crew, she pounces. Describing his British tropic regimentals, she conveys a prig. "He was talking to the colonel in French and emitting little neighing laughs at the colonels remarks."

Unabashedly jealous, Hadley's rancor is checked only by occasional defensiveness and, later, by the need for harmony aboard. Hilariously funny, her behavior for the first time emphasizes her youth and, perversely, her femininity as George is always prodding her to dress up and try new hairstyles. And then there's the meeting with the American destroyer in Rhodes which rings perfectly true and perfectly evokes one of the better `50s comedy movies.

All too soon, the trip comes to an end. Hadley had expected to return to New York fresh and eager but feels instead as if "I had suffered metamorphosis in reverse, a butterfly become a caterpillar."

"Like love, travel is absorbing. Everything else withdraws to make room for its emotional demands and the expansion of one's senses."

And she has one more surprise in store for the reader, a shock, which on reflection, seems perfectly in character.

A Great Travel Memoir.......2006-02-25

FIVE STARS. This book is one of the most enjoyable reads I've had in a long time. A travel memoir so vibrant and alive, it's hard to believe it was written fifty years ago, by a writer who was then in her twenties. So much fun to read - impossible to put down.

You'll feel like you're there.......2005-08-15

Leila Hadley is one of the most descriptive writers of our time. Her words leap off the page and take you inside the story to enjoy her travels, right alongside her. "Give Me the World" is so much more than a travel log or journal. Ms. Hadley invites you along as her guest and urges you to see and feel what she has experienced, to be a part of her journey. You come away with an intimate knowledge of the Far East, as much as if you had seen it all yourself. I enjoyed my time in Bombay,Bangkok, and Singapore and recommend it to anyone who has a spirit of adventure. "Give Me the World" was an experience not to be missed.

Given the world in a lovely book.......2005-08-03

Every so often one reads a book that absolutely captures their heart and from the moment a person picks up that particular book they are lost in the pages. The fiction writer Jasper Fforde might refer to that as "reading into a book." This is one of those books. I was searching for a travel book for my reading group and nothing stood out and then I randomly found this book one day. I read the first four pages and felt such pangs of excitement. I wanted to read more right then and there. (I couldn't of course because I had to go back to work) I bought the book as quickly as I could and jumped in. Leila Hadley knows how to engage the reader and you get the distinct pleasure of watching her mature in "Give Me the World". In the beginning it is almost as if she is running away with her child when she decides to go to Asia. They enjoy a fairly comfortable existence and she ventures carefully into the scenery. She is almost slumming it a bit initially. It is when she reaches Bangkok that she begins to change and when she meets the crew of the 'California' she blossoms. Some of my new favorite characters come from this book. Her son Kippy stands out as this quiet solid figure who seems to go easily with any new plan.

This book also gives a wonderful glimpse into another time and another world. I think it is important to take that context into mind when reading the book when she mentions various characters and the way some people spoke of each other.
The book makes me want to run off and see more of the world. One of the things the author mentions speaks to my heart that after traveling one feels listless and not refreshed like one anticipates. It is one of the most true comments I have ever run across in travel writing. It is almost mourning the adventure.

I will encourage everyone I meet to read this book.

The best travel book ever, period!.......2003-09-04

Travel books have never, ever interested me--when I hear that one is particularly good, I tend to think, "Yeah, that was THEIR experience, but there's no way it can translate . . . " My thinking has always been that you yourself have to be somewhere, live somewhere, to really know what it's like or else what's the point?

My views on this changed when my sister gave me a copy of Leila Hadley's extraordinary "Give Me the World." A travel book in name only, this work by a great-great-great-great-granddaughter of author James Boswell is more a journey of self-discovery than it is about the places she visits--but the writing is so fierce, so fine, so rich and complex, that as a travelogue it is still head and shoulders above 90% of what else is out there cluttering the travel book bookshelves. Case in point:

Of trying to learn Siamese: "Learning to recognize such simple signs as DANGER, WOMEN and EXIT was as difficult as memorizing the patterns in filigreed silver."

Of the Siamese attitude towards life: "Although Siamese, as good Buddhists, do not believe in taking life, they see nothing wrong in rescuing a fish from drowning. If the creatures die on the bank or in a net, it is probably from exhaustion due to their long immersion, they say, and surely there can be no harm in eating them."

Of Bangkok's reputation as a den of iniquity: "To make sure that one missed nothing of Bangkok's [physical] wonderland, the Siamese had thoughtfully provided a 'Baedeker' . . . in the preface [it noted], 'This pocket book is somewhat inevitable to be kept ready at the hands.' "

Of her opium den experience: "I thought ahead to the times when, back in New York, I would say, 'By the way, I once had an interesting experience in an opium den' or even, 'Opium? Why, of course, I smoked it in Bangkok.' "

Of the difference between western and Malayan clothing: " . . . the people not in western costume looked out of place and a little garish, like partygoers in evening clothes coming home at breakfast time."

Of cooking on board a small boat: " . . . breakfast was a tempestuous affair. Vic darted about the lounge scaling coffee mugs at us, swearing at the stove, in a pother that the biscuits were burned on the bottom and raw on top, rattling and banging pans, and all the while keeping up a running flow of conversation about an article one of the men's adventure pulps had ordered him to rewrite, about the things he wanted to do--all the wildly impractical things like walking from Cairo to Morocco, chartering a dhow to explore the Baluchistan coast, leading an archaeological expedition to Alaska, and then his talk coursed off onto the subject of women and their extraordinary behavior."

On jellyfish: "We were almost abreast of the muddy current when a myriad of filmy jellyfish streamed past the hull. They were beautiful things, delicately colored--some like fragile bladders of Venetian blown glass, some like the pinky-fawn undersides of toadstools with pearly streamers."

On steering the boat at dawn: "The dawn watch. It was one of those chance rewards of travel, a magic moment, untranslatable from its time and place, a moment which lives on perpetually, with all its colors made fast. Just then there was no sign of dawn. The masts were still black against the luminous darkness of the sky, the sails grey in the starlight. There was a thrilling flush of wind against my skin."

On the Taj Mahal: "It shimmered. It glowed. It had the magical property of not looking man-made. Its marble walls had the tender radiance of seashells, petals and moonlit snow."

I could go on and on (and already have!), but really, you have to read the book to get more of this gorgeous prose and see a sheltered girl--yes, a girl, despite her twenty-five years and her six-year old son--blossom into a woman of the world as she makes her way around it. Highly recommended!

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Instructor's Manual and Test Bank for Give Me Liberty, Volume 2
Valerie Adams
Manufacturer: W W Norton & Co Inc
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | World | History | Subjects | Books
General | Americas | History | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0393925528

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Outstanding source for any executive to increase their effectiveness

The ugliest book I've ever seen

Not Worth $25, much less over $100

Process Visuals - immediate results!

The Great Big Book Of Process Visuals

The Great Big Book of Process Visuals (Or, Give Me A Double Axis Chart and I Can Rule the World)
Alan Weiss
Manufacturer: Las Brisas Research Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Plastic Comb

Communications | Skills | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
Running Meetings & Presentations | Skills | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
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Process Consulting: How to Launch, Implement, and Conclude Successful Consulting Projects (The Ultimate Consultant Series)

How to Establish a Unique Brand in the Consulting Profession: Powerful Techniques for the Successful Practitioner

Value-Based Fees: How to Chargeand GetWhat You're Worth (The Ultimate Consultant Series)

How To Write A Proposal That's Accepted Every Time

How to Acquire Clients: Powerful Techniques for the Successful Practitioner

ASIN: 1928611044

Book Description

A unique handbook of graphics and other visual aids that will create irresistible and dynamic presentations, sales calls, meetings, speeches, and other communications. The book includes a CD ROM compatible with any platform enabling the reader to insert the visuals into his or her own materials, with permission to do so. The book contains a visual on one page and a description of its origin, rationale, use, and space for notes on the facing page. The process visuals are the best from the works of Alan Weiss, one of the stars of the lecture circuit, and the author of "Million Dollar Consulting" and "Money Talks: How to Make A Million As A Speaker."

Customer Reviews:

Outstanding source for any executive to increase their effectiveness.......2006-03-12

Alan Weiss, in his inimitable style, quickly and succintly conveys dozens of important business concepts. Although it was written for consultants, the book is a valuable tool for any manager to improve significantly their communications and overall effectiveness. Overlook the low quality packaging and focus on the pearls inside.

The ugliest book I've ever seen.......2005-06-10

I like Weiss's other books, but this one arrived today in the mail. Firstly its the ugliest book I've ever seen. Secondly, my 6 year old neice could have drawn the diagrams better.

The content itself may be useful, time will tell if I ever use it.

To me it looks over-priced and frankly really ugly. I was hoping for some neater diagrams that were a bit more sophisticated. I think the diagrams are too simplistic.

Not Worth $25, much less over $100.......2002-07-20

I had high hopes based on some overinflated reviews I read. However, when this book arrived, it was less than 100 pages of tired looking drawings that wouldn't be acceptable in today's communication documents. Being a consultant myself, I think that I should create a book just like it with some of my visuals and charge hundreds of dollars, because it makes these look like they are from 20 years ago. I'm sorry, but this book is really overpriced and outdated.

Process Visuals - immediate results!.......2002-02-19

Just receive the process visual book and immediately got results!

1. I received the book and used one to close a sale the same day:

While presenting a proposal I drew the visual as I
explained my approach. The client said
"that's exactly why we need you"

(I measure the percentage return on my investment
in the thousands)

2. I will easily be able to use more visuals in my presentations:

I always have used visuals to describe my point of
view, but after reading Dr. Weiss' rationale and
descriptions for each visual in his book,
I better understood how to create and improve
even more of my own.

This was an unexpected benefit that I immediately began
profiting from the following week!

Still wondering why I didn't buy it sooner...

The Great Big Book Of Process Visuals.......2000-09-06

I found "The Great Big Book Of Process Visuals" to be an outstanding resource for the following reasons:

First, the overall approach of drawing visuals provides me with another way to explain concepts to people in a pragmatic way during a presentation. Now I ask myself, "What visual representation could I develop that would explain this idea in the fewest words possible?"

Second, I find the approach of using process visuals extremely effective in meeting with prospects. After listening to their description of their organization and the inherent challenges, I will draw a variety of visuals that captures what they are saying and guides them toward practical solutions. This generates tremendous conversation betwee the two of us and enhances the value they perceive that I can bring to them.

Third, Alan Weiss has provided us with fifty examples of process visuals with explanations of how to use them. As I read each one, I ask myself, "What other visuals could I draw that would deliver this same point?" Consequently, each of the fifty could generate three to four more process visuals. As a result, the original fifty can lead to an expanded "vocabulary" very quickly.

Fourth, he has all of the process visuals on a CD Rom. Therefore, anytime I want to I can download one of his visuals and use it in my presentations. This is a tremedous time saver. I particularly like the visual on connecting business goals to organizational education. Finally, I like the simplicity of the drawings because I am "artistically challenged."

Book Description

The future of online religion is now! Operating online allows long-established religious communities to reach the unaffiliated like never before. More startling is the ease by which anyone with internet access can create new circles of faith. Electronic shrines and kitschy personal Web "altars" express adoration for living celebrities, just as they honor the memory of long-departed martyrs. In Give Me That Online Religion, online religion expert Brenda Brasher braves a new world in which cyber concepts and technologies challenge conventional ideas about the human condition--all the while attempting to realize age-old religious ideals of transcendence and eternal life. As the Internet continues its rapid absorption of culture, Give Me That Online Religion offers pause for thought about spirituality in the cyber-age. Religion's move to the online world does not mean technology's triumph over faith. Rather, Brasher argues, it assures religion's place in the wired universe, along with commerce and communications--meeting the spiritual demands of Internet generations to come.

Download Description

The future of online religion is now! Give Me That Online Religion explores the ever-converging worlds of the Internet and traditional religion. Brenda Brasher, an expert in online religion, illustrates the general movement of spirituality and ritual into cyberspace (via personal home pages or official Web sites) that mirrors the shift of commerce and communications to a global scale. Far from undermining religion's relevance, this trend has the potential of reinvigorating the practice and understanding of faith-sustaining and reshaping interest in the transcendent well into the future.

Customer Reviews:

Virtually sacred..........2004-02-29

The author of this book, Brenda Brasher, got her Master of Divinity degree from my seminary prior to getting her doctorate at the University of Southern California. Brasher's earlier book, `Godly Women: Fundamentalism and Female Power', showed that she likes to push the envelope and go into subjects that are not without controversy. `Give Me That Online Religion' is another book like this - the whole idea of culture and society on the internet is riddled with controversial aspects. Far from being simply a new technology or a new and faster method of communication, the internet is transforming the very idea of communication in ways not thought of by even the most prophetic of observers and science fiction imaginations.

Brasher sees the realm of cyberspace as being the ultimate diaspora (she entitles one of her early chapters with this phrase) - people need no longer rely on physical proximity or geographic groupings for their associations; like the Jews of old, the community can be far flung and multicultural while maintaining certain key ties - one primary difference now being that the people involved in these virtual communities may never actually meet another person of their religious persuasion.

The ideas of authenticity (of communication, of individual truthfulness, and of actual spirituality) come to the forefront of much of Brasher's discussion, as questions about the validity of persons online and the reality of experiences that exist primarily or solely in virtual space are exposed. At what point does the virtue become a vice? While the internet is an incredible tool for the dissemination of information as has been available never before, it is also true that the number of questionable sites (ranging from the mildly prurient to the bizarre and violent) seems to multiply at an even faster rate. This same trend holds true in religion, in which there is sometimes no reality at all behind the words on the website. What kinds of values are being expressed and exposed?

Brasher compares the deaths of Diana, Princess of Wales and Mother Teresa as a case study, comparing their media presence - particularly on the internet - against their actual lives and the grounding each had in certain communities and `real' life. Brasher locates the websites of celebrities such as these as pilgrimage sites similar to the old saintly sites of earlier times; they become important continuations of a celebrity's seeming power and influence.

Brasher speculates on some of the influences and trends for congregational life - that pastors and theologians grounded in an education influenced by agrian culture and pastoral concerns might find a difficult time in relating the modern technological-cultural issues to their communities. This is not to say that pastors and theologians are not technically savvy - many will have the latest computers with fast-speed internet access, palm pilots, cell phones and the like, but still not be able to adapt the changing trends these bring in society together with their more traditionally-based theological training.

Brasher ends by looking at the apocalyptic element online, not only with situations like the Heaven's Gate tragedy, but also the more general ministry portals run by evangelical and fundamentalist preachers such as Jack Van Impe, whose focus for ministry online (as well as in other media) seems to start with the prophetic apocalyptic message. She examines the potential and the pitfalls for future use of the internet in the religious field mystically, institutionally, and socially.

This is a fascinating text for any person in the twenty-first century, given that no matter where one is, the influence of the internet will be felt, and two so pervasive things like religion and the internet cannot help but be influenced by each other, one hopes for the better of both.

fluffy and speculative, but with an agenda I like.......2001-08-13

I agree with almost all of what Dr. Brasher has to say about the potential of online religion. That being said, however, this book (which makes at least some attempt at being academic, with footnotes and a chapter contextualizing technology and religion historically) fails to delve very deeply into specifics. Unsupported generalizations are rife, and anecdotes (accounts of individuals' experiences with religion on the Internet) are related without any evidence to suggest how widespread these kinds of experiences are. Overall, the book fails to look at enough specific Internet resources in enough detail to justify Brasher's sweeping claims for the future importance of online religion. Her speculation on the character and potential cultural effects of online religion are certainly interesting, but they make up the bulk of the work. As a result, _Give Me That Online Religion_ is an interesting personal vision, but a very weak piece of scholarship.

I originally faulted this book for lacking any reference to major Internet religion hubs such as Beliefnet, but Dr. Brasher has since informed me that the book went to press before Beliefnet came online. I still think, however, that a print directory of religion-related websites with brief descriptions would have been an excellent addition to the book. Even though the directory would have been outdated after a year, such a listing would have provided specific information about the context in which Brasher was writing and given her argument additional weight. Brasher does, however, provide a directory on her website, which is listed in the back of the book.

Religion Electronically Transmogrified.......2001-07-06

How will we do religion twenty, a hundred years from now? Will buildings still be important? Or, perhaps, will there be e-religion that people practice at home, just as they e-shop rather than going to the mall? According to Brenda E. Brasher, we already have e-religion, as shown in her book _Give Me That Online Religion_ (Jossey-Bass). A funny, imaginative work, it is also a serious look at how online religion has gotten its start in what humans will surely look back on as the most primitive days of the internet. Brasher teaches religion and philosophy, and for more than a decade has been taking a look at various religious websites. She has had her work cut out for her; there are more than a million sites of diverse religious affiliation, drawing believers as well as those simply curious. Perhaps this is just the internet way of distributing tracts, but Dr. Brasher says no: "online religion is the most portentous development for the future of religion to come out of the twentieth century" and "could become the dominant form of religious experience in the next century."

Those familiar with basic traditional religions will find that they have moved onto the Web without much change; perhaps the literal Bible, apocalyptic ones are over-represented, just as they are on TV. There are others in this book that any reader will find strange. Some sites are direct offshoots of IRL (In Real Life) religious practice, like online prayer chains and chat rooms where people can go for a more-or-less directed Sunday school. The site of EvilPeople, Inc., invites people to click on a button in order to sell their souls. (A soul was recently put up for sale on e-Bay.) There are memorials to many dead people; there are 8,000 Brasher has counted devoted to Princess Diana alone. There are strange and comic religious sites. Brasher never mentions the surrealistic site of the Church of the Subgenius ("The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!") or the subversively comic realism of the Landover Baptist Church ("Where the Worthy Worship and the Unsaved Are Not Welcome.") She does explain that much of the religion on the web is suffused with over-the-top humor. There are what she calls "Celebrity Altars," devoted to some sort of worship of someone famous, and she gives extensive quotes from the site "Dudes of the Keanic Circle," devoted to finding, among other things, the esoteric meanings of the films of Keanu Reeves. Keanu as Christ-figure is very weird, and so is another site that holds Keanu as the Antichrist, confusingly enough. The Transhumanists are interested in the typical religious goal of eternal life, but intend to do so by uploading their brains onto the `net (undoubtedly Windows is merely withholding this software until their legal problems are worked out). There are many strange religions in this book. There are some not so strange, as the cyber-seder, and the woman who was drawn to convert to Judaism because of it.

Brasher does a good job of explaining how chat rooms and Web sites work, for those who don't know much about the `net. She draws instructive parallels about previous shifts in media within religion; who is to say that the Web will not, as the years go by, have as much effect as Luther's use of the new technology of the printing press? She is an advocate for watching with curiosity the way religion branches in cyberspace, and for its protection in the face of commercialization. She is right to point out that those who grow up on the web may find the agrarian and pastoral images of inherited religion less credible than they find futuristic fiction. We are just at the beginning, but she has given us a start on a way to thinking about what might come.

Excellent read, brilliant analysis.......2001-03-21

Brenda Brasher's "Give Me That Online Religion" is a must-read book, a superbly written, insight-packed exploration of what happens when ancient faith fuses with tomorrow's technology. One of our most adept guides to modern religion, Brasher provides the first serious look at how the Internet is transforming spirituality -- and gazes into the always-intriguing, sometimes-frightening future of global religion in the brave new era of cyberspace.

-- Gershom Gorenberg, senior editor and columnist, The Jerusalem Report

god now.......2001-03-16

this book is of interest to both people interested in religious behaviuor and those studying the web phenomenon. brasher surveys how both traditional amd new religious movements have used the internet to further thier interests and causes. religion on the net now is not contained by time or place and is accessible to any and under no obligations. cult and other credes are descibed too from lady di, elvis to mother theresa. alternatively all means of approaching religion are noted such as sending messages to god, requesting absolution or placing a note at the wetsern wall.religion is one of the main areas of activity on the internet and new sites are opeining by the minute with the most up to date tools.this fascinating book also raises ethical questions as how to avoid abuse and encouraging criminal and other actions. she suggests that standards and codes of practice be considered. what is also remarkeable is the fact that in this modern day and age, religious practice is on the increase and many relgious institutions are using the web effectively and via this new medium able to attract new followers. the book is both learned and highly readable suitable both for scholars and the genral public. i enjoyed reading it immensly and am now a fan of this author.

Give Me The Children (How a Christian Woman Saved a Jewish Family During the Holocaust)

Average customer rating:

Heard author speak. WOW

Give Me The Children (How a Christian Woman Saved a Jewish Family During the Holocaust)

ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: 0972497102

Customer Reviews:

Heard author speak. WOW.......2007-04-10

I have not yet had an opportunity to read 'Give Me the Children', but I was fortunate enough to hear Pola tell her story at Emory University last week. Her history is one of incredible dimensions. I highly suggest learning more about her life through reading this book, and especially gaining understanding of the deepest meaning of the powerful phrase: "Give me the children".

This book will certainly give you an insight into life during the Holocaust in Poland and the potential of people.

"Because It Gives Me Peace of Mind": Ritual Fasts in the Religious Lives of Hindu Women (Mcgill Studies in the History of Religions)

Average customer rating:

An amazing Book on Woman in Hinduism!

"Because It Gives Me Peace of Mind": Ritual Fasts in the Religious Lives of Hindu Women (Mcgill Studies in the History of Religions)
A. M. Pearson
Manufacturer: State University of New York Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books

General | Hinduism | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0791430383

Customer Reviews:

An amazing Book on Woman in Hinduism!.......2000-10-02

This book is amazing! I read it for an anthro class and was profoundly moved by what I read. Westerns always think of woman in other cultures and religions to be degraded and un-impowered, but this book shows that our ideas are not the truth. Each woman is portrayed in a truthful and empowering light. I highly recommmend this book to anyone who wants to see Hindu Woman from a different perspective.

Eternal i.v. Pole: My Last Gift of Wisdom I Give to the World I love; Given to me by the God I Love

Average customer rating:

Eternal I.V.Pole-my review
Tragically personified. Enthralling to mere extent. Frightening, warlike, brillant.

Eternal i.v. Pole: My Last Gift of Wisdom I Give to the World I love; Given to me by the God I Love
Lama Milkweed L. Augustine
Manufacturer: 1st Books Library
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

Religious | Leaders & Notable People | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

Memoirs | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

General | Buddhism | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 1410751295

Customer Reviews:

Eternal I.V.Pole-my review.......2006-05-16

This seemed like it would be a good book also,because so many people suffer emotional hurts,as well as physical and it's good to have an upfront discussion on these matters,as I think this book would give. author of Sharper Than A Two Edged Sword-one woman's walk into Islam and out.by Nadia Rehmani(a new author)

Tragically personified. Enthralling to mere extent. Frightening, warlike, brillant........2006-03-06

ETERNAL I. V. POLE by LAMA MILKWEED L. AUGUSTINE written by meself, is truely a travistic and hideous real life tale of an unseen and unheard of form of dictatorship in which I had to live under, and if I should ever question that said dictatorship, I would die. Still in the very same pages of this novel of travistic truth and compexities, I explicitly and graphically talk about not only the poignant subject of forgiveness and the ways of going into the realm of the inferior self, as well as finally heading towards the Lord, but in an equal sense of contrast, just exactly what kind of mental and spiritual agony which I was foced to undergo and sustain as the byproduct of of this horrendous and harrowing form of terrorism, and right here in a Boston medical hospital. The sence of psycholigical anarchy the was both freely and indescriminately practiced onto my tiny anf frail behalf was surely something of proportions that far outweighs anything I have ever heard of in this country, save for the Ku klux Klan. I as a religious leader settled into bubbles of silence to reflect on the truely awesome realities of God and contrasted them to the life and ways of the Buddhist Lama. Now a Venerable Rimpoche, or a professor of Buddhism. I pray more people will buy this particular novel of a very rare genre' as it will change the very foundation of the reader, as well as rearrange one's very self to the point of reassesment in inevitable, as one suddenly reaches up to the Heavens and asks God for deliverence.Lama Milkweed L. Augustine H. H. Ph. D

Average customer rating:

Give Me Five
Charlene H. Klima
Manufacturer: Brandylane
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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

General | Ages 9-12 | Children's Books | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 1883911362

Book Description

This is Jordy's story--a story about growing up and the challenges he faces along the way. But it is also a story about the importance of saving our environment. Can Florida's Lake Apopka really be restored to its original purity? Jordy, Cam and the Greenies think so. They are working harder than ever to make it happen.

We Mean Clean and Green is more than a name. Jordy gets caught up in the intensity of the club's lake project. We witness his transformation as he accepts increasing responsibility--to become a character young readers will look up to and learn from.

Join Jordy, his older brothers and friends on an adventure that takes you through the trials and successes of working to save a real lake from total destruction. They learn important lessons about friendship, about science, and about what it means to be part of a noble mission!

Average customer rating:

Amazon's scamp in shipping

A US History interesting book

Give Me Liberty: An American History
Eric Foner
Manufacturer: W W Norton & Co Inc (Np)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | World | History | Subjects | Books
All Titles | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
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Voices of Freedom: A Documentary History, Volume 1

Give Me Liberty!: An American History, Volume 1

Coming of Age in Mississippi

Dubliners: Text and Criticism; Revised Edition (Viking Critical Library)

Selected Canterbury Tales (Dover Thrift Editions)

ASIN: 0393155951

Book Description

Freedom, the oldest of clichés and the most modern of aspirations, is the unifying theme in the new survey of American history by Eric Foner, the well-known historian and author of The Story of American Freedom. As the fundamental idea behind Americans' sense of themselves as individuals and as a nation, freedom is deeply embedded in the record of our history and the language of everyday life. Give Me Liberty! examines the changing meanings of freedom, the social conditions that make freedom possible, and its shifting boundaries from colonial times to the early twenty-first century.

Customer Reviews:

Amazon's scamp in shipping.......2007-07-09

This rating is not about the book but it's about Amazon service. I ordered the book on 07/02/2007 and the book was not shipped until 07/09/2009. I received no email letting me know there is a delay in shipping. I am already behind in this class and I am having a test next monday 07/16/2007. I will have to buy a book in a local book store to study for the test. I am very disappointed w/ Amazon. I think they are playing this game to make you buy their shipping package. Very cheap and low tactic from Amazon...

A US History interesting book.......2006-11-06

It is a book that has all the facts of US History. It gives extra details to place every detail given in the right place. It is also very easy to read and would go along great with a lecture class. Personally I read this book with Howard Zinn side by side so I could get the facts and opinion at the same time. Very good book.

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