Book Description
What if conflicts at home, conflicts at work, and conflicts in the world stem from the same root cause? And what if individually and collectively we systematically misunderstand that cause, and unwittingly perpetuate the very problems we think we are trying to solve?
Through an intriguing story of parents struggling with their troubled children and with their own personal problems, The Anatomy of Peace shows how to get past the preconceived ideas and self-justifying reactions that keep us from seeing the world clearly and dealing with it effectively. Yusuf al-Falah, an Arab, and Avi Rozen, a Jew, each lost his father at the hands of the other's ethnic cousins. As the story unfolds, we discover how they came together, how they help warring parents and children to come together, and how we too can find our way out of the struggles that weigh us down. The choice between peace and war lies within us. As one of the characters says, "A solution to the inner war solves the outer war as well." This book offers more than hope — it shows how we can prevent the conflicts that cause so much pain in our lives and in the world.
Customer Reviews:
Could be The Answer.......2007-10-10
This is a great book for anyone looking for answers to difficult relationship situations. You can only change yourself and the way you think but that can make all the difference.
Enlightening.......2007-10-10
This book is particularly enlightening. The basic premises of the book have changed the way I look at people. These include family, neighbors, and the guy in the car next to me on the freeway. I have found myself more patient with others, kinder in my responses to others, and enjoying the benefits that come when the other people are treated with consideration.
Enlightning.......2007-09-15
This is a wonderful book that takes you on a journey of self discovery. It is a must for anyone that really wants to understand why they have problems in any relationship and how to change them for the better. The book is well worth the price, and time to read it. If the things you read are implemented it will change your life!
Jonesy.......2007-09-12
Many books are described as life changing. This is that rare one that is truly life changing. Having read Terry Warner's book, Bonds That Heal, I had some background in the philosophy and was already impressed with the profound changes that were possible if an individual, or company or nation, was committed to living these concepts and making them a part of the fabric of their life.
That said, as I spoke to others about Bonds That Heal it become apparent that some individuals were intimadated by the depth of thought required to read and understand Mr. Warner's work. Anatomy of Peace is written in parable form that makes it an easy read. Although the story is simple it engages the readers' emotions and sympathy and opens their heart and mind to change.
I am glad to have found both of these books and recommend them to anyone who is ready for a better life.
Finding Inner Peace.......2007-08-23
This book can be life changing in giving a person effective tools for dealing with relational conflict. It will be revolutionary for many. I have shared it with many friends.
Book Description
The tale of a simple act of faith between two young people - one Israeli, one Palestinian - that symbolizes the hope for peace in the Middle East.
In 1967, not long after the Six-Day War, three young Arab men ventured into the town of Ramle, in what is now Jewish Israel. They were cousins, on a pilgrimage to see their childhood homes; their families had been driven out of Palestine nearly twenty years earlier. One cousin had a door slammed in his face, and another found his old house had been converted into a school. But the third, Bashir Al-Khairi, was met at the door by a young woman called Dalia, who invited them in.
This act of faith in the face of many years of animosity is the starting point for a true story of a remarkable relationship between two families, one Arab, one Jewish, amid the fraught modern history of the regio. In his childhood home, in the lemon tree his father planted in the backyard, Bashir sees dispossession and occupation; Dalia, who arrived as an infant in 1948 with her family from Bulgaria, sees hope for a people devastated by the Holocaust. As both are swept up in the fates of their people, and Bashir is jailed for his alleged part in a supermarket bombing, the friends do not speak for years. They finally reconcile and convert the house in Ramle into a day-care centre for Arab children of Israel, and a center for dialogue between Arabs and Jews. Now the dialogue they started seems more threatened than ever; the lemon tree died in 1998, and Bashir was jailed again, without charge.
The Lemon Tree grew out of a forty-three minute radio documentary that Sandy Tolan produced for Fresh Air. With this book, he pursues the story into the homes and histories of the two families at its center, and up to the present day. Their stories form a personal microcosm of the last seventy years of Israeli-Palestinian history. In a region that seems ever more divided, The Lemon Tree is a reminder of all that is at stake, and of all that is still possible.
Customer Reviews:
Good book, we read it in class.......2007-10-14
It's a good fairly objective book (although it's pretty much impossible to be truly unbiased in anything). It's definitely good at getting on two sides of this multifaced beast of an issue to cover. You'll never find a book on the Arab-Israeli conflict that everyone agrees on, NEVER, some people will always think Israel had a spotless and sin free birth despite the facts, and others will never admit the Arabs made mistakes and had selfish non-altruistic motives. For such a sticky situation, this book does well.
The Lemon Tree: An Arab, A Jew and the Heart of the MIddle East.......2007-10-03
This book is a poignant story of the people drawn up into the Arab-Israeli conflict. It takes the premise that both sides have committed atrocities and both sides have been victimized. It does so by following both a Palestinian and Jewish family, linked together by residence of the same home during different periods. Each family learns to understand the other, but still a inpenetrable barrier remains between them.
The Lemon Tree.......2007-10-02
THE LEMON TREE, by Sandy Tolan, is a historical perspective of the Palestine/Israel problems viewed from two lives, one Arab man and one Israeli woman. Their factual stories are given from the history of the land and the divisions made by outside influence. The U.N. and Great Britian were very involved in the partition and resettlement of the people of this area.
The two personal lives were intertwined by having consecutive lives in one house as "one home" for the two families. Both of these lives reflect on people of great faith, great education, and great involvment in the situation.
The author uses much research, factual relativity, and impartiality to his report. A very complicated situation exists and the book allows the information to understand the impossibility of the area and future peaceful settlement.
A biased view of the Middle East conflict.......2007-08-23
Although when I began The Lemon Tree by Sandy Tolan, I believed this book would be a balanced and nuances work about the conflict between Palestinians and Israelis. The book opens with a description of a home which had been built and inhabited by Palestinians and in which Israeli Jews live after the 1948 war. Great, I thought! We'll see two sides of the dreadful tensions and violence in the region. I was disappointed by the time I finished reading because Tolan loads the argument in favor of the dispossessed Palestinians, barely mentioned the horrific consequences of suicide bombings and attacks on innocent civilians. One example is the reference to the problems in Gaza. Tollan describes the attacks by Israel as violent and gratuitous on the Gazans, and actually suggests that the rockets Hamas fired into Israel (after the Israelis pulled out) are harmless. Surely, the author doesn't believe that the intention of Hamas was to fire "harmless rockets" into enemy territory. Throughout the book, we see very little about the wars the Arab nations began, especially the one that immediately followed the establishment of the state of Israel. The 1967 war was initiated by the Israelis, true, but Egyptian forces were massed on the border. If that wasn't provocation, I don't know what is.
I am not sorry I read the book. I enjoyed much of it, and I was certainly more sympathetic with many Palestinians who suffered so much after having read Tolan's presentation of their lives and losses. The book would have been more successful for me had it been more balanced and honest.
The Lemon Tree.......2007-08-07
This is an excellent book - extremely well documented. It affords the reader greater understanding of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It arouses sympathy for those who have suffered injustice - also admiration for people on both sides for their resilience and determination to seek the truth. This book also inspires a feeling of hope through the compassion shown between Jew and Israeli. Would that more people could strive for understanding and peace!
Book Description
What does the atonement mean, practically speaking? How is Christ the answer to a strained relationship with a spouse, child, parent, or sibling? What if I am being mistreated—how can the atonement help me cope with that? How can I discover the desire to repent when I don't feel the need to repent" And how can I invite others to do the same? These are the challenging, difficult questions of daily life, questions to which the gospel must provide answers if it is to have living, cleansing, redeeming power.
The Peacegiver is a book about the answers to these questions. Unlike other books about the atonement, The Peacegiver is written as an extended parable. It tells the story of a man struggling, with the help of a loved one, to come unto Christ. IN reading the rich details of his often difficult journey, we find ourselves embarked on a personal journey of our own. His questions are our questions; his problems, our problems; his discoveries, our discoveries. Along the way, the truths of the gospel are unfolded with surprising clarity and power, illuminating aspects of the atonement that few of us have ever heard or considered before. These surprising implications show us the way to deep and lasting peace in our hearts and homes.
"My peace I give unto you," the Savior declared. The Peacegiver explores in a deeply personal way what we must do to receive the peace he stands willing to give.
Customer Reviews:
Excellent analogy of the atonement.......2007-10-05
It started as a story I could relate to. But then it got a little odd, but I pushed through it and it came together and the concept was worth the approach.
I thought I understood the atonement, but not like this. There was an example provided that explained the atonement in a completely new way--it was one of those rare occasions where there was a dramatic paradign shift and my traditional understanding was blown away.
This new understanding takes away some of the pain for being wronged by someone dear to me and makes it easier to forgive that person.
This is a must read! Absolutely amazing. .......2007-07-29
This is a must read for every Christian who really wants to understand the atonement of Jesus Christ. I am not a big book reader, but when I read this I could not put it down. I have it on CD and have listened to it three times since I read the book. The doctrines are ones that most Christians (members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints are Christian)know but have never thought of in this context. I highly recommend this book to anyone who has not read it.
The Peacegiver: How Christ offers to Heal Hearts and Homes.......2007-05-10
Excellent book to give perspective to your relationships. Helps in the thinking process of "What would Christ do?" I highly recommend the book to everyone.
can't say enough about this book!!!.......2007-05-08
Excellent read. I was pleased with the way the author tied the gospel of Jesus Christ into simple, easy to understand principles. I have recommended this to several friends. Don't hesitate to buy it.
5 stars doesn't do this book justice.......2007-01-30
This is simply one of the very books I've ever read, of any genre. It's been out for quite some time but I recently pulled it from the shelf and re-read it. (I think I've read one or two books more than once in my life.)
Whether you're married or not, whether you're active in your religion or not, this book will force you to evaluate how you interact with those you love. This book was simply a mirror for me. Perhaps that's why I needed to read it twice! There were lessons for me on every page.
The book is a glorious lesson on (and testimony of) the Atonement of Christ. That's the best review I can think to give.
Book Description
For the first time, one book gives voice to the haunting, painful, tender, and healing tales of those who lost so much in America's least popular war.
From the Trade Paperback edition.
Customer Reviews:
Read This Book!.......2004-07-27
If you lost a loved one in Vietnam then you'll understand the poingnancy, intimacy, loss, and anguish of the writers of these letters found throughout the book. It brings out the grim and stark realization that behind every name on the Wall is a story as told by the families who suffered a loss. The most important thing though is the book is about remembering those men and women who served and paid the ultimate sacrifice.
One of the best.......2002-01-16
Shrapnel In the Heart is a book to be read by everyone no matter what generation they were born in. Shrapnel In The Heart is a book that has letters and rememberances left behind at the Vietnam War Memorial. Some of the letters tell the story about the people behind the letter. The stories are sad, but the courage of the men and women is a true inspiration. The people written about in this book were extrememly young (18, 19, 20) and it seems like they died in vain. But through their letters that were left behind it is easy to see that these young men knew their duty and refused to shirk from it. These men and women are true heroes.
I wish all young people had to read this!.......2000-04-13
I read this book for a college history course and until now have thought very little about war, military, or world politics. Young people today rarely understand or realize what goes with becoming a soldier. This book gives real images of the devastation war brings from the people who lived through the tragedy of losing their loved ones. It opens our eyes to things we just shouldn't close our eyes on.
Do I dare?.......2000-02-09
Do I dare to give this book a less-than-glowing review? I am inclined to do so not because of the power and dignity of the people and the stories in the book--those speak for themselves. It was Palmer (the author) that bothered me. As I was reading the book, I could not help but feel that she was trying to manipulate me, tugging at heartstrings that needed no tug to be moved by these heartfelt stories. I felt a bit patronized by her. A good book (or movie, or whatever), if it moves me, should not make me feel the push; this one did, and it left me feeling the way people usually feel when they were pushed in a direction that they would have gone anyway--irritated.
Don't miss this one!.......1998-09-22
If you have any interest at all in the VietNam War you should not miss this book. It puts a face on all those whose names are inscribed on The Wall. Guaranteed to break your heart!
Book Description
Parenting that Promotes Peace—Parents everywhere want to connect compassionately with their children, to show them love and offer guidance even in difficult moments. In this packed and practical booklet, Inbal Kashtan describes how the practicing the Nonviolent Communication (NVC) process can transform parenting to promote peace for generations to come.
Whether you're parenting a teenager or an infant, the parenting help and guidance you'll find in this booklet will transform your challenges and conflicts into opportunities to parent from your heart. Find NVC-based parenting tips and ten practical exercises to foster trust and improve cooperation even in the most trying circumstances. Learn how to make connection your top priority, share power in your family and inspire open dialogue that promotes mutual understanding.
Customer Reviews:
Communication that creates connection.......2006-06-26
Would you count to three if your best friend didn't do what you asked? Ask the parent of any teenager if counting at them still works. In this powerful and practical little book, that every parent has time to read, Inbal Kashtan teaches us "another way" by brilliantly applying the practice of Nonviolent Communication to the everyday parenting struggles that tempt us to resort to coercion.
I recommend Parenting From Your Heart to all parents who are striving to move from parenting through coercion and fear to parenting through love and connection.
An excellent parenting resource - don't miss it !!!.......2006-01-25
This little gem is filled with great practical advice and mini-worksheets that help you understand how to apply the ideas offered. I wish I would have had this from the start of my days as a parent.
If you're interested in this one then check out the companion NVC parenting title "Raising Children Compassionately" by Marshall Rosenberg.
Connecting parents and children.......2005-03-30
This book follows the methods described in Marshall Rosenberg's book about non-violent communication. I highly recommend this book for parents even if you have not yet read the Rosenberg book. The book is short (43 pages), yet it clearly describes the application of the non-violent communication technique to communicate, motivate and develop mutually empathic relationship with your child. It is a win-win relatiohship where the feelings and the needs of both the child and the adult are met without the use of the emotional blackmail of shame, guilt, blame or rewards. Inbal Kashtan described the communication method with lots of examples and exercises after each chapter so you can practice and reinforce the method. Incorporating this simple but powerful method of communciation between a child and a parent allows the child to develop self motivation, the ability to express feelings and needs and empthatically connect to self and others even in an emotionally charged environment. Its something we all strive for and special gift that you can give and share with your child.
Customer Reviews:
Offers a spiritual center.......2000-04-14
In November 1864 in Colorado Territory a village of Cheyenne and Arapaho was savagely assaulted by the Colorado Volunteers under the leadership of the Reverend Colonel Chivington. Ortiz calls to mind this event in prose, and then offers on the facing page poetry of hope and renewal. That is how this remarkable book begins. Throughout the book, the author (one of the best American poets writing today) pairs poems on one page with historical vignettes, personal notes, and political comments on the facing page. The book moves through alcohol treatment in VA hospitals, American mythology that undergirds a sense of mission, episodes in Indian-white relations, and many other such topics. In this work Ortiz builds toward a vision of America that is political committed, spiritually centered, and humanizing. He expresses this vision in full knowledge and acceptance of the awful truths of patterns of mistreatment and oppression. Unlike so much of the patriotism that is rooted in a "my country right or wrong" attitude, Ortiz writes as an Acoma Pueblo Indian and US citizen who loves this country deeply for what it can be.
I came to this book a number of years ago full of anger and cynicism developing as a result of learning the history that had been suppressed from the school curriculum. I had always been deeply patriotic, but was finding the truth might shatter that. Ortiz offered more evidence of the lies, but placed these facts in a framework of a dream "of love and compassion and knowledge" (96). No book has done more for the development of my sense of myself as a white American. From my point of view this book is simply the best book in print (and it was out of print for several years).
Book Description
Andrew's Meier riveting portrait of Chechnya, a land ravaged by indescribable carnage, enables us to understand the origins of this brutal conflict like no other recent work.
The barbaric, terrorist siege in the summer of 2004 that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of innocent children in Beslan did not begin either there or in the take-over of a Moscow theatre in 2002. As Andrew Meier explains in this utterly compelling account, the most recent Chechen war actually broke out on New Year's Eve in 1994 when Boris Yeltsin sent hundreds of tanks to the center of the city of Grozny in an effort to quell popular demands for independence from Russia. Six years later, Meier, braving great personal danger, traveled to the scene of one of the largest civilian massacres carried out by Russian troops, reporting on the carnage in which over 60 Chechen civilians—including a pregnant woman and many elderly—were brutally slaughtered in one of the war's most horrific "mop-up" operations. Days after a Chechen woman became the conflict's first female suicide bomber, Meier visited this war-torn province, encountering, among others, kidnappers, Wahhabi Islamists aligned with the Taliban, and a stream of Russian mothers arriving at the morgue to identify their fallen soldier sons. Chechnya is Meier's stunning report from a region where the death toll has already exceeded 100,000 people, and a book that attempts to comprehend what compels men to shoot children in the back.
Customer Reviews:
A Short and Sad but Interesting Read.......2006-01-17
This is a great little book on a horrible war. He is a former Moscow correspondent for Time. The book (112 pages of text) is the product of his sometimes harrowing experiences traveling through Chechnya and surrounding areas. Part current events commentary and part Travel Log from Hell, the book's style is similar to the travel books of Robert D. Kaplan. Meier includes some historical background on the events described but mostly it is a record of Meier's conversations with Russians, Chechnyans and others, along with descriptions of what he saw. Meier is also a brave man, although he admits to being scared out of his wits at times when he was there; Chechnya is the kidnapping capital of the world. It is the only industry the province really has.
Important note: The chapters from this book were extracted from Meier's longer work, Black Earth: A Journey Through Russia After the Fall. If you have purchased Black Earth, therefore, you do not need to buy this book.
This is a the kind of book on international affairs that one can read for entertainment. Meier is a good and humorous writer, and the book contains a lot of anecdotes about the people he met. I spent a summer working in Russia a few years back, and Meier's stories bring back memories. At one point he writes of how, while staying in a hotel in south Russia, he finally pulled the plug on the phone after getting repeated calls with female voices asking "You need girl now?" It reminded me of my first visit to a McDonald's in Moscow, the one nearest to the Red Square; there was a line of women in black miniskirts lined up outside.
Parts of it are less than humorous. The chapter on the massacre in Aldy, near what is left of Grozny, where dozens of men, women and children were rounded up and murdered during a document check, is chilling.
Meier has a way with words and even some of the horrible things are hard not to find intriguing. In describing what remained of Grozny after the Russian assault in 1999:
I had seen Kabul in the summer of 1996, just before the Taliban took the Afghan capital. Leveled so many times, Kabul had no cityscape. Little, save the remnants of the old Soviet apartment blocks, distinguished it from the Stone Age. Grozny, however, looked worse, much worse... Of the few buildings that still stood, many were sliced open. Walls and roofs had fallen, revealing the abandoned remains of homes inside: sinks, burned cabinets, old stoves. Furniture, belongings, anything of value had disappeared long ago. We drove on, accelerating between the checkpoints, now approaching the city center. Each turn revealed only more concrete carcasses, more black metal torched, more gaping holes that held only darkness.
As one Russian general explained, according to Meier: "Our strategy is simple... If they shoot at us from a house, we destroy the house. If they shoot from all over a village, we destroy the village."
In addition to lots of suffering innocents, Chechnya also has terrorists, and Wahhabism is on the rise. While some Russian soldiers depicted are cruel and violent, most are simply hapless and corrupt. The decline of the Russian military is a sad, really pathetic thing to see, even though we were enemies not that long ago. I had read anecdotes about Russian officers drunk on duty, and of soldiers being so corrupt that they actually would sometimes sell their weapons to the Chechnyans, and wondered how common that was. One Chechnyan warlord with whom Meier spoke told him that they actually got the majority of their weapons that way.
For those in the West thinking that Russia might be a great ally in the war on Islamic terrorism, the war in Chechnya is a sober reminder. Aside from Russia's nuclear aid to Iran or protection and Saddam's Iraq, there is the issue of what they could actually be relied upon to do. From everything I've read it seems that Russia's intelligence services are still top notch, but the military has practically gone to nothing. The potential is there, but this is a sad sight indeed. Meier's book is not only a line of sight into the war in Chechnya, it is also says a lot about Russia as well.
This book is NOT new, but a reproduced chapter from Black Earth.......2005-10-01
I bought this book in anticipation of Meier's extended coverage of the Chechen conflict. What I did not know when I purchased this book, nor was mentioned anywhere on the reviews or on the cover, is that THIS BOOK IS EXACTLY THE SAME AS THE CHAPTER ON CHECHNYA IN BLACK EARTH. In essense, I feel scammed. Do not buy this book if you already own Black Earth. You'll find out by page one that this is just a chapter taken out, repackaged and sold as a separate book. I could not believe it when I read the first few pages--this is absolutely shameful. Did the publishers and Andrew Meier think that the reading public is so stupid and so memory lapsed that we would not see this right away? I do not appreciate the fact that I spent extra money on an unnecessary and misrepresented book.
A heartbreaking, critical piece of journalism.......2004-11-17
If the cover doesn't break your heart the content of this courageous and brutally bleak piece of journalism will. Meier was able to go where no other western journalist had the ability or courage to go. And his report of the decimation in Chechnya, particularly in the village of Aldy, is an important and critical piece of journalism, which is crucial for understanding Russia's actions in the region and the response of Chechens in their quest for independence. If the Aldy massacre had the media attention Beslan did the portrayal of this centuries old conflict would be much more fairly represented in the press.
Average customer rating:
- Stick with the written version
- Yawn..........
- As Good as it gets
- A story with heart
- Read This Book
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Hearts In Atlantis
Stephen King
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ASIN: 0671024248 |
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Stephen King's collection of five stories about '60s kids reads like a novel. The best is "Low Men in Yellow Coats," about Bobby Garfield of Harwich, Connecticut, who craves a Schwinn for his 11th birthday. But his widowed mom is impoverished, and so bitter that she barely loves him. King is as good as Spielberg or Steven Millhauser at depicting an enchanted kid's-eye view of the world, and his Harwich is realistically luminous to the tiniest detail: kids bashing caps with a smoke-blackened rock, a car grille "like the sneery mouth of a chrome catfish," a Wild Mouse carnival ride that makes kids "simultaneously sure they were going to live forever and die immediately."
Bobby's mom takes in a lodger, Ted Brautigan, who turns the boy on to great books like Lord of the Flies. Unfortunately, Ted is being hunted by yellow-jacketed men--monsters from King's Dark Tower novels who take over the shady part of town. They close in on Ted and Bobby, just as a gang of older kids menace Bobby and his girlfriend, Carol. This pointedly echoes the theme of Lord of the Flies (the one book King says he wishes he'd written): war is the human condition. Ted's mind-reading powers rub off a bit on Bobby, granting nightmare glimpses of his mom's assault by her rich, vile, jaunty boss. King packs plenty into 250 pages, using the same trick Bobby discerns in the film Village of the Damned: "The people seemed like real people, which made the make-believe parts scarier."
Vietnam is the otherworldly horror that haunts the remaining four stories. In the title tale, set in 1966, University of Maine college kids play the card game Hearts so obsessively they risk flunking out and getting drafted. The kids discover sex, rock, and politics, become war heroes and victims, and spend the '80s and '90s shell-shocked by change. The characters and stories are crisscrossed with connections that sometimes click and sometimes clunk. The most intense Hearts player, Ronnie Malenfant ("evil infant"), perpetrates a My Lai-like atrocity; a nice Harwich girl becomes a radical bomber. King's metaphor for lost '60s innocence is inspired by Donovan's "sweet and stupid" song about the sunken continent, and his stories hail the vanished Atlantis of his youth with deep sweetness and melancholy intelligence. --Tim Appelo
Amazon.com Audiobook Review
With his idiosyncratic blend of patrician airs and boyish charm, narrator William Hurt provides a wonderful complement to this wildly imaginative collection of short stories by author Stephen King. Hurt carefully weaves the disparate elements into a cohesive whole, embracing the subtle complexities of each character; one moment a wizened sadness leaks into his voice as a haunted old man, pursued by demons, asks his 11-year-old lookout, "You know everyone on this street, on this block of this street anyway? And you'd know strangers? Sojourners? Faces of those unknown?" Then, in a profound yet almost imperceptible switch, he exposes the boy's naive enthusiasm, "I think so." Right about here your neck hairs will stand at attention. Hurt's peculiar vocal style is in perfect pitch to King's dark, surreal vision of growing up amid the monsters of post-Vietnam America. (Running time: 21 hours, 16 cassettes) --George Laney
Book Description
Stephen King, whose first novel, Carrie, was published in 1974, the year before the last U.S. troops withdrew from Vietnam, is the first hugely popular writer of the TV generation. Images from that war -- and the protests against it -- had flooded America's living rooms for a decade. Hearts in Atlantis, King's newest fiction, is composed of five interconnected, sequential narratives, set in the years from 1960 to 1999. Each story is deeply rooted in the sixties, and each is haunted by the Vietnam War.
In Part One, "Low Men in Yellow Coats," eleven-year-old Bobby Garfield discovers a world of predatory malice in his own neighborhood. He also discovers that adults are sometimes not rescuers but at the heart of the terror.
In the title story, a bunch of college kids get hooked on a card game, discover the possibility of protest...and confront their own collective heart of darkness, where laughter may be no more than the thinly disguised cry of the beast.
In "Blind Willie" and "Why We're in Vietnam," two men who grew up with Bobby in suburban Connecticut try to fill the emptiness of the post-Vietnam era in an America which sometimes seems as hollow -- and as haunted -- as their own lives.
And in "Heavenly Shades of Night Are Falling," this remarkable book's denouement, Bobby returns to his hometown where one final secret, the hope of redemption, and his heart's desire may await him.
Full of danger, full of suspense, most of all full of heart, Stephen King's new book will take some readers to a place they have never been...and others to a place they have never been able to completely leave.
Download Description
By "Atlantis", King means the 1960s, that otherworldly decade which, like the fabled continent, has sunk into myth. Here, in five interconnected narratives that span from 1960 to 1999, King draws a stunning portrait of American life after the Vietnam War.
Customer Reviews:
Stick with the written version.......2007-08-14
I am on the last tape of the audio version of this book (16 grueling tapes in all). Half of the book is read by Stephen King (who is great) and the other half by William Hurt. Hurt has cut into my enjoyment of the book - his voice is arrogant (similar to his movie persona - think Altered States), he uses pauses where they don't belong (example: "the sense of the world as a (pause) thin (pause) veneer, (pause) stretched over something else"), lets words trail off, and in short - does not sound like the main character in the book at all!
In addition, there is a gross overuse of swear words in the last third of this book. They are tedious to listen to and subtract considerably from the story. I have found that later works of Stephen King tend to disintegrate into garbage about halfway through - but I continue to hope for redemption, since his earlier works were so stellar.
If you're going to get this, get the printed book and not the audio version!
Yawn.................2007-07-27
I just don't understand the hype about this one.
This book was a big yawn, and I realized this early on, but I continued reading all 700,000 pages (so it seemed), hoping for an eye opening ending. I never got it.
First off, maybe somebody needs to help me understand the need for splitting the book into two completely different stories? Stories that had no climax nor reason, and where the 1st 'story' had no ending!!
I would not recommend this to anybody who likes a page turner. Maybe you just truly have to be a King fan?
As Good as it gets.......2007-06-14
It really is a novel, not a collection. It is the best book King has ever written. Books rarely make me cry, but this one did. My all time favorite King book and my all time favorite work of fiction.
A story with heart.......2007-05-16
William Hurt does a phenomenal job with his sections of the story. He can capture the soul, joy and pain of all of his characters. He reads 3 of the 5 stories on the CD.
Stephen Kin reads the other 2 stories. I am not as interigued by the stories or the characters they focus on. Couple that with his flat, New England voice, and the middle section is not as enjoyable.
This is NOT a typical King story. There is a small amount of monster/supernatural element to it, but this is more about the human heart.
I really like this and actually bought the CD to replace my worn out cassette version. You may want to read excerpts from the story to decide if it is to your liking.
Read This Book.......2007-05-03
This book was great. Read it...that's all there is to say. It was great. It was the best...just read this and you wont regret it...if you do, however, then you're wrong and dumb. Ok I'm kidding, but read it. If you don't like it, let me know and I'll apologize.
Product Description
The Crossroads of Conflict: A Journey into the Heart of Dispute Resolution is an effort to reveal the hidden dynamics and underlying unity that lie at the heart of conflict resolution. Its aims are to reveal the immense creative power of conflict resolution and to guide people toward resolution, transformation, and transcendence - not through sentimentality or wishful thinking, but insight, understanding, and practical, replicable techniques. The Crossroads of Conflict is, in short, both a practical guide for anyone seeking to create profound, satisfying, heart-felt conversations with their opponents, and a set of penetrating theoretical reflections and explanations for why conflict resolution has proven so successful in helping people resolve, transform, and transcend their conflicts.
Written for mediators and professional conflict resolvers as well as a general audience, The Crossroads of Conflict provides dozens of specific examples of efforts at resolution, case studies based on real-life conflicts, and hundreds of pragmatic methods and techniques that can be used to resolve a variety of disputes, from family, divorce and workplace disputes to organizational, social, and political conflicts.
The Crossroads of Conflict simultaneously examines the secret sources of conflict, offers innovative practical techniques and strategies, presents examples from conflict resolution sessions where they were successfully and unsuccessfully applied, and presents a theory or hypothesis to explain how these components form part of an integrated whole, and why they are so effective.
This combination of observation, analysis, technique, examples, stories, and theory provides the reader with a broad range of approaches to conflict resolution that emphasize the subtlety and complexity of conflict, including its physical, intellectual, emotional, spiritual, organizational, social and political aspects.
Amazon.com
Steel My Soldiers' Hearts is retired Colonel David Hackworth's account of his tour of duty in Vietnam commanding the 4/39th, an infantry battalion operating south of Saigon in the Mekong River delta. Poorly led (the previous commander had based the battalion in the middle of a mine field), with frightfully high casualties (40 percent during the six months prior to Hackworth's arrival), and fighting in the most dangerous of terrain, the 4/39th was a dispirited and demoralized group when Hackworth assumed command in January, 1969. Upon arrival, Hackworth fired many of the senior officers and then put the 4/39th through "Combat 101," which made him so unpopular that at one point Hackworth was warned of a bounty some of his men had put out on him. Over the next five months, however, Hackworth would transform the 4/39 from "hopeless to hardcore," dramatically reverse the casualty rate, score some spectacular victories over the Viet Cong, and earn the undying respect of his troops. Here's a gung ho and earthy firsthand account of the Vietnam War that fans of We Were Soldiers Once... will appreciate. --Harry C. Edwards
Book Description
In January 1969, one of the most promising young lieutenant colonels the U.S. Army had ever seen touched down in Vietnam for his second tour of duty, which would turn out to be his most daring and legendary. David H. Hackworth had just completed the writing of a tactical handbook for the Pentagon, and now he had been ordered to put his counterguerilla-fighting theories into action. He was given the morale-drained 4/39th -- a battalion of poorly led draftees suffering the Army's highest casualty rate and considered its worst fighting battalion. Hackworth's hard-nosed, inventive and inspired leadership quickly turned the 4/39th into Vietnam's valiant and ferocious Hardcore Recondos.
Drawing on interviews with soldiers from the Hardcore Battalion conducted over the past decade by his partner and coauthor, Eilhys England, Hackworth takes readers along on their sniper missions, ambush actions, helicopter strikes and inside the quagmire of command politics. With Steel My Soldiers' Hearts, Hackworth places the brotherhood of the 4/39th into the pantheon of our nation's most heroic warriors.
Customer Reviews:
At Least Someone In Vietnam Knew What They Were Doing.......2007-08-09
Serving as my introduction to the work of Colonel Hackworth, "Steel My Soldiers' Hearts" could have hardly delivered any more encouragement to read the rest of his books. Having served as a columnist and media commentator for years have honed Hackworth's writing skills, and the synergy provided by his co-writer wife combine to produce a narrative that "Grabs you by the nose and kicks you in the pants," as Patton would have said. Documenting the Colonel's takeover of a hardluck unit and its transformation into hardcore killers in matter of months, the book covers daily engagements with a fierce enemy, and pulls no punches as Hackworth describes various generals, captains, and sundry brass as "idiots" or far more colorful terms. Hackworth himself dispatches about a dozen VC over the course of the book, and he dispassionately describes the wounds he himself receives, taking his eighth purple heart on this tour of duty. In short, David Hackworth is a writer and a warrior of the highest caliber.
EXCELLENT BOOK.......2007-05-14
I have quite a few books similiar to this & they are all exellent.
too many civilian casualties.......2006-10-31
This book is great as a work in "motivation." What could be better than a man who comes into a unit that is on its knees, and absolutely transforms it into a vaunted fighting force - and does so while risking his life heroically, getting wounded repeatedly, and in general loving his profession (combat arms), his men, and his country? I must have read this book five times, just soaking in all his tactical managerial wisdom.
Only problem is, it is still war. Alot of dead people, alot of painful losses. It breaks your heart to see it. You thank God for the American fighting man, but you wonder aloud why he has been so often lately in the service of mediocre strategists and diplomats. And, one last thing. John Paul Vann shows up near the end of the book, an old buddy of Hack's. And he asks the question: are your enemy-casualty lists inflated? Are there too many civilians chipped in there? It seemed from the tone of Hack's writing there, that the answer may have been yes. So, in the end, I would tread cautiously. War, however honorable or necessary, is also always evil in part; just no way around this.
Gritty and tough, told only the way Hack could.......2006-10-17
Hack did not mince words about what it was to be a leader, he led by example. With gritty humor and straight talk he shows us that leaders do not demand respect - they earn it. And when they earn it, people follow and succeed. A good leader shows those he leads how to be their best and gives them the support and tools to achieve it. That was Hack, and only he can tell it like this.
I read this book twice.......2006-08-17
Fans of Band of Brothers, Fans of Platoon, Fans of Saving Private Ryan will love this book. Its an easy read, and its something you will enjoy.
The way hackworth writes puts you in vietnam along side of him. One of the best books I've read in along time.
I wish HBO would pick this book up, and make a series out of it like Band Of Brothers. amazing...
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