1 to 8 of 8
Review Date: 6/13/2015
Helpful Score: 1
I just finished Birds Without Wings by Louis De Bernieres, one of the best novels I have read in years. The novel follows the impact of the breakup of the Ottoman Empire on the population of a small village in what becomes modern day Turkey in early 1900's. For centuries a ethnically and religiously diverse group of neighbors have lived together in cooperation, tolerance, and peace. The characters are well drawn, the many plots skillfully interwoven, and the prose is beautiful. One sees the the tragic human results when "the mad light of moral (religious) certainty" and the terrible passions of ethnic superiority and nationalism combine to get people to do horrible things that they would otherwise be ashamed of doing. His insights on human nature, his descriptions of love and war, pride and guilt, atrocity and acts of moral courage had me underlining passages, something I rarely do in a novel. I will add it to my list of my top ten novels and highly recommend it.
Review Date: 2/5/2011
An excellent introduction to Celtic spirituality as it relates to healthy attitudes toward our physical selves and the sexuality that comes with being enfleshed. Why does so much of Christianity denigrate the body when we celebrate the incarnation? This is a good corrective. All of Newell's work is well worth a read.
Review Date: 9/30/2009
Though perhaps the most outstanding Old Testament scholar of the last forty years, one would do better to get some of his other books than read his contribution to his book of essays by others.
Review Date: 5/14/2009
A collection of 38 poems reflecting the wonders of springs and an entire range of emotional reactions to the season ranging from hope to sorrow.
The Liturgical Year: The Spiraling Adventure of the Spiritual Life - The Ancient Practices Series
Author:
Book Type: Paperback
3
Author:
Book Type: Paperback
3
Review Date: 5/26/2011
An anecdotal overview of the richness found in the church. Like most of the Ancient Practices Series, this is an easy read light on scholarly language and a good resource to introduce a worship planning team to the Liturgical year.
Review Date: 7/13/2015
This old fashioned novel would not make your pious grandma blush even once. Yet it's themes of the complex motives that drive human nature, the subtle power of institutions such as the church to cover up injustice, the value of friendships, and the nature of integrity are surprisingly modern and reverent. I may read the next novel in the series to see what happens to some of the characters who are generally well drawn.
Review Date: 7/13/2015
Helpful Score: 1
After a slow start, the novel starts moving and begins to engage, but I could put it down often and not feel I was,missing much. The lawyer husband and father of gifted water dowsers faces a difficult moral decision when the ski resort he is a lobbyist for wants to increase ski trails and snowmaking capacity in the midst of a severe Vermont drought. The conflicting issues of jobs and development versus environmental concerns are presented in more detail than the way the characters are drawn. The ending seemed a bit too pat for my liking. Not one of his best as far as this reader is concerned.
Review Date: 1/4/2014
A solid collection with many of the stories from either a child's point of view about grown-up behavior or an older man's looking back on relationships as he explores the past with a planned or chance encounter in the present.
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