Clouds Books

This is a delightful book, one that has become a traditional read for our family at Christmastime. It is a refreshing change from many of the available seasonal books, and involves a cloud who visits a young boy just before Christmas, in a town where snow has not fallen for many years. Poofin, a young and somewhat rambunctious cloud, teaches and learns much from his young friend. Before it is time for him to return to his place in the sky, he manages to create a snowstorm for the town, allowing the children to enjoy all of the winter activities they have only heard about. The snow begins during their annual Christmas pageant, complete with animals. The pictures are beautifully drawn, and the text good for reading aloud to younger children

Of the many books I have read on gay/lesbian lifestyles, this remains one of my favorites. It is easy to read and covers a variety of topics such as relationships, career and spirituality. This book is truly affirming and is an excellent first book for anyone who is just beginning to explore a gay, lesbian or bisexual identity.

This book deals with honesty in the spiritual dimension. The author shares personal experiences of how prayer has changed circumstances in her life over the years. Those who are struggling with unresolved issues will be pleased to know this is not a cliche-driven book of pat answers. This book deals with reality. She describes how some prayers were not answered for extended periods of time, I mean really extended periods! Anyone who has been a Christian for a while knows there are seasons of testing. That's Scriptural! She deals with her questions in an honest, upfront manner, as I said before.

A second theme from the Scriptures that emerges from this instructive confessional is persistence in prayer. All the overcoming pray-ers seem to touch on this issue in their writings. That's a good indication that it's one of God's mysterious ways. Perhaps something in the person praying changes in such times. This book gives case studies of answered prayers. It isn't the instanteously before/after type always. It's the kind that take into account the complexities and mysteries that seem beyond our understanding in this life. Just as the heavens are higher than the earth so are God's ways higher than our ways. He is love. He answers prayer. He will not allow us to figure Him out, but He concerns Himself in the details of our existence. These are the type of issues explored in depth in this powerful book.

No one could have been less excited about the prospect of reading a book on debates than me. I put it off for as long as I could, finding every excuse not to begin. Once I picked up the book, however, I couldn't put it down. This book is filled with stories about the subtle moments in debates that have changed the course of elections and the course of history. Alan Schroeder's book is well-researched; I fact-checked some of the most unbelievable points and was pleased to discover that all were accurate.

If you are looking for a dry, academic book, this isn't for you. This a novel, complete with great characters, a plot that moves and lots of surprises. And the best part is, it's all true.

This book is a great resource for anyone involved with Project Management who needs acessible, concise, and accurate definitions to over a thousand key terms. A comprehensive listing, this book provides valuable information in an easy-to-use format. A must have for anyone invloved in the Project Management Field.

I thought this children's book had a very good message about having a purpose in life, and how sometimes we get too comfortable and/or let our ego get in the way of things. The illustrations are beautiful and Puffy is endearing and easy to relate to.

This edition of the Classics of Western Spirituality series includes several works attributed to the writer of the cloud of unknowing. These include Counsels on Private Direction, a Direction on Prayer, a translation of Dionysius the Aeropagite's 'Mystical Theology', a work on Discerning Spirits and other short treatises on the contemplative life.

As with the Cloud of Unknowing, the short works are written to help guide young contemplatives through the process of knowing God through the mystical process of 'letting go' of all concepts and images of God, the classic 'via negativa' way of mystical theology. The Pursuit of Wisdom especially is a sequel to the Cloud, designed for the more advanced contemplation of God after the steps outlined in the Cloud have been mastered.

The author retains the same sense of balance and sensibility as he did in the cloud, and these works only reinforce his well earned reputation as one of the finest writers on contemplative spirituality in the Catholic tradition.

This edition includes some excellent notes and also an introduction to the author's thought and influences, and seperate introductions to each work.

I have studied Qi gong for many years, and have read many books on it...most I have found lacking. But this book seems to have a profound spiritual basis and I have discovered wonderful things in it that i have not elsewhere. The critical problem this book suffers from is that it is a narrative style only...there badly needs to be a didactic picture and instruction section. This could be done separately as a workbook, but as it is, I'm having to go through slowly and create cards/diagrams that I can follow, based on the text. But it is worth it...I believe that this book contains many 'secrets' of Qi Gong practice...I encourage the author to produce an illustrated step by step manual to help us out!!

Quest for the Riddle Stone is a 140 page book of contemporary word riddles. Each of these riddles provides an oblique description of a single thing or concept. Although puns and wordplay are used in many of the riddles, the most common theme is to describe something in an unexpected and clever way. These are not kid riddles; many of them use vocabulary and concepts that aren't elementary school level.

The authors have split the book into five sections: an introduction, the riddles, hints, answers and explanations. The introduction is blissfully short and, in an amusing manner, explains how to use the book.

The Riddle section has one riddle per page with a cross reference at the bottom showing you where to find the hints, the check hint, the answer and the explanation. The check hint is a clever hint that gives you the vowel/consonant layout of the answer. That is, if the answer was "APPLE" then the check hint would be VCCCV since APPLE starts and ends with a vowel and has consonants in the middle. This is a very useful feature since if you think you know the answer and you're wrong, it doesn't spoil the riddle for you.

The hint section contains both the check hints and regular hints, hints that give you an idea of what direction to take solving the riddle without really giving it away. Some of the hints weren't all that useful, but several times they kicked me off the wrong track that I had gotten myself onto.

When I first saw the answers, I was somewhat startled. The answers are all encrypted! Each page has a matrix of letters that you need to decode to see what each answer is. At first I was nonplussed by this, but then I realized that it was kind of nice. There's no way I could accidentally see the answer to another riddle by just looking at the page. You can also you it as an extra hint - decode the first letter of the answer, if that doesn't help decode the second letter and so on.

The explanations provide reasons for why the lines of the riddles make sense. There were a few where I didn't understand what one of the lines meant and the explanation then told me what the troublesome line was referring to.

In the explanations I also stumbled across the hidden riddles! I found the explanation for Hidden Riddle #2 (which unfortunately ruined the riddle for me), but led me to look for the hidden riddles. This made me go back to the introduction where I found another hidden riddle.

All in all, this book provides more than eighty original, intelligent and enjoyable riddles in a well crafted format. I gave the book five stars mostly in contrast to Riddle Me This: A World Treasury of Word Puzzles, Folk Wisdom, and Literary Conundrums, a book of "classic" riddles which was anything but original and enjoyable.

Love it and use it in most of my classes! Great info and pictures.