Seasons Books

The first word in this work is "As", the last word being "seclusion". Should you think you have experienced the whole story short of reading everything in between, you will have missed the wizardry of this undertaking. Fiction is generally not on my top ten list of things to read on any kind of day. However this saga peppers you with tidbits and tantalizing twists throughout which make it captivating and interesting. As interesting as it may be it is lacking that one magic touch which would set it above the pack. That "magic touch" comes when you finish the word "seclusion".

If you enjoy reading books by professionals based on their own experiences, you will enjoy this first novel by a foremost medical surgeon, Alan Gazzaniga. Having years of in-hospital experience as a surgeon, Dr. Gazzaniga has written a compelling story about a young medical student who donated "for research purposes only" to a sperm bank run by a famous fertility doctor. Years later, the young medical student, now a well-known brain surgeon, suspects that his sperm was not just used for research and that he might have inadvertently fathered one or more children. The drama increases as it is slowly revealed that the surgeon/donor fathered the child of a notorious person who is unaware that he is not the biological father. Read this intensely interesting novel to find out how it all unfolds. The book also contains insights into the political world of a large, big city hospital and all the maneuvering that some physicians go through to gain power and prestiage.

When I read in our alumni journal Alan Gazzaniga had published a novel, I thought "What kind of a novel would a dumb jock write. Man, I have to read this one!!! It should be good for a few laughs". The day the book arrived, I glanced at it, read the last page and put it down. That evening I began reading and could not put it down until 2:30 am the next morning. The last laugh was on me. Gazzaniga's book is fast paced. The plot holds the reader's interest throughout the story. The characters are varied and well developed. What I appreciated most was the insight provided into hospital politics, the ethics (or lack of) in fertility practice, and the making of a physician in our modern medical delivery system. I think this novel is very good, especially for a first effort.

Reading Semi True is almost as good as taking your own relaxed, spontaneous road trip --better, really, because Ringsak stops at more unlikely places, discovers more remarkable people and elicits their stories better than anyone. I raced through the book too fast; I was enjoying it too much to slow down and when I finished I wanted nothing more than to randomly select a road to anywhere and take it.

Twelve years of hauling stage equipment for public radio's Prairie Home Companion show led hauler/author Ross Ringsak to become privy to some amazing stories gleaned from truck stops, blues bars and more. Fans of Prairie Home Companion will be the likely audience for his social survey of factual tales encountered during the course of truck driving. Semi True: Seasons On The Road With A Prairie Home Companion's Resident Writer And Truck Driver a lively first-person account of close encounters of the folk kind.

You could take a video tour or even a driving tour of this country and miss most of what the author sees, hears and tastes. Avoiding the common roads, eateries, entertainment and attitudes most of us travelers fall prey to out of habit and convenience, he seeks out the unique. Rather than avoiding conversation with strangers he engages them until they come forward with stories and secrets. And there are some great stories here.
I have been awed and impressed in my travels to places that have left an indellible impression, but I have missed the details, the subtle shifts in the landscape and the weather and the people, that this author perceives and writes about so naturally.
This is a truck driver with suprising sensitivity to his surroundings. These stories will make you wish you could ride shotgun and get the personal tour. If this book doesn't make you yearn to travel to places you've never experienced, or even to familiar places with new eyes, nothing will.
In the end though, the ultimate feeling he leaves with the reader is the warmth at the end of the journey... arriving home, even if means being greeted by a bitter Minnesota blizzard.
If you are a fan of books by authors like Studs Terkel, who make the common man interesting and even heroic, you will like this book.

Sharing his personal journey of finding the God who is, Morley has set an example for sons of men to follow. It is a life-long journey but joyful and meaningful if you know you are on the right track.

I found Morley's book to be exceptionally well written and full of substantive, easy-to-understand, and useful-for-living insight for men based on a solid Biblical foundation.

The book examines many practical and periodic aspects of how we tend to think about life and its many challenges. Morely offers an excellent framework for thinking about where God is leading you and how His plan works in your life. This is challenging and useful stuff. For example, have you ever found yourself pondering a career decision and reading "What Color is My Parachute" only to be left wondering what God's part is in all this? Morley points to some answers that may help. Morley has a nice way of introducing a few memorable phrases that helpf in applying these insights on a day-to-day basis such as, " there is a difference between a Good Idea and a God Idea", and "focusing on being used instead of being something".

The bottom line is that this is a highly practical book for Christian men or men investigating the virtues of a Christian life. It challenges us to let God become the center of our world-view rather than the many alternatives our culture offers in His place.

If you are a man who liked Warren's very popular "The Purpose Driven Life" and wanted some additional day-to-day application then this book may fit the bill.

To women I highly recommended this book as a gift to the men in your life and to checkout Morley's book for women and couples in his very successful "Man in the Mirror" Library.

This book represents Christian experience and suggestions for the day-to-day issues Christian men face in the world. This book is well written, is an easy read, and is highly recommended. Once you have read this book, you will want to read it again.

Very nice looking 'folksy style' art on the recipe cards, and the box has a nice cross-stitch type country look. I agree with a previous person that these would make a great gift.. although, I bought my first set for me. ;-) ..Seller does a fantastic job of shipping these out =FAST=!

I gave this set to my 18 year old neice for Christmas and she loved it! It is attractive, sturdy and has plenty of room for all of the recipes that she's collecting. Anyone know where we can buy additional cards to match?

A metal recipe card holder with 6" x 3 ¾" cards decorated with yo-yo's and four different appliqué designs such as yo-yo flowers and a bunny will keep your recipes all in one place. The designs are from Ms. Diehl's Simple Seasons book.

There are 36 cards and six dividers to organize your recipes into meat, salad, dessert or whatever categories you choose. The cards are slightly laminated so spills will wipe off. The box, itself, has a quilt design on the sides and the bunny and flower/yo-yo appliqué on the top.

Not into recipes? Then why not use the box to organize your magazines? How? Use the cards to cross-reference where a particular pattern is. Fox example, if you have a Spring Tulip pattern in the book Simple Season by Kim Diehl, you can write this information on the cards and know exactly which book to go to for the pattern without having to search through you library of quilt books. You could even write the materials list on the card and then you only have to take the card to the fabric store instead of the whole book.

Either way, this box is a useful tool whether it is in your kitchen or sewing room. Get one for yourself or give one to a friend.

Intriguing plot and theme. This book will make you think! Authors understanding of characterization and his unique style make this book well worth reading in themselves. Don't wait for the movie read the book.

Intriguing plot and theme. This book will make you think! Authors understanding of characterization and his unique style make this book well worth reading in themselves. Don't wait for the movie read the book.

Great book to curl up with, good love story, adventure, romance and lots of history.

My 14 month old loves these soft books. This one is really very good because he can easily remove the objects because there are holes in them and he can pull them out without struggling. It's great for restaurants because he's still in the throwing stage and these won't harm anything.

Our daughter loves this book. As fast as we can put the shapes in the book, she takes them out. Hopefully, she will soon learn to put the shapes back in the book. She chews them, waves them, and hands them to us. They are also fun in the tub.

My one year old twins got this for their birthday and just love it. They can pop the shapes out and put them in their mouth. The pages are easy to turn for them and they seem to read the book longer than others. This book is my favorite in the series because all of the shapes have holes which make it easier to get the pieces out.

Joyce Gellhorn is a botanist, a science teacher, a gifted photographer and a passionate observer and explorer of the natural world. She has combined these talents with fine writing in her book, "Song of the Alpine". This book is a treasure for anyone who has wandered the fragile and exquisite land above the trees whether in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado (Gellhorn's home) or high peaks anywhere in the world. Ever wonder how the tiny alpine flowers survive in the rocky alpine terrains? How the ptarmagin manage not only to survive but actually to gain weight during the long, harsh winters? Why when spring comes to the Rockies, yellow and grey butterflies (Rocky Mountain parnassian) swarm the meadows of yellow flowers (stone crop)? "Song of the Alpine" illustrates and explains these fascinating adaptions and interactions and symbiotic relationships. Gellhorn's book includes over 140 photographs to accompany her text. The book is a guide and an inspiration to the reader. Gellhorn asks us to bear witness: to observe the dance of the tiniest insects, to study the amazing design of a snow crystal and to experience the grand symphony of the alpine weather in all seasons. This book teaches us that the more we can know of the natural world, the more we will experience the song and the joy that Gellhorn so eloquently evokes.

This is a gorgeous, fact filled book, but hard to classify. Joyce Gellhorn is an adventurous women - one of the women backpackers interviewed in Susan Alcorn's book, We're in the Mountains, Not Over the Hill: Tales and Tips From Seasoned Women Backpackers. Song of the Alpine tells how at the age of 15, Joyce Gellhorn and her sister decided to climb all of Colorado's 14,000 foot peaks, starting with Longs Peak. The author was hooked on the high tundra country, and made a career of it, getting a Ph.D. in botany, with a specialty in plant ecology. Her book is beautiful, glossy paged, lots of color photos, but by the end of it you realize that you have also picked up a huge amount of factual information - the physics of thunderstorms, the winter habits of pikas, wet snow and dry snow avalanches, early mountain climbers - worth the price just for the pika photos.

Song of the Alpine presents fascinating details about plant and animal survival in North America's harshest and most scenic landscape: how ptarmigan burrow into the snow to survive frigid winter nights, how sky pilots use their skunky smell to attract pollinators, how the bright yellow petals of snow buttercups act as solar collectors. Lyrical prose depicting the flow of the seasons and struggle for survival weaves these ecological insights together. Lovely color photographs of wildflowers, butterflies, wildlife, and dramatic weather events accompany the text. I will read this book over and over, and I will carry it with me whenever I go camping in the high country.

A highly readable, very engrossing story of one woman's expereience with premonition, out of body experience and the cosmic consciousness.

I couldn't put this book down. The stories of premonitions and out of body experiences are riviting. Her love with her family and husband are an inspiration. I will read this again!

On the surface, Saddler's chronicle of her ever expanding lifetime of psychic experiences may appear to be only a story of one person's spiritual search for answers. However, I was amazed at how caught-up I became in its pages of love and family, tragedy and survival. It identifies with so many aspects of every person's universal quest for hope and meaning. 'The Soul's Progress, A Time for All Seasons" is a thought-provoking book which helped me resolve some of my own inner conflicts. Additionally, the Q&A segment at the end not only suggests answers but inspires the reader to think for himself. I definitely recommend this as a wonderful book for the soul.

I bought all four books and really love them. There are endless talking possibilities in these books that have no words. It fires up a childs imagination which is all important.

perfect for toddlers, even babies. a great book set (4 books in the series, 1 per season) with no words but pages full of things to narrate and describe to children. a great set to teach about the 4 seasons

I looked long and hard for some books for my toddler that would have pictures realistic and interesting enough to hold his attention and let him learn about his world, yet wouldn't drive me nuts with boring, overly cutesy pictures or leave me trying to read text that my son doesn't care about. I finally found and ordered this series and they are exactly what I wanted. My 18 month old doesn't get tired of them, and neither do I, hooray!

Terrapsychology is an emerging field that looks at the relationship between psyche and place. It is a natural outgrowth of tranpersonal psychology, ecology, systems theory and to some extent quantum theory.

This field basically looks at the relationship between the psyche and a place. This is not something we are used to thinking about, but did you ever notice how you feel differently or more yourself in certain environments? How being in nature can have an effect on you? How their can be correspondences between internal events and the outside world? This book examines these questions and more from the perspective of depth psychology and deep ecology.

The idea that there is relatioship between psyche and land is not a new one. Jung talked about this and the phenomenon was often explained in terms of our projection of our psyche on to the land. In contrast, indigenous shamanistic cultures tend to believe a place is somehow alive. The theory put forth in this book falls somewhere in the middle, honoring the fact that we are somehow deeply connected to the land and have complex interrelationships and interdependencies with various places that can be interpreted symbolically.

This is NOT new age hype and Dr. Chalquist is a serious scholar who explores this territory from an objective and scholarly viewpoint. If you are completely unfamiliar with this field you can do a web search online for more information. However, you will be fascinated and captivated by this extremely provocative book whether you are psychologist, interested in psychology or just a layperson who find this area interest. It is certainly a must read for anyone interested in native cultures, shaminism and the future welfare of our planet.

Dr. Chalquist is an erudite scholar with a broad and deep knowledge of world history and prehistory, anthropology, indigenous cultures, shamanism and other ancient religions, the Goddess, Jungian and depth psychology, health, neurology, quantum physics, ecology and myth (I'm certain I forgot some field he is an expert in...) as well as a lyrical and passionate writer on the topic of "terrapschology". That is, how the Earth and our human psyche are interrelated, and how we humans need Nature and the Earth in its undeveloped form and all its beings to thrive psychically and physically. I love his work, love his writing, love this book. It is urgent that we humans take the ideas of terrapsychology to heart.
By Lesley Thomas, author of Flight of the Goose

For too long we have forgotten that the human relationship to nature and to place is at the core of our psychology! Craig Chalquist's excellent book reminds us that our planet isn't just "dead" matter but a living being in whom we dwell. He helps us understand Terra's psychology -- and our own psyches as well. Everyone who is interested in the growing fields of ecopsychology and ecotherapy will love this book.

Linda Buzzell-Saltzman, M.A, M.F.T.
Founder
International Association for Ecotherapy
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