Living History Books

A few words for this extraordinary book. The author is well informed. He researched one hundred or more books and periodicals about the History of Premillenialism. It is a good idea in this time of fever from the second coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, that is good, to review some of the historical data concerning this matter. Tim La Haye's betsellers series about he rapture need a historical perspective too. I personally found very valuable and helpful to interprete some difficult passages from the Bible. I recommend it.

This is a book about people with disabilities and access technology. It's the first book I've seen on the subject of how disabled people relate to access technology. This author has done most of her work with spinal cord injuries, so in that sense it isn't about people with vision problems; but I was absolutely struck by how many parallels there are between issues faced by the blind, and the issues faced by those with severe spinal cord injuries or cerebral palsy. I was very gratified to see that we aren't the only population for whom technology is really a mixed bag. As with us, the technology they use can in some way define the way they interact with the general public so it affects the way they feel about themselves. (For example, I will not use speech products unless I am with family or by myself.) Just as in the general public, they have their technophiles and their technophobes.
As it is for us, their biggest problems are psychological and sociological, not their actual disability. I was struck by how similar their population is relative to people born with disability versus those who become disabled later in life and how that effects their response to technology. Having used a slate and stylus all through college, I will never forget how thrilled I was the first time I saw refreshable Braille! I knew immediately that it would revolutionize my life, and it did! During my former lives in high technology for blind folks, I was always dumbfounded when other blind people didn't have the same response to refreshable Braille that I had. Dr. Scherer's book talks about how people who were born with a physical disability relate so much differently to a motorized wheelchair and other technologies than those who become disabled because of an accident or disease. Well, that really describes my experience relative to refreshable Braille. Naturally, the people who didn't get as excited about it as I got were usually those who had been blinded at some point in life. To me, the ability to insert and delete text, to erase and write over something without making an unreadable mess, and the ability to locate something by Brailing in a search string was enchanting and magical. I suppose to someone who had used print, these features weren't anything new so they didn't have the same level of wow that I did. I do remember that other congenitally blind folks reacted to the technology much as I had, with awe and passion. I always thought this was really a function of Braille mastery, but now, after reading Dr. Scherer's book, I believe it's partly a matter of how someone who becomes disabled feels about the compensating technologies.

The quadriplegics in Dr. Scherer's book have similar coping issues and they have some of the same kind of employment history and problems that we blind folks have. Naturally, they have some of the same challenges with government benefits; and they have some of the same problems trying to fund the technology they need. They have similar issues with service animals. It seemed like they have some of the same challenges relative to human help versus technology. As with us, their "quality of life" is often a function of the quality of help they get from family, volunteers, and paid help and they don't want to completely replace human assistance with technology. They have very similar issues with privacy, dignity, self-sufficiency, and learned helplessness.

Dr. Scherer reports that one third of all access technology is abandoned. She discusses reasons for this and talks a good deal about how to remedy the problem by making sure the proper product is recommended and purchased. It is a crime to spend so much money on technology that isn't utilized! One of the saddest thing I know of is when someone goes through fire to get a piece of technology and then is so frustrated by it that they end up not using it. Dr. Scherer's theories on why this happens and what should be done about it are interesting indeed.

This is a beautifully written, clearly appreciative, revision of the author's Aberdeen doctoral thesis written under Iain Torrance, now president of Princeton Theological Seminary. President Torrance is T. F. Torrance's son and as such is perhaps in a position to understand his father's corpus of work as only a few others can. This work is a phenomenal piece of sensitive interpretation and close exegetical reading on a theological theme central to Torrance's heart and theology. Dr. Kye Won Lee clearly has taken Torrance's advice and approached his reading of Torrance's theology himself without any apriori opinions or ideas. For those of us who appreciate T. F. Torrance's work, Dr. Kye Won Lee is to be thanked for his contribution for our deeper understanding of this premier Reformed theologian's thought. My only complaint is the price of the entire series by Peter Lang. It is far, far too expensive for the average person. This is only a minor quibble. Regardless, Dr. Kye Won Lee is to be commended for his evenhanded, insightful book--we are in his debt for this outstanding piece of work.

This book is a wonderful account of how African-American women made it at the turn of the century. I enjoyed reading how these women made a difference in the lives of the people and children in their families. This book showed me just how strong Black women are. It allowed me to see that they had the strength to go on and face any adversary that came into their lives. Any woman or person facing obstacles in their lives can pick up this book and know that they can makeit. That's what this book did for me. I know that there is nothing that I can't do. It's a book that I will one day want my now 10 year old daughter to rad and pass along to her daughter.

Very happy with product. I buy these language calendars every year and it reminds me of what I have learnt in language classes and there are some useful new phrases too.

My children (age 5 & 7) are enjoying this book, though it would be a fun book for older kids as well. (I, too, am learning some things as we read it together for Home school). Each page can take us 15 minutes to get through due to all of the colorful pictures and TONS of fun facts about life long ago. Every few pages there is a simple art project the kids can do related to the page. They have enjoyed those too. I expected the book to be larger than it was when it arrived, but now that we have been reading it I see it is well worth the money.

We use this book for our school at home program when discussing what people ate a long time ago. It is very clear, easy to understand and the pictures only enhance the subject of discussion on each page. This is much better for younger children rather than older children.

This book is beautiful. I lived in Chiapas Mexico for a time and this book captures the beauty and reality of the region to life better than any other book I have seen. The text is written by an anthropolgist that has lived in the region for years and really knows the Mayan people. The text is very informative about the parts of ancient Mayan culture that have survived into the present day and is peppered with the writer's own experiences with the Maya making it far from dry reading. It will make you want to visit this amazing region of the world inhabited by the Living Maya.

Christine Cook, an officer in the Michigan National Guard, deployed to the middle east--Kuwait--and wrote daily emails home about her life and encounters with a culture and in an environment so alien the experience seemed like a movie mogols fantasy of another planet. She learned that even when you live in a tent that the U.S. Army "rents" for a low six figures a year, you still need to carry your own toilet paper, and that a person can shiver in the ninty-degree evening "chill."

THE REAL CHARM OF THIS BOOK is that you get the whole story. Christine begins her chapters with the emails she wrote home and then adds clarification by revealing what she could not write home at the time that she was actually deployed. The experience is like seeing light bent through a prism.

I have read many books of this type, but this is the number one choice for me. The information is well presented, beautifully written,and succinct. I highly recommend it to any Christian, United Methodist or not.