Carter Books

This book helped me to resolve questions and fears regarding the shame and guilt of divorce in my life. Coming from a Christian background and having a desire to do the right thing, even after four years of recovery, this was not fully resolved with me, especially in the area of remarriage. Les is able to explain God's grace and where divorce fits in there, in a way I never fully understood before.

This is a great resource of understanding and empathy for anyone who has not experienced divorce in dealing with anyone who has. This book sheds light on this often avoided subject and often neglected action in Christian churches today. This book is a MUST HAVE for Christian lay ministry and pastors.

I ordered this book for my friend who's going through a tough divorce. She said that the book is a really great read and comforting.

Dr. Carter provides great encouragement for those of us that are divorced by reminding us that God's grace in there for us, too - just like it is everyone else. Sometimes, in the midst of the turmoil, it is hard to remember that and, unfortunately, it is ofter hard for others to remember that about the divorced folks as well. This is a great book to encourage the divorced and would also be a great book for a pastoral staff member to read.

I often think about this work. It is witty and thought prevoking. I would like to see it taken to the stage. It would also make a great movie!
I see so many movies that have such meaningless- sterotypical plots,characters, and settings.
For example, I watched a terrible movie called Daltry Calhoun, with Johnnie Knoxville a few weeks ago. Daltry Calhoun takes place in Ducktown TENN, a few miles from were Hillbilly Budda takes place. There were so many parts of this movie that were not consistant with the area. All I could think about was how I wish they would have made Hillbilly Budda instead. Hillbilly Budda is meaningful, realistic, and unique. It presents a less sterotypical picture of the South. At the same time there are some great laughs along the way.

It is a breath of fresh air when someone writes something interesting - testing the bounderies - tackling hard hitting issues like alcoholism, gender bounderies, and the like with a bit of Southern Humor. Any hard hitting issue goes down better with a spoon full of Sounthern Humor. Kudos to you, Mr. Carter, for braving it all, and in the form of a play, none the less! I commend you - Keep up the good work!

This was an exellent read! A great look at the new south.
Good job Mr. Carter.

When you read between the sometimes funny, often poignant lines of "Hollywoodaholic," you realize that it is actually a coming of age story. The protagonist, the wayward screenwriter Wayne Carter, through the use of letters written to his loved ones over a 20 year period, shows us how he learned and grew from the ups and downs, loves and losses of his life in the movie business. As you read his letters, you can see his progress as a writer, a man, a friend, a son, a husband, and ultimately, a father. While striving for something just out of reach, he learns over time to trust God and to trust what he has in his hands. At the end of the book, though not the end of his journey, you find that he has found peace. You may also find that while reading the book, you took his journey with him.

Wayne and I were roomates during our college years at University of Miami. I personally watched him in the beginning as he focused on his dream, and can say that he tried as hard as anyone could to write and develop great screenplays. I was glad to see he has written a book of his experiences and can say it is truly revealing of an incidious industry, where talent does not always rise to the top. In hopes that you may read this, please contact me at "dscarmichael@alltel.net" Hope to hear from you.

David

"Hollywoodaholic, Confessions of a Screenwriter" is the tale of one man's dream of making it in Hollywood. Recounted from a journal-like approach, "Hollywoodaholic" is an inspirational and educational vehicle for the professional and the amateur alike. While the book may be somewhat of a Hollywood career guide, the "novel" also reads like one of the author's own extraordinary blockbuster movie adventures!

Finally, a book that explains the emotional and spiritual aspect of being a military wife and mother. It's easy to find books about moving in the military, or what types of insurance you need, or how to use the commissary, etc. or even coping with one-time deployments and separations. This book goes beyond that. I feel like Marshele Carter Waddell spoke to me directly and to my friends whose husbands are gone many months of each and every year. I have highlighted passages over and over in her book and read it each night. The Scripture readings are wonderful and I have posted them around my house as well. I highly recommend it, for military and civilians.

Written by the devout Christian wife of two decades to a career military sailor and commissioned officer in service to America, Hope for the Home Front: God's Timeless Encouragement for Today's Military Wife is a faith-inspired testimony and advice guides for dealing with the particular trials and tribulations of spouses separated by their loved ones by vast distances and even the threat of death in service to one's country. Topics addressed include how to confront fear with faith, raising children when their father is absent for long periods of time in service to one's country, learning how to stay together when duty forces a couple to be apart so much, and more. A deeply powerful testimony that combines personal experience, trust in God's plan, and practical wisdom into a heartfelt whole.

This book was better than I hoped it would be! It has encouraged me so much! She uses personal experience and scripture to equip you for the challenges faced daily during deployment. It's not a pitty-party, it's encouraging and uplifting. I couldn't put it down!

If you are the wife of a deployed service member, this book is for you. It is for everyone--enlisted and officer! I LOVE this book. I'm taking it to my church's spouse's group. I'm sure they will all love it too!

Great for anyone that has some experience in painting but is just beginning portraits. Detailed step-by-step instructions work you through the process. Lots of illistrations and color pictures.

A workshop guided by a master painter of portraits. Robert Carter Clark sets out here to teach you thoroughly from her professional experience, without cutting corners or resorting to caricature. Fully one-half of this fine book is given to draftsmanship. She begins with proportions of the head (male, female & infant) in Chapter One, then moves on to drawing features -- with special attention given to the windows of the soul, the eyes. Chapter Three is dedicated to drawing the body. In Chapter Four, Ms. Clark presents the difficult skill of capturing fabric folds. Chapter Five covers lighting for four different views. Charcoal portraiture comes next, then using color, stepping through hue, value, intensity, & flesh & hair tones.

Finally, she devotes chapters to painting portraits from life in oils & in watercolors. Oil techniques include wet-into-wet, monotone, & glazing.

"How to Paint Living Portraits" is a standout, user-friendly instructional book within a genre glutted with volumes that can be too light or too dense, or promise too much, too quickly. Roberta Carter Clark cooked this one right. She's an excellent teacher.

Bob Rixon, Pearl Art & Crafts

I work for an artist who owns a gallery in Lahaina, Maui for over 12 years & has a 30 year reputation as a respected International artist. As a budding artist, myself, I requested Jim Kingwell to critique' a painting of mine that was in progress - he handed me Roberta's book and told me that she was his teacher and great influencer in painting. After a few days I re-emerged from the book with a painting that captured not only the subject, my mother, but also captured the emotions I wanted to communicate. Jim could proceed to help me with small refinements...then he asked for the book back. He jokingly referred to it as his "bible". I since have ordered my own and Roberta's book on capturing children's portraits! A must have! Incredible guidance and techniques. Mahalo.

In a world filled with fearful news from home and abroad, this book, written by a talented writer, points the way to freedom from worry. I highly recommend it to those who are searching for peace in this troubled world

After reading this book, I found myself moved by the inspirational and biblical messages the writer offered as solutions to end the senseless time and energy that we spend worrying about life. This was a well written and deeply touching book, that entered my life at the right time. Anyone who has ever found themselves anxious, paranoid, and in fear of the unknown, would benefit from reading this book. The very basic answers are there.

A must read for every mother! Follow the advice in the book, and your faith will be strengthened and your own mental and spiritual health restored--and you will actually be of much greater help to the loved ones you're inclined to worry about than when you engaged in endless hours of incapacitating worry.

This is a wonderful book. I bought it for a niece that just had a baby and she loved it.

All new and prospective grandparents should read "I CAN'T WAIT" and then send a copy to their children who are starting families.

This book is a great gift for expecting parents, or parents that have recently had a child. I stumbled upon it looking for a gift for some friends of mine, and quickly read it. The "moral" of the book is an important one for parents to recognize. Pick up a copy, it's worth every penny!

I bought this book to look at Karen's pictures, but the book offers so much more than that.

The introduction by President Carter sets the stage, and the mix of pictures and chapter texts leads the reader to an understanding of global health issues, with a challenge to do something about it.

This is not just another table top book, but could be a working agenda for global health concerns in the 21st century.

"Impact" is more than your average National Geographic photo collection, though it is filled with stunning photos from exotic locales around the world. This book takes the reader on a tour of public health crises facing our world, magnificently illustrating the topic with moving (and sometimes amusing) photos and enlightening text.

I've seen photographer Karen Kasmauski give a slide show/lecture on this subject, and came to understand how she's able to capture such intimate portraits of her subject (mothers waiting with their malnourished children at a Cholera treatment program in Africa; an AIDS patient in the US, tenderly and proudly displaying a photo of his daughter). She's not only well-versed in global public health issues, she's clearly a compassionate individual who's dedicated to improving the lives of her subjects.

The subject is serious, but the photos are vibrant, colorful, compelling, far from gloomy. The text by Peter Jarrett is the perfect compliment, raising all the right issues and providing just the right amount of information without overwhelming us. Overall, "Impact" is an important work that carries a message that should not, and cannot, be ignored.

I know of no other book like this. It covers global public health issues through the lens of an acclaimed National Geographic photojournalist (Karen Kasmauski) with an accompanying narrative by a well-known health and medicine author (Peter Jaret). Combined with a foreword by Nobel Prize-winner President Jimmy Carter and an eloquent introduction by the Carter Center's Dr Don Hopkins, the book is far from a dull public health textbook. The photos are arresting, some startling, and the remarkably readable story unfolds in three sections - State of the world's health, Symptoms of change and Meeting the challenge. All college students should read this book as well as anyone who cares about the inter-relationships between the earth's environment, its people and the human diseases that flourish in both rich and poor countries.

Notwithstanding the dire portrayal of scourges like AIDS, obesity, pollution and social upheaval, the overall message is a hopeful one. Jaret writes "Yet despite these dangers, the field of public health today is marked by a surging sense of optimism, born of the creation of bold new coalitions of individuals and institutions determined to bring the benefits of an ongoing revolution in medical science to the people who most need them."

I found this to be a coffee-table book that I quickly read from cover to cover and will do so several times again. It clearly preserves the photographer's personal view of the world with her choices unimpeded by any risk-fearing editor. The captions and intertwining text are never overbearing or boring but weave the way through the gallery of pictures that are the heart of the book. Some people might be inspired to then read more about public health, others might hopefully reach for their checkbooks to make donations to specific programs. This book would make a good intelligent present for anyone who cares about today's world and who respects the National Geographic Society's work.

In 2003, while the Anglican world was preparing the put itself on the brink of total madness over the issue of homosexuality, civil war (due to ethnic strife) was ravaging Solomon Islands, a small group of islands in the South Pacific that is just east of Indonesia. Richard Anthony Carter's beautiful book In Search of the Lost: The death and life of seven peacemakers of the Melanesian Brotherhood, tells the story of how the Melanesian Brotherhood - the largest monastic order in the Anglican Communion - sought to foster peace between warring groups. Their attempts to bring about reconciliation resulted in the martyrdom of seven of them, and this eye-witness account, written by one of the Brothers in the order, tells both their story and his own journey through this tremendously difficult time. He weaves history, hagiography, theology, spiritual direction, poetry, liturgy, and a large number of his own journal entries into the narrative of the book; this is a highly effective narrative technique which reads like a collage of different materials that gives its own unique portrait of the event in question.

On Easter Sunday, 2003, news reached the Melanesian Brotherhood that one of their own brothers, Nathaniel Sado, had been killed by the leader of one of the militia that was present on the island. Brother Sado had been so badly beaten that he had asked to be killed, but while he was being beaten to death he also sang hymns (126). Before his death had been discovered, six other brothers had gone out to search for him, as he had gone missing, and these six were also martyred by the same militia. The first half of the book tells history - both Carter's and that of the Brotherhood's - leading up to this tragic news, and the latter half of the book discusses both Carter's own crisis of faith and that struggles of other members of the Brotherhood and society to come to terms with this painful news. The turning point in Carter's own life came about "at the point when I really did not know how we could go on," which is when "God took over" (165). This book is very much a book of flesh and blood and spirit; it is a deeply human book that moves from the optimistic to the broken, doubtful and vulnerable, and ultimately towards healing and hope.

I confess that it is the personal elements that Carter includes about his own spiritual struggles that moved me the most while reading this book. Perhaps this is surprising to some - Christians have always had a borderline-morbid fascination with martyrdom and, in light of North America's obsession with being a voyeur to horrific violence (whether in movies, music or video games), it might be expected that I would be most thrilled with reading all sorts of gory details about the death of the martyrs themselves; indeed, a martyr-fetish-turned-American-voyeurism is a frighteningly toxic mixture that is all the more dangerous because it is cloaked with piety - but Carter is too intelligent to allow for the narrative to become some sort of gore-fest-turned-martyr-worship. In fact, I'd go so far as to wager that he's entirely opposed to celebrating violence or any type of theodicy that glorifies pain. Rather, what we read about in this book is that there are times of tragedy out of which great good can and does come about.

To put it rather bluntly, "War is hell." Carter notes with great spiritual and psychological discernment how it is that civil war can quite literally shatter a person emotionally and physically, and how it can have an even more damaging effect when this sort of experience is compounded on a societal level. The theodicy issue thus comes up again, for a major part of Carter's book is an argument that it is not power but powerlessness that is ultimately the most powerful and the most redemptive. He is tremendously concerned about the superstitions on the island - in particular, the belief that holy men such as those in the Brotherhood cannot be harmed by others - and that holiness is akin to some sort of death-defying power. It's the lust for power that not only entraps people to superstitious fear, but that also drives people to commit the most atrocious acts of murder. Carter's refusal of power, which only comes by way of his own recognition of how tempting power really is, gives a Christian theodicy that is worth repeating. Here there is no redemptive suffering, merely redemption beyond suffering.

I cannot recommend this book highly enough. It is certainly an important book in that it translates between two radically different cultures - that of the so-called "Global South" (which apparently isn't as different as some people might think - apparently they are as human there as here, and those who are Anglican there are just as creedal, sacramental, biblical and liturgical as we are here). But, more importantly, it tells a deeply human story with all of its highs and lows, brokenness and healing, faith and doubt. It is a book that widens the human family.

I'm not one for effusive superlatives but I was blown away by this book.

Richard has a great gift for writing and this combined with an informed passion born of hard earned experience and wholesale commitment makes for a most powerful book. Richard is/was in a unique position to write such a book and he has delivered on the opportunity only he could have availed himself of.

The book comes across as being very honest and appropriately questioning whilst still undoubtedly committed to and supportive of the Melanesian Brotherhood.

NB I was a colleague of Richard's when we were both teaching at Selwyn College, Solomon Islands, prior to his involvement with the Melanesian Brotherhood. I am of a more spiritual nature rather than a person of religious convictions yet the book still resonates powerfully for me.

The author was the chaplain to the Anglican order of monks, the Melanesian Brotherhood, during a recent time of conflict and martyrdom. In his account of those years in the late 1990s and earliest years of the 2000s, Carter brings his considerable skills of observation and writing to the task of telling a story of death and resurrection--the loss of seven brothers and the peace their deaths brought to the Solomon Islands.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, writes in his introduction that this "is one of the most truly evangelical books I have read for a long time." I agree, but more so. For to place the book as an evangelical one is to narrowly categorize a book that deserves a larger reading.

The struggles of the Solomon Islanders are human struggles. As Carter writes in the book, the problems that came to a head their "can take place in any country of the world when prejudice and hatred and violence gather momentum and run amok, unchecked." Recent history in Rwanda, Bosnia and elsewhere have shown this to be true. And so this book tells a story that transcends its own setting to offer true and lasting hope.

The book tells the story of God's love at work and in so doing Carter serves to widen the human family.

I'm thirteen, and I just got these less than a year ago...and I'm already reading this series for the third time! It's a book that never gets old! You'll read it over and over again and never get tired of it! If you could give it a million stars...I would!
The way the book is written...is magical! You want to read it slowly to get every word, yet at the same time yourself reading it as fast as you can! It's got mystery and danger...but unlike most...it's so real! The best thing is that the characters always turn to God when they need help instead of panicking or thinking they can do it on their own!
As soon as I was done reading the first and second book...I picked up #3! The first one was a million stars, the second one was even better...and this was better than that! (If that's possible!)
I'm not gonna tell you what happens...cause you need to find out what happens for yourself in this one too! You'll find yourself totally rapped up and lost in the book without even realizing that hours that have gone by again!
This is defiantly a must read! For everyone! No excuses!Even people who don't like to read will lose themselves in these books!

In the third book of the Viking Quest series, 13-year-old Brianna O'Toole has come to the Aurland Fjord in Norway. Captured from her home in Ireland, she is now a slave. Her captor, Mikkel, is only a year older than her, but he has the power go on raids and enslave captives. Of course, Bree finds that his father is not pleased with his son's lawlessness. Mikkel spends the book searching his soul for truth and honor, coming to decide he wants to be trusted. He knows he can trust the word of his Christian Irish prisoners, and he realizes that he has a respect for people he thought he despised. Mikkel learns that to be trusted, he must prove himself to worthy of trust.

Bree becomes a slave to Mikkel's mother and soon learns the ways of the Norwegians, all the while resenting her slavery. She, who was a chieftain's daughter! One of her jobs is to tend Mikkel's grandmother, who wakes every night with terrifying nightmares. Bree convinces Mikkel to let her take the Scriptures which were stolen from the Irish monastery during the raid, and to read them to his grandmother. The gospel makes a difference in the lives of each of the Norwegians, and also to Bree. When she pondered Jesus' words, "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free," and "If the Son shall make you free, you shall be free indeed," she understood that her physical slavery did not affect her spiritual freedom. She was not a slave, but a daughter of the King of Kings! And she was not alone. Jesus had promised to be with His own, and He was with her: her "invisible Friend".

Bree became sure that she had seen her long lost sister Keely, but she could not manage to find her. Was she hiding from her own sister? Stones on the ground seem to leave a message for Bree, but can she follow them? Is Keely even the one leaving the messages? If Bree could find her, the sisters could be friends in this foreign world.

Devin reappears, and it seems that a homeward journey is almost in sight for Bree. However, everything takes an unexpected turn, and Bree and Devin face a renewed battle with fear and hatred. They are both willing to sacrifice much for the other, and in the end a heartbreaking sacrifice shocks the readers. The children are able to survive because of the peace in their souls, peace that only Christ can give.

The author has been to the Aurland Fjord, and her glowing descriptions of the scenery are firsthand.

This is another great adventure into the Viking times, and the Christian perspective makes it so much better.

The Invisible Friend by Lois Walfrid Johnson is an exciting adventure set during Viking times. The descriptive writing and authentic settings pull the reader into life near the Aurland Fjord--an arm of the awesome Sognefjord in Norway. Kids age 10 and up who liked Harry Potter books will find this a compelling novel with powerful conflicts between good and evil. Bree, the main character, steps out in courage through her Christian faith. I recommend all of the Viking Quest books by this author. The Invisible Friend, third in the series, stands out as a book with unpredictable complications such as a character getting Hansen's disease (leprosy). Adults who are interested in Norway will like this well-researched book as well. For me, it was a true "page-turner." I'm eager to read the next one in the series.