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Many who are trying to cope with depression feel spiritually muddled and shamed. Rea and Carol offer an enlightening perspective on viewing depression as a human condition that even faith-filled people suffer. Their book also describes the diagnosis and treatment of depression in an easily understandable manner. Praises to these women for helping to take depression "out of the closet" and for hopefully helping many people find comfort and spiritual sustenance in recognizing that they are not alone in their suffering.

He can't get enough of GodQuest (or any of the other books in the series). He's learned so much about the Bible and has found quite a few answers to some of his questions, which makes him feel great and encourages him to keep reading and learning. He first received this book as a nine-year-old, and now, a year later, he's still re-reading it and learning.

If you have or know a boy within the 9-12 age range, buy this for them. They'll love it!

Knitting projects designed to fit with a dozen classic stories (including The Hobbit). The projects range from fairly simple to more complex. The connection to well-loved stories should provide plenty of inspiration.

This book is an excellent resourse for any student or researcher interested in human sexuality. The chapters are written by experts in each content area. Highly recommended.

This is a funny book! Helen Wallace's writing does remind me of that of Erma Bombeck.
HIGH BACK PAIN AND VERY CLOSE VEINS is a somewhat irreverent, but always funny, look at aging from H. W.'s own experience.

This book is very funny. A must have for high school teachers or anyone involved with a high school. It is full of comics similar to The Far Side. We laughed and laughed.

Recommended if you are spending any time in a particular area of scotland, this entire series is well-organized and comprehensive about what to see. See my review in the Edinburgh title of this series for chapter contents and more.

The Stundists were Russian reformers who came out of the Russian Orthodox church. They were nearly all of the peasant class, and without upper class people to wield their influence, the Stundists' sufferings were more severe. In this book we read of Paul and Halya, two young people who expect to marry. When Paul becomes convinced that Russian orthodoxy is a dead religion, and that reverence of icons and praying of saints is wrong, the two are separated. We follow the sufferings and martyrdom of Loukyan, who led many of the Stundists to a surer faith in the Lord Jesus. The Stundists were treated as heretics, and as less than human in spite of their kindness to all. The doctrine of the Stundists seems similar to that of the Anabaptists. At the end of the book, Paul and Halya are married, and marching to Siberia with a crowd of other convicts; some are guilty of disagreeing with the government, others have heinous crimes to their record, and others only wanted to worship God simply in sincerity and truth.

The book is a good novel and taught me about the Stundists, of whom I had never heard. There is heartbreak throughout the book, but then that is common in life, and those of us who do not experience it are blessed beyond measure. Read "Highway of Sorrow", and learn a little of what others have suffered for the name of Christ.

I found "Holy Lives, Holy Deaths" to be an enormously satisfying book, which I would gladly recommend to others to buy -- except for the price. Like other Society of Biblical Literature volumes, it seems to be aimed at professional scholars and libraries, not students and general readers. (Has anyone done a study of the SBL's publishing practices, and whether lower prices, and larger printings or frequent reprintings, would be justified by increased sales?)

I would instead advise trying to find a library copy before ordering it, as I am certain that some readers will find it objectionable on religious grounds (an unfortunate but inevitable fact), or discover that the material is just too unfamiliar, and the approach too difficult, for them to get enough out of it. If you like the book, you will probably want a copy available for further reference; it is packed with interesting details and bibliographic information.

As for the book itself, "Holy Lives, Holy Deaths" is an impressive attempt to apply tools developed in other fields, notably by New Testament scholars attempting to uncover the oral traditions behind the Gospels, Acts, and the Apostolic Fathers and early Christian apocrypha, to Jewish documents reflecting the same period. This has been done in an unsystematic way by others, but Wire's methodological sophistication and range of materials sheds new light on seemingly familiar territory.

Short narrative passages from Rabbinic literature are arrayed and analyzed alongside comparable narratives from Hellenistic Jewish writings, the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha, the Dead Sea Texts, and, perhaps more controversially, the New Testament. The working assumption is that at least some of these stories circulated independently of their present contexts, and that a careful reading reveals how storytellers worked, and the social functions the stories were intended to serve.

Wire covers retellings of Biblical material, stories about Biblical figures, and stories about contemporary (or then recent) events and people, looking for patterns, techniques, and implied occasions. Teaching episodes, miracles, and martyrdoms all find a place, with other subjects, topically arranged for easy comparison of like with like. Among Wire's more interesting contributions is the suggestion (which I think she demonstrates effectively) that many early stories about Jesus fit most naturally in a Jewish setting into the mold of Martyred Prophet / Teacher, NOT that of Failed Messiah.

Readers unacquainted with the Jewish story-telling traditions investigated by Wire may want to compare some equally (or more) wide-ranging collections, without her analytic interventions in the presentation. Unfortunately, most such anthologies are excessively popularized to be of much use for scholarly purposes, or are very scholarly, and assume a great deal of background on the reader's part.

A good approximation of an introductory collection would be the late Raphael Patai's massive "Gates to the Old City: A Book of Jewish Legends," which is unfortunately out of print (again). It is usually available used (note that, in my experience, the original Avon paperback edition was so overstuffed that it tended to fall apart on purchase). Unhappily, as the editor-translator, Patai decided to leave out most of the Biblical "proof-texts" offered in the originals, and so tends to avoid those stories which depend on Hebrew word-play. Patai's companion volume, "The Messiah Texts" is probably available (if you are willing to wait), and would also be worth consulting. Howard Schwartz is best known for retellings, but his "Reimagining the Bible: The Storytelling of the Rabbis" is a first-rate collection of essays, with useful bibliographic notes, and much of it is accessible to a beginner, unlike Michael Fishbane's several admirable volumes on Rabbinic readings of the Bible. Among more narrow collections, Reuven Hammer's "The Classic Midrash: Tannaitic Commentaries on the Bible," in the Paulist Press's Classics of Western Spirituality series, is an invaluable introduction, with extended sections allowing the reader to see how passages fit into their extant literary context -- the one area where Wire leaves readers to fend for themselves.

Sales. Thats is what this book is about and how to go about getting them. In Spades. READ AND REREAD. This book will get you new customers because it helps focus your efforts on where they will do the most good.

Over 27 chapters gives you specific help on areas that apply to selling. For example, chapter 18, Being a Sales Consultant, he defines sales consulting as going beyond 'pitch' selling and 'consultive selling' tactics. Example being that the rep will assist the customer in his/her area of expertise even if no direct business results. A great idea.

In each chapter, you are asked to rate the ideas as to how that chapters idea can affect you. The book is organized in such a way that you don't have to read it cover to cover. Just the areas that appeal to you.

The chapters have the greatest value in providing specific techniques to implement those ideas you rank highly. For example, chapter 24 New Business Marketing, has as its implementations section 7 steps to New Business Development. Areas like Opportunity Identification (1) and Organizational Marketing (3) and tips within those to help guide you.

All in all, a great business book on selling, marketing and making your sales grow.

Highly Recommended.