Fletcher Books

Or, if you prefer, "Sade Lite". Not exactly the osmazome of Sade's 800 page banquet of sanious delights, but pretty much the same fare boiled down into less than 200 pages. Gourmands of this sort of thing will discover here, if nothing else, a novel method of preparing calamari. Buy it to support Dedalus - they have been doing amazing things.

It is a Sunday School book, pg 14, designed to be used to teach adults how to be sensitive to and caring for their neighbors, thus illustrating the "bear one another's burdens, and thus fulfill the Law of Christ" Gal 6:2, quoted at the end of the preface. It is not a difficult read but is meant to encourage and patiently teach adults without using unusually theological terms or trying to motivate by making people feel guilty. But rather it's motivation is low keyed, explain to people what is consistent with their understanding of the Bible and the Christian life and lead them from there.

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Part 1: Caring because God cared.
Chapter 1: Does anyone really care?
"not just advice, but genuine caring that cost them time effort and money." pg 19
"If love is real, it will be expressed. If it is God's love (agape) it will be expressed sacrifically." pg 20
"People knew he (Jesus) cared, because his caring touched their lives and made a difference." pg 21
we are called to reflect and show this love to those around us.

Chapter 2: Starting with Love
"that we often begin to care only because we feel obligated is a valid one. He is also correct in noting that once we begin to express such care, love often takes over, motivating us, strengthening us, and enabling us to give of ourselves even when we are weary in well-doing." pg 29
"When the vertical relationship is right, our relationships on the horizontal plane are apt to be right. When our experience of God's love is daily, soulinspiring and life-changing, then our capacity to love others will be growing." pg 31

Chapter 3: compassion for the whole man
"The emotion which we should naturally expect to find most frequently attributed to Jesus whose whole life was a mission of mercy, .., is no doubt compassion. ...
The divine mercy has been defined as that essential perfection in God 'whereby He pities and relieves the miseries of His creatures'" quoting BB.Warfield on pg 39
"Modern Christians too often attempt to 'win souls' while ignoring the obvious physical needs of those they approach. Jesus never spearated the two." pg 40

Chapter 4: The Badge of Disciplineship
"Love and the unity it attests to- is the mark Christ gave Christians to wear before the world. Only with this mark may the world know that Christians are indeed Christians and that Jesus was sent by the Father." quoting Francis Schaeffer on pg 47

Part 2: Transforming the Local Body
Chapter 5: Finding and Healing Hurts
"The church is primarily and fundamentally a body designed to express through each individual member the life of an indwelling Lord and is equipped by the Holy Spirit with gifts designed to express that life." quoted Raymond Stedman on pg 60
"because the Holy Spirit is loving thorugh us. As human beings we are made to respond to love: when we are born of the Spirit, this sharing becomes a possiblity." pg 61

Chapter 6: Becoming a Family
"Since we are part of God's family, the warmth and mutual concern of healthy family life should be a part of church life." pg 68

Chapter 7: Learning How to Care
"Christians must learn to communicate with each other in ways that express the love of Christ." pg 74
"Caring is one sufferer telling another sufferer where to find comfort." pg 75
Third principle is listening. pg 79
Fourth principle is helping, the voluntary giving of ourselves. pg 79
Fifth principle is encouragement. pg 80
"Encouragement...is often a spontaneous word from the overflow of a loving heart, springing up naturally as we share our lives with others." pg 81
"the church empties more slowly now--which is an indicator of good health." pg 81

Chapter 8: Adopting a spirit of Gentleness
"Effective communication can take place only when the message or concern in our heart can take place only when the message or concern in our heart is effectively transmitted to the other person." pg 87
bathe the experience in prayer...Go slowly...find out the real needs...keep confidences...don't preach...don't judge...no advice-unless it's specifically asked for...be sympathetic!...be encouraging.

Part 2: Caring where it counts
Chapter 9: Caring for the elderly
"Loneliness is a major factor in the elderly's feelings of neglect." pg 96
"the ultimate betrayal--the feeling that they can not trust their own bodies." pg 101

Chapter 10: Caring for the lonely
meaningless depersonalization
"loneliness is not only pushing our culture to the breaking point, it is pushing our physical health to the breaking point" quoting a psychologist on pg 105
"Even Jesus experienced loneliness" pg 107
"First, they discovered that human resources are not enough to cope with loneliness. Second, they all felt the need for the support of other believers. Third, they found their principal source of strength, and the means of overcoming, in their fellowship with God and in submission to God's sovereign ruling-and overruling- in their lives." pg 108 in talking about Biblical examples like Paul, Elijah, and David
"You can measure your likeness to Christ by your sensitivity to the loneliness of others." quoting an anonymous author on pg 112

Chapter 11: Caring for the Sick
"Peter views suffering as the normal experience of the believer." pg 117

Chapter 12: Caring for the Grieving
"Grief is a normal human response to loss. Despite what our culture may tell us, it is important for us to grieve." pg 124
steps in grief: denial, anger, bargaining, despair, acceptance.

Chapter 13: A life of Love
"the process of getting people's attention so that we can berbally declare the message of deliverance which we call the gospel." pg 134
"without genuine love, our spiritual parenting will be mechanical, legalistic, and probably ineffective." pg 135
A successful marriage requires falling in love many times but always with the same person!" pg 136
"Ideally, caring begins at home-in a Christian home. It is modeled and then caught by the next generation as a natural part of life, not something that is forced or demanded." pg 138

John 13:35
By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.
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I found it a worthwhile read, if a little basic, but we all need reminders of the simple things that we seem to forget and neglect while reaching for more serious themes.For it's purpose, an Adult Sunday School class on the introduction to the ministries of mercy in the Church, as well as a quick reacquaintance with the basics, it is suitable. The problem will be to get enough copies of such an now older book. It is not about the details of running such a ministry as much as the right individual motivations. It seems to approach the issues in a mature and Christian way, making good points and speaking truthfulness in love.

Fletcher's is the only recent comprehensive history of the Southern Baptist Convention. The past twenty years have produced little but various interpretations of modern Southern Baptist controversies. Unfortunately, Fletcher has succumbed to the same temptation. From the distribution of the text, it appears that Fletcher has raced through the convention's early history just to get to the denominational controversies. It would be easy to criticize Fletcher for his myopia if one could locate any Southern Baptist historian prepared to do otherwise. As the situation now stands, this is the best (indeed, the only) Southern Baptist History available new anywhere.

I ran with Bob Fletcher back in the late eighties. He had already written the book and ran the 50 in 50 @ 50. Let me tell you, if I could rack up the sub three's for the 26.2 miler like Fletcher, I would be very proud.

In his book about Boston, "Boston was tough on many a young man", yea right, one of them was me and Fletcher sub threed it.

Great job, exellent true story.

This book does not give much information on implementing PeopleSoft technically. Rather, it's a book that advertises the capabilities of PeopleSoft and its different Modules. This book teaches consultants how to do project management rather than how to use peopletools. I would not recommend this book for technical people. It's a book for consultants, who wants to know things to consider in implementing peoplesoft, what resources are needed and how to go about with a project. But it won't teach you how to really use peoplesoft.

This is a very thorough book, and quite useful, but TAKE NOTE, SHOPPERS! It's more than 20 years old. The product information provided by Amazon is misleading. The 2003 publication date reflects when it was "transferred to digital printing" as indicated only on the inside cover of the book. The book itself was copyrighted in 1986, when Michael Jackson was still cool, computers were new, and people were still doing stats by hand or on calculators. I'm sure it's a good reference, but it doesn't have the latest info. on how to use current software or recent developments in the field of statistics. Don't be fooled by the 2003 publication date.

Since Nintendo came out with the Wii last year, there have been a lot of good games for it like The Legend Of Zelda Twilight Princess. However, when it comes to maps and strategy guides, you can often find it as a hit or a miss for Third-Party companies like Prima with those guides. Especially with Nintendo's latest Mario adventure Super Paper Mario. Although the guide is sometimes handy, it just doesn't detail enough information from the maps, which at times makes it very frustraing to play on the Wii. I honestly suggest you get the Player's Guide Nintendo made instead. It might be a few bucks more, but it is much more worth getting, especially if you want to master Bowser and crew.

Price: C

Maps: D+

Convience: C-

Overall: C-

"World of Wonder: An Introduction to Imaginative Literature", edited by Fletcher Pratt and published in 1951, is one of a great many anthologies of speculative fiction which were published in the 40's and 50's. As one would expect, there are stories from many of the greats here: Isaac Asimov, H. Beam Piper, James Blish, Fredric Brown, Robert Heinlein, and Ray Bradbury are all represented. What makes this anthology a little different from many of the others is the way Fletcher Pratt selected several stories from writers who are not ordinarily thought of when one thinks of speculative fiction; such as O. Henry, Rudyard Kipling, Gouverneur Morris, and Franz Kafka.

In total, there are 19 stories included, some of which had already been included in other collections. Fletcher Pratt seemed interested in picking stories to cover different types of speculative fiction, rather than looking for the best stories, and as a result I don't think this is a great anthology. On the other hand, I have to give him credit for not limiting his examples to the traditional authors.

There are two stories here which have been remembered on fan polls: "That Only a Mother" by Judith Merril was tied for 41st on the Locus All-Time Poll for short stories in 1999, and "The Blue Giraffe" by L. Sprague de Camp (previously published in "Adventures in Time and Space", editors Raymond J. Healy and J. Francis McComas, in 1946) was tied for 19th on the Astounding/Analog All-Time Poll for pre-1940 short fiction in 1971. This collection also includes "Giant Killer" by A. Bertram Chandler which was nominated in 1996 for the Retro Hugo for novellas published in 1945. This was an odd nomination, since the story is rather short for a novella and was in fact first published as a novelette in "Astounding Science Fiction" in October of 1945.

Spur heads to the Wyoming wilderness to track down two missing government surveyors. Barely escaping with his life after a savage bushwhacking it looks like a land hungry rancher and his trigger-happy gunmen might complete the job. But Spur McCoy won't go down without a fight. No matter what it took, Spur would find the missing men...

After a gripping first chapter this entry into the Spur series was a bit of a let down. For me it seemed like a couple of different short story ideas had been hobbled together to make a longer read.

Dirk Fletcher gives the reader a fast paced, easy to read, none complicated book. There's plenty of action of more than one kind - the Spur series is an adult series - that should satisfy most readers looking for a quick, entertaining read, but if you want a bit more depth to the plot then I'd suggest you try elsewhere.

While I do have doubts about the veracity of the story, I still liked the narrative. I think it could be true...but even if it isn't I enjoyed to book...and that is all that matters for me...so I would recommend it for anyone who likes adventure writing.

Very interesting story, but what poor writing skills. So, if you don't mind poor grammar this book sure is an interesting read.

I don't know very much about bears or bear behavior, but fortunately I do have enough common sense (and it doesn't take much) to realize this guy is fudging on his "true story of survival." It was still a good suspense book though.

First of all, the narrative is clumsy, but that can be excused in this sort of book. The larger problem is that the story is entirely unbelievable. My advice to Mr. Fletcher would be to do a little research before his next attempt to portray the figments of his imagination as non-fiction. Anyone with even a rudimentary knowledge of bear behavior and biology will quickly recognize that this story is completely inplausible. My personal favorite was the account of the bear charging forward on its hind legs, "running as any man would do." I will not pass judgement on whether the climbing account is true, but if it is, I would invite Mr. Fletcher to kindly confine his adventures to Europe. American wilderness has no need of hikers who take delight in toppling rock formations and prying crystals from caves. If you must read this book, do yourself a favor and check it out from the local library.

I've been to Alaska a number of times, dropped off, almost everytime, just me and one other person, in the absolute wilderness. So the tale was gripping. I've always been fascinated by these big bears, coupled with a huge dose of respect.

I eagerly read every page--was totally enthralled. And I was impressed with certain aspects of the author's wilderness and mountaineering skills. But on a whole different level, I just had to wonder if it was real. He's such an outdoorsman, but makes such blundering errors.

Everyone knows, even if they've never ventured into the wilderness, that a she bear grizzly is ferocious when it comes to her cubs. Imagine killing a cub and surviving the fist 15 minutes. And instead of skidadling, you hike up a ridge, and the next morning roll boulders down the slope and announce to the world where you are. And imagine not looking over your shoulder every fifteen minutes. And imagine camping at the end of a box canyon, with not much escape. And imagine hearing a bear on the glacier and not putting two and two together. And imagine crawling down into a crevasse where you've made your base camp, smelling a bear, seeing that she's strewn the rock slide everywhere in her rage. Imagine slinking down into that hole. Oh, and by the way, you really don't starve in several days, so any degree of hunger would not drive me down that hole.

So, I did really, really, enjoy it. But there's alot that just doesn't make sense to me. I'd like to see a picture of the author, before and after, without and then with white hair.