Stone Books

Introduction: A View of Depression (Depression on the Rise, The Depressed as Church Members) PART ONE: ASSESSMENT Chap 1: Characteristics of Depression (Causes of Depression, Major Depression, Grief, Alcohol). Chap 2: Melancholy and Spiritual Desolation (Dark Night of the Soul, Accidie, Desolations, Anfechtungen, Discernment). Chap 3: Suicide and Depression (Assessing Suicide Risk, The Minister's Response to Suicide). Chap 4: Family Life of the Depressed (Impact of Depression on Interpersonal Relations, Marriage and Depression, Gender Differences, Children and Adolescents). Chap 5: Framing Hope (Reframing, Establishing Future Goals, Hope-Oriented Conversation, Strengths). PART TWO: ACTION Chap 6: Brief Pastoral Counseling of Depression: A Fourfold Approach (Assessment of Depression, How Clergy Think about Depression, The First Session, Counseling Methods). Chap 7: Interpersonal Interventions: Strengthening Intimate Relationships (Relationships of the Depressed, Life with a Depressed Person; Individual, Couple and Family Counseling, Communication, Problem Solving and Change). Chap 8: Physiological Interventions: Prozac and Beyond (Physiological Vulnerability, Body Image, Hormones, Types of Antidepressant Medications, Sleep Disturbances, Exercise). Chap 9: Cognitive Interventions: Changing How People Think (Misinterpreting Experience, Information-Processing Errors, Changing How the Depressed Think, Countering Rumination). Chap 10: Behavioral Interventions: Shifting from Passive to Active Mode (Getting Active, Homework Tasks, Control, Obstacles to Getting Active, Helpful Activities for the Depressed, Counseling Methods to Change Behavior, Prescribing Depression).

This book has changed my ministry. I have been a pastor for 20 years with a degree in social work and lots of graduate credits in pastoral care and counseling, and did not expect this book to impact me so much. Stone makes a solid case for a framework for pastoral counseling that is of necessity short-term and forward looking. Then he puts ministry to those who are depressed, the "common cold of mental health," into that context. The result is outstanding. It is a foundational work for my own book with Augsburg Fortress that will be out in 2002, titled "When You Are Depressed." This review is unsolicited and heartfelt. +

THE BOOK IS AIMED AT INFORMING THE RIGHT CONSUMER AND DIAMOND BUYER ABOUT NATURAL GEM-QUALITY DIAMONDS.THE AUTHOR 'S INTENTION IS TO EDUCATE THE READERS TO KNOW HOW TO EVALUATE THEIR OWN DIAMONDS.IT ALSO SHOWS THE READER THE PRACTICAL WAYS TO IDENTIFY A FLAWED DIAMOND WHEN BUYING ONE.

B.J. Tadena's book on buying and selling diamonds is truly an execellent and vital resource for anybody in the market for buying and selling diamonds. I would recommend this book especially for guys looking for engagement rings for their significant other. Tadena gives a very informative and in-depth look at the finer points of picking out diamonds and their good qualities and how to spot imperfections, without boring the reader but giving inciteful knowledge a consumer can understand. I would defintely recommend this book to anyone in the market for diamonds, be it personal pleasure, an investment, or just a special way to say "I Love You"

Though a novel, this tale shows the type of slavery that has continued to exist in Africa until very recently, and continues in some parts today. Emecheta presents a girl's predicament from a personal perspective, telling the reader both why slavery was seen as necessary and how it hurt this child. She also makes clear that this is a very different kind of slavery than that pictured by Americans. Well-written and only half fiction, this novel is a good read for anyone interested in West African culture.

Once again Ms Emecheta has written a thought provoking and captivating book about domestic slavery in Nigeria. The setting is in Nigeria in the early 20th Century and wound around significant events of the time such as the Influenza epidemic, Aba market women's riot,colonization and arrival of the missionaries. The heroine a young girl is sold into slavery by her own brother after the death of their parents in the influenze epidemic. The story details the twists and turns in her life while in bondage, her eventual return to her people and subsequent events.

The mere fact that this book has been through many paperback editions since it first appeared as a hardback published in London by Seeley Service in 1921 is on its own a powerful testament to its enduring fascination. This edition is the latest in a long line, and this reviewer hopes that it will never go out of print.

What is the secret of its popularity? First, it is an eye-witness account by an acutely sensitive and intelligent insider, which many would argue is one of the best kinds of history. Based mainly on his diaries, it depicts not only the political situation of Japan, but also the social conditions of a society on the threshold of an enormous change: the Meiji restoration.

The eyes are those of a sympathetic European - as he would have probably described himself - who was able to master the Japanese language in a time when there were hardly any text books available, and who later became one of the foremost japanologists of the 19th century. (Of course this is to say nothing of his subsequent career as a top British diplomat and theorist of international law.)

A copy of this book is money well spent!

Ian Ruxton, editor of Sir Ernest Satow's Private Letters to W.G. Aston and F.V. Dickins: The Correspondence of a Pioneer Japanologist from 1870 to 1918 (Paperback) and several other Satow-related books which are also available on amazon.

If you are interested in Japanese history this is a great book. It gives a firsthand account of events between 1862 and 1869 from the perspective of a foreigner, which covers the very important period of Japan opening to foreigners and the overturn of the shogunate. Sir Ernest Satow was witness to many of the important events that formed modern Japan in his function as a translator for the British Consulate. The book reports his various travels through Japan as an official, his interactions with members of the different Japanese clans, negotiations between the foreign representatives and the Japanese government, including the first audience with the Mikado granted to foreigners. The book makes history come alive and fills it with real-life people. It also shows firsthand the difficulties of foreigners in understanding the very different culture of Japan, at a time when there wasn't even proper teaching material to learn the language (not even a dictionary) to make this process easier. A great book for anybody who wants to further his or her understanding of Japan.

Downs' book is compelling historical narrative woven with colourful individuals: brilliant military tacticians, pompous paper-pushers, and tireless, heretofore-unsung archaeological academics. He provides an excellent historical overview of Egypt leading up to the discovery of the Rosetta Stone. The reader never feels -- as I have often felt in other history books -- that he or she has been dropped into the middle of someone else's area of expertise, floundering for context and treading water in a sea of unfamiliar academic references. On the contrary: The whole historical landscape is laid out through the millenia from the Pharoahs through the Greek and Roman domination of Egypt, and on to Egypts's absorption into the Ottoman sphere of power right up to the increasing European influence on the Middle East in the face of the Napoleonic wars. Though he has obviously meticulously studied his subject and is himself highly steeped in his world military history, the author educates the reader without seeming in the least condescending or limiting himself purely to the military aspects: The famed black stone, though at the time of its discovery considered by the great powers to be mainly a military trophy, is treated by Downs with the appropriate value and respect due such a relic of universal importance. The true heroes of Downs' book are not the great military generals, but the humble yet tenacious French and English academics who, a century and a half before UNESCO was around, realized that some things transcend the empire-building priorities of individual nations. A highly recommended read.

This book is a must for anyone who loves history. I especially loved all the maps involved so I could follow along with this adventure.

I was a student of Harris Stone's for several classes during my career at KU's School of Architecture and Urban Design in the 1980's. The book "Dispersed City of the Plains" is just so very typical of Harris. Harris was one of the best Critics (that's the code word for Architecture Teacher, Professor, etc.) that I ever had. He was truely wise. Stone had a way of looking beyond what was fashionable to print in the Professional Journals to see the truth in the Architecture. Harris always taught us, as students in Kansas, to be proud of our herritage. He had the ability to see the art in what others disregarded as mundane and below their recognition. Harris was a proponent for the masses, the end users of Architecture. It didn't matter to him how great a building was proclaimed if it didn't serve it's purpose for it's users. Stone's books always remind us to design for the people, and the environment, not the Journals.

This is a challenging, original analysis of the meaning of the built environment of the Great Plains. The author begins much the way that Walter Prescott Webb did in his pioneering work on the same subject, by analyzing the building blocks that organize space and the economy of the region, in this instance grain elevators, barbed wire, and windmills. He then moves through types of housing, and communities from hamlet to major city.

Harris Stone's basic thesis is threefold: 1. The Great Plains experienced a fundamentally different pattern of settlement than the Eastern U.S., because the land was subdivided before settlers arrived; 2. European models of city form are not valid for analyzing the built environment of the Plains; 3. Instead, the settlement pattern of the Plains is a work in progress that anticipates the impact of today's information-age economy, and it should be evaluated accordingly.

The author's text is handwritten, with his own drawings illustrating his points. His ideas are spare and challenge the reader to participate and "fill in the blanks." His style is somewhat akin to the way Jane Jacobs analyzes city life, while his conclusions contrast dramatically with hers.

There is also a poignance that permeates the book, because Harris Stone was dying of cancer as he wrote it. Too weak to finish preparation of the text for publishing, his wife and colleagues at the University of Kansas School of Architecture completed the final few pages, in a different style of handwriting and illustration. One mourns the loss of so original a thinker, as one is simultaneously stimulated by his text.

This book is an easy-to-read, practical description of how one family lived their faith. It is inspiring and encouraging.

Reading of the various aspects in which God guided this family as they "Acknowledged Him in all their ways" is inspirational, especially because I know each story is true as reported... I am the author's husband of over thirty-seven years.

This is the best book I have ever seen on diamonds, gemstones and jewelry. I contains excellent information on what to look for in each category of gemstones. It also contains great photo examples of properly cut stones and common problem areas. It explains the independent lab grading process and shows how to read the grading reports.

One of the best books ever written if you are interested in collecting or investing in diamonds and colored gemstones. Discusses basic gemology, an analysis of the most commonly traded gemstones, colored gemstone and diamond grading with laboratory grading reports, gemstone treatments, pricing cycles, gemstone investing, gemstone markups and appraisals. Although this book is a little out of date, it is an excellent resource for beginners.

Critics have described Leslie as "gifted" and of writing with a "powerful resonance" with words "original, inventive and rich..." The stories in Drivers are all that plus, in turn nostalgic and unsettling, poignant and revelatory.

Driving a motorized vehicle is the most dangerous activity humans undertake each day. In urban areas we encounter traffic jams and road rage. Rural highways present the danger of slow moving farm equipment and long, lonely stretches that are often poorly maintained. In each short story, Nathan Leslie shows these dangers clearly and draws us into the lives of individual drivers. The fictional characters are sharply defined and represent jaded cynics, hard-line realists, traffic gurus, doomed drivers, insecure dreamers, panicked or fearful fumblers, male and female. In testimony to Leslie's skill as wordsmith, he writes in a different, distinct personality and voice in every story. This technique, which is not easy, adds depth and power to his words.

Drivers is an impressive study of human nature and our stunning, frightening obsession with cars, pickups, SUVs and speed. What one character calls "the messiness of human
behavior" takes on a life of its own in each story. Due to space constraints, I deliberately avoided listing the 23 individual stories in this book. But if I had to choose a sentimental favorite, it would be "Canyonlands." This longer story features a troubled man driving across country, hoping to regroup and regain control of his life. In this brief excerpt, the city born and raised traveler experiences the Great
Sand Dunes of Colorado:
"It was an incredible thing to see and I had to sit down. I couldn't hear nothing except the wind blowing the sand down the dunes, shaping the dunes, and also there were these little green reeds that the wind blew in circles. But that was it. It was like you search all your life for a place as quiet as this place, and then you find it you want to let it sink into your brain so you won't forget what it's like. All that silence. The sun was slanting onto the sand and the sand was cold. I took a picture, you know."

Since the first Model T rolled off the assembly line, driving has created a new, skewed reality. Nathan Leslie does a masterful job of examining these odd paradigms and the humans who experience them each day.

I discovered this writer recently. Nathan Leslie is, in my view, currently one of the prolific and insightful short story writers. His A Cold Glass of Milk was a well constructed sampling of first person voice--this is his specialty. In Drivers the author has allowed the reader a glimpse into the world we all know--the world of commuters and road rage. This makes the collection important, I think. Leslie's stories are fascinating in that they don't pull punches. My favorite stories in the collection are "Flyboys Down the Big End" (about race car drivers in the 50's and 60's), "Cog" (about a car mechanic), "Shape" (about a car salesman--intricate portrayal), and "Oh, Duesenberg" (about a love for cars that goes beyond the boundaries of normal). He is a master of characterization--all the characters in the collection really come to life. But all of the stories in the collection are interesting in their own way really. Leslie sandwiches very short stories between his longer stories. He is an author who hasn't yet received his due. In my humble opinion, it is only a matter of time.

Hollywood Hound is the best book in the whole world. It's about a dog named Duz Shed that becomes a movie star by winning a contest. His owner, Fred Shed, entered him in the contest. Then Duz is captured by Veronica Fudge who has a big mean cat and Duz didn't like her. Fred didn't know that Veronica kidnapped Duz and had to find clues about what happened. The end is very exciting, and I had a hard time putting it away when[my teacher] said our Silent Reading time was over.

Hollywood Hound is the best book in the world. It's about a dog named Duz that becomes a movie star by winning a contest. He got kidnapped by Victoria Crume. I can't wait for the third book to come out.