Turner Books

They say that when one is ready to learn a teacher is provided. I'd also add to that sentiment that when one needs a little extra push or a supportive word that someone will also appear. Roshi Vernon Kitabu Turner in his book Soul To Soul was that for me. I spent an entire weekend reading, meditating, journaling, contemplating, and coming to a calm peaceful place where I began to accept my future (come what may) with a new understanding.

In Soul To Soul, the author talks frankly about finding his place as a Zen Master. In the beginning, he had much trepidation about his destiny. How could he a Christian boy from the United States become a Buddhist teacher? Not-I, Not-I. Then, he realized it wasn't really about him. He was merely a symbol, an image. That he shouldn't try to be something he wasn't, his purpose was merely to be himself, follow his calling, and realize that there were no contradictions in being true to his nature.

Beyond the profound influence that this book had on me during a time of personal questioning, I believe that Soul to Soul has a greater message for all people, whether they call themselves Buddhists, Christians, or whatever. We both as individuals and as society as a whole tend to think ourselves into problems. Instead of accepting what we truly feel and reacting to that moment, most of us tend to push those emotions down because we fear that we might be judged. In the end, instead of being truly happy and living life to the fullest, we live unfulfilled, stagnant lives, unconnected to ourselves and the world around us.

Written by African-American Zen master and expert martial artist Vernon Kitabu Turner, Soul To Soul is a guide to focusing and stilling one's mind, so that it can become a mirror of the Ultimate. The power to tame one's mind begets the power to change the world, according to Turner; simple exercises and techniques are presented to aid readers of all faiths in taking the first step on the crucial journey to increased mental clarity. Soul To Soul emphasizes that Zen mind is not only for Buddhists, but offers benefits in self-awareness, understanding, and spiritual growth to everyone.

This book and the other two books ofthe mages of garillon were excelent. It is horrible they stop printing them. They are the only three books I didn't fall asleep on in the first capter. The other two begining books of this trilogy are The Burning Sone and The Gaunlet of Malice, which I both highly recommend. The book was actually exciting. Sure there is a lot of big words but you can still get the overall meaning if you just skip over them. Come on, can't someone reprint it. It is alot better then all those poorly written, boring and pointless books that companies print a million of.

It's a darn shame this book isn't available any more - with any luck, word will spread and the publisher will reprint the series. I read the three of them when they first came out, and Spiral of Fire was a wonderful end to a series full of adventure and memorable characters. Without resorting to purple prose, Harris nevertheless invokes genuine emotion in the reader with her loving portrayal of her central characters. The battles between good and near-overpowering evil are exciting and different, and Harris keeps coming up with new and different ways to approach old problems. The author has written a number of books now with Katherine Kurtz, but the Mages of Garillon, of which Spiral of Fire is the last, really sing in her own voice. This is a rousing good read, a great romp of an adventure and a beautifully rounded end to a much-missed series. Time to reprint!

An exciting,romantic swashbuckler with lots of suspense and great characters. The background detail and historical information show a lot research on the author's part and play a big role in the atmosphere set in the novel. It's right up there with another old favorite 'Jamaica Inn'. A must read for romantic period piece devotees.

For a solid page-turner and escape from your daily cares, read Scott-Turner's adventurous love story, "Swordplay." It captures your imagination immediately, introducing you to heroine, Ardys Trevallon -- not your typical 16th century lady. The Queen's court is her playground, fencing her unladylike vocation. Though thoroughly enchanting and beautiful, Ardys asserts herself (often with the strength of a man) and her place in the scheme of things. She's definitely a woman, born well before her time.
Ardy's capture by the rogue, handsome pirate -- Desmond Kirkconnell -- during the most vulnerable time in her life, plunges the reader into a series of events that proves Ardys resolve and tenacity. Falling in love with Kirkconnell, being kidnapped by his enemy, and a succession of misunderstandings, impel the reader along Ardys' journey from the Queen's castle, Ireland's forests and even a Caribbean island. Ignoring her true feelings, Ardys uses her body to accomplish her resolve.
Politics and intrigue catapult Ardy's into a quest that brings full circle her love story. Though the book satisfied this reader to the very last moment. I want to hear more of Ardys and her adventures with the love of her life.

This is, without a doubt, one of the most important books on the subject of UFO abductions ever written -- but the author is suspiciously dead and the book is out-of-print. Used copies are selling for over $50 for a paperback! Don't pay it! Get it free on the web at karlaturner (dot) org.

Eight well written case histories of aductions including details usually excluded from other accounts of abductions by other authors.

Her chapter eleven, "Expanding The View", summarizes a chilling perspective of the "control" consistantly exerted over abductees.

Death is never easy talk about. This book is written with sensitivity and honesty. It is written as a workbook and text is interspersed with pages for further reflection, whether writings or drawings on the part of the listener. One of the best on the subject I have seen.

This is the only book that I could easily find about this difficult subject. It dealt clearly with all the issues concerned and did not tell you what to say, rather it gave you ideas and the confidence to find your own way. It is beautifully written. It covers many areas the ordinary person might not think of. I recommend it to counselors working with bereaved children. It is very helpful.

BACK IN THE DISTANT HAZY PAST I WENT TO VIETNAM AND THE THINGS THAT I WITNESSED AND LIVED THERE CHANGED MY LIFE FOREVER. TANGERINE SKY BROUGHT IT BACK INTO FOCUS IN A POSITIVE WAY. IT AMAZES ME THAT A LADY WRITER HAS THE PERCEPTION TO SO VIVIDLY PRESENT SO MANY SEGMENTS OF MY EXPERIENCES THERE.

EVERY VETERAN OF THE VIETNAM CONFLICT, WITHOUT EXCEPTION, WITH ANY SERVICE, WILL ENJOY THIS GREAT BOOK. IT WILL BE A BOOKSHELF KEEPER THAT WILL BE READ AGAIN AND AGAIN.

Tangerine Sky is superbly written, gutsy and gripping as it follows the emotional destruction of a Vietnam veteran and his family. Clearly, Barbara Fleenor Turner wrote this novel from painful first-hand experience. It's not fun, but it's a rare jewel, and I recommend it with enthusiasm.

What would you do if suddenly you were accused of being a Soviet mole? It would obviously be a complete and utter shock. Peter Karlow lived this nightmare. After service with the Navy and OSS field operations during World War II -- in the course of which he lost part of a leg -- he continued in the CIA, until, one day, he was addressed by two FBI agents and asked to "assist with inquiries," as the British euphemistically call it. This inquiry turned out to be his own. He was accused of being a Soviet spy. Any loyal career officer can understand the shock. His crime, he found out later, was that his name started with a "K." Alexander Golitsin, Soviet defector, had told James Angleton that there was a mole within CIA. He could not remember the name, but it started with a "K." That ended Peter's career and began years of turmoil, until he was finally completely cleared, compensated and decorated.

Peter tells his story, his OSS days (the first 88 pages of 178) with operations in North Africa, Corsica, Italy, the creation of CIA, and his CIA Cold War work, and then when the CIA turned on him -- the FBI interrogations and what followed, including his eventual complete exoneration and decoration, all in easy to read fluid prose. It is not only a shocking story, but an interesting account by someone with an outstanding memory, who tells the story without bitterness or rancor, a treasure of information from a working-level perspective about wartime and peacetime intelligence and "special" operations. It is also an account of the struggles within the CIA (and the Intelligence Community) to deal with the threat of penetration and betrayal -- threats with which we have become familiar with the stories of Walker, Ames and Hanssen, among a host of others. As it worked out, Angleton and Golitsin formed a strange team that indeed can be said to have turned 'CIA upside down,' decimated the work of the Soviet Russia Division and impacted on CIA's defenses against Soviet operations.
This is a remarkable story which would make a complex and fascinating espionage thriller.

As a former CIA FI/Clandestine Services officer, I found TRARGETED BY THE CIA fascinating. Not only because I had participated,on the rim, and very much a junior, in some of the things described, but also, because of that, I could feel Karlow's sense of shock and bewilderment at the utterly shabby way The Agency dealt with him.

Having seen, from documents and a few accounts,how CIA's Inner Circle dealt with the subject of a book I am writing on Bill Harvey, I am not surprised at the way Karlow's case
was handled. His restraint in describing the decades of humiliation and ostracism he felt because of a direly wrongful accusation is admirable. He tells his bleak story with just enough detail that the reader can begin to feel his inner agony, when former friends turned their shoulders, and when white became Orwellian black.

I have long admired the people I knew who stayed on in The Agency, despite the overpowering bureaucracy and the inevitable advance of mediocrity, after the high-flying 1950s. There were
some, of principle and courage . . . although their numbers were dwindling, all too rapidly, under the grinding millstone of political conformity.

TARGETED BY THE CIA reminds us that Peter Karlow wase one of them.

I'm a fan so I think all hers are great (though her short stories don't inspire as much). When you finish you'll sit back and say "can you believe that?!" Surprise ending teaches that in life things may not always be what you think. The family dynamics and descriptions are so vivid you feel as if you have been injected with emotion

This may be the best Hospital I've read. The title is from a line by T. S. Eliot and describes the patriarch of a family, Edward Carpenter, a retired school principal. The novel is set in a small town in Massachusetts around 1990 (though written in 1983)when Edward's wife is planning their fiftieth wedding anniversary party. She will invite of course, in addition to friends and former colleagues, their three children; Victoria, who is in a mental institution; Jason, a therapist in New York and Emily, a concert violinist living in England, along with her eight year old son Adam, whom her father Edward has never seen and didn't know existed until three years ago when Emily gave her first concert in the United States.

The novel is all about families: how easily we as family members hurt each other; what happens when we don't forgive one other; the awfulness of hypocrisy; how we can redeem ourselves; that we can never really know our parents; that though we travel far away, we never get far from where we came; the roads not taken, lost opportunities; and, finally, that we never stop wanting to be loved by our family.

The plot has many unexpected twists, and there are many beautifully written, powerful scenes. In Chapter XIII Edward and Elizabeth travel to New York to hear Emily give her first concert in the U. S. This is one of the most moving passages I have read anywhere in a long time. I read and reread and read it yet again. Great fiction doesn't get better than this.

Jeanne Manning has compiled hundreds of participant interviews and letters involving men and women of many nationalities, on both sides of the conflict, front-line and home-front, officers and enlisted personnel, refugees, partisans--all with fascinating stories to tell. A Time to Speak is an impressive record of human experience. Want the real flavor of those years?Here it is. H.G. Eldridge Boulder, Colorado

A Time To Speak is a wonderful and comprehensive collection of interviews with those whose lives were touched by World War II. The book presents personal accounts from all sides and perspectives, from a woman involved in the French resistance to a prisoner of war who spent months in a Japanese prison camp; from a young Jewish girl who fled Poland and the horrors of the Holocaust to an American professor working on the Manhattan Project. The author has created an incredible collection of thoughts, memories, and first-hand experiences from those who survived the war. At a time when we are beginning to lose many valued members of that brave generation, A Time To Speak is an important and invaluable personal and historical account of World War II.

After I read the lastest page, that Strangler fairy zapped me and I forgotted everything, including my good memory. Now I'm a dumb a** MORON like Timmy's Mommy and Daddy! Be carefill...Make shure a stupid person reads this, because looseing a memory that never exists is better than looseing a smart mind!

I purchased this book for myself recently and i have to say it had me laughing from front to back cover! A definite must have!