Kansas Books

Whenever I take a short vacation I take this book with me. It is always a pleasure to read a piece of it--like biting a piece from a candy bar. The author is a major scholar in the field of aesthetics of environment, so the credibility of the author is an established fact. The book contains a rich stream of ideas about aesthetics, environment, landscape, architecture, nature, and alike. Also in the book, the continuity and unity of human and built environments and nature are overarching principles; the engagement of body with environment is seen as essential; and architectural entities, landscape, and environment are all extensions of eachother. It is a delightful book for landscape, architecture, and environment folks as well as anybody who likes to read in these fields.

While Gene Williams has written "Living in the Zoo and Loving It!" as a book of encourgament for other members of the clergy, a layperson, or a potential reader not even connected with organized religion, shouldn't pass up this honest revelation from the heart of a an man who obviously loves being in the ministry.

From his humble beginnings in Nashville, through the years of pastoring a large Midwestern church, Dr. Williams' writing style is accessable and transparent. He allows the reader to view blunders and lean times not often announced from pulpits.

The book, while full of practical wisdom, rides on entertaining adecdotes including family experiences as he and his late wife, Bettye raised five children in parsonages, sometimes at poverty level. His love for his congregations is also evident, although he doens't gloss over problems and tensions that sometimes occure between a pastor and his members.

Encouraged by his present wife, Joyce, Pastor Williams has written an entertaining little book full of gems of everyday wisdom, not always found in Seminary classes. "Living in the Zoo..." provides a fine read whether you consider yourself religious or not.

Cat Smith takes a whimsical story and adds incredible depth through her fantastic artwork. Each illustration is like a high-quality painting rather than a typical book illustration. My young son was captivated by the artwork, especially Smith's energetic faces and movements. I highly recommend this book, as well as any other Cat-Smith-illustrated books (i.e., Feliciana Feydra LaRoue), to anyone!

i have always loved LMA's books, this is a lovely addition to my books.
the patterns are clear and novel. it's a good buy.

This book isn't what you'd expect. A cartoon book of Jeremiah and gang, but as anyone who grew up in the Nazarene Church in the 1980s, we couldn't wait for Jeremiah's weekly adventures. A fun book that reminded me of the days we would read our Sunday School papers during church announcemnts to see what Jeremiah was up to that week! Doesn't have dating advice, but is a fun read!

I hope that many people will read this wonderful collection of short stories. This book deserves to be picked up by reviewers and widely diseminated. The stories are varied, from humorous to deep and heartfelt accounts of humans trying to make meaning of their lives, whether in the American West, Rwanda, or WW II Europe.
Naomi Benaron is a gifted writer. She is truly deserving of the G.S.Sharat Chandra Prize for Short Fiction and I am most appreciative that this award brought "Love Letters From a Fat Man" to my attention.

Martin offers a philosophically rigorous yet highly accessible argument for the importance of developing the various virtues found in a robust notion of love. Martin argues that love encompasses a wide variety of virtue-structured ways in which persons value each other as having irreplaceable worth. In short, love is "a virtue-structured way to value persons" (1).

Although there are a variety of loves, Martin chooses to examine erotic love, defined as love involving sexual desires and monogamous marriage. By marriage, he means moral relationships involving sexual desires and long-term commitments to one's partner. His purpose in writing the book is to clarify the role of moral values in understanding this kind of love. This is a book that provides internal justification for marital love by examining the moral dimensions of love that make it desirable insofar as love's virtues are imbedded in marriage.

The book is divided into ten chapters, each of which, except the first, addresses particular virtues of love. The first chapter, "Love and Morality," is one of the most important, because it frames the issues that the author highlights throughout the remainder of the work. Martin argues that love is internally related to morality: "Moral values define love as ways to value persons" (10). The notion of morality that he proposes is pluralistic insofar as Martin realizes that people have differing conceptions of moral ideals of goodness. These moral values enter into the very meaning of love by structuring love's relationships and shaping its experiences. In short, virtues and ideals enter into defining what love is.

Martin believes that moral philosophies and prominent ethical theories have failed to give love its proper place. Those moral theories that presuppose an impartiality paradigm give little attention to the preferential treatment that love often calls for. In proposing his own moral philosophy, Martin affirms an ethical pluralism that acknowledges objective value, affirms liberty and tolerance of diversity, and underscores the moral significance of personal caring relationships. "Love encompasses a variety of virtue-guided and virtue-structured ways to value persons. Understood within a pluralistic perspective, love makes possible morally creative forms of shared caring" (31).

In examining the particular virtues that shape and partly define love, Martin begins with the virtue of caring. According to him, caring is the central virtue that defines love. It is central partly when it has good motives and intended objects, partly because it tends to produce good consequences, and partly because of its connections with other virtues. The object of genuine love is the well-being of the beloved together with the shared well-being of two lovers. This means that love that interweaves altruism and self-interest; in fact, Martin claims that it fuses them. "Love transcends the dichotomy between eros and agape by creating motives to promote the shared good of two or more people" (39). The caring involved in genuine love is "directed toward persons in their full individuality, motivated in part by a concern for their well-being intending with any luck to produce good consequences" (42). Caring is expressed in, conditioned on, enhanced or limited by, and in general interwoven with other virtues within a complex moral tapestry" (42).

For the remainder of the book, Martin examines by chapter the following virtues: faithfulness, sexual fidelity, respect, fairness, honesty, wisdom, courage and gratitude. Regarding the virtue of fairness, Martin argues that neither mutual consent nor 50-50 distribution of benefits and burdens is adequate for understanding fairness in terms of love. Instead, Martin advocates the idea of equal autonomy as the primary love criterion of fairness. Martin notes, however, that "although love is never entirely selfless, love includes a willingness to make sacrifices on behalf of one's spouse" (116). Love intertwines the good of two people. Love contains elements of benevolence without being a disinterested altruism: it blends the self-interest of two persons so as to transcend the distinction between selflessness and selfishness.

With regards to the virtue of wisdom, Martin argues that wisdom is primarily understanding what love is, including love's requirements, constituent values, and contributions to meaningful life. Wisdom is "knowing how to care for the person we love and putting that knowledge into practice" (147). "Knowing how to love implies knowing how to be honest, how to be faithful by establishing mutual commitment and arrangements reasonably designed to protect love, how to find the courage to confront dangers to relationships, how to be fair in balancing benefits and burdens, how to show gratitude for love" (148). In sum, Martin's book is a top-notch book of moral philosophy concentrating upon love as the uniquely important touchstone for virtue ethics.

This is a short book; I wished for a few more chapters. But this little volume packs a lot into its pages.

Topics range from theology to very practical things. I especially enjoyed the chapters on building intimacy (Jim Pettitt) and the seven commitments of a marriage (David and Lisa Frisbie). Those chapters alone are worth the price of this book --- but every chapter is useful, helpful, well-written.

Great book for pastors and marriage counselors --- excellent reading for couples planning to marry. Five stars!

Barbara Sheldon, M.S.W.
I also highly recommend: Happily Remarried: Making Decisions Together * Blending Families Successfully * Building a Love That Will Last

It's really a shame this book is out of print, as it is just as good as the more famous Ambrose books. The reason "The Making of a Paratrooper" reads so well is that Kurt Gabel was a paratrooper and participant in everything he describes...something Ambrose can't claim. His is a light, easy style of prose that reads easily, yet conveys the emotions, both high and low, of war. Friends blown to pieces or shot in the head right next to you. Moments of hilarity and joy...or the abject misery of fighting in hellish conditions. It's all here, from the beginnings in the tough jump school--it's amazing how hard these men trained--to the bloody European battlefields. All I can say is, this book pulls you in and keeps you there in a way that few tomes do. It is well worth the purchase. I might also add that Dr. William Mitchell, a paratrooper in the same Airborne outfit as Kurt Gabel and who wrote the final chapter of "The Making of a Paratrooper," was my political science professor at the University of Oregon in Eugene. He still proudly wears his paratrooper beret.

Dr. Long's book about Mapp V. Ohio is an engaging and insightful look into this Supreme Court case that set precedent for many in the future.
Long's use of both primary and secondary sources contributes to a fascinating reading.
I particularly like the section of the book that focuses on the aftermath of the case. it highlights why this case was so important. If you are interested in historic court cases, interpretation of the Constitution, or the evolution of civil liberties, I strongly recommend this book.