Book Description
Proving prayer to be as valid and vital a healing tool as drugs or surgery, the bestselling author of Meaning & Medicine and Recovering the Soul offers a bold integration of science and spirituality.
Customer Reviews:
This book literally hit me over the head.......2007-06-14
This book DID literally hit me over the head - in a book shop! I was browsing through the books and this novel fell off the top shelf landing on my head before it hit the floor. At the time I was more interested in the books I had under my arm so I placed it back on the shelf....but 6 months later I regretted that decision and trackedit down.
I have a large interest in Avalon - I find that era particularily fascinating and this book was a great insight but more importantly it was just a great read about one womens journey and connection to Avalon. There are so few books like this around (that I can find) - I am grateful this one smacked me over the head to be noticed, lol!
Appreciated by someone younger also.......2007-04-04
This book was appreciated from perspective of a younger woman also, so not only midlife women will enjoy! Made me think!
Put it all together for me.......2007-01-22
I just read this book as I approach my 60th birthday and am having some discomfort with reaching that age. I had read Crones Don't Whine several years ago also by this author, but didn't connect it when I purchased Crossing to Avalon.
I found this book so interesting, enlightening, and helpful that it will go on the shelf with other books I lend out but always want back. I was able to connect the Goddess ideas with the Jungian archetypes and then directly to how I feel personally in a more direct way than with any previous books I've read. I would highly recommend this book. I'm not sure if it would have made the same great impression on me if I hadn't earlier done some reading on these subjects.
Mythos for Women.......2006-08-26
Crossing to Avalon is part of the Goddess Movement that many women are finding after being raised in male-dominated religions such as Judaism, Christianity and Islam. The Goddess of Ms. Bolen is almost a material, earthy Person as opposed to the spiritual sky God. The author makes several interesting points about opening oneself to Spirit and accepting the Body as sacred as a monstrance or a shrine. Other reviewers have given their opinions on the strengths of this book, so I will not repeat them here.
The book has many of the same weaknesses as others in the Goddess genre. Avalon posits that before the horrible men got into power and forced their horrible male gods on us, everyone worshipped a Goddess figure and celebrated female things like menstruation, menopause, birth, etc. There was little violence and women ruled over men with their profound wisdom and magic powers.
It does not bother Ms. Bolen, who is a psychiatrist, that there was no writing from these times and therefore no way to really know what the people said or did about almost anything. Feminist spirituality devotees can write a novel about a little figurine that looks like a pregnant (or perhaps obese) female and turn it into the Venus of Willendorf. Reality on the historical front is not as important as creating a misanthropic mythology that puts the Female front and center. I doubt Ms. Bolen would be as open-minded about the medical information she reads in psychiatric review journals. She would want footnotes and facts and testing done, something that is not a part of Goddess History.
I found Ms. Bolen's musings on pregnancy, birth, breast feeding, and menstruation to be fanciful. I doubt that it was "patriarchy" that decided to call menstruation "the curse." I imagine it was coined by women who were sick and tired of bloating and cramping every single month and feeling exhausted and bitchy. There is a reason the birth control pill that allows a woman to bleed only once or twice a year is wildly popular. A lot of male-created religions have menstrual taboos and I used to think they were ridiculous until I thought, "perhaps women started them to give us an excuse to take a break once a month. 'Make dinner? I'm on my period; you know I can't touch your food/go to the mosque/have sex with you for a week!'"
Ms. Bolen's ideology of Body as Sacred ignores that it is our Body that we have in common with every other mammal, and it is only our Minds that have evolved beyond them. A dog menstruates, gives birth, and suckles. It is precisely our Body that gives us a disadvantage to men -- before antibiotics and hospital births, women died years and years before men. Before chemical birth control a woman could expect to become pregnant every year until menopause, and traditional families all over the world had more kids than you can count with your fingers. Before formula, children sometimes died because their mothers did not make enough milk to sustain them. Women are on the average smaller, weaker, and slower than men. This sort of feminist spirituality seems to take what makes us vulnerable to "patriarchal oppression" and celebrate it. It reminds me of Buffy the Vampire, where anorexic Sarah Michelle Gellar would fight off males who could have snapped her neck in a second and not broken a sweat. THAT is the reality of the female body.
I admit that I hold to an Aristotelian view of the Primacy of the Mind and not the Body, and I am not an epiphenominalist as I think Jean Bolen appears to be. This influences the way I read books like this. I get the impression as I read that Ms. Bolen is soooo spiritual that she can miss that "sometimes a cigar is just a cigar." Women consoling each other becomes a Goddess infusion in her mind, rather than the very physical brain response that people and animals get when touched and comforted. The fact that the author is a psychiatrist interests me, since she does not appear to hold that emotions and responses are related to a physical brain but are instead part of a numinous Thing that lives within us, perhaps the Goddess.
I am a man, watch me roar (if I have to I can do anything - I am stong, I am invincible...I am mannnnnnn).......2006-02-21
You know, I have to say - this book is awesome - especially if you are a woman.
I am not.
I am reading this as a women's studies requirement at a "womens centered" university I attend (what can I say?).I am struggling to read this book and find parallels to the male journey... argh. If you are a guy, skip this!
I know all of you are going to click on the "no" helpful voting button for this review - I don't care.CLICK IT TWICE FOR ALL I GIVE A RATS TUSHY. I just spent more than 800 bucks AND WASTED 3 MONTHS OF MY LIFE to take this class called the 'Psychology of Women' that took me on a womans mid life spiritual quest. Men, stay away from this book. Women, bare your teeth and vote NO to this review because I am evil. Thank you.
Book Description
This first book by Pulitzer Prize winner Alice Steinbach is an intimate, personal collection of essays, rememberances, and columns that follows in the creative non-fiction tradition of Anna Quindelen and Mary Sarton.
Customer Reviews:
A Book To Keep.......2007-07-12
I had read and liked her "Without Reservations" and "Educating Alice." This collection of her columns did not disappoint and I kept going back to re-read what I thought of as hidden gems or things to think about in regard to my own life.
Great Book!.......2006-08-18
Alice Steinbach is a great writer! I have enjoyed each one of her books and this was no exception.
A book to be shared.......2003-06-17
I purchased this book because I had enjoyed 'Without Reservations' so much. I often share books with my closest friend. By the time I had read the introduction and the first few pages, I knew it would not be enough to simply have her read it when I was done. I knew we had to read it together, taking turns reading it aloud (a new experience for us). Steinbach's musings on everyday life are insightful, laugh-out-loud funny, poignant, a true delight. I plan to buy several copies for Christmas gifts.
Customer Reviews:
lifechanging.......2007-06-11
I was lucky enough to read this book when it came out; it was assigned reading for an "Intro to Feminism" class. It's hard now to remember how different the workplace/culture/homelife/sexual mores in the U.S. were when this book was written. At the time, I lent it to a couple of friends; one returned it saying, "Don't give this book to a woman who's having trouble with her marriage." The ideas, and the possibilities, were too disturbing.
Invaluable snapshot of American culture circa 1970.
Compelling and provacative.......2000-08-18
When first published in 1970, this book was a manifesto for a generation of women. Although it has not been updated since, it demonstrates how far we've come and what is the next step for women. Uneven style and tone of writing give this unquestionable realness not often found in more contemporary feminist anthologies.
To read this book is to spiral back in time to a place where information on borth control was hard to obtain, abortion was a back alley reality, equal pay for equal work was never enforced, sexual harassment (which is not mentioned) rape and assault were life's little dirty secrets, and title IX was not yet reality.
If the text often seems frenzied and uncompromising, remember what all they were up against. Sexism had been so entrenched, both laws and culture needed to be chaged. Socialization plays a big part in sexism.
Lest such derogatory attitudes be assigned to the domininant society, a couple of groups in the counterculture are also faulted as well. These unenlightened attitudes in SDS and SNCC often formed the impetus for the women's liberation movement, although there was some genuine equality between the sexes within various chapters.
Unfortunately, this was the exception to the rule. Groups that understood the evils of violence and subordination made light of rape and assault when directed at women.The advent of the pill meant women who did not want to sleep with their comrades had severe hangups.
The women's liberation movement was instrumental (to a greater extent than early mainstream groups) in identifying and naming sexual self determination and violence against women.
Those who have been previously versed in women's history will find this a who's who book of second wave (the first, of course being the suffragists, and the third being generation X) activists. From Robin Morgan amd to Alix Kates Schluman, Kate Millet, Mary Daly, Lindsey Van Gelder, Marge Piercy and Eleanor Holmes Norton, there is an impressive list of activists. Excluding the deranged Valire Solanis (later convicted of shooting Andy Warhol) most of the contributors are articulate, intellegent and therefore inspiring. Since she did little to promote the women's movement, one must question her inclusion in the anthology. Certainly, it would have reinforced negative sterotypes about women who are involved in the feminist movement, thereby reducing it to spectacle.
Missing is Gloria Steinem who did not not enter national conciousness until the advent of Ms magazine---although her New York oppion column "After Black power,women's liberation" could have been included. Steinem also wrote one of the most riveting articles on Abortion law hearings during 1969. Even though she would later be the target of much suspcion among many of these women, Steinem's role in the women's movement remains undisputed. Ironically, Morgan would assume editorship of Ms magazine years later
Because the book has not been republished or reedited, it is more for the committed activist and historian than newcommers. Although many of the breakthroughs for women have of course occured, references to names, events and places no longer carry the same punch. It is still a necessary addition to any feminist's library.
Amazon.com
With subtlety and great eloquence, Carolyn Heilbrun shows how, throughout the centuries, those who write about women's lives--biographers andautobiographers--have suppressed the truth of the female experience, in order to make the "written life" conform to the expectations of what that life should be. Heilbrun also examines literature's silence on such vital topics as friendship between women, the female physical experience, and the richness that often imbues a women's later years. Recommended reading for everyone, especially women and writers.
Book Description
"Astute and provocative....Blends the sophistication of recent feminist theory with highly textured details fro the lives of independent and ambitious women."
THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
Drawing on the experience of celebrated women, from George Sand and Virginia Woolf to Dorothy Sayers and Adrienne Rich, Heilbrun examines the struggle these writers undertook when their drives made it impossible for them to follow the traditional "male" script for a woman's life. Refreshing and insightful, this is an homage to brave women past and present, and an invitation to all women to write their own scripts, whatever they may be.
Customer Reviews:
Revisiting women's lives.......2004-01-03
The best respect we can pay the dead, I believe, is to honor the work they did. When I learned of Heilbrun's death last month, I turned to her books--the mysteries she wrote as Amanda Cross and the literary and cultural criticism she published under her own name. The first time I read Writing a Woman's Life was my junior or senior year in college. I was already familiar with feminist literary criticism, but Heilbrun's thesis was new to me: that even extraordinary women who wrote of how women were entrapped by society had not managed to record, in fiction or biography, how they themselves had defied its dictates; that women's biographies were still characterized by "becoming modesty," with success attributed to luck rather than ambition.
I am more critical of some aspects of Heilbrun's argument now (in particular, I find that her heterocentrism makes her an imperceptive observer of the marriages of lesbian and bisexual writers), but eight years later, parts that seemed irrelevant then strike me more now. Heilbrun writes of many women writers who found their voices and their own particular art much later than their male counterparts: Willa Cather, Dorothy Sayers, Virginia Woolf. The youth of many women writers of the past, she argues, were devoted to struggling with and sometimes conforming to female gender roles; freed from these expectations by age and experience, they could begin to write something new.
What is most compelling to me is Heilbrun's insistence on re-envisioning women's lives--on attempting to view them anew, in all their crooked detail, rather than smoothing out their outlines to conform to the stories she's been taught to expect.
Literature and art get the eternal present: Carolyn Heilbrun is still talking to me. I'm still talking back.
Thought Provoking........2001-06-10
I know that's a cheesy title, but it is so true. I had to read this for a Women Writers class, and I had a hard time getting through the prologue. But once I did, I could not put the book down. Heilbrun had many points that just kept me thinking, and the more I thought about them, the more angry I'd become. Her theories on women's biographies are very true. It is hard to find one where the woman is not painted as a housewife saint void of passionate emotions. It is only in recent years that biographers, mainly female biographers, are writing more and more three dimensional stories of women writers. My best friend from high school just turned 21, and for her birthday I bought her a copy of this book. I lent my copy to a male friend who is spending his summer volunteering in Costa Rica. I am making my boyfriend read this as well. Her thoughts on the reputation of women writers, marriage, and women writing of themselves leave you thinking for weeks. I highly recommend that every woman read this, and make your significant other read it as well. It's hard getting used to the thesis format, but once you do, it is well worth it.
Powerful book . . . It will change your life........1999-02-01
This book set my heart and soul on fire. Carolyn's words ring out with truth and emotion that cannot be held inside.
A Must-Read for Women.......1998-10-22
Since I first read this book over 10 years ago, I think I must have purchased more than 15 copies--some for myself and others to give to other people, that's how strongly I felt about it. It is important how we see the importance of writing our lives, how they have been mis-written, mis-understood, and mis-read for a very long time. Dr. Heilbrun is clear, straight-forward, and to the point in her observations. For such a slender volume, it has an awful lot to say.
Amazon.com
This book brings together more than fifty contemporary voices: women like Pam Houston, Gretel Ehrlich, Barbara Grizzuti Harrison, and Robyn Davidson tell their wide-ranging tales and share their humor and courage.
Book Description
This illustrated collection of inspirational travel and adventure tales includes stories by Gretel Ehrlich, Barbara Grizzuti Harrison, Helen Thayer, Mary Morris, and more. Readers ride across the steppes of Mongolia on horseback with Lynn Ferrin; experience a spiritual awakening with Jean Shinoda Bolen at Chartres Cathedral; raft a wild jungle river in Borneo with a menopausal Tracy Johnston; and join Pam Houston as she weathers a blizzard while camping in the Utah mountains. Spanning the generations with travel stories about the rewards of risk taking and making dreams a reality, A Woman's World is the winner of the Lowell Thomas Gold Medal for Best Travel Book.
Customer Reviews:
Wow - prepare to be inspired.......2003-02-03
This book is amazing. With a full-time job and a toddler, I need a book I can pick up and read a little at a time. I found myself thinking about this book all day and pouring through it each night. I love to travel, but haven't been able too as much as I'd like in recent years. This book not only makes me feel as though I've been on an adventure - several! - but it has inspired me to make mental notes of where I will be off to on my next trip. The great thing about the stories is the feeling that with a little motivation, any reader could be the next to take a trip and write a story. A great pick-me-up, there's-so-much-out-there-to-experience, carpe-diem, kick-in-the-patooty book! I highly recommend it.
Hokey and cliched........2001-06-05
I bought this book to accompany me on a long trip, and wished I hadn't. The stories are very similar to each other, with platitudes of the 'my eyes met with the old woman in the rice paddy, and something wordless was exchanged' variety. I know there are better examples out there: why couldn't the editor find them?
Step out of your comfort zone.......2001-05-13
Ride a horse through China. Trek in Nepal. Ride on the back of a motorcycle from California to Northeast Canada. These women are adventurous... yet are normal women with real fears. After reading this book you'll have the courage to be more independent and challenge-seeking. The stories range from the thrill-seekers (think African safari) to conservative travellers (such as going to Gatlinburg for a weekend with the girls)...but illustrates that stepping out of your comfort zone means different things to different women. It's the effort that counts.
The Best of the Best.......2000-07-26
In a hurry, I pulled this gem off the shelf and took it to work for lunch time adventures. Inside of a page I realized I'd read it a couple of years ago, but I never turned back. Bond collected no near misses; every story in this volume is outstanding. Its full of longing, rough and tumble, sensitive bonding, self-realization, hilarious mix-ups, reality checkpoints, stark terror and pain, transcendance, and pride of achievement--all crammed into a heavy volume you don't want to end. Read it. Read it again.
Armchair Travel.......1999-06-30
I cannot begin to describe the kind of armchair travel this book put me through. I felt like I was traveling places not knowing where I would end up next. At the turn of a page where would I land? It was sensational. I plan to read many more travel books because of this one. Because I am only thirteen I also plan to see where on this wonderful globe my heart takes me. It's because of this book that I have such hopes and dreams.
Book Description
Beloved by readers and critics nationwide, The Woman at the Washington Zoo collects Marjorie Williams's brilliant writings-from sharp political profiles to witty commentary on gender and family life to tender, intensely personal explorations of illness and loss. A Washington Post columnist and contributing editor at Vanity Fair, Marjorie wrote political portraits that came to be considered the final word on the capital's most powerful figures. She also wrote essays for Slate, the Post's op-ed page and other publications that extended beyond politics to tackle topics at once broader and more intimate, including "Hit by Lightning," Williams's memoir of her battle against fourth-stage liver cancer. In "The Alchemist" Williams paints a heartbreaking portrait of her own mother at middle age that follows a winding path from the culinary arts to love, infidelity, admiration, and sorrow. Throughout the book Williams writes with a blend of candor, humor, and grace that was uniquely her own. This splendid collection provides a window into Washington's political elite, the messy lives that the rest of us lead, and-perhaps most powerfully-Williams herself.
Customer Reviews:
4.5 stars: the best are very, very good.......2007-05-14
I used to read Marjorie Williams in the Washington Post, and was reminded of her work when her exceptionally moving essay "Hit by Lightning" was in a "best of" book by multiple authors. It was so good that I simply had to read this collection of only her work.
The finest essays and profiles here are wonderful. The writing is outstanding, and ranges from great insight to humor and sadness and to the biting remark that takes down somebody famous a notch or two.
My favorites were (besides "Hit by Lightning"):
- "The Alchemist", a previously unpublished profile of her mother. What an exploration of a mother's relationship to her daughter and (presumably) perceptive view of her mother's life!
- "Scenes from a Marriage" - oh, my, how it drills into the relationship between Clinton and Gore, after the 2004 election and back into their time in office. This essay was justifiably well-known.
- "Bill Clinton, Feminist" - Ms. Williams shreds the feminists who defended President Clinton in his sexual escapades, while disregarding the women involved. She doesn't even break a sweat. Brutal and delightful reading.
- "The Halloween of My Dreams" - her final column, about her daughter's Halloween, the last Halloween Ms. Williams would see.
- The profiles of Jeb Bush and Barbara Bush, both of which offered fresh insights and information.
- Of the columns, many of which are first rate, I particularly liked the one on Princess Diana's death (I'm not sure why, to be honest) and one on assisted suicide.
The book actually got off to a slow start for me. The first two profiles were relatively dated and uninteresting, and the third, on Richard Darman, was wonderfully crafted, but I found myself not that curious about someone who moved rapidly into footnote status. However, Darman's profile had one of the best lines in the entire book: "As always, the vapor of self-certainty leaks off him like rocket fuel". Didn't these people know who they were up against in Marjorie Williams?
The short columns included are mostly very good, yet they also suffer from the usual fate of newspaper columns, in that they don't age that well, as the topic in hand often quickly becomes old news. Ms. Williams is far from alone in that fate, of course, so some of these pieces serve as a reminder of past news to reconsider with hindsight and contemplate what has happened since.
Learned to read.......2007-05-13
This book made me realize how painful it could be to at sometimes for the lack of a better word be a " dubmass " It took me a lot of brushing up on my reading skills to fully appreceiate this book and it was very insightfull just as the other books that were recomened to me to be read if I liked this one were. It also taught me that caring=sharing which can cause mass confusion sometimes to people who need to improve there reading skills which in turn = understanding and then ultimatly joy and happiness for many years to come. However this just could be a hopeful thought, but I would like to think it holds true for all readers especially the ones that would enjoy reading A year of Magical Thinking, where I think it says something about country boys being of big hearts are stubborn and rarely give up on anything.
Sharp and sassy, sweet and sentimental--wonderful stories.......2007-03-09
No, this isn't about the typical zoon--but about the "Zoo" that is Washington, D.C.
Marjorie Williams, a journalist for the Washington Post, had a sense of unrelenting refusal to deal with just the surface reality--but find the truth beneath.
Sitting here in the Midwest, some of these stories, some of the people are not players we hear about every day, but some were.
Marjorie and Tim Noah (Senior writer for Slate) were married in 1990. In 2001, happy and healthy, Marjorie discovered a lump in her lower abdomen and after much effort, died in 2005 from liver cancer at the age of 47. Tim has selected what he feels are her most revealing columns written about politicians, the shakers and movers of Washington's social ad business life, and about her family.
As an outsider I enjoyed reading about insiders like Ambassador Lucky Roosevelt and her long marriage, and other characters that made good reading.
Jennifer Senior, New York Times Book Review said, "Williams was a crowbar, prying great quotes from her sources, and she found herself face to face with rather intimate details of their life."
So true, whether she was writing about Bill and Hillary, the couple that always give us something to talk about, her own illness, her mother's illness, or her children--her observations were always sharp and often sweet.
Some of my favorites were her most personal stories, like The Cat Race about how she was "going to raise her children," that is, until she actually had children. This felt very familiar.
The Art of Fake (and Useful) Apology, (in the news again as I write this) used by politicians reminds us that this happens far too often.
With another Presidential campaign heating up, Williams takes us back to 1992 when Al Gore was running for President (without hitching his star to Clinton). Her article, "Scenes from a Marriage" is about that time, and the end of that "marriage" and the not-too-obvious divorce of Clinton and Gore.
Sadly the world will never again read about current events from her.
Armchair Interviews says: This book was a New York Times Bestseller.
Could not put it down.......2006-09-29
Really two books. One, a series of pieces about inside Washington stories, often with characters who are largely off stage but important in how things get done in the seat of empire. Rather than the usual insider's view, Ms. Williams has an extraordinarily keen eye for seeing what is there for all to see, perhaps along the lines of I.F. Stone's insistence on using only attributed sources. The second book is an account of her diagnosis and subsequent experiences with an ultimately fatal cancer, its impact on her life, outlook, work, as well and an account of her medical care.
Touching without being Treacly.......2006-09-16
I bought this book primarily because I enjoy memoir and it was represented in the media as a collection of personal essays by a woman who fought what was eventually a losing battle with cancer.
In fact, the personal essays comprise the smaller part of this collection. Most pieces are in-depth political commentary or profiles of Washington, D.C. personalities. I'm not interested in that subject matter at all.
To correct one of the other reviewers, this collection was compiled after Williams' death by her husband. It contains material that she apparently never intended to publish. But long-time fans of Williams should not fault *her* for what was and was not included in the book, since these decisions were made posthumously.
Williams was a gifted writer -- insightful, precise, and painfully honest. I enjoyed the personal essays immensely (particularly the piece about her complex relationship with her mother) and even found myself reading and enjoying the political essays.
Average customer rating:
|
Paz Marquez Benitez: One woman's life, letters, and writings
Virginia Benitez Licuanan
Manufacturer: Ateneo de Manila University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
 British
| World Literature
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
| 18th Century
| 19th Century
| 20th Century
| Classics
| Contemporary
| General
| Historical
| Humor
| Letters & Correspondence
| Middle
| Old
| Poetry
| Renaissance
| Shakespeare
| Short Stories
ASIN: 9715501869 |
Book Description
A Buddhist nun goes AWOL to roam the French countryside and discovers a wild spirituality. A hellish trip through the mountains of Peru turns mystical and offers a vision. More than just adventure, the writing in A Woman's Path shares the unforgettable moments when a journey opens a traveler's eyes and profoundly alters who she is. Around the globe and across all religions, these tales of discovery offer an uncommon look at personal transformation, whether by the trials of stolen luggage and harrowing rides or the joys of seeking out extraordinary people, places, and experiences. Inspiring and insightful, this illustrated collection invites all women to step outside their everyday lives and welcome an awakening. Contributors include Anne Lamott, Maya Angelou, Linda Ellerbee, Kim Chernin, and Natalie Goldberg, among others.
Customer Reviews:
A Path to the Inner Realm.......2005-08-27
Appropriately, "A Woman's Path," a collection of women's spiritual travel writing, was a Mother's Day gift from my daughter. I am a writer, too, frequently writing about my journeys across physical geography but equally spiritual terrain. Nothing explores us as much as our exploring of the world around us. Travel means a stretching of our personal comfort zones, as we leave our homes and our routines far behind.
In the more than 30 essays in this collection, women of a wide array of backgrounds perceive the world around them with uniquely feminine perspectives. Authors as known and respected as Anne Lammott, Maya Angelou, Natalie Goldberg, Diane Ackerman, and many others tell of their journeys, inner and outer ones, as they deal with joy, grief, discomfort, sickness, achievement, healing, and enlightenment. Destinations are as varied as Peru, India, France, Ireland, Greece, New York City, Niger, Poland, the Appalachian Trail, and others. These are women undergoing a spiritual transformation, and their travel essays take us along, to be transformed by their accounts. They take on their journeys as women and only women do, coping with societal expectations and prejudices, dealing with the fears of being a woman in the wild, finding courage when all falls down around them. As women do.
I have always believed the best training for life is to travel. Travel teaches us to stretch ourselves. Travel reveals the differences between us and everybody else, instilling understanding of the cultures varied from our own, and then again, travel soothes with the discovery of how alike we all are in our bonds of humanity, crossing all boundaries of class, culture, religion, ethnicity. Travel builds courage, as we are inevitably faced with our fears, only to overcome them. Travel connects - the traveler with the world and its inhabitants, with nature and spirit, with the divine in ourselves and outside of ourselves. The world is surely the best classroom.
If I have only one "wince" about this collection, it is the sidebar boxes interspersed throughout the essays. Each box has a clip by some other author than the one of the essay, the themes often disconnected from the main story. They drew my eye away just when I was immersed in someone's journey. I would suggest deleting them, or transforming them into epigrams prior to each essay.
"A Woman's Path," edited by Lucy McCauley, Amy G. Carlson, and Jennifer Leo, is a pilgrimage to be enjoyed by every woman who reads it, whether on the road herself, or from her armchair, traveling in spirit.
Inspired Female Prose.......2003-06-10
I had been looking for a collection of writings by female writers that could inspire and lift my spirits in these darker days. I was fortunate enough to receive "A Woman's Path" edited by Lucy McCauley, Amy G. Carlson and Jennifer Leo as a gift from a friend. What a little treasure.
With stories by Anne Lamott, Maya Angelou, Linda Ellerbee, and the editors I was struck by the purely sensitive and female perspective of these writings. I loved the sense of pilgrimage and journey and truly believe this could be that one book I keep in my backpack for those day long / week long / month long excursions I am lucky enough to take. It's travelers bible and will keep you company along your way.
Really beautiful and highly recommended!
An incredible collection of women's spiritual writing!.......2000-07-14
I was very impressed by the stories included here--Anne Lamott, Maya Angelou, Natalie Goldberg, Kim Chernin...etc. These are not dry stories about spirituality--but rather transformative tales about how these women writers are changed by their travel experiences. Very inspirational and illuminating-read this book.
An inspiring and exciting read..........2000-07-12
While looking for information, inspiration (and even a little soothing) in the travel section of the bookstore a few days ago, I picked up this book. Taking you through the highs and lows of life and traveling, it is especially wonderful for anyone who is planning to do a bit of exploring on their own. The stories speak in many different voices from many different places, but all with one strangely similar and strong spirit. It has been so enjoyable that I after I finish this review, I'm going to buy another book in the series. A beautiful collection - buy it, read it, and travel!
Customer Reviews:
Aren't titles rather hokey?.......2002-03-26
After celebrating a golden age that was hundreds of years ahead of other civilized nations, women in Japan quickly fell from the cultural vanguard they had enjoyed during the Heian and were silent throughout the succession of bakufu governments that ended with the Meiji restoration in 1868. Ichiyo is widely credited as one of the first female voices to re-emerge after this extended silence. Though her career was cut short by her early death, several of her short stories are still in wide circulation in Japan and elsewhere. The beauty of this book is that it not only includes her own writings but also a rather deftly crafted biography. It has been my experience that non-Japanophiles tend to shy away from Japanese literature for lack of understanding the culture. The inclusion of the biography in this work makes it more approachable for those wishing to delve into the world of Japanese literature without undertaking a study of Japan's history and culture.
One of the great classics of world literature.......1999-04-23
Deservedly, this 19th century's woman's writings are considered some of the greatest in the world. Robert Danly has done a wonderful job of bringing Ichiyo to us. Out of a different time and world, he has still managed to make her accessible to an English reader.
The first half of the book is devoted to biographical material about Japan's unique and memorable real-life heroine. The second half presents nine of her short stories in translation. Each story its own literary jewel.
I've read thousands of books and this is one of my most treasured.
Book Description
In
Writings to Young Women from Laura Ingalls Wilder: On Life As a Pioneer Woman, Laura tells her readers what it was like to be a pioneer in the early 1900s. Her stories and insights show us how difficult even the simplest chores or tasks were for the early pioneers, yet through it all she continued to see each situation as an adventure--as if she was truly blazing the trail for future generations.
Customer Reviews:
Work work work!.......2006-08-17
Boy I was born in the wrong era. In the 1900's they didn't have TV, Nintendo etc. They worked super hard, but also got together and helped each other. I just wish I could have been a part of that time. This is my favorite author of all time. I loved Little House on the Prairie and these books with her thoughts in them will always be cherished. I think I will purchase a set for each of my girls and give them to them when they are a bit older. I think she has such profound wisdom, your life will only be blessed if you read these books.
Books:
- Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance
- Edmund Wilson: A Life in Literature
- Eleanor of Aquitaine: A Life (Ballantine Reader's Circle)
- Emily Dickinson's Herbarium: A Facsimile Edition
- Eminent Victorians (Oxford World's Classics)
- Engineering Design: A Materials and Processing Approach
- Europa The Ocean Moon: Search For An Alien Biosphere (Springer Praxis Books / Geophysical Sciences)
- FDR
- Fear: Anti-Semitism in Poland After Auschwitz
- Finding Amelia: The True Story of the Earhart Disappearance
Books Index
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