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Books: CookBooks: Jewish Cooking
The Secret Language of Birthdays (reissue)by Gary Goldschneider and Joost Elffers List Price: $34.95 Available from Amazon $22.02 On 7-22-2006 
See Item's Page Book Description Combining astrology, numerology, and pure psychic intuition, The Secret Language of Birthdays is a wholly unique compilation that reveals one's strengths, weaknesses, and major issues while providing practical advice on spiritual guidance. It is a must have for every library and anyone even remotely interested in the dynamics of personality. About The Author Gary Goldschneider is an astrologer and coauthor of each of the books in the Secret Language series. Joost Ellfers is a book packager specializing in highly illustrated books. |
The Tummy Trilogyby Calvin Trillin List Price: $15.00 Available from Amazon $9.75 On 7-22-2006 
See Item's Page Product Review Throughout the 1970s, as he wrote the "American Journal" feature for the New Yorker, Calvin Trillin crossed and recrossed the continent. Braver than most transients, he dined in every manner of restaurant, sampling all kinds of native cuisine. He tirelessly sniffed out plain but great joints where the local people loved to eat. "[Don't take me to the] place you took your parents on their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, [but] the place you went the night you came home after fourteen months in Korea." As a result of such hard-nosed pursuit of good food, this "Walt Whitman of American eats" produced three delightful books chronicling his gastronomic journey, and they have now been collected into The Tummy Trilogy. Trillin is a marvelous writer, affable and witty under any circumstances. He's also an extremely enthusiastic eater, so the books are filled with gourmet brio. Here's a sample from the first book, American Fried:
ME: Anybody who served a milkshake like this in Kansas City would be put in jail. This book is almost as fun as tucking into a big, delicious meal (but no substitute, of course). Trillin's family, long-suffering in the face of a father's obsessions, is as winning as always. If you're a dedicated fan--or just dipping into the writing of this good-natured maestro--The Tummy Trilogy is a wonderful book. --Michael Gerber
Copyright 2001 Cahners business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Audio Cassette edition. |
To Be a Jew: A Guide to Jewish Observance in Contemporary Lifeby Hayim Halevy Donin List Price: $19.00 Available from Amazon $12.35 On 7-22-2006
See Item's Page Product Review To Be a Jew, Rabbi Hayim Halevy Donin's classic guide to Jewish life, philosophy, and law has guided generations of Americans, Europeans, and Israelis to discover the treasures of their own religious traditions. First published in 1972, the book still stands as a reliable, practical and versatile resource for everyone from young girls preparing for bat mitzvah to old men returning to their spiritual roots. The book begins with an overview of Judaism's basic credo (including chapters on Israel's people, land, God, and Torah), moves on to describe the laws governing Jews' daily lives, the Jewish calendar, and "The Special Occasions of Life" from birth to death and mourning. One great strength of To Be a Jew is its blending of folk wisdom and scholarly learning. Rabbi Donin not only describes what right belief and righteous action look like but provides a rationale for these observances that engages and embraces the basic conditions of modern life. --Michael Joseph Gross Ruth Frank & William Wollheim,Book of Jewish Books "For a general discussion of Jewish living,To Be a Jew is unexcelled. It is comprehensive and clear." |
Trapped in the Mirrorby Elan Golomb List Price: $13.95 Available from Amazon $10.74 On 7-22-2006 
See Item's Page From Library Journal It seems reasonable to expect self-help books to accomplish one of three goals: to explain behavior, to assist readers to develop their potential or to change unwanted behavior patterns, or to motivate readers. This book fails on all three counts. People who may be attracted to the concept have probably already realized that their relationship with a self-absorbed parent has caused problems, and they will not learn much else. The suggestions for change are too general to be useful, and the tone is at times spiteful and depressing. Susan Forward and Buck Craig's Toxic Parents: Overcoming Their Hurtful Legacy and Reclaiming Your Life (Bantam, 1989) covers the same topic in a more positive and helpful fashion. Not recommended. - Mary Ann Hughes, Washington State Univ. Libs., Pullman Copyright 1992 Reed business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. From Kirkus Reviews A sober study by a clinical psychologist of the destructive legacy that narcissistic parents bequeath to their children and the troubling characteristics those children share as adults. Narcissists behave, Golomb says, as if they are the center of the universe, organizing their lives around denial of negative feelings about themselves. Their children, forced to conform to parental thinking, grow up with a range of subtle emotional disabilities, most commonly a distorted view of their capacities. All too frequently this damaged sense of self-worth interferes with their search for autonomy, their performance, and with their other adult relationships. Golomb, child of a narcissistic father, gives examples from the lives of friends and patients, as well as from her own experiences, and shows how these strained views of reality can be passed along from one generation to the next or can shadow an entire family's happiness. She is particularly adept in discussing why some people persist in the most puzzling behaviors (bankrolling one lover after another, for example) and how they see and defend these patterns. Although Golomb has experimented with meditation techniques and group treatment, she finds psychoanalytic psychotherapy the most consistently helpful set of strategies and suggests ways for adults to approach narcissistic parents and to change the nature of these relationships. ``Narcissism is a tale of codependency,'' she observes. ``If we want to be treated in a different way, the change in treatment must start with how we present ourselves to [narcissists].'' Golomb writes in language more accessible to other therapists than to general readers, unleavened by humor, and without a specific agenda. But difficult as her approach may be, it's sound and ultimately rewarding as well. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. |
Two for the Road: Our Love Affair with American Foodby Jane Stern and Michael Stern List Price: $24.00 Available from Amazon $15.60 On 7-22-2006
See Item's Page From Publishers Weekly The authors of Roadfood are crazy for American local food, that often informal, inexpensive cuisine that's not especially healthy but sure is tasty. The husband-and-wife team has traveled the country since the 1970s, seeking out the sort of food found in "unlikely restaurants in small towns and off two-lane highways," which, naturally, leads to all manner of fish-out-of-water scenarios, which they relate in this endearing chronicle. The Sterns' adventures are funny, if not quite perilous; the car breaks down in Enigma, Ga.; six jugs of iced tea bought at a South Carolina restaurant leak all over the car's floor, which the Sterns don't realize until days later, when they're nearing the Mojave Desert and could really use a refreshment. Their enthusiasm is inspiring; they regularly consume 100 meals in 10 days or less, but that only makes them more passionate for road food. Their descriptions of their grail are the book's highlights: baby back ribs at Carson's, in Skokie, Ill., for instance, are "sensuously sticky with a baked-on sauce that [is] striated red-gold as if it had been painted by an artist of the Hudson River School"; caramel rolls at North Dakota's Havana Cafe are "light and fluffy, swirled with veins of caramel frosting." (May) Copyright © Reed business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Product Review Entertainment Weekly : An effervescent memoir that leaves you craving barbecue, Coca-cola and (maybe) chitlins. |
After the Ecstasy, the Laundry: How the Heart Grows Wise on the Spiritual Pathby Jack Kornfield List Price: $16.00 Available from Amazon $10.40 On 7-22-2006
See Item's Page Product Review Jack Kornfield, one of America's most beloved teachers of meditation, assures us that enlightenment does occur on the spiritual path but warns that it is not the end of the road. Bringing his thoughts to a personal level, Kornfield looks up many of the notable spiritual teachers of our times (Buddhist, Christian, Jewish, Sufi, etc.) and presents extended quotations of their trials and epiphanies. These anecdotes are woven together with fables and ruminations from Kornfield's own decades-long experience as a practitioner and teacher, creating an image of the spiritual life as challenging, multidimensional, rewarding, and, yes, mundane. In the old days in China, Zen monks were encouraged to travel for instruction under a variety of masters. Here, Kornfield introduces us to today's masters, but off their podiums, as equals. Genuine experiences of awakening, despair, fault, serious transgression, and simple childlike joy all appear as bridges on the way to the divine. After the Ecstasy, the Laundry is not just another inspirational bestseller, it is a lasting record of concrete insights forged from the fires of dedicated practice. --Brian Bruya --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. From Publishers Weekly What to do after one has achieved enlightenmentAor a flash of it? How do the problems of everyday life look different? Which, if any, go away? And what is it like to have lived for decades under a spiritual discipline? Kornfield (A Path with Heart, Teachings of the Buddha, etc.) devotes his latest volume of advice and meditation to such questions. Kornfield has been a teacher in the Theravada Buddhist tradition since the mid-1970s; he also holds a degree in clinical psychology. His methods and counsels here reflect Buddhist teachings, but he also tries hard to be ecumenical: Kornfield interviewed lamas, Buddhist elders and Zen teachers, but also Sufi masters, rabbis and Catholic nuns and monks. Anecdotes and quotations draw on Hindu mythology, medieval Christian theologians, Native American visionary traditions and even decidedly secular modern writers (e.g., Albert Camus and Sharon Olds). Bits of interviews alternate with Kornfield's own interpretations and with anecdotes and lessons drawn from sacred Scripture, anthropology and current events. A chapter about circumstantial hardships jumps from postwar Japan to America's overcrowded prisons; a noteworthy chapter on self-esteem and self-abasement vaults from William Blake to The Tassajara Bread Book. Kornfield wants to help readers attain "a welcoming spirit, to greet all that life presents to us with a wise, respectful and kindly heart." Some may find Kornfield's words vague, or self-evident: "Spiritual life involves a maturing of understanding, a continual unfolding, wherever we are." Even unsympathetic browsers, though, might enjoy the compressed life stories of the many interviewees. And the audience Kornfield envisions may well want and use his admittedly general counsel that "no matter how isolated or embattled our lives, we need one another as family, we need each other's hearts and songs to help one another find the way." That's hardly news, but isn't it the truth? (June) Copyright 2000 Reed business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. |
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