In the Robert Fulghum tradition but without the Fulghum bite, 52 little essays on life's little wonders, by a rabbi from Westchester, New York. Tripp Street is where the Wolk family's 1861 farmhouse can be found, and most of the pieces here revolve around life on the homestead. Wolk opens with his arrival there (``Moving Day''), when God's presence descended in the form of G.O.D., a.k.a. Guaranteed Overnight Delivery, a furniture van dropping off a bed and a quilt from Bloomingdale's. After this epiphany, Wolk declares that ``I no longer search for God in esoteric texts or lofty places. Now I search closer to home and find what I am seeking in earthly realms.'' The other 51 pieces follow the same ironclad pattern: snappy opening (``The past lies in an ashtray on my desk''; ``In the beginning God created the heavens, the earth, and the floorboards''); laid-back exposition; and sentimental clichÇs at the end. Wolk writes of book-collecting (``even when we move we take the past''); his 95-year-old neighbor (``we grow old by not growing''); snow (``if only we could understand that each new morning holds the crystal flakes of promise''). Removing a gutter, he finds that ``the past slides away, never to reappear. Only the nails remain.'' Struggling with an Adirondack chair kit, he wonders ``why should they be any easier to assemble than anything else spilling casually out of the carton of my life?'' Other pieces deal with tag sales; new eyeglasses; cracks between floorboards; fax machines; deer; ``The Quiet Hour'' (sixty minutes of reading before sleep, when one listens to ``the language of silence''); and lots of ``Days'': Human Contact Day, Weeding Day, Recycling Day, Earth Day. The delivery is gentle, the message upbeat, the aftereffects nil: fizzy spiritual snacks that evanesce in memory.
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-671-74771-1
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1992
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.
A compendium of charts, time lines, lists and illustrations to accompany study of the Bible.
This visually appealing resource provides a wide array of illustrative and textually concise references, beginning with three sets of charts covering the Bible as a whole, the Old Testament and the New Testament. These charts cover such topics as biblical weights and measures, feasts and holidays and the 12 disciples. Most of the charts use a variety of illustrative techniques to convey lessons and provide visual interest. A worthwhile example is “How We Got the Bible,” which provides a time line of translation history, comparisons of canons among faiths and portraits of important figures in biblical translation, such as Jerome and John Wycliffe. The book then presents a section of maps, followed by diagrams to conceptualize such structures as Noah’s Ark and Solomon’s Temple. Finally, a section on Christianity, cults and other religions describes key aspects of history and doctrine for certain Christian sects and other faith traditions. Overall, the authors take a traditionalist, conservative approach. For instance, they list Moses as the author of the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Hebrew Bible) without making mention of claims to the contrary. When comparing various Christian sects and world religions, the emphasis is on doctrine and orthodox theology. Some chapters, however, may not completely align with the needs of Catholic and Orthodox churches. But the authors’ leanings are muted enough and do not detract from the work’s usefulness. As a resource, it’s well organized, inviting and visually stimulating. Even the most seasoned reader will learn something while browsing.
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2005
ISBN: 978-1-5963-6022-8
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
This a book of earlier, philosophical essays concerned with the essential "absurdity" of life and the concept that- to overcome the strong tendency to suicide in every thoughtful man-one must accept life on its own terms with its values of revolt, liberty and passion. A dreary thesis- derived from and distorting the beliefs of the founders of existentialism, Jaspers, Heldegger and Kierkegaard, etc., the point of view seems peculiarly outmoded. It is based on the experience of war and the resistance, liberally laced with Andre Gide's excessive intellectualism. The younger existentialists such as Sartre and Camus, with their gift for the terse novel or intense drama, seem to have omitted from their philosophy all the deep religiosity which permeates the work of the great existentialist thinkers. This contributes to a basic lack of vitality in themselves, in these essays, and ten years after the war Camus seems unaware that the life force has healed old wounds... Largely for avant garde aesthetes and his special coterie.
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 1955
ISBN: 0679733736
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1955
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