HAVE YOU EVER ASKED YOURSELF, “THERE HAS TO BE MORE?”

Name: HAVE YOU EVER ASKED YOURSELF, “THERE HAS TO BE MORE?”
Author: Dianne Brizendine
ISBN: 978-1-973600-97-8

by Dianne Brizendine ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 27, 2017

An appealingly urgent view of the way Christians can sanctify their relationship with God.

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A debut Christian guide explores the redemptive power of the Holy Spirit.

John the Baptist in the Gospel of Matthew warns his followers not to mistake him for the one who’s coming. John baptizes people with water, but the Messiah will use the Holy Spirit and fire. In her slim handbook, Brizendine concentrates on this prediction as a promise and a way for her fellow fundamentalist Christians to conduct their own faith journeys. She urges them to take the risk of accepting the Holy Spirit into their own lives, even if that prospect frightens them. The “fiery furnace” of the Holy Spirit is their friend, she writes: “We should not fear it but embrace it.” In this engaging manual, she tells many stories from her own walk of faith and from the odyssey of a friend and mentor, who likewise had some dramatic personal encounters with the Holy Spirit. Brizendine does a remarkably smooth job of integrating the ordinary world into these tales of spiritual exultation. The sense that spiritual experiences are somehow walled off from everyday life (a common split vision in faith memoirs of this kind) is never present in these pages. Rather, this is a working-world, real-time urging on the author’s part for her readers to feel the “unquenchable, eternal, life-preserving” fire of the Holy Spirit in their own lives. Christians are in a transition period, she assures her audience, between the “law to grace” initiated by Jesus and the arrival of the kingdom of heaven. In her view, the fire of the Holy Spirit is provided as a source of strength for the faithful. In clear and enthusiastic prose, she often encourages her readers to embrace the full force of their religious beliefs. “You are a child of God,” she writes. “He has placed a powerful anointing on you and in you, and he wants to release it through you.”

An appealingly urgent view of the way Christians can sanctify their relationship with God.

Pub Date: Oct. 27, 2017

ISBN: 978-1-973600-97-8

Page Count: 56

Publisher: Westbow Press

Review Posted Online: June 6, 2018

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

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NUTCRACKER

by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996

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This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)

Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996

ISBN: 0-15-100227-4

Page Count: 136

Publisher: Harcourt

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER AND THE MOUSE KING
by E.T.A. Hoffmann ; adapted by Natalie Andrewson ; illustrated by Natalie Andrewson

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER
by E.T.A. Hoffmann & illustrated by Julie Paschkis

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TO THE ONE I LOVE THE BEST

EPISODES FROM THE LIFE OF LADY MENDL (ELSIE DE WOLFE)

by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955

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An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.