A nature mystic shares her latest series of engaging conversations with Mother Earth in this spiritual guide.
In November 2013, Cromwell (Messages From Mother…Earth Mother, 2012, etc.) received “distinct instructions” from “Mother,” the sacred being featured in her previous book, to put off her move to Washington, stay put in Maryland, and write a “Bible.” The result is this record of conversations that took place between Cromwell and Mother from January to July 2014. In the introductory chapter, “Surrender, Listen and Show Up,” Cromwell reviews her background as a nature mystic, which includes communing with Native American guides, beating a lymphoma diagnosis through alternative healing, and working as a garden designer. Then, within 37 other dated chapters showcasing the conversations that Cromwell recounts, Mother reflects on a range of topics—the value of the “Christ Consciousness” (Mother, according to the author, can “amplify it exponentially and help heal so many more animals, humans, ecosystems and more with this love energy you are directing into me”), aliens on Earth (who have good intentions, generally, and a greater understanding of the universe, although some have caused damage, including suppressing women’s power), and more. Cromwell herself tees up, echoes, or even builds on Mother’s remarks while revealing her love of chocolate, struggles with a fluctuating romance, and a reconciliation of sorts with her apparently troubled Roman Catholic childhood (with Mother noting that the Virgin Mary is indeed a female divine iteration). The narrative concludes with Mother’s rally to “Know that our Quantum Divine Love is always here for you to tap into. Always. We love you.” An embracing maternal universe is a wonderful prospect, and Cromwell brings a pleasing blend of humor and sincerity to her latest spiritual work. The chatty asides are largely amusing, with Mother and Cromwell even bantering about the latter being gassy. This gardener author would have benefited from pruning her narrative a bit, however, since the sprawling book covers subjects ranging from nuclear testing to tree spirits, ice storms, and sustainability. Still, there is plenty of dip-in appeal to this work, an enjoyable female version of Neale Donald Walsch’s Conversations with God.
Positive, powerful insights about love, spirituality, the universe, and Mother Earth.Pub Date: April 9, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-9717032-6-1
Page Count: 298
Publisher: Pamoon Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 11, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Categories: GENERAL NONFICTION
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Noted jazz and pop record producer Thiele offers a chatty autobiography. Aided by record-business colleague Golden, Thiele traces his career from his start as a ``pubescent, novice jazz record producer'' in the 1940s through the '50s, when he headed Coral, Dot, and Roulette Records, and the '60s, when he worked for ABC and ran the famous Impulse! jazz label. At Coral, Thiele championed the work of ``hillbilly'' singer Buddy Holly, although the only sessions he produced with Holly were marred by saccharine strings. The producer specialized in more mainstream popsters like the irrepressibly perky Teresa Brewer (who later became his fourth wife) and the bubble-machine muzak-meister Lawrence Welk. At Dot, Thiele was instrumental in recording Jack Kerouac's famous beat- generation ramblings to jazz accompaniment (recordings that Dot's president found ``pornographic''), while also overseeing a steady stream of pop hits. He then moved to the Mafia-controlled Roulette label, where he observed the ``silk-suited, pinky-ringed'' entourage who frequented the label's offices. Incredibly, however, Thiele remembers the famously hard-nosed Morris Levy, who ran the label and was eventually convicted of extortion, as ``one of the kindest, most warm-hearted, and classiest music men I have ever known.'' At ABC/Impulse!, Thiele oversaw the classic recordings of John Coltrane, although he is the first to admit that Coltrane essentially produced his own sessions. Like many producers of the day, Thiele participated in the ownership of publishing rights to some of the songs he recorded; he makes no apology for this practice, which he calls ``entirely appropriate and without any ethical conflicts.'' A pleasant, if not exactly riveting, memoir that will be of most interest to those with a thirst for cocktail-hour stories of the record biz. (25 halftones, not seen)
Pub Date: May 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-19-508629-4
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Oxford Univ.
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1995
Categories: GENERAL NONFICTION
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A light-speed tour of (mostly) Western poetry, from the 4,000-year-old Gilgamesh to the work of Australian poet Les Murray, who died in 2019.
In the latest entry in the publisher’s Little Histories series, Carey, an emeritus professor at Oxford whose books include What Good Are the Arts? and The Unexpected Professor: An Oxford Life in Books, offers a quick definition of poetry—“relates to language as music relates to noise. It is language made special”—before diving in to poetry’s vast history. In most chapters, the author deals with only a few writers, but as the narrative progresses, he finds himself forced to deal with far more than a handful. In his chapter on 20th-century political poets, for example, he talks about 14 writers in seven pages. Carey displays a determination to inform us about who the best poets were—and what their best poems were. The word “greatest” appears continually; Chaucer was “the greatest medieval English poet,” and Langston Hughes was “the greatest male poet” of the Harlem Renaissance. For readers who need a refresher—or suggestions for the nightstand—Carey provides the best-known names and the most celebrated poems, including Paradise Lost (about which the author has written extensively), “Kubla Khan,” “Ozymandias,” “The Charge of the Light Brigade,” Wordsworth and Coleridge’s Lyrical Ballads, which “changed the course of English poetry.” Carey explains some poetic technique (Hopkins’ “sprung rhythm”) and pauses occasionally to provide autobiographical tidbits—e.g., John Masefield, who wrote the famous “Sea Fever,” “hated the sea.” We learn, as well, about the sexuality of some poets (Auden was bisexual), and, especially later on, Carey discusses the demons that drove some of them, Robert Lowell and Sylvia Plath among them. Refreshingly, he includes many women in the volume—all the way back to Sappho—and has especially kind words for Marianne Moore and Elizabeth Bishop, who share a chapter.
Necessarily swift and adumbrative as well as inclusive, focused, and graceful.Pub Date: April 21, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-300-23222-6
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Yale Univ.
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
Categories: GENERAL NONFICTION
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