Positive, powerful insights about love, spirituality, the universe, and Mother Earth.
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
BOOK REVIEW
Making movies may be ``hard work,'' as the veteran director continually reminds us throughout this slight volume, but Lumet's simple-minded writing doesn't make much of a case for that or for anything else. Casual to a fault and full of movie-reviewer clichÇs, Lumet's breezy how-to will be of little interest to serious film students, who will find his observations obvious and silly (``Acting is active, it's doing. Acting is a verb''). Lumet purports to take readers through the process of making a movie, from concept to theatrical release—and then proceeds to share such trade secrets as his predilection for bagels and coffee before heading out to a set and his obsessive dislike for teamsters. Lumet's vigorously anti-auteurist aesthetic suits his spotty career, though his handful of good movies (Serpico, Dog Day Afternoon, Prince of the City, and Q&A) seem to have quite a lot in common visually and thematically as gutsy urban melodramas. Lumet's roots in the theater are obvious in many of his script choices, from Long Day's Journey into Night to Child's Play, Equus, and Deathtrap. ``I love actors,'' he declares, but don't expect any gossip, just sloppy kisses to Paul Newman, Al Pacino, and ``Betty'' Bacall. Lumet venerates his colleague from the so-called Golden Age of TV, Paddy Chayevsky, who scripted Lumet's message-heavy Network. Style, Lumet avers, is ``the way you tell a particular story''; and the secret to critical and commercial success? ``No one really knows.'' The ending of this book, full of empty praise for his fellow artists, reads like a dry run for an Academy Lifetime Achievement Award, the standard way of honoring a multi-Oscar loser. There's a pugnacious Lumet lurking between the lines of this otherwise smarmy book, and that Lumet just might write a good one someday.
Pub Date: March 27, 1995
ISBN: 0-679-43709-6
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1995
Smart but meandering, inconsequential entertainment.
A frank battle cry from a 20-something woman in the modern-dating trenches of New York City.
Roberson, a freelance humorist and researcher at the Late Show with Stephen Colbert, wields generous self-criticism to chronicle the current state of affairs among heteronormative singles on the hunt for love and/or just enough interaction with the opposite sex to keep the conversation about male idiocy going. Despite the catchy title, this book is neither a polemic against men nor a navigational how-to tome filled with advice. There is no narrative arc (chapters include, among others, “Crushes,” “Flirting,” and “Breaking Up”), catalyst for personal or romantic evolution, or tests of any real consequence for the author. Readers in search of deeply personal revelations should look elsewhere, but those seeking relatable accounts of just how unromantic the pursuits of romance actually are will be richly rewarded. Roberson’s great strengths are her blistering comedic sense and her cringeworthy, unexaggerated insights into her dealings with men. By “men,” clarifies the author, “I am talking in most cases about straight, cis, able-bodied white men…who have all the privilege in the world”—traits Roberson admits could be used to describe her. The author is as forthright about her sexual desires and lack of understanding of “ANY text ANY man” sends her as she is about her lack of experience with intimacy. Throughout the book, Roberson provides plenty of reasons for readers to laugh out loud. In a list of ways to kill time while waiting to answer a text, for example, she includes “Be in Peru and Have No Wi-Fi” and “Think About a Riddle.” She also satirizes The Rules, the notorious bestseller with archaic advice about how to catch a husband, and seamlessly weaves in pop-cultural references to countless sources. The so-called conclusion is a misstep; this book isn’t a story so it doesn’t have a beginning or end. Roberson doesn’t have a vendetta against men, only an understandable wish that they would be clear about their intentions and then take action.
Smart but meandering, inconsequential entertainment.Pub Date: Jan. 8, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-19342-1
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 8, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
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