Generally splendid reading and potentially life-changing for readers willing to go beyond the normal.
A journey from ego to spirit and from fear to love, described with humility by a debut author who’s still on the path.
This is a wonderful book about what really matters; the rest is nit-picking. Le Houx—an accountant, former finance director and recovering alcoholic—contritely spills his guts about his train wreck of a former life, but in a restrained way and without all the messy details. His intent is not autobiographical per se, but rather, for the benefit of his readers, to relate his own spiritual discoveries and the spiritual science behind them as he rose from his personal nadir. In seven sections, mirroring the seven chakras he might have once dismissed as nonsense, the narrative ascends from the science-based basics to the apex of pure spirituality. Never overly directive (except to prescribe regular meditation as essential to spiritual growth) or sectarian (God isn’t mentioned until Chapter 57 of 68), he suggests that all human beings have the choice to take a spiritual path of their own devising; given what he considers to be the evermore clearly emerging true facts of existence, we would be wise to do so. Le Houx is broadly well-informed, current, and able to outline difficult scientific theories and esoteric beliefs in understandable fashion. Still, he makes arguably too liberal use of repetition as mortar, and his frequent use of quips, clichés, truisms and double entendre can border on tiresome. Here and there, he reveals a somewhat limited understanding, as when in Chapter 40 he describes the law of karma without reference to reincarnation. But he excels throughout in making a case for undertaking the struggle to overcome the fear-driven ego and to quiet the mind so that the spirit, love and true understanding can begin to shine through. And not in many books does one find a description of the mid-brain pineal gland as both the seat of the mystical third eye and quite possibly the “Wi-Fi connection point to the unified field.” As the author notes, using a venerable British expression, “The penny drops when ancient wisdom slots perfectly into a modern scientific framework.”
Generally splendid reading and potentially life-changing for readers willing to go beyond the normal.Pub Date: Nov. 25, 2013
ISBN: 978-1452584881
Page Count: 360
Publisher: BalboaPress
Review Posted Online: Feb. 21, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
There are many lessons to be learned in these pages–not least of them, to keep your eyes open for oncoming teenagers.
"I'm a number on their ledger," writes O'Malley, in this thoughtful memoir of consumer David versus insurer Goliath. "And they're dedicated to a new medical oath: This above all, do no harm to our financials."
O'Malley suffered major spinal trauma when a sleeping 17-year-old driver rammed her car one August afternoon. Unable to work, and at both physical and emotional distance from her young adult son, she finds herself in the early pages of her memoir to be a kind of surrogate aunt to a young immigrant girl and a surrogate child to an aunt of her own; her portraits of these characters, and indeed of most of the figures in the narrative, are marked by affection, warmth and knowing humor. But the tale takes on a dark cast as O'Malley soon stands accused of being a malingerer and denied long-term disability pay while enduring more and more physical distress in the wake of her accident. In quest of relief, she tries the expected route–namely, scheduling appointments at her HMO and undergoing tests to discover why her pain should persist months after the accident. What follows is a Kafkaesque sequence of misunderstandings and evasions, as, by her account, one specialist after another administers the wrong test, takes the wrong X-ray and eventually cuts into the wrong section of her spine. In the subsequent chapters, she becomes something of an authority on her pain, providing at least some rebuttal to arrogant doctors who, one by one, ask what fine medical school she attended to allow her any opinion in the matter of her own health. O'Malley's unhappy tale ends well enough, thanks to the help of a doctor on the opposite end of the country from the angry neurologist who becomes her bête noire. Readers may be a tad frustrated, though, to discover that the real ending is a settlement whose terms she cannot discuss, inasmuch as she has discussed everything else so candidly.
There are many lessons to be learned in these pages–not least of them, to keep your eyes open for oncoming teenagers.Pub Date: June 24, 2004
ISBN: 1-4134-5487-9
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A collection that will surely interest readers already devoted to Virginia City lore, but that may not grab a general...
An amalgamation of ghost stories set in the remote town where Mark Twain honed his skills 140 years ago.
During a trip to Virginia City in 1999, Bruns and a friend approached a building with the intent of exploring it. As they entered, however, she stopped abruptly–this place seems haunted, she said. Bruns had always found supernatural phenomena such as ghosts fascinating, but had never known quite what to make of claims that otherworldly beings exist. This experience, though, intrigued and annoyed him simultaneously. How could she sense ghosts when he couldn't? He decided to investigate further by interviewing certain people in Virginia City. Tales were "hurled" at Bruns, "unsolicited at the very mention" that he was collecting ghost stories. As a result, many of the stories name actual people and, "at least in their minds, actual events." Inundated with varying versions and copious detail, Bruns decided he would "combine different stories from different people into a single narrative, just to capture all the many ways in which spirits choose to manifest themselves." This was a dubious decision, as many of the stories are simply not compelling as fiction and track poorly as nonfiction. The word "true" muddies the interpretation of the stories, as does his caveat that "Like Mark Twain, I see no reason why I should let the truth get in the way of a good story." After chronicling the hauntings of specific sites–the Silver Terrace Cemetery, the Old Funeral Parlor, a D Street Residence, the Gold Hill Hotel and the Pioneer Emporium, to name a few–Bruns provides briefly researched histories that work nicely. Four maps at the back of the book aid understanding of northern Nevada, Virginia City itself and two of the haunted locales.
A collection that will surely interest readers already devoted to Virginia City lore, but that may not grab a general audience.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-9745217-1-X
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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