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The freewheeling author of the pop spiritual classic Be Here Now teams with fellow Hindu devotee Bush to guide inexperienced Americans on to the path of compassionate action—offering his own spiritual autobiography as testimony to the transforming power of love and social action. Ram Dass, nÇ Richard Alpert, treats his famous psychedelic experience with Timothy Leary at Harvard in the early 60's as a spiritual turning point, granting him beautiful if ephemeral visions of unity with the cosmos. The real emotional possibilities behind those visions opened up to him, he says, when he found Neem Karoli Baba, his beloved Hindu spiritual teacher, who instructed him to tell the truth and always love everyone. It apparently took Ram Dass (so named by the guru after a monkey god that is an archetypal servant of man) several decades of spiritual work on himself while exploring different forms of volunteerism to glimpse how it is possible to fuse the quest for a truly liberated awareness with compassionate work for others: ``The only thing about being with people that `brings me down,' that keeps me from resting in spacious awareness, that deflates that state of joyful equanimity, is my own mind....'' Finally, through his experience as a fund-raiser and chairperson for the Seva Foundation, Ram Dass, along with Bush, has come to isolate simple steps—presented here, and including doing what you love and starting small—that others can follow to come to their own path of service. Occasionally repetitive and simplistic but nonetheless a warmhearted and genuinely inspiring introduction to compassion as a way of life.
None NonePub Date: Feb. 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-517-57635-X
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Harmony
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1991
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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