A readable mix of romantic anxiety and mystic self-development.
A woman’s complicated personal life prompts a spiritual journey in this memoir.
At the beginning of her nonfiction debut, Diamond describes the separate vacations that she and her spouse took in 1995. Her husband, Joe, decided to go to Las Vegas, and she opted to go to Chicago to visit her family, and it’s there that she met up with somebody she hadn’t seen in 13 years: Ray, who was once the love of her life and the man whom a psychic once predicted she would marry and live with happily ever after. The meeting between the author and her old flame turned passionate, and she was forced to confront the awkward truth that she was now in love with two different men—and how her feelings for Ray could destroy her relationship with her family. She decided to consult Angel, another psychic who brought up the concept of past lives as a possible explanation for Diamond’s uncontrollable attraction to a man who wasn’t her husband. The book goes on to relate Diamond’s odyssey into the world of spiritualism, during which she encountered many like-minded searchers and mentors, and it becomes increasingly more elaborate as it goes on. The author’s accounts of dabbling in reincarnation theory, tarot, and other mystical areas sit awkwardly alongside her regular references to her Catholic upbringing. However, her choice to consistently return to her memories of the ongoing drama between herself, Joe, and Ray is a wise one, as it grounds what might otherwise have been a formless spiritual quest with a classic love triangle. The resolution of the latter story will strike many readers as decidedly anticlimactic, but the humanity at the book’s heart remains compelling throughout.
A readable mix of romantic anxiety and mystic self-development.Pub Date: Oct. 3, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-982235-07-9
Page Count: 140
Publisher: BalboaPress
Review Posted Online: April 17, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.
A compendium of charts, time lines, lists and illustrations to accompany study of the Bible.
This visually appealing resource provides a wide array of illustrative and textually concise references, beginning with three sets of charts covering the Bible as a whole, the Old Testament and the New Testament. These charts cover such topics as biblical weights and measures, feasts and holidays and the 12 disciples. Most of the charts use a variety of illustrative techniques to convey lessons and provide visual interest. A worthwhile example is “How We Got the Bible,” which provides a time line of translation history, comparisons of canons among faiths and portraits of important figures in biblical translation, such as Jerome and John Wycliffe. The book then presents a section of maps, followed by diagrams to conceptualize such structures as Noah’s Ark and Solomon’s Temple. Finally, a section on Christianity, cults and other religions describes key aspects of history and doctrine for certain Christian sects and other faith traditions. Overall, the authors take a traditionalist, conservative approach. For instance, they list Moses as the author of the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Hebrew Bible) without making mention of claims to the contrary. When comparing various Christian sects and world religions, the emphasis is on doctrine and orthodox theology. Some chapters, however, may not completely align with the needs of Catholic and Orthodox churches. But the authors’ leanings are muted enough and do not detract from the work’s usefulness. As a resource, it’s well organized, inviting and visually stimulating. Even the most seasoned reader will learn something while browsing.
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2005
ISBN: 978-1-5963-6022-8
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
This a book of earlier, philosophical essays concerned with the essential "absurdity" of life and the concept that- to overcome the strong tendency to suicide in every thoughtful man-one must accept life on its own terms with its values of revolt, liberty and passion. A dreary thesis- derived from and distorting the beliefs of the founders of existentialism, Jaspers, Heldegger and Kierkegaard, etc., the point of view seems peculiarly outmoded. It is based on the experience of war and the resistance, liberally laced with Andre Gide's excessive intellectualism. The younger existentialists such as Sartre and Camus, with their gift for the terse novel or intense drama, seem to have omitted from their philosophy all the deep religiosity which permeates the work of the great existentialist thinkers. This contributes to a basic lack of vitality in themselves, in these essays, and ten years after the war Camus seems unaware that the life force has healed old wounds... Largely for avant garde aesthetes and his special coterie.
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 1955
ISBN: 0679733736
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1955
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