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Humanizing Madness: Psychiatry and the Cognitive Neurosciences, an Application of the Philosophy of Science to Psychiatry

Niall McLaren, M.D.
Future Psychiatry Press (2007)
ISBN 9781932690392
Reviewed by Paige Lovitt for Reader Views (7/07)

Read the review on ReaderViews.com

Synopsis: This book is the result of thirty years of research in the philosophy of science. In addition it takes each of the major theories in psychiatry and demonstrates conclusively that it is so flawed as to be beyond salvation.

It goes farther, in that the author outlines a model of mental function which both satisfies the essential requirements of any scientific model, and shows how the phenomena of mental disorder can be described in a parsimonious dualist model which leads directly to a humanist form of management of the most widespread form of disability in the world today.

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Giving My Heart: Love in a Military Family by Lisa Farber-Silk

Modern History Press (2008)
ISBN 9781932690446
Reviewed by Vicki Landes for Reader Views (12/07)

Read the review on ReaderViews.com

Synopsis: ” Giving My Heart” is the true story of a New England wife’s struggle to find hope and help for a soldier, friend, and lover after his return from Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Before the war, he was an outgoing and affable man with a can-do attitude. After deployment, he returns to Vermont wanting nothing more than to be left alone. In the months after, he begins avoiding family and old friends. He is subject to mood swings, angry outbursts, headaches, trouble sleeping, problems at work, and feels that no one can ever understand his world and what he has become.

Meanwhile, Lisa has sacrificed everything including a marriage of two decades, to be with a man who is no longer interested in relationships with anyone. Her quest to find healing for her friend with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) will take more love, patience, and persistence than she ever knew she had. “Giving My Heart” portrays the legacy of our involvement in the Middle-East from the Persian Gulf War to the Iraq War as one family tries to grapple with what it means. Lisa provides a personal and heart-rending perspective that only a military wife and mother can share.

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Into the Silence: The Power of Stillness in Living and Dying with Judith Ashley

 Judith M. Ashley
iUniverse (2007)
ISBN 9780595440856
Reviewed by Paige Lovitt for Reader Views (12/07)

Read the review on ReaderViews.com

Synopsis: “I was by her hospital bed when the surgeon gave his prognosis of ‘about a year.’ Mother turned to me. Looking directly into my eyes, she reached gently for my hand, and said, with such simplicity, ‘Judith, I’m going to need your help.’”

So begins the remarkable journey of two women. Judith Ashley had long ago emigrated from England to the United States. Her mother, Enid, still lived in Great Britain and was now dying of cancer of the bowel and liver. Separated by distance for virtually thirty years, Judith traveled back to England to fulfill a promise made two decades earlier - to be the primary caregiver throughout her mother’s last weeks of life.

In more than fifty letters written to her husband living six thousand miles away, Ashley recounts - with love and unflinching candor - the conscious way in which her mother approached the last year of her life with dignity, intimacy, and grace. The letters also show how Ashley navigated her way through her own chattering thoughts and roller-coaster emotions to help her have access to an inner source of strength and keep her promise. A moving testament to the strong bond between mother and daughter,” Into the Silence” beautifully captures one family’s enduring spirit.

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AIDS Orphans Rising: What You Should Know and What You Can Do To Help Them Succeed

Sister Mary Elizabeth Lloyd, M.P.F, Ed. D.
Loving Healing Press (2008)
ISBN 9781932690477
Reviewed by Richard R. Blake for Reader Views (12/07)

Read the review on ReaderViews.com

Synopsis: The death of parents from AIDS leaves behind little children, often four or five of them, who desperately want to stay together as a family. In the literature, they call them Child Headed Households. Imagine watching your mother and father slowly die before your eyes, leaving you to bury them and then to raise and care for your younger brothers and sisters.

” AIDS Orphans Rising” takes you through the daily lives of these children. What do they eat? Where do they live?How do they survive? What can I do to help? Each chapter provides weblinks to organizations working with these children as well as real solutions, actions that you can take now to help these children not only survive, but succeed. By 2010, there will be 25,000,000 AIDS orphans!

Left alone, they will be uneducated, disenfranchised, and unwanted: ripe candidates for radicalization and exploitation by dictators and terrorists. If good people like yourself do not reach out to these children so they can get love, an education and set up in some profitable enterprise, civilization will deteriorate to a point that you will not even recognize it. This book is an inspiring gem of human caring for human. Particularly, the last chapter is beautiful and inspiring. It is very clearly written, and for the ordinary reader, and yet it is a fully documented scholarly work.

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A Broad Abroad in Thailand: An Expat’s Misadventures in the Land of Smiles with Dodi Cross

Dodie Cross was a newlywed American expat who faced far more than a language barrier in her new home. Among the challenges of her move to Thailand: the subtleties of the Eastern Squat Toilet, a near-fatal accident on the Sukhumvit Highway and bladder surgery performed by an inscrutable Thai doctor who decided to restore her virginity.All of these mishaps and more are described with great insight and wit in her new book, “A Broad Abroad In Thailand: An Expat’s Misadventures in the Land of Smiles.” In the end, it’s her unflagging sense of humor that sees Cross through all obstacles: from the first pitfalls and pratfalls in her new land, through times of seemingly insurmountable problems.

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Adopted Paws with Lauretta (Retz) Reeves

Eight years after moving to South Florida, Retz met Randy Reeves, and Bo-Jo -his adopted Chow chow. Taking place in South Florida and the Florida Keys, Adopted Paws is the story of the animals they adopted - Bo-Jo, Lucky, Petey, Samantha, Cali and the heroine of the story, Molly, who was a victim of feline AIDS - and other animals who ran through their life and sometimes into their neighbor’s yard.

Retz Reeves
PublishAmerica (2007)
ISBN 9781424169412
Reviewed by William Phenn for Reader Views (10/07)

Read the review on ReaderViews.com

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The Call to Shakabaz with Amy Wachspress

An imaginative fantasy adventure, The Call to Shakabaz sidesteps many of the usual conventions of the genre and offers instead unusual and original resolutions to a variety of sticky situations. When the recently orphaned Goodacre children are transported to the land of Faracadar, they must discover and develop their special gifts and talents, which require that they exercise ingenuity, creativity, and compassion.Fourteen-year-old Doshmisi and her younger siblings Denzel, Maia, and Sonjay are given the task of retrieving the powerful Staff of Shakabaz from the evil enchanter Sissrath. They travel through a colorful landscape with their Faracadaran guide, fifteen-year-old Jasper, and their Aunt Alice s clever, pesky, and often hilarious parrot, Bayard Rustin. The adventurers must contend with many obstacles and foes, including a giant sea serpent spewing green goo, skeeter birds with uncanny eyesight, the smelliest man in the land (named Compost), the deadly mountain geebachings (who cause their victims to laugh themselves to death), as well as Sissrath himself and his minions (who shoot deadly poison darts at their enemies).

Assistance is provided to them along the way by the High Chief and his clever daughter, talking whales, ancient trees, drummers, inventors, butterflies, wolves, tigers, and the peculiar sprites who live underground in the hills. Author Amy Wachspress has set the story in an African American cultural context, with all brown characters, for a refreshingly different perspective on adventuring in make-believe lands (there are almost no books in this genre with any African American characters in them).

“The Call to Shakabaz” explores a host of difficult and complex issues that today s young people face and challenges readers to reconsider the nature of violence and our relation to it. In the final climactic sequence, young readers learn the fundamental principles of nonviolence as practiced by Dr. King and Mahatma Gandhi. When the last page turns and the dust clears, this book will inspire readers to think and think again.

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The Dream Catcher Tour with Paula Buermele

“The Dream Catcher Tour” is an intriguing and sensitive tapestry of tales woven into a delightful novel that reflects the beauty and spirit of women.While touring interesting places and enjoying new experiences in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, forty-seven women also travel through the prism of time to re-visit favorite memories and share recollections.

The women on the fictional bus are women we all know. They are our mothers, sisters, wives, best friends, neighbors, co-workers. They are related to us by birth, marriage, or shared experience. They are the people we depend on to be there with us as we live our way through the days and seasons and events of our lives. This novel respects the contributions these women make to our lives.

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Beyond Adam and Eve: 50 Things You Need to Know Before You Get to Heaven with Marion Williams

Have you ever wanted to learn about the Bible but were not sure where to start? Does the vast size of the Bible overwhelm you? “Beyond Adam & Eve” provides the guidance you need to get started.By focusing on fifty simple questions that all Christians should be able to answer but often cannot, you and your family will be on your way to learning about many important Biblical characters and several church traditions. “Beyond Adam & Eve” has a question and answer format which makes it great for Family Game nights, car trips, and as a Sunday School class. (A Curriculum Guide is available for an eight-week course.)

Scripture passages are also included to acquaint you with different books of the Bible. You’ll find yourself returning often to “Beyond Adam & Eve” for inspiration and guidance. Make room on your nightstand for this engaging book

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Landmark Status with Alan Rolnick

What will become of Miami s legendary Century Club? In its heyday, the Club and its famous Everglades Room were the place for everyone who was anyone from Zane Grey to Izzy Fine. Long forgotten, the Club has slumbered for decades in subtropical decay, only to be awakened by a nearby convention center project.

Now everybody’s scrambling for a piece of the action, and this tangle of fast-paced South Florida intrigue is brought to riotous life in Landmark Status by Alan Rolnick. Lawyer Benjy Bluestone wants no part of this project, except one of his clients owns the Club and seeks his help.

That’s when things get complicated: Benjy becomes smitten with beautiful, whip-smart realtor Delia Torres, who represents a developer who s furious to discover that the Club has been optioned to a rival. A mix of spirits, spells, cemeteries, skateboards, kung fu, car wrecks, football, phobias, fetishes, wooden flutes, pet rabbits, vintage aircraft and legal action ensue, as Benjy and Delia discover that her client will stop at nothing to turn that option into “something so ugly the tide won t take it out.”

Racing to solve the puzzle before they run out of time, Benjy and Delia join forces, and all roads eventually lead to Opa-locka Airport, where a violent confrontation blows up the deal for everyone. Or does it?

Listen to interview with Alan Rolnick on Inside Scoop Live