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Tarafından yazılmış kitap Tarafından: Pegem Akademi Yayıncılık - KPSS Kitapları
this was the one of MANY peace corps memoirs i suffered through (reading material choices were limited to our paltry communal bookshelves in the volunteer lounge of the swaziland peace corps office). anyway, i used to write a monthly literature review box or our volunteer newsletter, and one month i ranted about this genre. below are my thoughts: Dissecting the Peace Corps Memoir One of my least favorite genres of nonfiction is hands-down the “peace corps memoir.” I attribute it to both the fact that I am a volunteer myself, and thus more critical of the actual content. And then probably due to the sheer volume that I read, I’m picky about writing, appreciating only good prose. More often then not, I feel like returned volunteers have good stories to tell and get book contracts for these stories without actually possessing the literary training or raw talent to pull them off. Even the most talented editors couldn’t fix these calamities. Just to prove that it doesn’t matter how bad of a writer you are, as long as your granddaddy is famous you can get a book deal, Jason Carter’s Power Lines is an embarrassment to his Duke education. Stylistically, his sentences and paragraphs fall flat, lacking cohesion. And grammatically, he leaves the reader reaching for her copy of Strunk & White. The award for most frustrating goes to Susana Herrera whose Mango Elephants in the Sun made me want to jab blunt objects into my eye sockets as I waded through nonsensical odes to lizards and out of place poems. I couldn’t tell if she wanted the reader to feel sorry for her or be envious. I suppose in the end it didn’t matter because I felt neither. I found Sarah Erdman’s Nine Hills to Nambonkaha, one of the newest in the genre, to be nauseatingly pretentious and self-congratulatory. From a literary standpoint, the lack of coherent theme or message was disappointing. As I’ve mentioned in a previous entry, Geneva Sander’s The Gringo Brought His Mother is ridiculously absurd. It’s a memoir written by a volunteer’s mother after a month-long trip to visit her son. The mother is completely nutty and paints a pathetic portrait of her son; then again whose mother actually writes a peace corps memoir ?!?! Moritz Thomsen’s Living Poor was mind-numbingly boring and topped only by Peter Hessler’s River Town. Hessler’s was so dull that even Kelly (training director) couldn’t finish it. And in the “who cares” category is Hilary Liftin and Kate Montgomery’s Dear Exile, a collection of letters the two friends wrote back and forth during Montgomery’s service (Liftin was stateside). The reader is treated to a nearly constant string of Montgomery’s complaints to her friend about rural village life in Kenya. It’s very hard to muster up sympathy for her bouts of diarrhea when I (and all the other volunteers in Swaziland) still heroically troop to the pit latrine through thick and thin. It’s not, however, a complete waste of a genre. Two gems sparkle in the rough including Mike Tidwell’s The Ponds of Kalambayi. Tidwell does not shy away from his own shortcomings and writes candidly of his own vices and addictions. His clear and concise prose paints a vivid and enthralling picture of the fisheries program in Zaire. And then there is George Parker’s The Village of Waiting. The first memoir to take a critical look at post-colonial class, race, and culture issues that surround the Peace Corps experience. Not only is Parker’s writing heads above the best (he’s a Pushcart Prize winning writer whose work has appeared in Harper’s, Dissent, and The New York Times), he’s also brutally honest about his work as white western volunteer living in an African village, acknowledging the inherent problems and paradoxes....less...more ...less...more
Tarafından yazılmış kitap Tarafından:
The most beautiful language and writing I have experienced in a long time, if ever.
Tarafından yazılmış kitap Tarafından: Kırmızı Kedi Yayınevi
A short book; more of a compilation of very detailed observations and musings about life. Interesting and engaging.
Tarafından yazılmış kitap Tarafından: Evrensel İletişim Yayınları
توضيح المؤلف للأحداث بأسماء الفصول خربت علي متعة القراءة
Tarafından yazılmış kitap Tarafından: Benim Hocam Yayınları
I have read a few books on Wicca and have enjoyed this the most. Buckland is considered one of the best writers concerning American Wicca and is certainly the most popular. Having written probably a dozen books, I would choose this one because it is aimed at the individual, emphasizing practices that can be employed without a coven or a president initiator. Anyone interested in WHAT wicca is, in simple terms and practices, would enjoy this book. Much more so than the Wicca mainstay "Wicca Today", by Gerald Gardner. Where Gardner leaves you asking more questions, Buckland answers some and provides some interim levity - as can be found through practice - while your curiosity takes you futher in your exploration. Lastly - if you think a spell has been cast on you, this book is a MUST. It will provide you with the information you need to fight back. In some cases however you will learn that fighting back comes at a price you might not want to pay. Kind of a, "Cure the disease by killing the patient," sort of thing.
Tarafından yazılmış kitap Tarafından: Timaş Yayınları
I am a skeptic. Anyone who knows me well knows that I have generally looked askance at mystical explanations for otherwise unexplained phenomena. So it is with that background that I began reading, at my wife's suggestion, this book. She thought I would like the chapter on near death experiences, the first one in the book, so I began reading the book. I expected to read that chapter, and then return to the book I was in the process of reading. I read the whole book. Steve Volk is a journalist who seeks in this book not to convince anyone of anything. He also does not profess or belie any particular belief in paranormal events and activities, but seeks throughout the book to suggest that the extremes of society - believers and skeptics, mystics and scientists, rationalists and the religious - should all keep an open mind and recognize that there are unexplained manifestations that are just that: unexplained. Science shouldn't be too quick to dismiss such things as New Age hoo ha just because science can't explain them. One of my favorite lines in the book, paraphrased, is that the perfection of science is its method, not its accumulated knowledge to date. In fact, science is always discovering new truths, so it's unreasonable for science to dismiss happenings that are unexplained. Enough abstractions. The book delves into reports and scientific exploration of near-death experiences, telepathy, the role of quantum physics in human consciousness, UFOs, ghosts, the spiritual transformations of space travelers, meditation and prayer, lucid dreaming, and after-death communications. Each is covered in depth, but leaves the reader to make what he or she will of it, all the while encouraging an open mind. In other words, recognize that something is happening or at least being reported by people who have experienced these phenomena - whether these things are real or fantasized is unproven, so either possibility exists. Some of my observations while reading include: Quantum physics and consciousness. - I know next to nothing about physics, and zero about quantum physics. What I read, however, is mind-blowing; some things that have been demonstrated about quantum physics, such as a particle being in two places at once (if I understood correctly), I just can't comprehend. But one quantum physicist has theorized that there may be physical attributes at the sub-atomic level in human cells that are the foundation of human consciousness. That's about all I get, but it's really fascinating to consider. Research continues, and there are plenty of skeptics, but there is also some evidence to suggest it's a possibility. Unidentified flying objects. - which are just that: unidentified. It doesn't mean they're aliens. The chapter focuses on sightings in 2008 in Stephenville, Texas, of very large aircraft that had strange lights and alternately hovered and sped away at incredible speeds. These sightings were corroborated by many, many residents of the town. Were these alien spacecraft? Were they a top secret military experiment? Unclear, but intriguing and provocative. Space travel. Completely eye-opening to read about the transformations space travelers have experienced just from viewing earth from space. We've all seen the beautiful photographs of earth, but astronauts have said the photos are not spiritually awakening the way the real experience is. Meditation. This was especially interesting to me because in high school I took a Transcendental Meditation class and, for a few years, practiced TM twice a day, so I had some sense of what meditation can do. The chapter looks into questions about what might be happening in the mind of one who meditates regularly, and the possibilities are fascinating - theoretical, unproved, but fascinating. Lucid dreaming. The subject of the movie Inception (and for those who are old enough, Dreamscape from the 1980s), lucid dreaming sounds like it really happens and can have valuable therapeutic benefits, if you believe the proponents. Some of the stories - while fantastic - are gripping. After-death communication. This is a bit of a misnomer... or maybe not. It has to do with a therapy used for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) used fairly widely now, and adopted by some advocates with the Veterans' Administration. It seemed to me that PTSD sufferers who - through this therapy - felt they experienced encounters with people whose deaths they witnessed or by which they were profoundly affected, were really provided just with a way to process those painful memories that had previously gone unprocessed. Does it really matter? What counts is that this therapy seems, at least anecdotally, to work. What I take, overall, from this book, is that I shouldn't be so damned sure of myself. Volk argues that the world needs far more humility; people should be open to a more nuanced view of life, less black and white. He points to many modern (and burgeoning) examples of polarization in society: science versus religion, skeptics versus believers, far left versus far right, just to name a few, and implores all of us to come out of our corners and meet in the middle. Consider the possibilities, and be just a little less entrenched. Really well-written, mind-opening book. I encourage you to read it.
Tarafından yazılmış kitap Tarafından: Roland
It was useful
Tarafından yazılmış kitap Tarafından: Yargı Yayınları
Loved it...laughed until I cried. A book you will read more than once!
Tarafından yazılmış kitap Tarafından: Belge Yayınları
Awarded two stars for now, because, although I made it through the whole book, I found it a really slow read. But I think maybe I just wasn't in the right frame of mind for that type of book when I read it. I find images and ideas from the book coming to me months later - it's obviously made an impression. So it's scheduled for a re-read, and re-evaluation.
Tarafından yazılmış kitap Tarafından: Uzman Kariyer Yayınları
Ok, the writing is really pretty atrocious. English majors, beware. Lots of cliches repeated, and more of that to follow through the series. So why do I give it 4 stars? Vampire hotness. Anita's pretty cool, too. Seriously, though, the author does an excellent job conveying Anita's thought processes, and the battle scenes don't screw around with any squeamish people. It gets right down to the nitty gritty. She's got personality. She kicks some serious tail. And she's a size 7 with actual hips and everyone wants her. This is the way it is supposed to be. Who would not want to be Anita Blake? Contrary to popular belief, it's not all *sex, sex, sex*. She doesn't even get LAID until the 6th book. And by that point, it's time to take bets on who she's going to do first: The werewolf or the vampire? Well...that answer's *far* too sexy to give away. Go read them yourself. They're like crack.
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