( W ) Books

Night (Oprah's Book Club)

Elie Wiesel

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Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> General
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Historical -> Holocaust
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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 625 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Elie, a brave boy and a survivor 5 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

Night is a book that truly makes you think and feel. What happened to the Jewish people is devastatingly awful.My mom homeschools my siblings and they chose to listen to Night on audio tape. Everyone was enraptured in Elie's story wanting to know what happened to him. I think everyone should read Elie's story or hear it at some point in your life, because it makes you grateful for your own life and because everyone should know what the Germans did to the Jews. That time in history should never be forgotten.

Editorial Review:

In Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel's memoir Night, a scholarly, pious teenager is wracked with guilt at having survived the horror of the Holocaust and the genocidal campaign that consumed his family. His memories of the nightmare world of the death camps present him with an intolerable question: how can the God he once so fervently believed in have allowed these monstrous events to occur? There are no easy answers in this harrowing book, which probes life's essential riddles with the lucid anguish only great literature achieves. It marks the crucial first step in Wiesel's lifelong project to bear witness for those who died.

The Purpose Driven® Life: What on Earth Am I Here For? (Purpose Driven® Life, The)

Rick Warren

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1097 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

The spiritual premise in The Purpose-Driven Life is that there are no accidents---God planned everything and everyone. Therefore, every human has a divine purpose, according to God's master plan. Like a twist on John F. Kennedy's famous inaugural address, this book could be summed up like this: "So my fellow Christians, ask not what God can do for your life plan, ask what your life can do for God's plan." Those who are looking for advice on finding one's calling through career choice, creative expression, or any form of self-discovery should go elsewhere. This is not about self-exploration; it is about purposeful devotion to a Christian God. The book is set up to be a 40-day immersion plan, recognizing that the Bible favors the number 40 as a "spiritually significant time," according to author Rick Warren, the founding pastor of Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California, touted as one of the nation largest congregations. Warren's hope is that readers will "interact" with the 40 chapters, reading them one day at a time, with extensive underlining and writing in the margins. As an inspirational manifesto for creating a more worshipful, church-driven life, this book delivers. Every page is laden with references to scripture or dogma. But it does not do much to address the challenges of modern Christian living, with its competing material, professional, and financial distractions. Nonetheless, this is probably an excellent resource for devout Christians who crave a jumpstart back to worshipfulness. --Gail Hudson

Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church

N. T. Wright

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 33 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

For years Christians have been asking, "If you died tonight, do you know where you would go?" It turns out that many believers have been giving the wrong answer. It is not heaven.

Award-winning author N. T. Wright outlines the present confusion about a Christian's future hope and shows how it is deeply intertwined with how we live today. Wright, who is one of today's premier Bible scholars, asserts that Christianity's most distinctive idea is bodily resurrection. He provides a magisterial defense for a literal resurrection of Jesus and shows how this became the cornerstone for the Christian community's hope in the bodily resurrection of all people at the end of the age. Wright then explores our expectation of "new heavens and a new earth," revealing what happens to the dead until then and what will happen with the "second coming" of Jesus. For many, including many Christians, all this will come as a great surprise.

Wright convincingly argues that what we believe about life after death directly affects what we believe about life before death. For if God intends to renew the whole creation—and if this has already begun in Jesus's resurrection—the church cannot stop at "saving souls" but must anticipate the eventual renewal by working for God's kingdom in the wider world, bringing healing and hope in the present life.

Lively and accessible, this book will surprise and excite all who are interested in the meaning of life, not only after death but before it.

Led By Faith: Rising from the Ashes of the Rwandan Genocide

Immaculee Ilibagiza, Steve Erwin

Amazon Price: $16.47 List Price: $24.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Hay House Amazon Marketplace: 32 new & used starting at $14.34

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Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Memoirs

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 5 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

For three months in the spring of 1994, the African nation of Rwanda descended into one of the most vicious and bloody genocides the world has ever seen. Immaculée Ilibagiza, a young university student, miraculously survived the savage killing spree that left most of her family, friends, and a million of her fellow citizens dead. Immaculée’s remarkable story of survival was documented in her first book, Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust.

In Led By Faith, Immaculée takes us with her as her remarkable journey continues. Through her simple and eloquent voice, we experience her hardships and heartache as she struggles to survive and to find meaning and purpose in the aftermath of the holocaust. It is the story of a naïve and vulnerable young woman, orphaned and alone, navigating through a bleak and dangerously hostile world with only an abiding faith in God to guide and protect her. Immaculée fends off sinister new predators, seeks out and comforts scores of children orphaned by the genocide, and searches for love and companionship in a land where hatred still flourishes. Then, fearing again for her safety as Rwanda’s war-crime trials begin, Immaculée flees to America to begin a new chapter of her life as a refugee and immigrant—a stranger in a strange land.

With the same courage and faith in God that led her through the darkness of genocide, Immaculée discovers a new life that was beyond her wildest dreams as a small girl in a tiny village in one of Africa’s poorest countries.

It is in the United States, her adopted country, where Immaculée can finally look back at all that has happened to her and truly understand why God spared her life . . . so that she would be left to tell her story to the world.

Conversations with God : An Uncommon Dialogue (Book 1)

Neale Donald Walsch

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1152 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Absolute blasphemy. 1 out of 5 stars.
3 of 5 people found this review helpful.

I usually steer away from hot topic books like this, but I read only the excerpt, and I am absolutely disgusted. We can only hope and PRAY that nobody takes this lunatic seriously. This is nothing more than someone that is experiencing one of life's slumps, and pretending that God is saying what they want to hear. I can assure you that God had NOTHING to do with this book. And the scary part is that Scholastic (the book fair company) is selling this to CHILDREN. God help us all.

Editorial Review:

Blasphemy! Heresy! Who does this man think he is, claiming to speak directly to God?! Jesus did it, Muhammad did it, the Jewish prophets did it, but none of their Gods had the sardonic wit or raw verve of Prophet Walsch's God. Neale Donald Walsch isn't claiming to be the Messiah of a new religion, just a frustrated man who sat down one day with pen in his hand and some tough questions in his heart. As he wrote his questions to God, he realized that God was answering them... directly... through Walsch's pen. The result, far from the apocalyptic predictions or cultic eccentricities you might expect, turns out to be matter-fact, in-your-face wisdom on how to get by in life while remaining true to yourself and your spirituality.

The Age of Miracles: Embracing the New Midlife

Marianne Williamson

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Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Personal Health -> Aging -> General
Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Self-Help -> General
Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Self-Help -> Motivational

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Total reviews: 71 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

The need for change as we get older—an emotional pressure for one phase of our lives to transition into another—is a human phenomenon, neither male nor female. There simply comes a time in our lives—not fundamentally different from the way puberty separates childhood from adulthood—when it’s time for one part of ourselves to die and for something new to be born.

The purpose of this book by best-selling author and lecturer Marianne Williamson is to psychologically and spiritually reframe this transition so that it leads to a wonderful sense of joy and awakening.

In our ability to rethink our lives lies our greatest power to change them. What we have called “middle age” need not be seen as a turning point toward death. It can be viewed as a magical turning point toward life as we’ve never known it, if we allow ourselves the power of an independent imagination—thought-forms that don’t flow in a perfunctory manner from ancient assumptions merely handed down to us, but rather flower into new archetypal images of a humanity just getting started at 45 or 50.

What we’ve learned by that time, from both our failures as well as our successes, tends to have humbled us into purity. When we were young, we had energy but we were clueless about what to do with it. Today, we have less energy, perhaps, but we have far more understanding of what each breath of life is for. And now at last, we have a destiny to fulfill—not a destiny of a life that’s simply over, but rather a destiny of a life that is finally truly lived.

Midlife is not a crisis; it’s a time of rebirth. It’s not a time to accept your death; it’s a time to accept your life—and to finally, truly live it, as you and you alone know deep in your heart it was meant to be lived.

Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense

N.T. Wright

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 76 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Why do we expect justice? Why do we crave spirituality? Why are we attracted to beauty? Why are relationships often so painful? And how will the world be made right? These are not simply perennial questions all generations must struggle with, but, according to N. T. Wright, are the very echoes of a voice we dimly perceive but deeply long to hear. In fact, these questions take us to the heart of who God is and what He wants from us.

For two thousand years, Christianity has claimed to solve these mysteries, and this renowned biblical scholar and Anglican bishop shows that it still can today. Not since C. S. Lewis's classic summary of the faith, Mere Christianity, has such a wise and thorough scholar taken the time to explain to anyone who wants to know what Christianity really is and how it is practiced. Wright makes the case for Christian faith from the ground up, assuming that the reader has no knowledge of (and perhaps even some aversion to) religion in general and Christianity in particular.

Simply Christian walks the reader through the Christian faith step by step and question by question. With simple yet exciting and accessible prose, Wright challenges skeptics by offering explanations for even the toughest doubt-filled dilemmas, leaving believers with a reason for renewed faith. For anyone who wants to travel beyond the controversies that can obscure what the Christian faith really stands for, this simple book is the perfect vehicle for that journey.

The Complete Conversations with God (Boxed Set)

Neale Donald Walsch

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 126 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Best Birthday Gift Ever!!!! 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

I wanted the 1st book for the longest time but I didn't want to spend the $23 dollars to get that one book knowing I'd want the others later. This is a great deal. A large book because it's three in one, but it's so easy to read. My mom got it for me and it was delivered on my birthday. Highly recommended.

Editorial Review:

For the first time, Books 1, 2, and 3 in the multi-million copy bestselling Conversations with God trilogy are brought together in one special gift edition.

To mark the tenth anniversary of the publication of Conversations with God, Book 1, all three of the most essential books in Neale Donald Walsch's seminal trilogy are brought together in one beautiful volume just in time for the gift-giving season.

Conversations with God, Book 1 was the start of Neale Donald Walsch's ongoing dialogue with God. The trilogy contains the most essential truths and lessons for spiritual seekers, and these books are the bestselling of all the author's works. Featuring a new foreword by the author, printed throughout in two colors, and inserted in a fully enclosed full-color box, this remarkable book will be a Christmas gift to treasure.

The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our Hidden Life In God

Dallas Willard

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Subjects -> Religion & Spirituality -> Christianity -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 135 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Dallas Willard, an acclaimed theologian and professor of philosophy at the University of Southern California, fulfills the longing of many Christians who want to live as true disciples of Christ rather than distant dabblers. Likewise, he scoffs at consumer Christians who are simply banking on admittance to heaven as their payoff for attending church. Or worse still, those who use Christianity to advance their political agendas rather than their spiritual ones. But this is not a scolding book. Rather, Willard devotes his efforts to discussing specific and inspiring ways to develop a discipleship to Jesus--not as an act of sacrifice or even one of spiritual luxury--instead, as everyday people committed to the teachings of Christ. "The really good news for Christians is that Jesus is now taking students in the master class of life," writes Willard. "So the message of and about him is specifically a gospel for our life now, not just for dying. It is about living now as his apprentices in kingdom living, not just as consumers of his merits." --Gail Hudson

A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of "A Course in Miracles"

Marianne Williamson

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 140 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Shelf-righteous 1 out of 5 stars.
4 of 13 people found this review helpful.

My greatest fear? Buying a book that is discussing another book. I bought this book after watching Coach Carter (Widescreen Edition) on DVD. What I found was an intelligent woman whining on and on about "stuff". She's very smart, but then she has read The Seth Material, which basically tell her how to frame her experiences. The whiny tone was so infuriating that I wanted to slam dunk it in the trash. I couldn't get past the half-way point because after a while she was complaining about people she should leave alone. Marianne seems unhappy and quite content to take it out on the American public. I'm so happy I'm not an American. But maybe that's why I don't get what she's on about. It's better to read the Seth material and other books by Jane Roberts as background first, and then try doing a A Course in Miracles after. If you are looking for good reading material it might be better to look at her primary sources and struggle with it yourself.

Editorial Review:

Back by popular demand -- and newly updated by the author -- the mega-bestselling spiritual guide in which Marianne Williamson shares her reflections on A Course in Miracles and her insights on the application of love in the search for inner peace.

Williamson reveals how we each can become a miracle worker by accepting God and by the expression of love in our daily lives. Whether psychic pain is in the area of relationships, career, or health, she shows us how love is a potent force, the key to inner peace, and how by practicing love we can make our own lives more fulfilling while creating a more peaceful and loving world for our children.