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lory_enterenchanted's Reviews (582)
informative
inspiring
reflective
Reviews and more on my blog: Entering the Enchanted Castle
A combination of healing memoir and research into the effectiveness of alternative therapies, including meditation, yoga, and acupuncture. The author, a science reporter, tried these for a year to see if they would help with her numerous auto-immune and other ailments, and enable her to live a more joyful life. The answer in her case was unquestionably yes, and the research supports this as well. What was most surprising to her was that her illness had to do with unprocessed childhood trauma, and that the release of this through the mind-and-body based healing modalities (along with a bit of talk therapy) seemed related to her healing, which was not a 100% cure but definitely significant. The way she was able to resist and deny the importance of her childhood suffering for so long--and nobody apparently ever tried to bring it to her attention before--speaks volumes to our general blindness to such connections. Fortunately, that climate seems to be changing and the clear connection between childhood trauma and a vast range of body and mind dysfunctions is being made. Now, how can we all find the healing we need, too? (Kudos to Nakazawa for trying to include modalities that are within most people's reach and not completely unaffordable, although she did have quite a lot of resources, clearly.)
A combination of healing memoir and research into the effectiveness of alternative therapies, including meditation, yoga, and acupuncture. The author, a science reporter, tried these for a year to see if they would help with her numerous auto-immune and other ailments, and enable her to live a more joyful life. The answer in her case was unquestionably yes, and the research supports this as well. What was most surprising to her was that her illness had to do with unprocessed childhood trauma, and that the release of this through the mind-and-body based healing modalities (along with a bit of talk therapy) seemed related to her healing, which was not a 100% cure but definitely significant. The way she was able to resist and deny the importance of her childhood suffering for so long--and nobody apparently ever tried to bring it to her attention before--speaks volumes to our general blindness to such connections. Fortunately, that climate seems to be changing and the clear connection between childhood trauma and a vast range of body and mind dysfunctions is being made. Now, how can we all find the healing we need, too? (Kudos to Nakazawa for trying to include modalities that are within most people's reach and not completely unaffordable, although she did have quite a lot of resources, clearly.)
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
Reviews and more on my blog: Entering the Enchanted Castle
There were some interesting nuggets here, but lots of "facts" with no citation, and much reliance on the history of Josephus, which I don't think can be entirely reliable. Plus, I have a hard time trusting a text that contains such bloopers as: "Baal is the pagan word for Lord" ("pagan" is not a language) "Caesar Augustus, who was the son of the assassinated Julius Caesar" (Augustus (Octavian) was Julius Caesar's great-nephew, not his son, though he was named his heir in his will) and "The Jews were the first monotheistic culture in history" (What about Akhenaten?)
Then there was a disturbing description of Israeli fighter planes erupting from silos and screeching overhead as the tour group stood on Mount Carmel, site of Elijah's victory over the Baal priests. "It was exhilarating beyond description ... my soul leaps at the memory of it. God is still winning the victory. He is still fulfilling his promises. ... There is a God in Israel! And he still loves His people and the land they were called to." KLG has just questioned who our false gods are today, and then said this. If militarism and nationalism are not false gods, what is? Personally, I am not in agreement that a display of death machines should be taken as a triumphant symbol of the will of God for humanity today.
Meanwhile, KLG finds the Palestinian Authority in Bethlehem to be darkly oppressive, spoiling the spiritual atmosphere for the tour group. Oh, dear.
Rabbi Sobel's explanations sound plausible but could also be spurious. I've never heard of Levitical shepherds tending the sacrifices for the Temple ... but it's true, someone had to do it. Swaddling lambs and laying them in a manger to keep them from bruising themselves on cave walls, though - really? How does he know that babies were washed in salt, what is the evidence for that? Then there is total speculation that Jesus's swaddling clothes might have been made from the old priests' garments, which were normally used to make wicks for the menorah, but were given to Mary by her cousin Elizabeth (wife to a priest). The shepherds were not impressed by their hearts' connection to the baby, but by his being embedded in all these symbols. Kind of takes the magic out of the Christmas story.
There were some interesting nuggets here, but lots of "facts" with no citation, and much reliance on the history of Josephus, which I don't think can be entirely reliable. Plus, I have a hard time trusting a text that contains such bloopers as: "Baal is the pagan word for Lord" ("pagan" is not a language) "Caesar Augustus, who was the son of the assassinated Julius Caesar" (Augustus (Octavian) was Julius Caesar's great-nephew, not his son, though he was named his heir in his will) and "The Jews were the first monotheistic culture in history" (What about Akhenaten?)
Then there was a disturbing description of Israeli fighter planes erupting from silos and screeching overhead as the tour group stood on Mount Carmel, site of Elijah's victory over the Baal priests. "It was exhilarating beyond description ... my soul leaps at the memory of it. God is still winning the victory. He is still fulfilling his promises. ... There is a God in Israel! And he still loves His people and the land they were called to." KLG has just questioned who our false gods are today, and then said this. If militarism and nationalism are not false gods, what is? Personally, I am not in agreement that a display of death machines should be taken as a triumphant symbol of the will of God for humanity today.
Meanwhile, KLG finds the Palestinian Authority in Bethlehem to be darkly oppressive, spoiling the spiritual atmosphere for the tour group. Oh, dear.
Rabbi Sobel's explanations sound plausible but could also be spurious. I've never heard of Levitical shepherds tending the sacrifices for the Temple ... but it's true, someone had to do it. Swaddling lambs and laying them in a manger to keep them from bruising themselves on cave walls, though - really? How does he know that babies were washed in salt, what is the evidence for that? Then there is total speculation that Jesus's swaddling clothes might have been made from the old priests' garments, which were normally used to make wicks for the menorah, but were given to Mary by her cousin Elizabeth (wife to a priest). The shepherds were not impressed by their hearts' connection to the baby, but by his being embedded in all these symbols. Kind of takes the magic out of the Christmas story.
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Reviews and more on my blog: Entering the Enchanted Castle
The House with the Golden Door returns to the world of Elodie Harper’s acclaimed novel, The Wolf Den, set in first century CE Pompeii. If you haven’t read the first in the series, this review may contain spoilers, so be advised.
Amara is a former prostitute who has managed to escape the town brothel, aka The Wolf Den, and carve out what at first seems a better life for herself, as concubine to a rich young Roman citizen who appreciates her respectable background as a Greek doctor’s daughter. But she finds it hard to separate herself completely from her former brothel friends and their brutal master, Felix; she feels obliged to try to free at least some of them, and thereby becomes entangled with and indebted to him once more. Life with her new “patron” also proves less idyllic than she had expected, as she finds that he, too, has a violent streak and that she has only traded one form of captivity for another. A new love that must remain a dangerous secret impels her toward even more difficult choices, and in the end to taking another journey into the unknown.
In The Wolf Den, the relationships among captive women were the most compelling part of the narrative; in this sequel, with Amara out of the brothel and her best friend, Dido, dead, things shift due to the change in her status, focusing more on her as an individual and bringing out new responsibilities and moral quandaries. Even as Amara struggles with her traumatic memories of enslavement, she becomes something of a pimp herself, having freed her companion Victoria only to be obliged to sell her out along with household slaves to make the money to pay off her sale. She justifies this by telling herself she is not as cruel as Felix, but she also detects that in some ways she is like him, and through a series of ill-advised meetings the tension between them crests to an explosive denouement.
Amara, being only human, is irresistibly pulled to seeking love and companionship, even though this places both her and her loved ones in extreme danger. Born free as she was, it remains hard for her to truly adjust to her powerlessness and to the injustice of a world in which those of greater intelligence and ability may be subjugated by the system. She struggles to rise by the only means she can: by using her sexual prowess, cultivating more powerful friends, and accumulating money, but can she avoid eroding her moral integrity in the process? She survives, but at the cost of much that is most dear to her.
These novels bring home the evil of enslavement, of treating human beings as objects, and also make clear how deeply bound this evil is into the roots of our civilization. In fact, it seems to be a late development in the so-called civilized world to attempt to create a society without slaves, and enslavement is a habit we seem to keep falling back into, even if we call it by other names. As with all historical fiction, Harper’s look back into the past is really about now, about how we got to where we are, what remains constant and what slowly changes over time. And it brings up hard and important questions about what is means to be free, and whether we can make manifest the universal right of all human beings to freedom, something that has not yet come to pass.
Beneath the surface of her struggle for survival, Amara is engaged in a battle to comprehend her own motivations and to live with transparency and honesty in a world that demands duplicity. This is the true source of freedom, one that may seem unattainable when there are so many forces ranged against it, and yet the struggle must continue, or a person inwardly dies. Felix appears to be one who has lost the battle, and yet there are hints that even he may have some capacity for redemption, if his human core that was warped by his own trauma and abuse can be recovered. So far, though, it has not come to light, and may never do so; perhaps it can only be a source of destruction. The love-hate relationship between Felix and Amara simmers under the surface throughout the novel, rumbling like a volcano about to erupt.
Meanwhile, unknown to the characters, but anticipated by the reader, the end of their world looms with the actual eruption of Vesuvius, due in a few years time. What, if anything, will they be able to preserve? Where will Amara’s choices lead her? I look forward to finding out when the next book of this compelling trilogy appears.
The House with the Golden Door returns to the world of Elodie Harper’s acclaimed novel, The Wolf Den, set in first century CE Pompeii. If you haven’t read the first in the series, this review may contain spoilers, so be advised.
Amara is a former prostitute who has managed to escape the town brothel, aka The Wolf Den, and carve out what at first seems a better life for herself, as concubine to a rich young Roman citizen who appreciates her respectable background as a Greek doctor’s daughter. But she finds it hard to separate herself completely from her former brothel friends and their brutal master, Felix; she feels obliged to try to free at least some of them, and thereby becomes entangled with and indebted to him once more. Life with her new “patron” also proves less idyllic than she had expected, as she finds that he, too, has a violent streak and that she has only traded one form of captivity for another. A new love that must remain a dangerous secret impels her toward even more difficult choices, and in the end to taking another journey into the unknown.
In The Wolf Den, the relationships among captive women were the most compelling part of the narrative; in this sequel, with Amara out of the brothel and her best friend, Dido, dead, things shift due to the change in her status, focusing more on her as an individual and bringing out new responsibilities and moral quandaries. Even as Amara struggles with her traumatic memories of enslavement, she becomes something of a pimp herself, having freed her companion Victoria only to be obliged to sell her out along with household slaves to make the money to pay off her sale. She justifies this by telling herself she is not as cruel as Felix, but she also detects that in some ways she is like him, and through a series of ill-advised meetings the tension between them crests to an explosive denouement.
Amara, being only human, is irresistibly pulled to seeking love and companionship, even though this places both her and her loved ones in extreme danger. Born free as she was, it remains hard for her to truly adjust to her powerlessness and to the injustice of a world in which those of greater intelligence and ability may be subjugated by the system. She struggles to rise by the only means she can: by using her sexual prowess, cultivating more powerful friends, and accumulating money, but can she avoid eroding her moral integrity in the process? She survives, but at the cost of much that is most dear to her.
These novels bring home the evil of enslavement, of treating human beings as objects, and also make clear how deeply bound this evil is into the roots of our civilization. In fact, it seems to be a late development in the so-called civilized world to attempt to create a society without slaves, and enslavement is a habit we seem to keep falling back into, even if we call it by other names. As with all historical fiction, Harper’s look back into the past is really about now, about how we got to where we are, what remains constant and what slowly changes over time. And it brings up hard and important questions about what is means to be free, and whether we can make manifest the universal right of all human beings to freedom, something that has not yet come to pass.
Beneath the surface of her struggle for survival, Amara is engaged in a battle to comprehend her own motivations and to live with transparency and honesty in a world that demands duplicity. This is the true source of freedom, one that may seem unattainable when there are so many forces ranged against it, and yet the struggle must continue, or a person inwardly dies. Felix appears to be one who has lost the battle, and yet there are hints that even he may have some capacity for redemption, if his human core that was warped by his own trauma and abuse can be recovered. So far, though, it has not come to light, and may never do so; perhaps it can only be a source of destruction. The love-hate relationship between Felix and Amara simmers under the surface throughout the novel, rumbling like a volcano about to erupt.
Meanwhile, unknown to the characters, but anticipated by the reader, the end of their world looms with the actual eruption of Vesuvius, due in a few years time. What, if anything, will they be able to preserve? Where will Amara’s choices lead her? I look forward to finding out when the next book of this compelling trilogy appears.
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
tense
fast-paced
Reviews and more on my blog: Entering the Enchanted Castle
I learned about this title via the online discussion I participated in for the upcoming Witch Week - we read Black Water Sister by Zen Cho, also based on Malaysian ghost lore. This was a shorter, simpler variant on the theme that also involved a girl coming to know herself and her family better, and mixed some quite scary elements with humor and heart. Villains were regrettably one-sided, but the "girl" and the "ghost," along with the third friend who causes a rupture in their relationship, were well-drawn and believable. The mixed feelings of a destructive spirit who comes to have sympathy and even love for his "master," and yet has a hard time expressing them except through causing havoc, were well-portrayed.
I learned about this title via the online discussion I participated in for the upcoming Witch Week - we read Black Water Sister by Zen Cho, also based on Malaysian ghost lore. This was a shorter, simpler variant on the theme that also involved a girl coming to know herself and her family better, and mixed some quite scary elements with humor and heart. Villains were regrettably one-sided, but the "girl" and the "ghost," along with the third friend who causes a rupture in their relationship, were well-drawn and believable. The mixed feelings of a destructive spirit who comes to have sympathy and even love for his "master," and yet has a hard time expressing them except through causing havoc, were well-portrayed.
informative
reflective
fast-paced
Reviews and more on my blog: Entering the Enchanted Castle
This book is what it says it is: A very short introduction to Jewish history. There is a lot of said history to cover, so kudos to the author for doing this in a concise yet highly readable manner. The method of breaking the topic into themes, and proceeding chronologically through those themes, was helpful in organizing a vast field with many different strands to it.
This book is what it says it is: A very short introduction to Jewish history. There is a lot of said history to cover, so kudos to the author for doing this in a concise yet highly readable manner. The method of breaking the topic into themes, and proceeding chronologically through those themes, was helpful in organizing a vast field with many different strands to it.
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
Reviews and more on my blog: Entering the Enchanted Castle
Helpful addition to my reading lately on the mind-body connection. The evidence mounts that our attitude has an effect on our health and that stress is really, really bad for you. The so-called placebo effect, if it really does have an effect, must be investigated with an open mind. The one thing that I think was seriously overlooked was that it needs to be confirmed that such effects are lasting and not more transitory than other treatments. I didn't see any research particularly confirming this in the book.
Helpful addition to my reading lately on the mind-body connection. The evidence mounts that our attitude has an effect on our health and that stress is really, really bad for you. The so-called placebo effect, if it really does have an effect, must be investigated with an open mind. The one thing that I think was seriously overlooked was that it needs to be confirmed that such effects are lasting and not more transitory than other treatments. I didn't see any research particularly confirming this in the book.
adventurous
dark
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Reviews and more on my blog: Entering the Enchanted Castle
https://enterenchanted.com/tdirs22-into-the-darkness/
https://enterenchanted.com/tdirs22-into-the-darkness/
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Reviews and more on my blog: Entering the Enchanted Castle
Touching story of a young girl growing up and reclaiming her Jewish heritage. It would have been nice to know something more of what enabled her mother to return to her observant roots after being such a committed atheist for so long. Couldn't she and her daughter have had a conversation about it? Sadly they did not. Also, points for subtly poking at sexist, closed-minded fundamentalism, while also showing real understanding and sympathy for the draw that religious practices have, the community and comfort they give.
Touching story of a young girl growing up and reclaiming her Jewish heritage. It would have been nice to know something more of what enabled her mother to return to her observant roots after being such a committed atheist for so long. Couldn't she and her daughter have had a conversation about it? Sadly they did not. Also, points for subtly poking at sexist, closed-minded fundamentalism, while also showing real understanding and sympathy for the draw that religious practices have, the community and comfort they give.
informative
medium-paced
Reviews and more on my blog: Entering the Enchanted Castle
I am sorry that it took me so long to actively start learning about Judaism. It's a very fascinating field and includes so many aspects. This book was a helpful overview, mainly of modern customs and religious streams. I'd like to know more about ancient Judaism but will have to look elsewhere for that.
I am sorry that it took me so long to actively start learning about Judaism. It's a very fascinating field and includes so many aspects. This book was a helpful overview, mainly of modern customs and religious streams. I'd like to know more about ancient Judaism but will have to look elsewhere for that.
mysterious
fast-paced
Reviews and more on my blog: Entering the Enchanted Castle
I was excited to be approved by NetGalley for The Twyford Code, having enjoyed Hallett's first book, The Appeal. Unfortunately, the magic was not there in this one for me.
Although I was able to overlook the unlikeliness of the mode of storytelling in The Appeal, here it kept bothering me. It was just not convincing that anyone would choose such an extremely elaborate and complicated way of conveying a message, let alone this particular character.
I was also distracted by the way words are transcribed by the supposed software. Why is "Shell" recognized as a proper name and capitalized? "Acrostic" transcribed as "a cross tick" -- no "an"? (Nobody would say "it's acrostic," they would say "it's an acrostic") Why "Miss Isles" as "missiles" -- is that really how Steven pronounces it? Even if so, surely a more likely transcription would be "miss aisles," if not "miss isles"? Why can the software correctly transcribe lots of unusual proper names (including Twyford) but not "Bournemouth"? Why is the slurred "musta (must have)" transcribed as "mustard"? Nobody puts a "d" in there. "Muster" would make more sense. In short, the transcription was in places too accurate and in others inaccurate in peculiar ways.
The "mustard" misreading turns out to be important to the solution of the puzzle, which makes it all the more annoying that this detail was not better attended to. As for the rest of the transcriptions and the story that eventually comes out to explain them ... it's all way, way too elaborate and unbelievable. I think a good puzzle mystery should make you want to go back and figure out the clues that were set for you. This one just left me frustratedly wanting to know the answer, and underwhelmed when I had it.
I may read another Hallett book, but I hope she doesn't try so hard with the gimmick next time.
I was excited to be approved by NetGalley for The Twyford Code, having enjoyed Hallett's first book, The Appeal. Unfortunately, the magic was not there in this one for me.
Although I was able to overlook the unlikeliness of the mode of storytelling in The Appeal, here it kept bothering me. It was just not convincing that anyone would choose such an extremely elaborate and complicated way of conveying a message, let alone this particular character.
I was also distracted by the way words are transcribed by the supposed software. Why is "Shell" recognized as a proper name and capitalized? "Acrostic" transcribed as "a cross tick" -- no "an"? (Nobody would say "it's acrostic," they would say "it's an acrostic") Why "Miss Isles" as "missiles" -- is that really how Steven pronounces it? Even if so, surely a more likely transcription would be "miss aisles," if not "miss isles"? Why can the software correctly transcribe lots of unusual proper names (including Twyford) but not "Bournemouth"? Why is the slurred "musta (must have)" transcribed as "mustard"? Nobody puts a "d" in there. "Muster" would make more sense. In short, the transcription was in places too accurate and in others inaccurate in peculiar ways.
The "mustard" misreading turns out to be important to the solution of the puzzle, which makes it all the more annoying that this detail was not better attended to. As for the rest of the transcriptions and the story that eventually comes out to explain them ... it's all way, way too elaborate and unbelievable. I think a good puzzle mystery should make you want to go back and figure out the clues that were set for you. This one just left me frustratedly wanting to know the answer, and underwhelmed when I had it.
I may read another Hallett book, but I hope she doesn't try so hard with the gimmick next time.