Average customer rating:
- Running Out Steam...
- Will be sadly missed
- Wonderful
- Resnick's final appearance is a police procedural winner
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Last Rites
John Harvey
Manufacturer: Arrow
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Binding: Mass Market Paperback
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Cold Light
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Lonely Hearts (A Resnick Novel)
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Living Proof
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Rough Treatment
ASIN: 0099421631
Release Date: 2006-10-31 |
Amazon.com
"Back outside, walking away from the hospital toward Old Lenton, Resnick's step was springier, lighter. He couldn't remember the last time he'd struck a blow outside of self-defense; couldn't recall when he'd last used force of any kind. And although he knew that later his conscience would be giving him gyp, right now he felt one hundred percent better."
That, of course, is Nottingham's own Charlie Resnick, a smart British policeman of Polish origins who would rather eat a sausage sandwich or listen to a Duke Ellington record than threaten a criminal. But threaten a drug dealer is exactly what he has just done; times are changing, and this will be Charlie's final case. John Harvey says he's ending his distinguished series because he no longer lives in Nottingham.
Resnick's last stand involves a prisoner named Michael Preston, who was incarcerated for murdering his father, but absconds while he's out on compassionate leave. He vanishes into the streets of Nottingham and begins to torment his family. Meanwhile, rival drug gangs are shedding blood on Resnick's turf, and a corrupt copper is at large in the department. This is typical John Harvey fare: Charlie's sporadic affair with social worker Hannah is more off than on; dozens of greasy sandwiches are consumed; Charlie's many cats nap while Art Tatum and Thelonius Monk play quietly in the background. It's a fine, rich atmosphere, now so familiar that it's hard to say good-bye. Although there have been stronger, more spectacular entries in the Resnick series, Last Rites has enough of the familiar ingredients and the gritty street poetry to make a satisfying finale. --Dick Adler
Book Description
Lorraine Preston’s brother, Michael, was sent down for life for the murder of their father — and now he’s being allowed out for their mother’s funeral. A hardened criminal, Michael Preston is the last person Resnick wants back on the streets, especially now when Resnick is struggling to contain an explosive situation on the streets, where the spread of guns has led to a frightening escalation in drug-related crime. With his previously stable relationship with Hannah Campbell wavering, Resnick is forced back on his self-belief, and his understanding of people.
Customer Reviews:
Running Out Steam..........2000-01-28
The not-so-grand finale in the Charlie Resnick series certainly exhibits the signs of Harvey's weariness with the series. The highly predictable main plot features an escaped murderer with a sordid childhood, and is the least interesting element of the book. The police efforts to stem a series of drug-related killings brings in a number of minor players from past books and is somewhat more interesting. But of course it is the developments in Resnick's private and professional life that drives the book and rescues it in the end.
Will be sadly missed.......2000-01-05
I did not realize until nearly at the end that this was the last of the Resnick novels. I'm embarassed to admit that he has become a part of my life and that I awaited his next installment like a child on the first day of school. I feel like my life will somehow be incomplete without the wisdom of Charlie but anxiously await the latest character.
This series will be well worth the attention.
Wonderful.......1999-06-19
Mr. Harvey, how can you leave us to be a publisher? Charlie deserves to go on and on and on.
Resnick's final appearance is a police procedural winner.......1999-03-07
In 1986, career criminal Michael Preston was sentenced to spend life in jail after being convicted of first degree in the murder of his father. Twelve years later, as part of a more compassionate prison system, two relatively inexperienced prison guards escort Michael to the funeral of his mother. Michael attacks his guards with a razor blade and manages to escape.
Inspector Charlie Resnick and his team are assigned to the case. They begin questioning the guards and follow up with Michael's family. He soon starts linking Michael's activities to a growing drug war between two rival gangs. Charlie also realizes that somehow Michael's sister Loretta fits into the equation. With two more murders to Michael's credit, Charlie also knows that he must recapture Michael before more people die.
The tenth and final Charlie Resnick police procedural is an excellent tale. Readers will feel sad that the series is over (according to John Harvey), but glad that they had the opportunity to read such a fabulous collection of tales. The story line of LAST RITES is vintage Resnick. It ties together two seemingly divergent plots into one wonderful novel. Charlie and the support cast remain fresh, but this time Mr. Harvey ties up most of the loose ends left from the previous books. In the cold light of day, fans of the sub-genre will miss Charlie.
Harriet Klausner
Book Description
Last Wishers A Funeral Planning Manual and Survivors Guide is a complete consumer manual that will help your customers today and their survivors tomorrow.
This book recommends the reasons for pre-planning your own funeral and will help your customers every step of the way with the funeral services, caskets, cemetery, cremation and/or burial choices. The various types of funeral services are explained in plain, straight-forward terms that everyone can understand. The rights of a consumer when dealing with the funeral industry are clarified. There is a section for frequently asked questions about those confusing legal documents are answered. Throughout the manual there are many lists to help make choices including flowers, hymns and Bible readings. In the back of the book there is a complete set of forms that are to be completed and a listing of business professional and consumer groups.
Customer Reviews:
Learn before you Urn.......2007-03-15
Benjamin Franklin once said, "In this world, nothing is certain but death and taxes. At least now, thanks to the internet, death doesn't have to be as expensive.
According to AARP, the average funeral in the United States can easily reach $10,000 once a burial plot, flowers and other costs are included.
Educated consumers are no longer in the dark about how the funeral industry works. Big conglomerates are mercilessly buying up family-operated homes with their eyes solely on the bottom-line. Caskets alone average a 600% mark up. They may be the last example of a legal monopoly left in the United States. Mourners are literally gauged, as they haven't the time or presence of mind to comparison shop.
It has always been tradition to call upon the neighborhood funeral parlor, cemetery or monument dealer when a loved-one passes. But, due to the internet, that traditional is starting to change.
MonumentsInStone is the sister company of Interstate Granite, a family-owned, monument manufacturer that has been in business in the Atlanta area since 1916. They have recently launched a website, offering granite headstones, bronze markers and crematory products at a fraction of their retail price. "We have been there." Say the owner, Robert Womac. "And, we want to right an industry-wide wrong."
MonumentsInStone supplies headstones and memorials directly to the consumer. Although cemeteries might not like this, they have to, by law, accept a stone from an outside source. The savings have been a blessing for many customers.
The Funeral Consumers Alliance has many tips that should be followed when planning a funeral. They told us that savvy consumers need to shop around for a grave marker or monument. The Better Business Bureau also warns to resist high-priced sales pitches from funeral industry vendors. They should treat you with compassion; not pressure you.
Perhaps, asking a friend or neighbor to work the phones or search the net would be a good idea. Even a check on Ebay has produced a number of beautiful choices. I found an elegant, Granite Companion Monument for a third of the price my funeral parlor was pitching. A Tombstone on Ebay? I emailed the highest bidder to find out why. "I'm sorry," He told me. " I see no reason to pay top dollar because of some outdated
Last Wishes Book Is Very Helpful.......2001-01-31
I purchased a copy of this book for my elderly mother who has been talking about planning ahead for her own funeral. This book is loaded with information about funerals and funeral homes, many things that we were unfamiliar with. In particular, she liked the detailed appendix with all those biblical phrases and the facts about different flowers. I liked the forms in the back of the book that helped her to become organized and share information with me, that I never would have known about. An excellent resource for anybody who wants to preplan a funeral themselves.
Last Wishes.......2000-11-21
Found this book to be not only educational but also in a format easily understood. I purchased several copies for my family and friends.
Customer Reviews:
Worth your time to read........2006-11-07
This book puts into words what is infinately true and worth pursuing. I highly recommend reading this book regardless of who/what you are.
Bruteau Offers New Paradigm for Living.......2005-12-29
The marvel of this book is that Dr. Bruteau traces the troubles of the modern world back to their roots. She argues that for too long, we have existed in a world based on domination which appears in every scale of human experience from worldwide war to one-on-one disputes. What characterizes domination is that one part undertakes to control the other party.
This political, economic, and social attitude/action results from a psychology of fear, "a tortured psychology and the even more fundamental existential anxiety and insecurity."
Bruteau argues that "we do not have a secure hold on existence.... Each of us believes we are a finite, contingent, vulnerable being and each of us has personal identity by 'not being the other.'" This she calls the "logic of mutual negation."
The alternative, according to Dr. Bruteau, is "mutual affirmation," from which arises a metaphysics of 'community' making possible at long last 'love for the neighbor.' On this foundation can be erected a politics, economics and social structure of equal respect and friendship.
This is the message of the New Testament story of "Holy Thursday" which finds its focus in the illustration which graces the cover of her book. The message is: when the Lord (Dominus, dominator) behaves as servant, then there is no longer any meaning to lordship or servanthood. The concepts perish together. In their place we have the saying, "I will no longer call you servants but friends."
This is all explained with many examples. In my mind, what makes the book especially attractive is Dr. Bruteau's retelling of Holy Thursday and the Revelation at Sinai. The mark of her revolution is the as individuals we are liberated from the stress of self-protection and self-promotion mandated by the deep anxiety of our existential insecurity.
Read the book to learn how she explains how we can pass from the domination paradigm to the friendship paradigm and realize the truth in the phrase, "Children of God." This life-transformation realization liberates energy to love one another as we have been loved. This shift in the basic dynamic of life constitutes the "Revolution."
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Seven Lasting Words: Jesus Speaks from the Cross
Christopher R. Seitz
Manufacturer: Westminster John Knox Press
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Binding: Hardcover
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The Seven Last Words from the Cross
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ASIN: 0664224253 |
Book Description
Based on years of fieldwork in both rural and urban Greece, The Last Word explores women's cultural resistance as they weave together diverse social practices: improvised antiphonic laments, divinatory dreaming, the care and tending of olive trees and the dead, and the inscription of emotions and the senses on a landscape of persons, things, and places. These practices compose the empowering poetics of the cultural periphery. C. Nadia Seremetakis liberates the analysis of gender from reductive binary models and pioneers the alternative perspective of self-reflexive "native anthropology" in European ethnography.
Customer Reviews:
Rich Female culture in a extremely male dominated area.......2003-09-11
While there are a number of books that cover the culture of the men of Mani, from their spartan beginings to the present, generally the culture and beliefs of the Women have been ignored. While the funeral songs of the Mani are often mentioned as a unique trait of the area, few books even touch on the cultural context or that only women sing them. Books on the topic usually give the impression of the women as appendages of the male culture, with a hard life of harder work.
This book covers the (rapidly disappearing) culture of women of the Mani region, and how it contrasts (and conflicts) with the male culture. The book gives a rich view into a unique culture, and the even more unique culture women have carved out of this. The culture being covered has beliefs that predate the christanity of the area (and maybe predate even some classical beliefs), and the truely unique artform of the spontainious poetry of the funeral durges that are only sung by the women.
Even if your interest were the patriarchal traditional culture, the book would be useful in providing the full color of the background that that culture exists in. From the efforts of the priests to put a stop to the remaining old beliefs ("Old women's superstitions") to the role of the womens songs in directing vendetas everything is covered in a richly woven tapestry.
The author has family roots in the area, and has used them to gain access to lore and story that an "outside" anthropologist would have a difficult time getting access to. (And of course, being a women, she had access to much that men are traditionally excluded from.)
My only objection to this book (and some may take this as an advantage) is that when an example of Greek is given (always with English translations) the Greek is transliterated into the roman alphabet, instead of being presented in the Greek alphabet.
Book Description
Having descended from a long line of indomitable, good-humored Scots, Hayden MacBride sees no reason to take his own death lying down. In fact, he now spends his days crashing funerals for the free food and insight into the Great Beyond. Then he meets Rosamond, a nun playing hooky from the Holy Orders. Hayden is smitten the instant her heavy silver cross smacks him in the face when she leaps up to do the wave at a ball game. Luckily, Rosamond has picked the right person to teach her how to live . . . and to love—because nobody does both better than Hayden MacBride.
However, Rosamond’s years in the convent have not prepared her for the oddball characters of Hayden’s world. There’s his ever-fretful, vigilant daughter, Diana, the “Dutchess o’ the Sidelong Glance”; his sweet grandson Joey, struggling to break free of his mother’s overprotective embrace; Hayden’s bagpipe-blowing cronies; the Greyfriars Gang; neighbor Bobbie Anne, a “working girl” full of good advice and tender mercies; and Hank, the sexy architect contemplating the priesthood—a big mistake in Hayden’s book. For Hayden thinks that Hank should be married to his daughter and raising Joey. And he has an elaborate plan to make Hank see things his way. . . .
In an uproariously funny novel of love, laughter, and one man’s final call at the riotous watering hole called life, Laura Pedersen proves that miracles are all around us—when we open our eyes and our hearts to embrace them.
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Having descended from a long line of indomitable, good-humored Scots, Hayden MacBride sees no reason to take his own death lying down. In fact, he now spends his days crashing funerals for the free food and insight into the Great Beyond. Then he meets Rosamond, a nun playing hooky from the Holy Orders. Hayden is smitten the instant her heavy silver cross smacks him in the face when she leaps up to do the wave at a ball game. Luckily, Rosamond has picked the right person to teach her how to live... and to love -- because nobody does both better than Hayden MacBride.
However, Rosamond's years in the convent have not prepared her for the oddball characters of Hayden's world. There's his ever-fretful, vigilant daughter, Diana, the "Dutchess o' the Sidelong Glance"; his sweet grandson Joey, struggling to break free of his mother's overprotective embrace; Hayden's bagpipe-blowing cronies; the Greyfriars Gang; neighbor Bobbie Anne, a "working girl" full of good advice and tender mercies; and Hank, the sexy architect contemplating the priesthood -- a big mistake in Hayden's book. For Hayden thinks that Hank should be married to his daughter and raising Joey. And he has an elaborate plan to make Hank see things his way....
In an uproariously funny novel of love, laughter, and one man's final call at the riotous watering hole called life, Laura Pedersen proves that miracles are all around us -- when we open our eyes and our hearts to embrace them.
"This book will make you laugh and cry and like a good friend, you'll be happy to have made its acquaintance."
LORNA LANDVIK, AUTHOR OF ANGRY HOUSEWIVES EATING BON BONS
"Laura Pedersen's wry, bittersweet story charts the unlikely romance between a dying yet still vibrant man and a nun whose faith has abandoned her. While much is lost in this gentle tale, much is gained too, and by the novel's end, the characters are granted the kind of wisdom and acceptance for which we all continue to long."
nbsp; YONA MCDONOUGH, AUTHOR OF THE FOUR TEMPERAMENTS
Customer Reviews:
An Upbeat and Inspiring Approach to Mortality.......2007-01-05
This is a great book. The main character in "Last Call", Hayden, is wonderfully developed. He's funny with an off-beat personality. I loved reading about his left-field approach to his own mortality. At first, I wondered if I'd enjoy the book, since it's about dying. But the more I read, the more I loved Hayden. There were good life lessons and meaningful juxtapositions in the characters throughout the story. Read this a bit at a time and appreciate it.
BEST ROMANTIC COMEDY EVER.......2006-07-31
I laughed and cried, didn't want it to end, couldn't wait to get to the end. A wonderful, heartfelt, but also hilarious and beautifully written novel. SO much better than many of the books that make the rounds and get picked by famous people and yet I had to hear about this from a teacher friend. If you're a romantic you'll adore this book. An amazing and original love story, up there with the best -- LOVE STORY, CASABLANCA, JANE EYRE. Also raises thoughtful questions about life and death. A total gem. I won't spoil the rest. Just say that I'm desperate for a sequel, or a prequel, and where is the movie??
A GREAT READ.......2005-09-29
Lots of good old-fashioned fun here with a good cry or two mixed in. Sweet original story with the city of Brooklyn as its own wonderful character. If you like humor and intelligent dialogue and a bittersweet big love story, small coming of age tale, dealing with aging parents dilemma, meditation on life and death, you can't go wrong. Oddly enough, my 13-year old son enjoyed this book while we were on vacation. I did not think it would hold his attention past the first chapter...
Who Knows When We Will Hear The Last Call?.......2005-08-22
Hayden thinks he's on his last days and decides not to take his own dying lying down. Like a strange neighbor I had in Pulaski, Evelyn Medley, he starts attending funerals as a hobby. He decides to get things in order before the big day by finding the perfect husband for his daughter Diana who can help her raise sweet, little Joey. He chooses Hank who is contemplating entering the priesthood.
While he is involved in tying strings on his package deal of having his family taken care of, he finds a love of his own at a ballgame, Rosamund, whose heavy silver cross hit him in the face. He sees stars and feels young again. Young enough to teach a nun how to love, and live in his world peppered with odd-ball characters.
He is Scottish and his bagpipe-playing friends belong to the Greyfriars Gang. Rosamund's life in the convent hasn't prepared her to deal with such complicated people. A lot like Jan Karon's old pastor who finds love and a totally different outlook on life when he counsels an ill parishioner.
Hayden decides to go out with a bang and postpone his final call. Hope I can do the same. In 'Brigadoon, one of my favorite musicals, Mr. Lundie wisely advised the young lovers, "If you love somebody, anything is possible, even miracles." In this book, "sometimes the heart want 'one more for the road."
She has written HEART'S DESIRE, BEGINNER'S LUCK and GOING AWAY PARTY. If she continues as she has started, she will be a full fledged romance author in no time at all.
Destined To Become Classics.......2005-03-21
Hadn't heard of Laura Pedersen until the Virginia Book Festival. She did a wonderful and hilarious presentation and so I read BEGINNER'S LUCK and LAST CALL. They were very different novels, though both humorous, uplifting, and with enjoyable characters. The storylines were creative and engaging. The LAST CALL ending is a blockbuster -- won't give it away. Pedersen is young and writing a book a year -- the sequels to BEGINNER'S LUCK are coming out soon. I rarely write in reviews but I think this author is bound to become a classic in women's fiction, of the feel-good variety (rather than doom and gloom), and will continue to be enjoyed by young and old readers for years to come. I guess she will always be classified as an author of women's fiction and pitched to reading groups, but there are some great guys in the books -- Bernard in BEGINNER'S LUCK and Hayden in LAST CALL, so I think men would enjoy the stories as well but doubt they'll ever pick them up based on the wonderful but somewhat feminine covers. I especially like it that she gives older female characters brainy, sexy parts, and doesn't relegate them to the backseat of the family car. Hollywood will no doubt be calling soon if they haven't already. Looking forward to more.
Average customer rating:
- Uneven early work
- macabre depravity a la grotesque.
- McEwan's Descent Into Porn
- Early McEwan, promising but patchy
- Terrible
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First Love, Last Rites: Stories
Ian Mcewan
Manufacturer: Anchor
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ASIN: 0679750193
Release Date: 1994-01-13 |
Book Description
Ian McEwan's Somerset Maugham Award-winning collection
First Love, Last Rites brought him instant recognition as one of the most influential voices writing in England today. Taut, brooding, and densely atmospheric, these stories show us the ways in which murder can arise out of boredom, perversity can result from adolescent curiosity, and sheer evil might be the solution to unbearable loneliness. These tales are as horrifying as anything written by Clive Barker or Stephen King, but they are crafted with a lyricism and intensity that compel us to confront our secret kinship with the horrifying.
Customer Reviews:
Uneven early work.......2005-08-16
The stories in "First Love, Last Rites" are very uneven. The best of the lot - "Homemade" and "Disguises" - are dazzling in their detail and careful construction of character. Both are...perverted? twisted?...tales of misplaced sexuality. In "Homemade," a boy rapes his prepubescent sister in order to experience sex for the first time; in "Disguises," a boy is dressed in eccentric and sexually ambiguous costumes by his aunt, a former star of the stage. McEwan builds marvelous tension; each of these stories feels dangerous and vital.
The other stories vary from decent ("First Love, Last Rites") to downright terrible ("Cocker at the Theater"). In fact, "Cocker..." was so bad I laughed out loud when I finished it. The piece contains the usual public naked hijinks penned by literary-minded frat boys and submitted to undergraduate poetry mags and is just as poorly written. The rest of the stories are technically proficient but lack any sort of moral, human, or artistic depth. They are concept pieces combing self-loathing and sex. Perhaps utterly necessary to write, but equally difficult to read.
Still, I might recommend the collection - especially a used or borrowed copy - for the stories bookending the drivel in the middle.
macabre depravity a la grotesque........2005-07-16
I would begin my review by saying that if you are going to begin a journey into the wonderful world of McEwan, don't begin here. Then I would say that he is one of my favorite writers, EVER. He is incredibly good, but I am afraid that none of these eight stories really resonated with me. I would say that they don't represent how well he can write. If you began here, you might assume that McEwan is somewhat fixated with sexual rites of passage themes, when really he isn't.
From a pickled penis, in the first story; to childhood incestuous rape, in the second; to a third story (perhaps the best of all) with the least amount of sexual innuendo; to the fourth, depicting uncontrollable on-stage public sexual intercourse; to the fifth, sexually motivated murder; to the sixth, about a masturbatory recluse; to the seventh, the "art" of which, eluded me almost entirely; to the eighth, involving what I consider child abuse brought on by a self-obsessed, cross-dressing caregiver.
Are the stories written well? Hell yes.
McEwan is exquisite (present tense) and this book (1975) proves that "exquisiteness" is not just a recent development with him. It is the subject matter that I find objectionable. And not so much in an "immoral" sense as much as in an "unappealing" sense. In these stories he is dealing with such grotesque imagery, that I find it difficult to find these particular stories applicable. For the most part, they are about the kind of stuff that even the newspapers omit from their most disturbing back pages.
Maybe I don't want to look that close. Perhaps I don't want to read about how some guy "tosses himself off" in the closet of some attic somewhere, or how in a shadowy tunnel along a river, a young girl is sexually victimized and then slid into the river, like a fish that no one wanted, because it was too small for a good meal.
They are fairly brutal stories, I'm not kidding.
But McEwan is SUCH a great writer. If I have caught you in time, read him elsewhere, and then come back here when you are in love with him. And trust him.
McEwan's Descent Into Porn.......2005-06-29
Like other reviewers, I marvel at the genius (a term I rarely use) of Mr. McEwan, in works such as "Atonement," "Amsterdam," and "Saturday." I believe that he is the finest writer of fiction living today. However "First Love, Last Rites," written albeit very early in his career, while offering us snippets of dark humor and polished prose, are for the most part one-dimensional tales of sexual rites of passage. And bizarre rites they are! One is exposed to incest, child abuse and other peculiar tales from a writer who was obviously groping his way onto the literary landscape. Concentrate on his later works and forget this compilation. He is so much better than these stories.
Early McEwan, promising but patchy.......2003-09-13
"First Love, Last Rites (FLLR)" is Ian McEwan's first short story collection and while I love virtually every novel he has written so far - "Enduring Love", "Black Dogs" and "Atonement" are truly modern classics - FLLR is very early McEwan, showing promise but lacking the assured confidence of his later works. In this Somerset Maugham Award winning book, McEwan displays all the qualities that have come to characterise his style. Unafraid to break taboos or upset social conventions, he forces the boundaries of acceptability and occasionally goes for the jugular when he employs shock tactics to awaken our natural instinct for the dark and the macabre that lies dormant beneath our consciousness.
The opening vignette "Solid Geometry" is fascinating sci-fi-cum-horror fare. I couldn't help stifling a chuckle at the inventive way in which the protagonist finally "got rid" of his wife. "Homemade" about the awakening of a boy's sexuality via the only means available to him is another winner, both terrifying and funny. "Butterflies" and "Conversations With A Cupboard Man" are more conventional stories about loners and the devastating effect of repression. "Last Day Of Summer" is a gentle reminder that "still waters run deep" with grotesques. I don't think I got the essence of "Cocker At The Theatre" though it seems to be about sexuality and control and how they don't mix. The last two stories are to me the weakest in the collection. The title story seems tame and listless, ie, it goes nowhere, while the closing vignette "Disguises" is too befuddling to make any sense of. Is the aunt just mad or is she a closet cross dresser and a dominatrix in her little mad house ? Too much of a mindbender for me.
"First Love, Last Rites" is a qualified success. The highs are truly excellent but be prepared for a couple of disappointments.
Terrible.......2003-05-12
I have no idea what people see in this book. I had such high hopes, only to have them dashed by a collection of surreal 'huh?' stories -- turned me off Ian McEwan completely.
Customer Reviews:
Super Reader.......2007-08-30
This is another Grahic Audio book that I have not read in novel form, so can't say if it is any different. I have read around three other Destroyer novels, and this is considerably better.
The riff on Chiun is like McDowell from the excruciatingly bad movie, but actually decent. Here, Remo is at the height of his powers, and more interested in a personal issue, finding his father.
The bitterness of the few early books is not in existence here, as it takes a look at his background, and he basically undergoes the Twelve Labours of Hercules. Chiun's twelve labors are pretty low rent, though, which is very funny. His sphinx is a statue, his hind of arcadia is your garden variety moose, as his Cerberus is a urinating hiding mafioso and his three Rhodesian ridgebacks.
Very entertaining. The Remo actor does quite well, fending off stewardesses, putting up with annoying Sinanju masters, and looking for his dead. This one had me laughing at times as it spoofed all sorts of stuff.
I had not really liked what I had read of the Destroyer much so far, but if gets funnier like this later on, I am looking forward to it.
This was a good quality production, from the actors, to the moose and crazy machine gunning, to the narrated backstory.
Customer Reviews:
The Eucharist: Ancient and Ever New.......2006-04-19
Consult this book to understand more deeply the evolution of the Christian rite of the Eucharist. Fr. Kodell starts with the Jewish meal and then analyzes the traditions from Mark/Matthew and Paul/Luke with a separate chapter on John's interpretation. He advocates learning from the earliest sources and continuously re-aligning the message of Christ's life and the gospel, ever faithful with the scriptural original, "to new expression in our own day and in our own way" (p. 131).
This book will be of interest to liturgists, the liturgy committee, scripture buffs, and inquisitive individuals. Chapter 2, "The Last Supper and the Lord's Supper: a Survey of Recent Scholarship" is the most challenging, but illuminates the status of research and writing on the Eucharist. In all, I am glad to have expanded my view of the Eucharist and to have learned of the many differences between the Gospel accounts of Jesus' last meal.
Scholarly summary?.......2005-09-11
This book is nothing more than a summary of positions that different scholars hold on the Eucharistic readings of the New Testament. There is nothing new; what's more, there is nothing edifying. It is also unclear through the course of the book whether Kodell supports the historicity of the Gospel accounts; this historicity is clearly affirmed in the Church's Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation (Dei Verbum), and one would hope a Catholic monk like Kodell would stick to Catholic positions. Also, Kodell does not seem to draw the distinction between what the Savior said (whether He spoke the institution narrative Himself or not) and the revealed Scriptures which transmit all that is needed for salvation. Finally, this book has a number of historical inaccuracies - for instance, pp. 48-9 incorrectly elaborate upon the "Todah" sacrifice (he apparently never read Leviticus 17). Look elsewhere, especially towards Louis Bouyer and J. Jungmann.
Book Description
This book includes the COMPLETE TEXTS of two versions of this most secret ritual: (1) a never-before-published c.1827 early American version and (2) the ritual used by most Supreme Councils world-wide. The latter is especially enlightening to those interested in the "vengeance," Templar and Kadosh aspects of Freemasonry.
Customer Reviews:
Complex yet Engaging!.......2005-09-05
If you are a student of Freemasonry then you really must have this book in your library. A truly rare and astonishing find.
A Great Ritual!.......2005-08-26
I was so happy to have found this scarce work of the 33rd degree of Freemasonry. This makes a fascinating read for Freemasons or anyone interested in Freemasonry.
Secret Ritual of the Thirty-Third Degree.......2001-06-29
A short twenty page booklet.
Between the covers of this booklet one can find light. The booklet describes the secret ritual of the Thirty-Third degree of Freemasonry. This is not light reading, but extremely interesting from a historical perspective! After reading the booklet the reader is still hoodwinked, so to speak. Only the Thirty-third Degree brother knows the truth, and he isn't talking.
Those in the Fraternity of Freemasonry are aware of the Degree, but most know very little about it. Those on the outside know even less.
This book early on, makes the statement that descriptions of two versions of the Degree are included, but also includes a disclaimer that neither of the two rituals are used by the legitimate Supreme Council 33d Degree of the United States, or the Supreme Council 33 Degree for England and Wales.
Few Freemasons are aware of, or will admit to the role of the Knights Templars in the history of Freemasonry, instead choosing to believe in the myth of Stone Mason Guilds as the origin of Freemasonry. Freemasonry has been around much, much longer than that!
The underlying theme of the Degree is vengeance directed against the arch-foes of the Templars: The Knights of Malta; the Pope; Phillip the Fair, King of France; and other Orders of Catholic Knighthood.
The Names of Frederick II and Louis of Burbon are mentioned as the originators of this Degree.
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