Out of Darkness: From Turmoil to Transformation

If you are one of those searching for the true meaning of happiness, one book you must not miss reading is Steve Taylor’s Out of the Darkness (Hay House, 2011). This book brings clarity and understanding to our otherwise misunderstood ideal of happiness, looking at the concept of happiness from a psycho-spiritual angle.

Taylor, a psychology lecturer in Britain and author of the best-selling book Waking from Sleep, has included in his book true studies of people, some of them widely known for their excellent work or achievements, showing their transformation to a state of peace and positivity after experiencing trauma or turmoil in their lives. These “shifters”—as termed in the book—changed for good, no more taking life for granted but valuing each moment of it as a joy in itself. Whether it was some terrifying physical accident, intense emotional crisis, or a close encounter with death, the trial in life paradoxically worked wonders for the shifters, whose entire perception of everyday life and personal involvement in its activities derived new meaning—a state of deep satisfaction and harmony with all that is there.

What precisely could cause such bliss is explained by the author in terms of our psychological structure. The book explores the role of ego in human perception and attitude. Ego is held at the core of the quest for doing more, going for the mundane, and to have more than is there already—leading us to unfulfilling, presumed points of happiness. But after the sufferings or coming face to face with death, the ego is beaten down and its shell of possession around our mind is broken, liberating the inner self to true happiness and fresh appreciation of life.

Out of the Darkness has many important lessons for its readers and answers to many important questions, including but not limited to:

 Difference between religious conversion and spiritual transformation
 Breaking attachments for attaining happiness
 Psychotic states versus higher states of consciousness
 Spirituality after substance abuse
 Work, relationships, and spirituality
 Freedom and happiness

Steve Taylor’s book is inspirational, informative, and full of hope. In our times when each day comes to millions as a challenge to make more, Out of the Darkness shows what it really means to make the most of our lives each moment. This book is without question a must-read for everyone.

Amazon Link: http://www.amazon.com/Out-Darkness-Turmoil-Transformation-Taylor/dp/1848502540

Author website: http://www.steventaylor.talktalk.net/

F.N.G

Donald Bodey’s war novel F.N.G (new revised edition from Modern History Press, 2008) tells a story of a Vietnam War veteran in his words. The book depicts the psychological impact of traumatic war experiences on a young soldier, or F.N.G—the military slang for ‘Fucking New Guy’.

The protagonist of the novel Gabriel Sauers, after accidentally shooting his grandson in the foot while hunting in the wild, remembers his arrival in Vietnam as a draftee. Through his eyes, the readers see the miserable living condition of the soldiers in a land that is far from home in every sense. With time, the uncertainty of life in the war zone accumulates as Sauers witnesses many a trauma including the death of his fellow soldiers and the ugliness of the world’s most dangerous and senseless situation—kill or be killed.

The narration is raw and imparts the closeness of the misery, physical and psychological, that a newcomer experienced fighting in Nam. Bodey’s writing skill is concentrated in the imagery of the places, people, and situations that constituted the frightening experiences of its leading character. In this book, you not only read about the Vietnam War, but you see the war, smell the rotting life affected by it, and hear the silent cries of the souls thrown into a pit of horror. And by the time you get to the novel’s end, the suspicion of whether Sauers really shot his grandson accidentally makes you think twice about the deepest scars war leaves on those who “fight” it.

There’s quite a bit of military slang in F.N.G, reflected in the title, and the author has made available an online glossary on his website. While may not be an enjoyable book for many female audiences, for all people interested in serious war fiction, this novel is worth reading.

ISBN: 978-1932690590

Availability: http://www.amazon.com/F-N-G-Revised-Donald-Bodey/dp/193269059X

Author Website: http://donbodey.com/

American Elegies

“Hype over substance” is the new American motto as readers are told in the prolegomenon of American Elegies (World Audience Publishers, 2008). The poet, Louis Phillips, has mourned this degradation in a unique, America-centric verse.

Phillips’ view takes for its reference Johnny Inkslinger (Paul Bunyan’s smart chef), implying a sharp eye and good consideration for the subject adopted into verse. Johnny Inkslinger engages in virtual travels, rendezvous, and memories of people, places, things, and events—all American—that left a mark on American thought. Battles, Native American land and animals, Hollywood, sports, politics, art and literature, and more—Johnny Inkslinger makes sure not to miss on anything.

The mood of these poems is mostly contemplative, and not plaintive in the more traditional, classic elegiac style. Some poems read much more critically, a few even getting satirical. But the imagery, mostly from memories of past American events, things, and places, dilutes the mood sufficiently to impart the feel of an adventurous, slightly nostalgic travel in what America has been; in what it has seen.

What makes it difficult for an average, and in particular non-American, reader is that these poems are full of allusions (not unexpectedly) to American history, icons, culture, and literature. A well-read reader, however, with sound knowledge of Americana will surely find it a treasure of thoughts connecting America’s past and its present. The ending of the books is more overtly plaintive: disappointment in America’s lack of morals.

ISBN: 0982054009

Availability: http://www.amazon.com/American-Elegies-Louis-Phillips/dp/0982054009

Wisdom to Wellness

The traditional medical system treats only the symptoms of our health issues and for this, we spend a lot of our income/savings, without getting to the root cause of the problem and fixing it for good. In this book, alternative-holistic therapist Maureen Minnehan Jones shares with her readers the essence of her successful healing techniques as well as the theoretical framework for addressing the root cause of disease. Jones educates readers on the often-ignored side of all disease—our emotional self and its deep relation with our life energy, which manifest in our physical condition.

Maureen Jones’ work shows that disease is not something reducible to an external biological agent (the generally believed germ theory of disease); rather it is an expression of the deeper inner needs which have been left unattended and, quite often, suppressed. We often fail to nurture our souls with the love and trust we require each moment, leading our bodies as well as minds to a condition where they lose their natural, healthy state. How to get them in order with simple, yet vital attitude and practices is what Jones’ book achieves.

In separate chapters, Wisdom to Wellness explains the nature of a number of the most common and dreaded diseases—cancer, heart disease, HIV/AIDS, arthritis, Alzheimer’s, and Hepatitis etc—and what needs to be done to prevent and/or treat them. Each chapter on disease has one or more case studies giving an account of what it means to suffer from that condition and what it takes to get over it. The author’s writing is very organized and smooth, and it involves the reader deeply in the book’s chapters. Each chapter starts with a memorable, wise quote. The effect of the book is uplifting and its message is assuring, i.e. we can be take control of our lives if we want.

Wisdom to Wellness deserves recommendation for anyone who cares about their health, wellbeing, and quality of life.

Availability: http://www.amazon.com/Wisdom-Wellness-Emotional-Sufferings-Physical/dp/184694399X

Ideas and Jellyfish

Professor Askin Ozcan has named this collection of his stories and reflections Ideas and Jellyfish (Prakash Books, 2011), after one of the creative nonfiction pieces in the book—the comparison being that ideas are elusive, just like jellyfish, slipping away the moment you touch them.

The items in this book are full of wit, humor, and adventure, though not all chapters are equally exciting; some are rich in creativity and thought; some are rather plain, like usual observations. Many stories are based on the author’s adventures in different countries and cultures (Professor Ozcan being a widely-traveled person). Interesting coincidences also make some of the real-life stories more attractive. At the end of the book are some fresh jokes.

The best story, which is also the longest in the book, is undoubtedly Please, No Serious Business! Full of humor, fantasy, and gentle satire, it describes the formation of a political party consisting of comedians, who win the national elections while sticking to their motto of making people laugh. In imagination, humor, and mood, it emulates the author’s previous gem The Second Venice. This story alone makes good reason for all lovers of amusing fiction to get the book and see how far the author’s imagination can take them.

Call it the work of wit, Professor Ozcan’s amusing ideas presented in this collection aren’t so shy as jellyfish. They are likely to remain with the readers for quite a while after they have finished reading the book.

ISBN-13: 9788172343736

Availability: http://www.egully.com/products/Ideas-%26-Jellyfish-by-Askin-Ozcan.html

Skive: The Short Story Quarterly—December 2006

Skive magazine by the Mockfrog Design Press (Australia) was a quarterly of short fiction presenting the work of writers from around the world. The second issue of the print version, published December 2006, includes 28 short stories from as many writers. The anthology covers a broad range of themes, styles, and moods, making a kind of a literary map of the world’s voices in storytelling.

Most of the stories in this collection are quite interesting—some, like Pankaj Challa’s Padma, inspiring compassion; some sketching a case of critique of art (e.g. The Finished Symphony: A Fable); while a few, like Hidden Monsters by Donna Johnson, showing the not-so-invisible dreads of human life that are not scary, to surprise all. There is some great, refined humor in a few stories, J. R. Salling’s Bird is the Word being the best of them. Of course, there are quite a few outright crazy ones too, like M. Wilkinson’s The Eclipse.

This Skive anthology is lovable for its diversity, literary taste, and storytelling skills in various genres. The magazine has been publishing online, and later in print, for a number of years. This issue is available online at Lulu. Editor Matthew Ward is now starting a new unique magazine called No Printer Zone wherein he means to include hand-written work—stories, poems, and visual art.

ISBN: 978-1-934209-13-4

Availability: http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/skive-magazine-quarterly---issue-2-december-2006/604629

The Death of Pan

Our existence in the world as humans having bodies and minds is defined by a perpetual quest for making sense of life—through expressing and concealing, as well as interacting with various elements, both internally and outwardly. More than anything else, we are instinctively drawn to defend our ‘self’—that which is considered and felt as the valuable and, in a more metaphysical sense, the sacred. Tom Petsinis’ The Death of Pan (Penguin Books Australia, 2001) engages readers in 16 compelling tales of the characteristic human anxiety, which makes the base of the continuum connecting the biological instinct of self-preservation with the learned aspects of living in society.

These stories grab your attention since the very first page of the book in that the author takes you, the reader, as his protagonist—the tales all narrated in second person. The nameless main character “you” becomes an everyman in different geographical and social settings and experiencing various situations with a heightened consciousness, mostly getting increasingly anxious as the veneers around the protected self peel one by one with the unfolding of the events in each story. Comparing the human sense, or spirit, of protection with the Greek god Pan, Petsinis subtly strips his readers of their illusion of the human being the advanced species—traditionally perceived as reflecting the image of god—with a touch of irony. Man’s story starts out well, with hope and passion, but not for long. The illusion dies, as does Pan (the only Greek god who really dies, as the mythology goes), and what follows is beyond description—just the end of the story, as in Petsinis’ tales.

Though Petsinis’ themes and characters are more generic, his characters—or “you”—are men with a passion for the artistic, intellectual, the exceptional; they are mostly aspiring geniuses and masters of a craft or skill—individuals more than willing to shoulder the heavens. Whether they are really up to it and how they will soon worry about saving themselves from the fierce force of life make the element of interest in the plot of each narrative. In some of these stories, Anorexia for example, the causal or thematic connection between events is rather obscure; in others, it shows in each line. Stories like The Ultimate Prime and The Lion Tamer are sharply focused gems of meaningful narrative wherein readers are taken right on to the thin line between achievement and doom. One story, The Predator, instantiates the art of good story-telling and the value it holds for the storyteller—literarily and commercially.

The only thing that may bother the reader of The Death of Pan is the monotonous narration in second person. A voice, not yours, telling that you did this and went through that feels imposing at times. On the whole, however, Petsinis’ stories are not to be missed. It is a literary treasure, timeless and invaluable.

ISBN: 014100424X