Category Archives: Books

Living Well Emotionally by Montel Williams

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I love reading books about people with major challenges in their lives because it makes me feel like I don’t have any worries in the world compared to them. For example, Montel Williams has had a very successful life as a talk show host for many years, and has even had a few movie roles. You would think, “What problems could he possibly have?” Well, about ten years ago, he was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis, a major debilitating and painful disease of the central nervous … Continue reading →

Heritage, Civilization & the Jews

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Heritage is “the story of a small people with a large place in the destiny of mankind…There is virtually no civilization that does not have a Jewish component, just as there is no Jewish civilization that does not bear the mark of another culture.” Thus states Abba Eban in this magnificently illustrated and superbly written book, the companion volume to the PBS television series, “Heritage.” With the characteristic eloquence that has made him an international spokesman for his country and his people, Mr. Eban charts … Continue reading →

Night by Elie Wiesel

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Born in the town of Sighet, Transylvania, Elie Wiesel was a teenager when he and his family were taken from their home in 1944 to the Auschwitz concentration camp, and then to Buchenwald. Night, is the terrifying record of Elie Wiesel’s memories of the death of his family, the death of his own innocence, and his despair as a deeply observant Jew confronting the absolute evil of man. This new translation by his wife and most frequent translator, Marion Wiesel, corrects important details and presents … Continue reading →

Will You Take Me As I Am, a book by Joni Mitchell

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Joni Mitchell is one of the most celebrated artists of the last half century, and her landmark 1971 album, Blue, is one of her most beloved and revered works. Generations of people have come of age listening to the album, inspired by the way it clarified their own difficult emotions. Critics and musicians admire the idiosyncratic virtuosity of its compositions. Will You Take Me As I Am — the first book about Joni Mitchell to include original interviews with her — looks at Blue to … Continue reading →

IBM and the Holocaust

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“IBM and the Holocaust” by Edwin Black, tells the story of the involvement of this US corporation in the establishment of Hitler’s Third Reich and the destruction of European Jewry. The author of this book, Edwin Black shows how technology developed in America by Herman Hollerith-a punch card and punch card sorting system-enabled the Nazis to organize their war machine and carry through the efficient and systematic genocide of the Jews. At the time of the Nazi dictatorship, IBM had a near worldwide monopoly over … Continue reading →

Echoes of the Sixties

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Whatever became of your favorite pop music stars of the 1960s? As the 1960s draw ever more distant in our recollective rear-view mirror, the overwhelming influence of those watershed years in redefining American culture becomes ever more apparent. Today, 54 million Americans who call themselves children of the ’60s, people who lived their formative years during that decade, find a common bond in the events, sights, and sounds of that remarkable era of change.  Echoes of the Sixties by Marti Smiley Childs and Jeff March … Continue reading →

Ansel Adams in Color

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Ansel Adams (1902-1984) was one the greatest photographers and environmentalists of the twentieth century. His career spans to more than sixty years. He created over 40,000 photographs. He is possibly the most honored photographer in history. I would say that he is my greatest inspiration in landscape photography. He really got me into it. He was the recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom and numerous honorary degrees. His photographs have been exhibited at many of the world’s major museums. Ansel Adams began to photograph … Continue reading →

The Science of Being and Art of Living

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I have just revised this blog in honor of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, who recently passed away in India. I wonder how many people in 2008 still read this book, “The Science of Being and Art of Living”. This book was very popular in the late 1960s around the time that The Beatles went to India to meditate and spend time with the Maharishi. The Beatles were very young, even though they thought they were so mature. They even had contests to see who could meditate … Continue reading →

Ageless Body, Timeless Mind by Deepak Chopra

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“I would like you to join me on a journey of discovery. We will explore a place where the rules of everyday existence do not apply. These rules explicitly state that to grow old, become frail, and die is the ultimate destiny of all. And so it has been for century after century. However, I want you to suspend your assumptions about what we call reality so that we can become pioneers in a land where youthful vigor, renewal, creativity, joy, fulfillment, and timelessness are … Continue reading →