"Madeleine May Kunin's memoir "Coming of Age: My Journey to the Eighties" (Green Writers Press) introduces its chapters with brief poems based on themes like downsizing, independence, love late in life, being alone and "How will I die?" Kunin was the first woman elected governor of Vermont, former U.S. ambassador to Switzerland and U.S. deputy secretary of education - and the first Jewish woman to be elected governor of any U.S. state. Now a professor-at-large at the University of Vermont and activist on behalf of women in politics, she is feisty, funny, introspective, unafraid and wise as she adjusts to what she calls old age, looking both back and ahead at her future. She is a most appealing guide through this territory. While she doesn't glorify old age, she proceeds thinking "the more life, the better," seeing aging as a new stage of development in which she continues to learn and find joy."
"Her new work talks about her latest challenge: aging, particularly how it has affected her and her husband. While doing so, she also looks back on earlier parts of her life: her parents' escape from Europe and the difficulties she faced as a woman running for office and as a government official. Interspersed with her recollections are poems, which offer a different angle to her thoughts. . . . Coming of Age: My Journey to the Eighties is a slender work, less than 200 pages. However, Kunin fills it with warm memories and hopes for the future-even as she realistically looks at what life may bring during her remaining years."
"What sets it apart from most of the books I've gratefully read on Islam is its author. He's not a worried conservative, a disillusioned ex-Muslim, or a Christian refugee from some intolerant Muslim country. Instead, he's a professor of Islamic studies at a nominally Catholic college. His students divide pretty evenly between believing American Muslims, and curious kids from nominally Christian families. So Prof. Pinault spends his life on the front line of the current civilizational struggle. That is, between Muslims who really do believe in their faith's tenets, and Western Christians who don't."
To Raise the Fallen9781621642565
(12/11) Featured in The National Catholic Register's blog post: "Christmas Ideas: 5 Great Books About Saints Who Inspire" blog post:
Dorothy Day 9781621641575
(12/11) Featured in The National Catholic Register's blog post: "Christmas Ideas: 5 Great Books About Saints Who Inspire" blog post:
Excerpt: "Dr. John Wood, a mobile eye doctor and father of four from Ohio, created a curriculum to help guide parents on their journey to make their kids saints. Neither overbearing nor overly academic, Wood tells readers in his book "The Light Entrusted to You: Keeping the Flame of Faith Alive," that helping children to become saints is the most important job parents will have. Wood is passionate, and he uses that fire to provide pragmatic ways for parents to pass on the torch of faith onto their children."
