My reading corner

 I run into this book while searching for another one (and isn't it always like it? best things just happen, without you thinking about it). After reading the cover, I decided to buy it, and it has become one of my favourites of all time! The story is sad, but it has been written with such a light heart, you forget a murder heppened, it's the dynamics between the characters that relly matter here.

The story: "So it was that, from heaven, I watched my father build a tent with the man who'd killed me." Our narrator Susie Salmon is already in heaven. Murdered by a neighbor when she was only fourteen years old, Susie tells us what it is like to be in her new place. "When I first entered heaven I thought everyone saw what I saw. That in everyone's heaven there were soccer goalposts in the distance and lumbering women throwing shot put and javelin. That all the buildings were like suburban northeast high schools built in the 1960s." Later she learns that heaven is whatever you truly want it to be and, sometimes, other people's version of heaven intercepts with your own. Susie meets another girl, Holly, on her third day in heaven and they end up sharing their ideal home, a duplex. Franny, their intake counselor, helps them adjust. As Susie gets used to living in heaven, she watches her family and friends on Earth as they come to the realization that she is gone forever. Her murder occurred on December 6, 1973; back at a time when people still didn't believe things like that could happen. Unlike later when "kids of all races and genders started appearing on milk cartons or in the daily mail." She watches as her parents begin to grasp the un-retractable horror that has entered their lives. At first they try to reassure themselves that "nothing is ever certain;" that Susie is just lost out in the rain somewhere, and alive. But there is no speculation on our part, Susie tells us right off the details of what happened to her. As the days go by and the evidence mounts, her parents still refuse to believe; that is, until the day Detective Fenerman tells them that all evidence points to their daughter's death and that the police will handle this as a murder investigation. And in that moment Susie sees each of her family members retreat separately into him or her self as each tries to come to understand the devastating news. Her father walks past his wife sitting on the living room carpet unable to comfort her and heads for the study to cry in the "deep ruff of the fur surrounding the dog's neck." When the neighbor tries to bring four-year-old Buckley home, nobody answers the doorbell. It is evident that something has changed in the Salmon household. Susie worries most about her gifted and petulant sister Lindsay. Lindsay is only one year younger but still is not told directly about what's happened to Susie; instead she hears telephone snippets and bits of conversations between her parents and the police. After hearing her father describe Susie's features, she asks her father not to lie to her, so he doesn't; but even answering her question, he can't face the truth of his words. Susie watches Lindsay sitting alone in her bedroom trying to harden herself. As the story unfolds, it is clear that Lindsay carries the hardest burden, because no one will ever be able to look at her and not think about Susie. By losing her sister, Lindsay is in danger of being robbed of herself. Perhaps it is because Susie is narrating from heaven that she has a true and believable omniscient point of view. Because she cares, all of the characters are explored equally and their motivations, reactions and actions are clearly and evenly relayed. Not that she isn't capable of curling her lip in heaven, nor is she so accepting that she doesn't try to make people see things, especially who her murderer is. And for that matter she does watch her murderer. But it's watching her family and friends as they begin to heal where the heart of the story lies. She's there when her father comes to the realization that the immortality that should have come with bearing three children was not as assured as he thought; and he reacts by pouring his love into the living. Something different happens in Susie's mother. She gave up a scholarly life to have a family, so when her first baby is murdered, it just brings her up short. She goes into a vacant auto-mode, daydreaming about the time before she had a family, even wishing she didn't have a family. Meanwhile Susie keeps watching, hoping that they can feel her there and that a little bit at a time they can be more like the family they used to be. Susie does find that there are special advantages to being in heaven; like she is now privy to everything, like when her thirteen-year-old sister gets a Christmas present from a cute boy in the kitchen and they kiss. Though Susie has to guard herself against living too vicariously through Lindsay. She also watches while her best friend Clarissa "spins away" from her towards the comfort of her boyfriend. And she keeps a watch over Ray Singh, the boy that she liked, the boy that she managed to have one kiss with before her death. And she follows the "not-so-standard-issue teenage girl" Ruth Connors, whom she accidentally brushed against as she was leaving Earth. Given the age and what happened to the narrator, one might expect another kind of tone to this novel. But Susie Salmon is not sad, angry, or bitter. Instead she is a mix of curiosity and hope about the people still on Earth. All right, she does have an occasional pang as she watches her sister and the other teens grow up and do things she never will. But her real regret is not for herself; it is for the members of her family and friends who are left to sort out her death. Although there are beautiful morsels describing Susie's "wide, wide heaven," it acts as a backdrop to the novel, not the centerpiece. The Lovely Bones is about Susie watching her family and friends heal and finding their way back to being connected with one another. It is about restoration of a family after it is devastated.

  There are a lot of versions of this book, but no matter which one you choose to read, the summary it's the same. It was very useful for me, before and after the death of my father-in-law. Before, coz I was there when he passed away, and I've always thought that if this would have happened , I would have run away scared. Instead, I took his hand in mine, and I conforted him in his last journey. After, coz I know he's with us all the time.

The summary: In 1927, Walter Evans-Wentz published his translation of an obscure Tibetan Nyingma text and called it the Tibetan Book of the Dead. Popular Tibetan teacher Sogyal Rinpoche has transformed that ancient text, conveying a perennial philosophy that is at once religious, scientific, and practical. Through extraordinary anecdotes and stories from religious traditions East and West, Rinpoche introduces the reader to the fundamentals of Tibetan Buddhism, moving gradually to the topics of death and dying. Death turns out to be less of a crisis and more of an opportunity. Concepts such as reincarnation, karma, and bardo and practices such as meditation, tonglen, and phowa teach us how to face death constructively. As a result, life becomes much richer. Like Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, Sogyal Rinpoche opens the door to a full experience of death. It is up to the reader to walk through.

  You'll never watch at an eclypse in the same way after this...

The story: As the story begins, Dolores Claiborne is in a police interrogation and wants to make clear to the police that she did not kill her wealthy employer, an elderly woman named Vera Donovan whom she has looked after for years. She does, however, confess to the murder of her husband, Joe St. George, almost 30 years before. The novel develops into the story of her life, her troubled marriage, and her relationship with her employer.

  I like misteries, and the real ones are far more fascinating than any novels.......

A review by Graham Lincoln: If I were only allowed to recommend One book, Rosslyn would-have been the book I chose to review! I opened it, while contemplating which book I would sit down with, and suddenly realized I'd read twenty pages! This one will be a timeless treasure and a perfect gift for the Mason or Templar-buff...but, you will be pleasantly surprised when you find substantial, historical discussion of Religions, Culture and myth vs. history. Rosslyn will cause many debates and many individual shifts in consciousness. This book is not for the easily-distressed fundamentalist. Of course, if you have not studied about religion, culture, society, et al...you will not understand this masterpiece of truth-seeking research, yet it may inspire you to Delve-Deeper. This work contains a concise chronology of the development of the religion of Christianity, with many references at the back of the book to continue your research, if you are inclined to seek the light. I found the writing style of this book to be very captivating and flowing, unlike some of the less-researched/more-embellished works on the market, which are not so articulately and poetically drafted. This book should be compared with the other important works of the genre, and I suggest looking-into the works of Graham Hancock. "Astrological Lore of All Ages," by Elbert Benjamine will be handy to have around, while reading this one, as well. Don't pass Rosslyn up...you'll regret it, later.

  In the wave of Seven Years in Tibet and Return to Tibet, I bought this book to achieve more knowledge about Tibet and his landscapes. It's a really amazing story, breathtaking and very emotional.

The story: 15 Years-old Buddhist nuns who dare to challenge the Chinese invaders, children who are reincarnated deities, heroic teenagers and elders that come from another time, torturers and wise hermits, corrupt policemen and nomadic warriors. . . ‘The Mountains of Buddha’ is a tale of what refuses to vanish on the other side of the Himalayas: the spirit of resistance, the faith, the Soul of Tibet. It is the true story of two young women who join a group of refugees to cross, at night and by foot, the highest mountains of the world.