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Inner Life, Inner Work

May 11, 2016 by Jan Bear Leave a Comment

Dream on a train

Whether you’re a fiction writer trying to add depth to your characters or someone wanting to explore the mysteries of your own inner life, Inner Work, by Robert Johnson will be a valuable resource for you.Johnson, a Jungian analyst and author of 17 books, wrote the book as a means to interpret dreams, avoiding the trap of "you’ll meet a handsome stranger” that so many dream manuals fall into.Instead, his approach gives insights to understand how the symbols resonate uniquely with the dreamer, … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Book Review

Mansfield Park vs. Mansfield Park

January 25, 2016 by Jan Bear Leave a Comment

Mansfield Park

I recently watched the Mansfield Park movie, made in 1999. As standalone entertainment, it was OK: entertaining and emotionally moving with a dollop of social consciousness.But it had been a long time since I had read the book by Jane Austen, and there were a few things that surprised me about Austen. A hardness, a coarseness, that fit our century more than hers.Mansfield Park is the story of a quiet, shy, and sensitive young girl named Fanny, raised above the the poverty she was born in to grow … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Book Review, Jane Austen, Katherine Hyde, Movie Review

Asphalt Asylum, Steve Theme

January 18, 2016 by Jan Bear Leave a Comment

Asphalt Asylum, by Steve Theme

Steve Theme’s memoir, Asphalt Asylum: The Dark Roads to Light is a moving and thoughtful adventure story about a young man who leaves home to fight the darkness he sees growing in himself.As a 19-year-old in 1978, Steve struck out from Seattle, Washington, heading south on a hitchhiking journey that eventually took him to Key West, Florida, and back. He rides with a gangster, a mortician, a young Idaho farmer, an amazing variety of people, who carry him not only across seven thousand miles but … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Book Review Tagged With: Steve Theme

Anansi Boys, Neil Gaiman

August 30, 2014 by Jan Bear Leave a Comment

Anansi Boys, Neil Gaiman

Neil Gaiman is a mystical portal where folk stories and mythology come pouring into our present literature. Everything from Norse (and other) mythologies (American Gods) to the land of nightmares (Coraline) flows through his rich imagination. In Anansi Boys he goes to the African spider-trickster for his source and brings him into a dysfunctional American and British family. "Fat" Charlie (he's not really fat, just soft around the edges, really) is living a fairly nice life in England, far … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Book Review Tagged With: Neil Gaiman

Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome

May 26, 2014 by Jan Bear Leave a Comment

Three Men in a Boat: The Luggage

I've wanted to read Three Men in a Boat ever since I first read Connie Willis' funny time-travel novel, To Say Nothing of the Dog, which is the subtitle of this book. Three Men in a Boat is an episodic journey of three men in flannel and boaters traveling up the Thames River in Victorian England. They sleep in the open air, wander off to town for roast mutton or something, and offer the occasional improving diversion into English history. It's a lightweight read, told in a droll style, and … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Book Review Tagged With: Jerome K. Jerome

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