Category Archives: Book Reviews

Climbing Maya: An Exploration into Success

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Ken La Salle
Solstice Publishing, 2012
ISBN 9781477531853
Reviewed by Patricia Wellingham-Jones

Synopsis: A man explores the meaning of success from a wide range of perspectives.

When Ken La Salle was fired from his job as a marketing writer, he decided to find out what success really meant, as he felt very far from that ideal. This memoir is a description of the months following his unemployment, his friendships with two men important in his life, and the woman who’d been his wife only a few months but was the acme of acceptance and support. A key person in the story was Megan, friend Sean’s wife and dying of leukemia, who turns out to have had much to teach Ken.

Ken La Salle had a bent for philosophy, starting with a Christian childhood then moving on to study ideas and religions of the centuries, winding up with Buddhism being the most workable belief system for him. He didn’t accept the dictionary definitions of success: achieving certain goals or acquiring wealth or position. Surely, true success in a life meant more than that.

In this readable excursion into thought and meaning, combining the wisdom of the kundalini, Maslow, and others, Ken La Salle provides information in what ultimately forms the successful life that might prove helpful to the questing reader.

Maisie Dobbs (2004)

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Maisie Dobbs (Book 1)

Jacqueline Winspear
Penguin Books, 2004
ISBN-13: 9780142004333
Reviewed by Patricia Wellingham-Jones

Synopsis: The Agatha Award winner for Best First Novel 2003, Maisie Dobbs is the beginning of a series about a young woman in post-World War I London who sets herself up in business as a Psychologist and Investigator.

Although it seems strange to consider mysteries from a healing perspective, these novels are very much focused on that. I started the series in the middle and found myself hooked. Finally, after reading book seven (book eight is now out), I read this one, the first in line which introduces Maisie Dobbs, as a woman in 1929 and as the girl in the back story who struggled to get there. Maisie was 13 when her mother died and her father arranged for her to go into service as a maid to a wealthy family. Her life changed again when Lady Rowan Compton discovered her reading in the black of night in the manor’s library, greedily absorbing knowledge about anything that caught her interest. Instead of being dismissed, as she’d expected, Maisie was supported in learning by Lady Rowan and a family friend, Dr. Maurice Blanche, revered for his investigative work with Scotland Yard.

She started her advanced studies at Girton College, Cambridge, but The Great War, 1914-1918, put an end to that. Maisie instead became a nurse and was shipped to the battlefields of France. She experienced horrors that haunted her dreams as did the soldiers who survived. After the war, she returned to Girton; then became Dr. Blanche’s apprentice. When he retired to the countryside of Kent, a place that holds almost as much importance as any character in the stories, she opened her own business as Psychologist and Investigator on Roylston Square in London. The big case in this first book, a tedious-sounding infidelity, took her right back into the memories and aftermaths of that war.

I find the character of Maisie sympathetic in her thoughtfulness and determination to do all she can to restore equilibrium in the people whose lives she disrupts; I like most of the other characters, too. The writing feels true to the era, the details fascinating, and the plight of a generation of single women whose men were killed or permanently damaged clearly illustrated. Maisie uses her psychological training to unearth villains and set affairs right. The later books in the series get even better –or maybe I just plain like Maisie Dobbs and her world.

The Music Room: A memoir (2009)

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The Music Room

The Music Room: A memoir

William Fiennes
W.W. Norton & Co., 2009
ISBN: 978-0-393-07258-7
Reviewer: Patricia Wellingham-Jones

Synopsis: William Fiennes grew up in a 700-year-old castle near Oxford, England, in a loving family, overshadowed by an older brother with epilepsy and brain damage.

Richard was 11 years old and already suffering from epilepsy when William was born. Younger brother looked up to and adored older brother, accepting the sudden mood swings, violent outbreaks, and lost memory as just Richard. William didn’t imagine Rich’s behavior as part of a disease. “That would have implied the existence of an ideal healthy Richard… But there wasn’t any other Richard.” He grew older and recognized that he would outgrow childish behavior but Richard was stuck there forever.

Dad and Mum are the true heroes of the story in my view. They did what was necessary to maintain the old castle passed down in the family since the 14^th century –tours including a tea shop three times a week, hosting local fairs and celebrations, allowing use of the castle for movie making (William remembers Jane Seymour in Regency costume sniffing roses in their garden), doing the physical chores an ancient building requires, and still exuding love and acceptance to their entire family, and especially the difficult and brain-damaged eldest son.

William Fiennes’ writing is lyrical; you can feel the love he has for his home as he describes his boyhood activities: fishing in the moat, learning to ride a bicycle in the Great Room, trailing his father all over the estate, watching Richard cut down the annual Christmas tree. Much of the book entails research reports and case studies of electricity in the human brain starting from the earliest findings to the present. While interesting, this distracts from the human story and adds a remoteness that distances. Of course, this is an upper-class British family being described and overt emotions are not a large part of their existence. One of the most revealing scenes is this:

One afternoon I saw Dad standing next to the house, his right arm stretched out, palm pressed flat against a buttress, his head dropped. He didn’t move.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
He said he was asking the house for some of its strength.

The Music Room is not healing in the sense that someone gets better, but the depth of love and acceptance of all family members, especially the beleaguered parents, touches the soul of the reader.

Healing With Words –The healing Story of Loss and Triumph

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Book Reviewer: Rick Ritter

Healing With Words: A writer's cancer journey

Diana Raab’s new book Healing With Words provides an interactive way for readers to explore their own cancer journeys as well as to better understand the daily struggles their loved ones may be experiencing.

First and foremost, it is Diana’s personal story of loss and triumph through two different types of cancer. She gives a raw and unvarnished account of living with a devastating disease, one day at a time, as well as sharing the love and support that her family provides her with. Along the way, she includes not just diary entries but poems and writing prompts to challenge the reader. Appendices include specific steps for handling the careful approach to the emotionally charged areas that will provide the healing work. Finally, it concludes with an appendix listing the support groups for many types of cancer patients and their families. Words gave Diana the strength she needed to go on with her recovery and she believes her approach will be broadly helpful to others as well.

I selected this book to review since I am in remission currently from prostate and skin cancer so even though the cancers are different, it seemed important to read and perhaps even challenge myself to see if this book/story would resonate; it did. Secondly, I selected this book since, as a therapist, I have promoted writing for over 30 years to my clients, who have mostly been trauma-stricken clients, and I know firsthand the powerful healing aspects of writing for clients and myself. Diana Raab is a courageous person of extraordinary measure. Her writings touched a deep place within me even though I have been in remission now for almost 5 years.

Just as her being a nurse was a plus and a minus, I also tracked with being a therapist and the advantages and disadvantages that brought to the table where cancer was served. I found myself experiencing a range of feelings as I read through the chapters and considered the questions asked; some subtle and some not so subtle, but all beneficial. Even though I experienced many orthopedic surgeries, it isn’t a substitute preparation for dealing with cancer. I also realized that going through the process alone—literally by myself—left scars as well that Ms Raab brought clarity to as I read her book. I also resonated with “the new me” concept that she explored. Her book may have prompted me to write a piece about “What men don’t get as they traverse cancer’s slippery path” which will be featured in Recovering The Self, July 2011 issue — Focus on Disease.

It is obvious, based on the reading of Healing with Words, that writing is a powerful tool of healing especially as exercised by Diana Raab.

About Rick Ritter

Rick Ritter

Rick Ritter, MSW, a disabled veteran and social worker, has worked with more than a hundred clients who have experienced physical loss and disability. His workbook Coping With Physical Loss and Disability is a distillation of the very best questions and exercises to draws clients towards re-taking control of their lives. Ritter has competed in international events for disabled athletes.

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Recovering The Self: A Journal of Hope and Healing

Telling empowering stories of life in contemporary times

Category Archives: Book Reviews

Climbing Maya: An Exploration into Success

Maisie Dobbs (2004)

The Music Room: A memoir (2009)

Healing With Words –The healing Story of Loss and Triumph

Book Reviewer: Rick Ritter

First Chapter Plus brings you Chapter 1 of 100 books!