Book Description
In People Who Don't Know They're Dead, Gary Leon Hill tells a family story of how his Uncle Wally and Aunt Ruth, Wally's sister, came to counsel dead spirits who took up residence in bodies that didn't belong to them. And in the telling, Hill elucidates much of what we know, or think we know, about life, death, consciousness, and the meaning of the universe.
When people die by accident, in violence, or maybe they're drunk, stoned, or angry, they get freeze-framed. Even if they die naturally but have no clue what to expect, they might not notice they're dead. It's frustrating to see and not be seen. It's frustrating to not know what you're supposed to do next. It's especially frustrating to be in someone else's body and think it's your own. That's if you're dead. If you're alive and that spirit has attached itself to you, well that's a whole other set of frustrations.
Hill has woven this fascinating story with the history and theory of what happens at death, with particular emphasis on the last 40 years and the work of various groundbreaking thinkers whose work helps inform our idea of what it is to live and to die.
Customer Reviews:
Very enjoyable book!.......2007-07-22
Wonderful book! It sheds light on an area of the paranormal not often discussed, the idea of hitchhiker spirits. The author's style is one that is easy to read and believeable... I felt as if I personally knew the folks being written about. There is much wisdom here.. some of it pretty "down home," and that, as far as I'm concerned, is what makes the book such an enjoyable read.
Many other writers of paranormal subjects have given the same references regarding damaging the humam aura through the use of drugs, excess alcohol, and other negative behaviors, and the chance that such "beings" may have "troubles" once they die... none of this is new, nor should it be considered "wacko" or ridiculed. I was saddened to see this book so criticized by such seemingly narrow-minded reviewers.
This is definitely one of my "keeper" books that I'm adding to my personal library.
Much Truth and Wisdom .......2006-07-18
Having read the works of Drs. Wickland, Fiore, Sagan, and others cited by the author, I see much truth and wisdom in this book, which is well written and very informative. Unfortunately, it is beyond the boggle threshold of many people, including most of the others who have reviewed the book.
Unlike the other reviewers, I don't pretend to have a full grasp of absolute truth, if there is such a thing as absolute truth, but there is a preponderance of credible evidence suggesting that spirit possession is very real, i.e., low-level or earthbound spirits, many who don't even know they are dead, are attaching themselves to the auras of humans and influencing humans in negative behaviour. Of course, mainstream psychicatry and psychology, in all their arrogance, scoff at this, as they are locked into a reductionist mindset. "This smug nihilism with its superior air of scientific wisdom is often only the opposite pole of the dogmatic certitude of the churchman," Jirah D. Buck, M.D. once wrote. "Actual knowledge of the human soul is quite as far removed from the one as the other. Credulity and Incredulity siimply annul each other; often make faces at each other, while Progress stalks alone in the middle of the road, a "tramp" or a "vagabond..."
The skeptic asks how one cannot know he or she is dead. Does one know that he is alive when he is dreaming during sleep?
Don't fall victim to the closed-minded thinking of some of the other reviewers. This book has much to offer.
Probably the worst book I have ever read........2006-05-23
The only redeeming points of this book are the few conversations that the author has with his uncle. The rest is just quotations from other books. There is enough original material here for about a chapter and a half. The author was set on making a book out of it so he just padded it with things that other authors had said.
I read it to the end though. Probably because the author has a very nice writing style. He is probably a good playwrite though I have never read any of his plays. He just didn't have enough material for a book here. I'm surpised it got published.
Written for Wackos and Gullibles.......2006-04-03
This book deserves five stars for nutty chutzpah and one star for sensibleness. It owes its editorial existence to the huge market that exists for nut-case writing aimed at the naive and ignorant. There is simply ZERO scientific credibility for the concepts that Hill so glibly presents.
In one way, though, this book is an apt parody of readers who don't know they're mentally dead. These readers have to attach themselves to others who blithely tell them what to think about mythological life after death.
Speaking as a retired university professor who has read many hundreds of books, I have rarely seen one as screwball as this one.
Interesting But Confusing.......2006-01-29
The title of this book intrigued me. It's not everyday that you read about "People Who Don't Know They're Dead".
This book definitely makes you think. In fact, while reading it, I got a paranoid feeling that there could be dead people all around me at any given time. But I also thought that, if that were true, why don't they contact the living more often? And after being ignored for such a long time by the living why do these dead people never catch on to the fact that they are dead? Or do they? This is where the book raises more questions than it answers.
The author also strays off of the spiritual path several times and goes into other subjects like how DNA and pendulums work.
Another part that bothered me is the fact that spirit possession was blamed for a lot of the living's unsavory behavior. It strikes me as dangerous and irresponsible to me to place the blame for drug and alcohol addiction on forces outside of ourselves. As for criminal behavior, if spirit possession were to become a viable defence in court, we'd have a lot more rapists and murderers walking around our streets.
I think it's important to realize that just because information is channeled through a medium doesn't necessary make that information true. Spirits can lie too. (If you've ever used a Ouija board you know this.)
Ghost stories and hauntings are fun to read about. And I'm convinced that there are some restless spirits out there that are yet to find their peace. But let's not blame every whim or mood swing we experience on the undead.
Amazon.com
In April 1988, 65-year-old Lily Bloom quickly succumbs to cancer in the Royal Ear Hospital. ("Where do they keep the Royal Ear, I wonder? I think of it as very large--as big as a dinner tray--and very red, angrily red.") But after life there's death. Guided by an aborigine named Phar Lap Jones, she is transported by a Greek Cypriot minicab driver to the North London dead neighborhood of Dulston. There, accompanied by her dead son, Rude Boy, she's introduced to the 12-step Personally Dead meetings, and she watches over her living daughters--the cold, ambitious Charlotte, and her favorite, the heroin-addicted Natasha. "Natasha is peculiarly charged by the drug--and even by the mere anticipation of its effects. She shifts from being vulnerable and skittish and withdrawn to being strong and steady and extrovert. She's told me before that it makes her feel 'complete' and 'confident,' and I can see what she means. When she's off heroin she's a fucking nightmare--when she's on it she's a peach."
Since Will Self's face, voice, and, notoriously, life story are familiar to many who will never pick up his fiction, there's always the risk of reading How the Dead Live as autobiography. In which case, he's clearly based Lily on his New York-born Jewish mother, and he's wittily retooled large chunks of his own much-publicized addictions, transmuting himself into the beautiful and glamorously doomed Natasha. But Lily is feisty and articulate, with a complex history spanning two continents, two husbands, and a constantly re-created personality--a great literary creation. Self's sympathetic account of Lily's decline into her morphine-laden deathbed is deeply affecting, and his long-term obsession with London provides us with the utterly convincing Dulston. His treatment of modern Jewish life in North London (rather than New York) will find its fans and critics, but the novel grows beyond such local concerns. Ultimately, it is about the vexed relationship between the worries of contemporary Western life and a more transcendent spirituality--signaled by Self's opening gesture to The Tibetan Book of the Dead and by the all-seeing Phar Lap Jones. How the Dead Live is a big book with big ideas, and quite definitely Will Self's most ambitious and mature work to date. --Alan Stewart
Book Description
Will Self has one of literature's most astonishing imaginations, and in How the Dead Live his talent has come to full flower. Lily Bloom is an angry, aging American transplanted to England, now losing her battle with cancer. Attended by nurses and her two daughters -- lumpy Charlotte, a dour, successful businesswoman, and beautiful Natasha, a junkie -- Lily takes us on a surreal, opinionated trip through the stages of a lifetime of lust and rage. From '40s career girl to '50s tippling adulteress to '70s PR flak, Lily has seen America and England through most of a century of riotous and unreal change. And then it's over. Lily catches a cab with her death guide, Aboriginal wizard Phar Lap Jones, and enters the shockingly banal world of the dead: the suburbs. She discovers smoking without consequences and gets another PR job, where none of her coworkers notices that she's not alive. She gets to know her roommates: Rude Boy, her terminally furious son who died in a car accident at age nine; Lithy, a fetus that died before she ever knew it existed; the Fats, huge formless shapes composed of all the weight she's ever gained or lost. How the Dead Live is Will Self's most remarkable and expansively human book, an important, disturbing vision of our time.
Customer Reviews:
Will? Self?.......2006-12-22
Yes, it seems that this book is a triumph of the
Will and an act of unbridled Self. It is a tour de
force, no doubt. Racy, witty, inventive, impressive.
What it is not is much of a story. It shows all of
the massive ego of a writer at the peak of his power
but none of the willingness to entertain that
belongs to a good story teller.
The plot involves Lily Bloom (Molly's sister no doubt)
who finds herself a sudden citizen of the land of the
dead. Now you might think that this would be a starting
point for an intricate piece of speculative fiction
about a topic that's engaged everybody's mind from
time to time: what happens to us when we die?
But Self doesn't take the opportunity. Instead, we
get 400 pages of cranky self-indulgence of Lily
along with a dose of British literary anti-semitism.
The ending, which could have restored some narrative
grace to the 'story' is tacked on hurriedly. Given the
chance to make a satisfying 'once upon a time' ending,
the author goes for an act of Will and a display of Self.
On the other hand: the Will and the Self in question are
pretty impressive. The malevolence with which the characters
are constructed and the sheer imaginative power of the
language redeem this book.
--Lynn Hoffman, author of THE NEW SHORT COURSE IN WINE and
the forthcoming novel bang BANG from Kunati Books.[...].
Good story in need of some trimming.......2005-06-08
Having only read some of Self's short stories in the past, this novel weighing in at 400+ pages had the style, wit and great word play I expected from Self but was in need of an editor. The rambling narrative would crank up and then lose its focus, leaving us an an audience to flounder for 15/20 pages at a time. I appreciated the development given to our main character Lily as we go with her through her illness, ultimate death and boredom with death itself. Few authors can turn a phrase or link words together as interestingingly as Self and for that I am appreciative of the book. His stories are filled with such great ideas and settings but in the end a little less would have gone a long way in my enjoyment of this novel.
interesting viewpoint.......2004-07-08
Blurb (or foreword, I can't exactly remember) of this book, presents it as a satire...In a certain way, it is right. But, in some other way it lacks few imortant imformation.
When one think of a satire, one think at instant of political attacks towards rulling caste, towards media, and towards every aspect of life that you can think about. Here you will find only an old, overweight women, whose thought resemble our own in a scarry manner... All wordly struggle of good and evil does not make a sense once you are dead, all that is left s longin...longing for daughters, longing for sex, longing for food, longing for everything that makes life what life actually is... and in a ceratin way that is all satirical that this book has. Of course you'll find sarcastic remarks, of course you'll find critique of society, but that does not make this book outstanding... What does is feeling of timeliness you suddenly feel upon completing final pages. Suddenly you start to wonder - 'where have all the good times gone'
First Time Self Reader.......2004-03-22
This is my first time reading Will Self's work and while the novel didn't have me running to check out everything else Self has written, it did leave me curious enough to explore his other works.
The story centers around Lily Bloom who dies from cancer and passes into the afterlife where one must get an apartment, attend 12 step programs and what not in order to learn how to live again if you will.
I loved the idea of Bloom being stalked/attached to one of her children who died (Rude Boy), and the Fats (all the weight she had lost/gained in life.)
However, my main problem with the novel was the fact that the characters come across as people who I couldn't sympathize with even though they were interesting. I understand Bloom's cynicism and Self's writing possess' a particular wit. The bluntness, I liked, and the character that I found most interesting was Lily's drug-addicted daughter Natalie. It came to the point where I really didn't care what happened to the characters, but I had to finish the book just to see. Maybe Self did this intentionally, but as mentioned before, this is my first time reading Self and maybe I should just get used to it.
It's a good read for the idea of such a world after death. Lily is reminded not to dwell too much into her daughter's lives after her death, and I don't want to do the same with what turned me off with this book.
Will I read Self again? Yes. But would I recommend this for a first time Self reader? No.
Extended Afterlife.......2003-05-05
"How the Dead Live" is the story of the death and immediate afterlife of Lily Bloom, an American long-time resident in London. Lily's death leads neither to oblivion, nor heaven, nor hell, rather to a disturbing continuation of her life, albeit with differences! Death provides no escape from some of the main worries of Lily's life: the trials and tribulations of her two daughters; and other irritations such as bureaucracy.
Lily is a cynical character. Little is spared her criticism, especially England and the English. There's great fun in all of this - Lily, despite her cynicism, or perhaps because of it, becomes a sympathetic character, and many of her observations about England rang (uncomfortably) true. There's lots more to enjoy in this novel, as Self is an imaginative writer, despite the fact that for lots of the time the reader is in familiar "Self country", where Jewishness, drug culture and hospitals figure prominently.
However, I felt that at times Self was struggling to keep the plot from flagging: at various points, he abandoned the first person narrative in order to develop sub-plots centred on the private life of Lily's two daughters. It almost seemed as if Self became more interested in these sub-plots as the book develped, but he couldn't cover them by continued use of the first person narrator. The result is that, at times, the book had a patched-together, over-extended feel to it. Cutting a hundred or so pages might have made it a tighter, more enjoyable read.
G Rodgers
Average customer rating:
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How the Dead Live
Alvin Greenberg
Manufacturer: Graywolf Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
 United States
| World Literature
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| 18th Century
| 19th Century
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| General
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ASIN: 1555972810 |
Book Description
How the Dead Live is filled not with victims of the many major traumas of our times but with individuals whose lives have been wrested from their control by the random impact of the commonplace: by accident and disease, by urban chaos, by the lost and the found.
The ancestor of this collection, as of most American short fiction, is undoubtedly Edgar Allan Poe, with characters caught up in his recognition that "to be buried alive is, beyond question, the most terrific of these extremes which has ever fallen to the lot of mere mortality." Greenberg's stories are full of people who are buried in their own lives and strugling with whatever crude tools come to hand--humor, despair, confrontation, acceptance--to carve out a little underground space where they can breathe. Through small moments of the ridiculous and larger moments of emotional conversation, the stories re-enact the drama of how we are all to survive our own immersion in the inexplicable.
Book Description
What did you want to be when you grew up? If you're like most people, chances are that your current job doesn't reflect your true abilities or passions. Yet with a mortgage, spouse or children, and the high cost of living in most metropolitan areas, you're dependent on an employer's paycheck for survival. Keep Your Paycheck, Live Your Passion shows you how to delve into entrepreneurship and maintain your nine-to-five gig at the same time. Filled with real-life stories of people who parlayed their craft into thriving businesses, Keep Your Paycheck, Live Your Passion addresses your most pressing questions:
How can I juggle full-time employment while starting a side business?
If I'm not a born salesperson, can I learn to market myself?
Can I pursue my interests without going broke?
Keep Your Paycheck, Live Your Passion gives you resources and advice on the most flexible jobs for creative types, spotting hot business trends, and start-up resources for small businesses. With Keep Your Paycheck, Live Your Passion as your guide, you'll hone your artistic talents-and turn your favorite pastime into a parallel career.
Average customer rating:
- Pay Attention
- Beyond the New Age!
- Wild Stuff
|
Focused Or Dead: How to Live in Joy
George E Soroka
Manufacturer: Ariel Starr Productions Ltd
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
General
| Self-Help
| Health, Mind & Body
| Subjects
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Happiness
| Self-Help
| Health, Mind & Body
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Personal Transformation
| Self-Help
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Stress Management
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Similar Items:
-
Biofeedback Without Machines: A Strategy for Living
ASIN: 1889122181 |
Book Description
A powerful book with CD about how to stay focused in life. ""Contained in this book are excerpts from some extraordinary conversations I’ve had with George Soroka, my guide and mentor. Actually, ""conversations"" may not be exactly the right word. Let’s say instead: my questions – and George’s answers."" Mary Beth Stone
Customer Reviews:
Pay Attention.......2004-02-14
This book radiates the message. The words are just saddles on the horse. You will feel the energy and thats all that matters. Listen, learn, go with this book. Keep going! Forever!
Beyond the New Age!.......2002-11-04
My head is still spinning! Although the subtitle, "How to Live in Joy," might make you think of one of Wayne Dyer's or Deepak Chopra's books or any of a host of so-called New Age or self-help books, there's something different about this book. Somehow you KNOW the writer is writing from gut experience, from back-breaking work on himself. Everyone talks about "energy," but Soroka feels it and lives it. Somehow, via his answers--some extensive, some telegraphic and a bit enigmatic--to the thoughtful questions put to him by Stone, you can just tell. Soroka is startlingly direct, yet you never doubt that he is speaking from a truly loving heart. The best way to describe this book is "life-changing." I have read many, many spiritual self-help books and, while many of them are helpful, I would never think of applying that description to even one of them--or, in fact, to any book I have read. Soroka says not that we are an expression of God or part of God or that God is part of us, but that we ARE God! Since I have read the book, I have begun to look at my life and the world in a totally different way-and I already FEEL closer to God and, yes, to being God! Stone's beautiful song (on the CD that comes with the book) is the perfect supplement to the book.
Wild Stuff.......2002-08-31
This book is about more than being focused, which of course is what we have to start with. Focus, pay attention, heighten your awareness, but that is all very well known and yet most "seekers" still muddle along in a dim hole their whole "lives". This energy Mr. Soroka has accessed I can attest firsthand, rapidly accelerates the enlightenment process. It is easier to realize your mind is keeping you small when your whole brain is pounding and your desire for life finally being realized. I will see if it has the universal implications he feels it does.
Average customer rating:
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How The Dead Live
Will Self
Manufacturer: Grove Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0747548951 |
Average customer rating:
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If I Can't Be Dead, How Can I Live
Martha Crikelair Wohlford
Manufacturer: Authorhouse
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
Substance Abuse
| Recovery
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General
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General
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ASIN: 140337502X |
Book Description
This digital document is an article from World Literature Today, published by University of Oklahoma on September 22, 1999. The length of the article is 580 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
Citation Details
Title: How the Dead Live.(Review)(Brief Article)
Publication:
World Literature Today (Refereed)
Date: September 22, 1999
Publisher: University of Oklahoma
Volume: 73
Issue: 4
Page: 735
Article Type: Book Review, Brief Article
Distributed by Thomson Gale
Book Description
Some think Tony Stark has lost his battle with the bottle. Others think he can't control his violent temper. Some think he's a homicidal maniac. Even his closest friends are beginning to doubt him, wondering why he won't fend off these accusations. But Stark's self-imposed exile is cut short, as Iron Man must face off against his evil doppelganger, which has embarked on a murderous rampage aimed at those in charge of Stark Enterprises! Only one of them can remain standing. And even the victor is under threat of extinction. Collects Iron Man #84-89.
Customer Reviews:
Iron Man shows some steel..........2005-02-18
Iron Man Disassembled is the beginning of a steady return to greatness for the Marvel mainstay. The recent redirection of the Avengers and Avengers family of books are causing some controversy amongst fans. Personally, I think of it as a return to basics with these characters. Strip away the artifice, the past 15 years of "new directions", and rediscover what makes these characters resonate 40-odd years since their creation.
The Iron Man chapters are especially interesting because the creators (Ricketts, Harris, and others) understand that it's not the armor or technology that make the comic interesting, but Tony Stark himself. Tony is so insulated from the outside world, that when he puts up those iron walls, the people he cares about end up getting hurt, emotionally and/or physically. The subplot with Hap and Pepper points out especially well why Tony needs people, not just his super-brethren, as friends. He needs people to keep him grounded, and help him through anything life should throw at him, whether it be the villian du jour, or an alcoholic relapse scare.
The only drawback is that the artwork is not consistent in this book. I've always been a fan of Tony Harris's artwork; it's expressive, even when Tony's in the armor, and borders on realistic. Especially when it comes to the female form; when he draws women, they aren't the gravity-defying fantasies of lesser artists. Tony's girlfriend has a little bit of a poonch at the belly, her face creases when she smiles. Yet Scott Kolins artwork is sketchy, even ugly, and his work just looks like it lacks effort. I know some people like his artwork, but personally, I find it amateurish, and actually takes away from the impact of the climax. Kolins weak art is saved only by the writing, which I'm happy to say has been greatly improved in this title.
Very satisfying read, and an interesting side trip in the Avengers Disassembled storyline. I can't wait til Warren Ellis' and Orson Scott Card's Iron Man works are collected. This is a very exciting time for Shellhead, and this is where it starts.
Shellhead gets Disassembled.......2004-11-17
With Brian Michael Bendis disassembling the Avengers, Mike Oeming killing Thor, and Robert Kirkman wreaking havoc on Captain America, Mark Ricketts got the assignment to disassemble Iron Man. Taking place after Tony Stark's tirade at the United Nations, Tony finds himself accused of murder after someone wearing Iron Man armor murders his board of directors. Eventually, it becomes clear that someone has got their hands on Tony's technology, culminating in a showdown between Iron Man and the murderer. Out of all the Disassembled storylines, this is probably the weakest. Ricketts' storytelling doesn't go anywhere, and the art by Scott Kolins is really nothing to write home about. The epilogue sets the stage for the Iron Man relaunch (yes, he's getting relaunched yet again) under the helm of Transmetropolitan and Hellblazer scribe Warren Ellis (and trust me, it's real, real good). Iron Man Disassembled isn't bad though, and it is worth a look at least.
Books:
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- Red Bird (Prairie Winds Series #3)
- Rosie'S Walk
- Salon de Belleza
- Saul and Patsy
- Secret Rendezvous
- Sophie and the Rising Sun
- Spiderweb for Two: A Melendy Maze (Melendys Family)
- Style-Architecture and Building-Art: Transformations of Architecture in the Nineteenth Century and Its Present Condition (Texts & Documents)
- Summer of Betrayal: A Novel
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