books_gen_interest

GENERAL INTEREST

Many subjects have general application to spiritual life.  This department shows titles that we in The Awakening Network can make available to you.

Life is rich and full and lots of people can contribute to us as we live.  Given the abundance available, this area is only a small sample of what we can find from other people's wisdom.
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BUSHFIRE

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10% OFF for Paid-up Members

A Book that Reaches and Teaches

Elizabeth Mellor (The Awakening Network Inc., Seymour, 2010) 174 pages


Elizabeth won a prize in the twenty-third Annual Australian Family Therapists’ Award for Children’s Literature. Bushfire was put on the recommended reading list for therapists to use with their clients.

 

Read what they wrote: “Bushfire … [is] for therapists who may work with clients (adults or children) in the aftermath of a natural disaster which impacts on a whole community. It was placed in the top five books for “Older Readers (meaning children from about 10 years of age and up)."

 

Bushfire is a fictional story that is a great read for children and teenagers, and a powerful mentoring resource for adults.

This book is a gripping story about a child going through a bushfire and its aftermath. It also offers a path for dealing with the trauma and emotional upheaval experienced by anyone affected by bushfire. The book is written with children and teenagers in mind but speaks to all ages and provides parents, or anyone involved with young people, with a wonderful device to approach the issues surrounding traumatic events. Many adults have also benefited from reading it.

Bushfire begins on a very hot Australian summer day with the threat of bushfire in the air. The central character, Ruby, lives with her parents and her dog, Gypsy, on a property some distance from town. For over 50 hours, Ruby and her parents face the rigours of bushfire. After a long fight, they and their house survive, although other parts of their property are destroyed.

The story is written through Ruby's eyes and it takes us both through the fire and its aftermath. Having survived the fire, Ruby's family moves to a recovery centre set up on the local cricket oval where we get to know the other characters central to the book. This time of facing day-to-day difficulties and painful realisations is balanced by humour, good old fashioned common sense and an underlying theme of learning how different people cope with trauma and their recovery from it. While living there, Ruby returns to school where she faces problems with other students who didn't experience the fire and has to come to terms with her own grief. The story ends six months after the fires, as neighbours and friends gather at Ruby's home to celebrate their lives and to say goodbye to those who died.

Two resource guides are available for the book: one for parents and the other for teachers. These are free and available through Elizabeth's bushfire book website. See below.

For more book description, author information, contact details for Elizabeth, reviews and a blog, go to bushfirebook.com.au, or click here

URBAN MYSTIC: Discovering the transcendent through everyday life

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The Personal Narration of a Journey to Self-Discovery

Author: Ken Mellor (The Awakening Network Inc., Seymour-Australia, 2009)
(Paperback, 228x153mm, 470 pages & in eBook & PDF)

  

A Finalist in the Spirituality Category
2010 Next Generation Indie Book Awards

 

Also Available in Kindle from Amazon

 

An extraordinary book, it takes hold of us from the first line and carries us through to the end.

Common comments include: "I couldn't put it down" and "I savoured it like a good meal that I didn't want to end"

The book prompts personal change as we read. Ken’s intention always was for the book to do this. As he wrote, he meditated continually so everyone would find themselves drawn into greater personal balance and into the discovery of the wonderful light, love, harmony and joy that expanding personal awakening brings. A lot of feedback to him shows that he has succeeded:

  • I realised if you could do it, then I could too
  • I have found great encouragement from your story
  • Your account of your journey has helped me understand my own much more deeply
  • As I read, I kept going into deep meditation and could feel myself changing
  • I see myself and the world very differently now.

Wonderfully easy to read, it's like having a personal conversation with Ken. He is in the room with us—an extraordinary feat. And it's like poetry in places, too.

So if you want to go on an extraordinary journey with, as Ken describes himself, an ‘ordinary bloke’ as your guide, this is a book for you.

Read much more in the website www.urbanmysticbook.com.au by clicking here. 

TAKING CHARGE Task Analysis, Problem Solving, Option Development

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Ken Mellor (PIT Press, Melbourne, 1980) (387 pages)

Provides simple ways of thinking about a wide range of issues, including: goal-setting, planning for success, understanding simple to complex tasks, feelings, problems, problem solving, options, and deciding between priorities.

With the simple understanding of complex issues and events that these provide, the reader is much better able to manage and make the most of his/her life in these areas.

The book is cleverly devised to promote easy learning. In each chapter the ideas and approaches are presented basically in the beginning and with increasing sophistication as the end approaches.