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Summary: You can read this book in many ways.
Review: Dear Reader,If you found your way to this page on Amazon.com, we imagine that you have been touched by cancer. We wrote this book for you, whether you have cancer or care for someone who does. The book tells our stories - four women diagnosed with four different stages of breast cancer - who have four different spiritual perspectives. You can read the book in many ways. You may want to follow one person's voice because of her diagnosis. Or you may prefer to follow the thread of one of the spiritual perspectives. You can choose from Christianity, Judaism, Sufism, and 12-Step. Or you may be stuck on a certain question such as "Did I create this?," "Does death mean I lose?" or "Shall I choose conventional or alternative medicine?" We do not have absolute answers to these and other difficult questions, but you can follow along as we ask them of ourselves. Although the language of war is commonly used to describe the cancer experience, we found that it didn't work for us. This book offers a new language for those who wish to regard life-threatening illness as an opening to spiritual transformation. This is our experience with cancer. We are not winners, losers, or victims. We are initiates into a deeper understanding of what it means to live, to die, and to be with one another in community. We invite you to read our book and join us as we speak the language of healing.
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Summary: A must read.
Review: I can't recommend this book highly enough. My mother had breast cancer, and while I was as supportive as I could be, there were a lot of things I would have not otherwise understood that the book explained. Reading it helped me understand the subtle emotions and transformations that these four women have gone through (and are still going through.) On one hand, breast cancer is undeniably the focus of the book. But beyond that, there are amazing stories of personal understanding and growth. By using their circumstances for transformation rather than tragedy, the authors are an inspiration to everyone.
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Summary: Best cancer book I read
Review: I spent all of 1999 dealing with breast cancer. Aside from Dr. Susan Love's Breat Book, this was the singularly most helpful book I read, even though I read it after I was through with breast cancer, if ever one is. It was direct, personal, spoke concretely from experience, and rang true, even though each person's experience differs. These women offer a great gift amidst the large selection of cancer books.Cannot recommend highly enough, and friends, I read a heck a of a lot of cancer books this year!
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Summary: Absolutely the BEST book about breast cancer!
Review: I was lent this book last night and finished reading it this afternoon. I am 31 years old and was diagnosed with breast cancer this month. While getting ready to have my second surgery and embark on a whole world of unknowns, I have been searching for a way to navigate through this experience. This was it. I am going to be sure that everyone I know who wants to truly understand breast cancer and what I am going through and going to be going through reads this book.
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Summary: My Key to Breast Cancer
Review: I was lent this book last night and finished reading it this afternoon. I am 31 years old and was diagnosed with breast cancer this month. While getting ready to have my second surgery and embark on a whole world of unknowns, I have been searching for a way to navigate through this experience. This was it. I am going to be sure that everyone I know who wants to truly understand breast cancer and what I am going through and going to be going through reads this book.
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Summary: This is a remarkable book!
Review: It addresses a question central to all of us: When faced with our mortality, how do we respond? Each of these women has a gift for sharing her own response in an extremely articulate and thought-provoking way. Unfortunately, I think the book's cover is misleading because it is geared so specifically toward women who have breast cancer. I do not have cancer. Yet once I started reading, I had trouble putting it down. The book is filled with hard-earned lessons that are germane to me and would be to any reader. Substitute "cancer" for any profound adversity or loss, and you will learn from it. The book is really about four women who have extraordinarily resilient spirits and a gift for expressing their journey. I laughed, I cried, and I hope that I, too, possess such courage.
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Summary: This book is relevant, timely, honest, and helpful
Review: Speak the Language of Healing will be helpful not only to women with breast cancer, but to anyone who is facing a life-threatening illness. The authors manage to draw upon their own experience without being either sentimental or self-centered. The thesis of the book is that there is more to be gained from recognizing and dealing honestly with illness than from "going to war" against it. This is partly because in a war there must be a winner and a loser, but human life is, from the moment of birth, a journey toward death and it is possible to live successfully even if one finally dies as a result of cancer. The insights from psychology, from theology, and from personal experience honestly related are all helpful and encouraging. Give this book to your friends---even the ones who don't realize yet that they are going to die from something!
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Summary: Our readers are extraordinary people!
Review: Susan and Carol have done a great job of talking about the book so I want to talk about the readers. I've never had a book published before, so when we had our first booksigning, I started meeting the people who are reading the book. I hear from folks because of our contest, too (see speakhealing.com). Anyway -- I think Jean Shinoda Bolen has it right when she says cancer is the "wisdom disease," because so many of the folks I've met are extraordinary people, and it's obvious at first acquaintance (or first e-mail!). There really does seem to be something about the cancer experience that changes one dramatically. Those changes might go in a million different directions, but I think what's happened is that people have faced death, laughed in its face, and decided, "Well, shoot, if I'm going to get to live for a while longer, I may as well be who I really am. After all, it's all gravy from here on out." So if you're a Changing Woman or a Changing Man who has been through cancer, I think you'll find like-minded souls between the covers of the book.
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Summary: A different voice
Review: Susan Kuner, et al. have managed to craft the quintessential cancer guide by women for women. I wish I'd had this book at hand when my best friend was diagnosed in 1995. So many of the hard questions she asked were thoughtfully and brilliantly answered by the four women who shared their personal experiences and the answers they found in this marvelous book. Women approach illness and the possibility of death with a completely different mindset than their male counterparts. Going to war against a disease does not come naturally for most women, and the gentle, philosophical thoughts offered by Kuner, et al should be required reading with any woman facing a diagnosis of breast cancer. Bravo! Marvelous writing, and even better advice. Thank you for creating such a worthwhile project.
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Summary: A woman centered approach the the diagnosis of Breast Cancer
Review: Susan Kuner, et al. have managed to craft the quintessential cancer guide by women for women. I wish I'd had this book at hand when my best friend was diagnosed in 1995. So many of the hard questions she asked were thoughtfully and brilliantly answered by the four women who shared their personal experiences and the answers they found in this marvelous book. Women approach illness and the possibility of death with a completely different mindset than their male counterparts. Going to war against a disease does not come naturally for most women, and the gentle, philosophical thoughts offered by Kuner, et al should be required reading with any woman facing a diagnosis of breast cancer. Bravo! Marvelous writing, and even better advice. Thank you for creating such a worthwhile project.
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