Anatomy of a Lie

Rating:
Summary: Not What I Expected, Still Excellent
Review: I expected this book to take a cold, brutal look at lies, the different kinds, and why we tell them. However the book no where near met my expectation. But the odd part was, it was still excellent.

In each chapter, the author presents a quote, then a Biblical quote, and then a story where someone lied, and gently exposes why they might have lied and the outcomes. Almost like mini-sermons. Then at the end of the chapter there are some questions for self reflection.

Repeated encounters with different kinds of lies, different reasons, and different outcomes you start to strongly rethink your own attitude towards lying. I can definately see why this book has been so well received.

While there exists Christian references and overtones, the non-Christian will get a few mind-bending surprises about their own views of situational ethics. Things really are more black and white then they are grey.

Rating:
Summary: Life changing
Review: I owned this book for several months before reading it although I've read and loved several other of Dr. Komp's other books. In fact, her book, A Window to Heaven, was the catalyst that started a search that brought me back to Christianity. I'm sorry that I waited so long to read Anatomy of a Lie. Writing with a great deal of compassion and love, Dr. Komp convinced me that lying, even the "little" lies, is not justified.

Rating:
Summary: Life changing
Review: I owned this book for several months before reading it although I've read and loved several other of Dr. Komp's other books. In fact, her book, A Window to Heaven, was the catalyst that started a search that brought me back to Christianity. I'm sorry that I waited so long to read Anatomy of a Lie. Writing with a great deal of compassion and love, Dr. Komp convinced me that lying, even the "little" lies, is not justified.

Rating:
Summary: A challenging, thought-provoking book
Review: Lying is much in the news today.But Dr. Diane M. Komp's book "(Anatomy of a Lie)":the truth about lies and why good people tell them, is not a hurry up, get on the band-wagon book. Instead it is a carefully researched and well written treatise on a sin that touches all of us. Komp spent a year writing this book and in it she tells how we --the average "good" people in society sometimes use prevarication as a way of life. Dr. Komp covers such things as "little white lies, fudging the truth and lies of necessity", all the things we as Christians abhor but have used as oil to grease the gears of society's intercourse. I started reading this book with an inflated sense of my own worthiness. (After all, I am a Christian and a TRUTH TELLER). Before I was half way through it I told a lie. Not a major one...just a little, white greasy one. The realization with which it came tripping off my tongue appalled me. This isn't a feel good, fuzzy book. "Anatomy" dissects our lies, examines them but best of all tells us how to eliminate them. It tends to get under our skin and itch yet Komp manages with warmth and humor to make us want to be better people. She does it with definition, inspection and questions at the end of each chapter for us to answer with honesty. "Anatomy" would be a terrific study for any book club or discussion group. It is easily read but not easily dismissed.

Rating:
Summary: Not What I Expected, Still Excellent
Review: This is a risky read - even for those who engage conscientiously with the tensions of truth seeking and telling... but especially those who believe they are consistently honest with themselves. Without becoming "preachy", and with more kindness than criticism (except of herself, through which we get self-revelatory shocks), the author couples intellect and soul and gently compels the reader to examine the numerous sub-species of lies and "managed" truths that reside often unrecognized beneath each persona: the lies of convenience, even of "necessity", the casual misleading, the merciful lie, the harmless lie, the repetition of gossip as lying, and much more.

This little book is both timely and timeless. It is required reading for all politicans, journalist, lawyers (which I am), many of the clergy, and all who are sometimes among the "factually disadvataged" (euphemism, Dr. Komp would say, is but another specie of lie). And that is all of us, for we must all struggle with that human failing from which NONE are exempt. If I have any criticism of the book it must be leveled, not at the author, but at the editors whom I suspect of over-redacting the voluminous material Dr. Komp doubtless assembled, given her meathod of research for this project. Therefore, we shall hope for a sequel.

Rating:
Summary: The mind engaged to examine the soul.
Review: This is a risky read - even for those who engage conscientiously with the tensions of truth seeking and telling... but especially those who believe they are consistently honest with themselves. Without becoming "preachy", and with more kindness than criticism (except of herself, through which we get self-revelatory shocks), the author couples intellect and soul and gently compels the reader to examine the numerous sub-species of lies and "managed" truths that reside often unrecognized beneath each persona: the lies of convenience, even of "necessity", the casual misleading, the merciful lie, the harmless lie, the repetition of gossip as lying, and much more.

This little book is both timely and timeless. It is required reading for all politicans, journalist, lawyers (which I am), many of the clergy, and all who are sometimes among the "factually disadvataged" (euphemism, Dr. Komp would say, is but another specie of lie). And that is all of us, for we must all struggle with that human failing from which NONE are exempt. If I have any criticism of the book it must be leveled, not at the author, but at the editors whom I suspect of over-redacting the voluminous material Dr. Komp doubtless assembled, given her meathod of research for this project. Therefore, we shall hope for a sequel.