Epiphany Books

I love this book! It has short devotions for the whole family for every day of advent, and some great craft and activity ideas that really make the season memorable. It's a great tool for bringing the true meaning of Christmas back into the home.

I highly recommend this book for those looking for a devotional for their family. Concise, short, easy to use. Perfect after dinner.

I found this book to be exactly what I was wanting for my family. Although we attend a church we are not particularly "religious" in our home. I wanted my children to acknowledge the deeper meaning behind the increasingly commercial holiday. This book focuses on the daily use of an advent wreath in the home. There are songs, bible verses, and reflections for each day of advent. The content is appropriate for all ages.

The recipes are easy and fun. The number of praises will be overwhelming when you bring these treats to a party. I would not bring treats like these to an office party. Share these pleasures with family and very close friends, they are deserving.

This book is out of this world and I highly reccommend to any one that loves baking and chocolate

This book is on a level that few chocolate, or to that matter dessert, pastry etc books have reached. It shouts quality from every point of view: From the excellent cover, to the gloss pages ,on to the beautiful photographs and finally to the most important aspect, the recipes, this is a book that mirrors its author's love for the subject.
Francois Payard is a Frenchman living in the USA, and is the owner of several patisseries in the New World. Unlike many Europeans that have negatively changed their culinary and patisserie heritage to suit the tastes of their new homelands, Mr Payard very succesfully presents French chocolate patisserie, slightly adopted for the American tastebuds but without being commercialised or cheapened by using margarines, shortenings, or too much sugar.
The book uses both Metric and Volume (cups and spoons) measurements so that ingredients can be easily measured by all. It does not however use Celsius temperatures, only Fahrenheit, but this can be easily remedied with a comparative table.
This book is geared towards both the Professional and the amateur. Most of the recipes can be made by home cooks, but read the instructions carefully. The author gives some useful tips to read before one attempts the recipes.
Then the feast starts. There are more than one hundred recipes included, starting with breads and brunch dishes. In this chapter we find among others: Chocolate cherry bread with cocoa nibs, Chocolate brioche with chocolate chips, Chocolate blinis.
Then we move on to Cookies and Petit Fours: Here I particularly like the Florentines, Triple chocolate Financiers, Chocolate coconut rochers, Cracaos, Flourless chocolate cookies. There is also a recipe for chocolate churros with dipping sauces.
The next chapter is Candies and Chocolate. It is one of the best chapters. All the products here are mouthwatering. They include: Chocolate Marshmallows, Chocolate Nougat, After "8" chocolates, Muscadines, Rum Truffles.
Then come Mousses, Meringues and Ice Cream, with Chocolate Creme Brulees, Coffee and Chocolate Panna Cottas, Floating Islands in Spiced Chocolate Sauce, Milk Chocolate Parfaits with Chocolate Popcorn, Dark and white chocolate Napoleons, Trio of Chocolate Mousse Cake, Bittersweet Chocolate Sorbet.
The Tarts chapter is represented (among many others) by Chocolate Meringue Tart, Chocolate Pecan Tart, Chocolate Pear Almond Tart, Peanut Caramel Tart.
The Cakes chapter should really be called Gateaux or Entremets Section as most of the products are elaborate or layered creations, along with some decadent cakes: Gateau de crepes with Green Tea Cream, Chocolate Rum Savarin, Flourless chocolate cake, Chocolate Saint Honore, Pine Nut Turron Cake, Dark Chocolate Cheesecake with Orange Marmalade, "American" Opera Gateau using Peanut Buttercream and Peanutbutter Ganache, are only some of many creations.
Then come Plated Desserts: White chocolate cheesecakes with blueberries, Chocolate crepes with Vanilla Ice cream and Candied Orange, Chocolate sticky toffee puddings, to name a few.
The final chapter includes the basics, such as buttercream, browned butter, almond cream, simple syrup, praline paste, chocolate mousse etc.
With all this and at this price this book should not be absent from any chocolate lover's library.

Xmas gift that I finally read. I read it all weekend, what a hoot. This guy is funny. I want to find more of his stuff. Apparently he wrote a tv show, thta would be wild to see.

Take a blender, the kind with variable speeds, throw in Gogol, Sedaris, Garcia Marquez, Nichols and Lynch, add a masterful lexicon and a unfaltering fondness for some humans. The result is a great book of short stories about people who you will never meet. But have no doubt, they are real, strange but real. Either that or Mr Twa is a truly talented writer who has created a universe of hugely diverse and complex characters who he allows you to meet at critical junctures in their lives, or so they think, I think.

I picked Mr. Twa's book up because I found the cover compelling. I had no idea what I was getting into. This writer is brilliant, moreover, he is hilarious. I can not remember laughing (outloud) so hard and so often while reading a book. It's a collection of short stories, each running just long enough to keep you wanting more...and more. The only regret I have is that there is no more--this is apparently his first work. But I need a fix soon. I highly recommend this escape from the mountains of predictable fiction out there today.

Brian Doyle is simply one of the two best essayists writing today. This book proves it--- once again.

I discovered this author when I picked up a copy of his book of essays - "Credo" in a used book store a few years ago. I was stunned at the power of his prose, read the book cover to cover twice, and gave copies to family and friends. I bought this book thinking it was more essays. At first I was disappointed to have been 'tricked' into buying poetry (what an embarrassing admission) - but what a brilliant and pleasant trick. Some of this writing left me close to dumbfounded. Certainly speechless. Amazing, amazing stuff. I anxiously await more.

Wonderful! But then I love anything Brian Doyle writes. He makes you laugh, he makes you cry. He makes you just feel good.

Pick up and start reading Epiphanies and you'll immediately know you're in the hands of a masterful story teller. You'll also immediately see that the stories Ann Jauregui has to tell are inspiring and informative. Jauregui, a psychotherapist, interweaves stories about her clients' lives with stories about her own life, while simultaneously explaining a few things about modern day physics and modern day psychology. Because Jauregui writes in such an exceptionally easy-to-read and engaging style, there's no reason to be daunted by any of her topics. Perhaps, the most wonderful thing about this book is that it will leave you hopeful about life -- both it's infinite possibilities and it's infinite mysteries.

Richard Bush

In "Epiphanies," Ann Jauregui writes about those moments when clients wake up to healing. Dr. Jauregui is clear that as therapists and helpers we can't make such moments happen, but we can listen for them making them more likely to happen and more likely to be noticed when they do happen. Such listening is enhanced by our own awakening to the universe--that what we used to think of as static and external isn't that way at all. Her chapters on contemporary science and her clients' experiences read like adventure stories, which they are. This book is in the same league as Dr. Rachel Naomi Remen's "Kitchen Table Wisdom." I recommend it most highly.

I hope that word of this little gem reaches beyond its obvious audience of therapists and other healers. This is not a book about psychotherapy. Or at least it's not simply a book about psychotherapy. With great good humor, touching lyricism and intelligent insight, family therapist Ann Jauregui conducts a magical mystery tour, exploring life's ah hah moments in science, psychotherapy, and religion.

She explores how it happens that something quite ordinary triggers a dramatic change in perception as when looking at an Escher print. Without fanfare or warning, edges blur and suddenly something familiar shifts. Light falls on a new path and nothing is ever quite the same again.

As entertaining as this book is, it should be read slowly. Take the time to enjoy Jauregui's good company and make sure you don't miss a single insight along the way. In a world full of promised quick fixes and self-help guides, Ann Jauregui's Epiphanies offers something deeper and more humbling -- a newly generous sense of wonder, optimism and possibility.

There's a bonus, too, a richly provocative foreward by internationally renowned philosopher and religious scholar, Huston Smith.

This is a book that brought back a great deal of memories for me. Brian's descriptions of his altar boy days, the priests, the tales of Garrison and Frank Rizzo sent me back to another day and time. I once again became that little girl in the fourth grade with an incredible crush (and a cracker jack ring). His own personal story of his pain as a parent dealing with his son's illness, to the joy of teaching a Sunday school class about faith, left me feeling that I wanted to hear more. Thanks, Brian, for reminding me of just what life is really all about! T.O'K.

While this book only had a brief chapter on the memories of this author and his experiences as an alter boy it brought back memories for me of similar early mornings full of dusty kneelers, bell ringing and fists full of hosts stuffed in your pockets. The true nature of this book is the spiritual journey a young man takes and how the things that were part of the formation of the individual shapes the man's belief system. As with all of us of that generation, as we age we become more aware of the really important parts of life. God, family and self are the relationships that are explored and defined through Doyle's eyes. His observations act as stimulus for further self examination of our belief system,

This is the third book that I have read by this author and would highly recommend them to anyone.

I picked up this book because the cover intriqued me, and ended up loving the book! This book is quirky, creative, and honest.

This is one of the best books for exploring the rich and fertile images of darkness. So often we have negative thoughts about darkness - fearful, sad, angry, but this book shows that it is also lifegiving, nurturing, and a place of rest. Sorry to see so few copies available.

Every page of this book is filled with rich spiritual nurishment. I can't help but touch the pictures wanting to feel the collages and images of the book. The language is clear and easy to read, not the stuff of heady theology. When I read this book during the Advent Season or any other liturgical season it invites me to reconnect with the gift of the Christ Child. I come back to this book and other books by Rev. Richardson whenever I need to fill my well.

She has written the single most helpful book of mediations, prayers and poems for Advent that I've ever encountered. I have used her book extensively for writing liturgy to fit our congregation for Advent, Christmas and into Epiphany. I'd like to read more of her stuff

A good friend lent me the book years ago,and it has haunted me since. The "haunting" has been positive and nurturing, and I have recommended the book to many people. It's been years, but I recall being "surprised by joy" (Lewis), and would like to share the book with others. It's a disappointment that it is out of print. How does one persuade a publisher to reprint a book?

I have had a copy of this book for several years and have given many copies to friends. It has been the single most helpful book to share with others when facing serious illness and loss of loved one. The quotations cover a broad range of authors writing during different times in history. From personal experience I know the editors captured the many ways living, loving and losing affects a person.I wish it were still available.

This book is a treasure and I am so disheartened it is not available to give as gifts to my many friends who have lost loved ones. It is filled with inspiration, hope and reminders of love sustained.

Wonderful essays about Advent and Christmas.
Mrs. Tickle writes beautifully. In other hands these stories could be overly sentimental, but she puts just the right touch to make them touching without being maudlin.
I re-read it every year to put myself into the real Christmas spirit.

In 1976, Publishers Weekly religion editor Phyllis Tickle and her husband Sam decided to abandon city life and move their family back to their rural roots in western Tennessee. What the Land Already Knows is Tickle's account of winters spent on their farm in the small community of Lucy - "about four thousand citizens if, as we used to say in town meetings, one counted the tractors as well as the cows and people."

This small book is beautifully written, often funny, always touching, and nearly impossible to put down. I devoured it in one sitting, then went back to reread each chapter separately, slowly, savoring the sweetness, the sadness, and Tickle's remarkable insights on family, winter, isolation, and faith.

Following an unhurried path from Advent through the children's return to school in January, Tickle introduces her family - human and animal. Husband Sam is a doctor and passionate grape vine tender. Their seven children, the oldest married before the family moves to the farm, thrive in a world defined by chores, farm animals, and family traditions. Her mother, whose yearly frenzy of pecan cooking the author first tries to escape, then comes to cherish. Silly Sally, Mary, Saint, and Oscar, the cows whose lives, calvings, and deaths bring humor, blessing, and meat to the family's life.

By the time you turn the last of the 114 pages, you feel you might recognize Tickle's family on the streets of Lucy, Tennessee, or any other small farm town.

From her agonizing ambivalence over finding the right gifts for her children to her unabashed pleasure in returning the house to order after the holiday frenzy, Tickle's honesty, always spoken gently, is disarming, beguiling, and sometimes startling.

Perhaps the finest chapter is a reflection on names. Musing on her children's delight in the naming of farm animals, of which there were scores, she notes that the named and the namer create together the identity of each, ending with this beautiful reflection: "What is New Year's Day for the world at large is also the Feast of the Holy name for the church. . . . [B]efore the day is done, I still walk out by myself to Mary's Hill for a little while and think about what it means to know the name of God and to be yourself called by it."

Small enough to fit into a stocking, this is a nearly perfect book for reading and rereading during the long, dark nights of winter.

By the fact of being close to my own age, I am totally impressed by Phyllis Tickle's creativity in picturing Epiphany moments out of her large family in Lucy, Tenn. My one regret is growing-up in East Tenn. I was not privileged to live nearby to Lucy, close to Memphis. While I identify being a member of the little country village of Hall's Cross Roads in East Tenn, it was very nearly the same sort of community that gave all small farmers a closely-knit, feeling of belonging! My sense from Phyllis' neat chapters on "Noel, Holy Mother, The Joseph Candle, Christmas Eve Gift, Silly Sally's Gift, and Name This Child" all create their closely-knit Family in activity reflecting the Christmas Story!

Once I got into the chapter on the "Days of Thomas the Doubter" I noted her carefully portrayed choice of gifts for Laura, "one of the older, newly-wed children...just starting a home." By St Thomas Day, "as my mother used to call it, the Day of the Old Doubter Himself"... She struck a familiar chord in my own sense of describing one of our favorite pastoral characters! In fact, my own point in reading and writing about this unique collection of essays is that it becomes a great model for blending family antidotes into Reflections upon Holy-days and Epi-phanies that people our fondest memories of Christmas.

If I only picture a couple of more impressive spots, they would lie in the chapter, Christmas Eve Gift: "Appalachians conserve everything in order to survive a geography that has no intention of allowing them...or anything else to survive." No pecans are indigenous to Appalachian mountains...just like East Tenn! I was smitten with Ms Tickle's creative pictures of her environment. In particular the family cracking and shelling nuts for nursing stations at Sam's hospital; also the informal relaxed manner of attire when the family sat around the kitchen on the Feast of St Stephen! "We ate and drank and looked for all the world like a Norman Rockwell come to life." Where else could I find a clear reality pictured in beautifully homespun words of real-life?

I am now a Fan of anything written by Phyllis Tickle, regardless if it is "The Graces We Remember or Wisdom In the Waiting!" Let me just soak it up for my writer's hunger and thirst for reality. Retired Chap. Fred W. Hood

Divided into 3 liturgical sections: 1) Advent, 2) Christmas, 3) Epiphany... this is a really cool book (printed in RED ink!). Fabulous ideas for making your holiday season, as an individual, but most especially as a family, truly something to remember. How to create memories that will last a lifetime. Really.... I don't think I'm gonna sell my copy it's so cool!

This author divides up the Christmas season into it's three distinct parts: Advent, "christmastide," and epiphany, in keeping with the religious significance of Christmas. The focus is on the birth of Jesus and less on the commercially-driven tradition of Santa Claus and the buying frenzy. There are many practical and simple ideas for family and friend celebrations and get-togethers as well as quiet, reflective Christmas traditions. It provides lovely substitutes for all of the frenetic Christmas obligations that seem to permeate the season.