Reba Orton's Book Reviews

A Book of Miracles: Inspiring True Stories of Healing, Gratitude, and Love by Bernie S. Siegel My rating: 3 of 5 stars I read "A Book of Miracles; Inspiring True Stories of Healing, Gratitude, and Love" by Dr. Bernie S. Siegel and even though the title seems lofty, I found this book to have too much self-promotion and testimonials about the author himself. There were some stories that I really liked, but the rest of the stories seems overly optimistic. I understood that the power of prayer and positive thinking can change your world, heal your body, and make life better. However, there are such things as too much sappiness and mushiness. Unfortunately, this book seems to be one of them. Guideposts and Reader's Digest have similar stories about miracles and I've always enjoyed reading about them. They do not try to make a metaphysical point. They are emotion-filled, raw, pity-invoking kinds of stories. You take away what you will fro...

Essential Reiki: A Complete Guide to an Ancient Healing Art by Diane Stein My rating: 4 of 5 stars I read Essential Reiki, A Complete Guide to an Ancient Healing Art by Diane Stein. The author made a distinction between Jesus as a historical figure and Jesus as portrayed by the churches. She mentioned that the historical Jesus might have been a bodhisattva. She brought up a book Jesus Lived in India by Holger Kersten as her source. This was very fascinating! She included a lot of Buddhist information throughout her book and explained how Reiki was the reverse of the Enlightenment path in Buddhism. She mentioned how the Reiki symbols are Sanskrit--derived Japanese forms that are at least 2500 years old. She also distinguishes between traditional Reiki and her modern version of Reiki. For example, she included both traditional Reiki symbols and alternative modern-day symbols. Furthermore, she included non-Reiki symbols and the Antahkarana design, somet...

Mantle: The Return of the Sha by Gary Bregar My rating: 5 of 5 stars I read Mantle; The Return of the Sha by Gary Bregar in four or five days. The story features a young female heroine who grew up feeling like an outcast because she didn't have a magical power like everyone else. But she actually did and didn't know it. She later discovers that she is a sha or a good witch, like Glenda in the Wizard of Oz. I could relate to her feelings of isolation and having only a few friends because I grew up deaf in a hearing world. I liked Lizabet's rambunctious character. She is also an independent and self-reliant girl. On the other hand, her sister, Bella, is a beautiful woman who caught the eye of the king during the last leg of his travels around the kingdom. A quick romance ensued. The wedding that followed reminded me of Princess Diana's elaborate wedding to Prince Charles in England. In the story, the celebrations that followed the weddi...

Legacy of the Gods by Ray Mott My rating: 3 of 5 stars I read Legacy of the Gods Book 1 by Ray Mott in two days because much of it was repetitive. The author liked to exhaustively copy similar phrases from different places in the Bible when making a point. He listed the same verse from numerous Biblical versions with slightly different wording. I understand this kind of writing style and probably would have structured my writing the same way if I wanted to show all the evidence in the Bible for an ancient alien concept. However, these long lists are still overkill. I think that he should have used prototypical verses and limited his lists to less than a page. In addition, the lists are not very effective when he does not include his own explanation for some odd entries in the lists. For example, he had a list of verses about sons of gods that also included verses about giants, but he does not explicitly explain the theory that the gods mated with human women and the...

The Quest for Merlin: Magimakía by Rafael Lovato My rating: 4 of 5 stars I read Magimakía; The Quest for Merlin by Brazilian author Rafael Lovato in two days. Its tone was light, slightly mocking, and ridiculous in a good way. It is written in a style that conveyed a sort of surrealistic Dead Sea Scrolls importance. The book was an enjoyable read even though there were points in the book that evoked disgust and were clearly designed to appeal to a guy's cruder sensibilities. It is clearly meant for an audience of teenage boys. The Portuguese to English translator used a mixture of American and British English with some typos, grammar quirks, and even some words I've never seen before. The plot included a merging of souls into one body. When a demon's soul is merged with a mage's soul, the result is called a necromancer. Merlin's long life is credited with another type of merge between a dragon and a mage. According to the book, a ...

Prosperity Stories: Testimonies of Divinity in Everyday Life by Carolyn Bothuel My rating: 5 of 5 stars Prosperity Stories were a delight to read because I knew some of the people who contributed their stories to the book. It was a joy to learn more about who they are and their struggles. I was surprised to find that some authors tended to contribute multiple stories and others only one. I was expecting to get a one to one correspondence, one author, one story. My expectations were blown away. I got to know some authors very well through their contributions. For example, one story written by Rev. Cynthia Tootle about personal business affirmations was easy to relate to as I am still having difficulty dong my own personal business after having sprained my ankle on April 8th. It still needs more healing as of today, May 22nd, 2016. This afternoon, I was reminded of the little red wagon that was hidden behind all the newspapers in Rev. Jim Webb's story. His stor...

Ms. Rebecca Rose Orton, otherwise known simply as Reba Orton, was born Deaf.     She attended Cornell College with its intensive one class a month schedule for the freshman year and by the end of the academic year, she was taking computer science classes that juniors usually took.   However, for the rest of her college years at the University of Northern Iowa, she wisely kept a healthy balance between general education and major courses every semester because switching between subjects while studying was equivalent to getting a mental break.   When she completed her Bachelor of Arts degree in Computer Science in May, 1990, she had completed every course for her major in the university catalog except one.   That one class was Project Management and she never registered for it because she feared that she would not be able to interact with her hearing teammates on an assigned project that they would work on together for the entire semester.   After she gr...