Kidder's book gives serious food for thought. Our world is very diverse. People come with different needs, different agendas, and different cultural backgrounds that color their understanding of others. We seem to disagree on so much and have minimal interest in working together. Kidder stresses that our world is getting smaller and to survive and grow, we, as a world need to find a common ground from which to work together. We need to find "universal truths". There is too much at stake if we don't: concerns that affect everyone, from damage to the environment to economic issues between the haves and the have nots. Without a common ground from which to talk, to trade, and to understand each other, we, as a species are bound to fail.

In his book, Kidder interviews 24 highly respected people from a variety of backgrounds for their perspective on universal values. From these interviews, Kidder identified several important ingredients. The eight values that most often appeared were love, truthfulness, fairness, freedom, unity, tolearance, responsibility, and respect for life.

Part of our job as community college trustees is to help our school, our administration, and our students meet the needs of a growing, changing, and ever more diverse society. How will we meet those needs? What do we need to consider? This book gives some key insights to ponder and gives me personally a much broader appreciation of "diversity". I recommend it.

A wonderful trip back to Millionaire's Row, and the unbelievable homes that lined Cleveland's Euclid Avenue (including the fascinating men who built them), in the late 1800's. Plenty of pictures too. A must book for any lover of Cleveland history.

When she was six, Kristin Ohlson believed and wanted to become a nun. As she grew older, she not only forgot her ambition, but also drifted from Catholicism.

Years later, feeling alone on Christmas morning, Kristin finds an advertisement for mass at Cleveland's St. Paul Shrine. She attends with a few others, but felt she belonged. Still she wondered about the sixteen remaining cloistered nuns at the monastery, who are the Poor Clares of Perpetual Adoration praying to God 24/7 to lift the sorrows of humanity. Ohlson using the Poor Clares as a spiritual guide has begun a journey to find her own faith though she lacks their dedication and belief and falters often. Thus while committed she wonders if she is crazy.

This is a strong biography due to the author's conflicting dualism and her comparison to her model the Poor Clares. Unlike many books in which middle age crisis leads to healing faith-finding nirvana, Ms. Ohlson admits she teeters back and forth. She confesses that while STALKING THE DIVINE: CONTEMPLATING FAITH WITH THE POOR CLARES whose beliefs encourages her but also frightens her as she pales next to her role models. Readers will feel the same way yet will find they are motivated for the better good.

Harriet Klausner

I am loathe to be the first customer to review this because this might be the only review some buyers will see. The responsibility of doing this book justice weighs heavily on me. Although I finished the book four days ago and then went back to read it again, I am still in the flush of great enthusiasm. "Publishers Weekly" got it right (See above) except for the fact that Kris is better than all the others. She is much more entertaining than the rest of the "journey" writers. She has the same gift Kathleen Norris has of humanizing nuns and making their lives understandable, but Kathleen Norris never seems to have any doubts. Kris is full of doubts and questions. The nuns Kris interviews as part of her journey also don't seem smug, those faith-seeking folks who are all so different from one another but not all that different from the rest of us.

I especially liked her treatment of Clare, the founder of the contemplative Order which is her subject matter and which she researched so thoroughly before she started asking all her questions.

Clare was fleeing a 13th century patriarchal world in addition to seeking God. Vowed virginity puzzled the patriarchs because the nuns moved outside of their control. I have also seen that phenomenom among my lesbian friends. It isn't about sex at all; it's about freedom from being controlled and trying not to lead a dull and meaningless life with a husband and kids.

About Jesus as the Bridegroom: I have the same trouble Kris has with throwing around the name Jesus because the Religious Right has given Jesus such a bad name.

I also like the fact that Kris doesn't sugar coat the Church's long history of anti-Semitism or its long history of anti-feminism. She, like I think most of us, wants a religion and a faith where people can get outraged at injustice and never achieve total peace with the way things are.

What Kris does so well is to pull us into her journey. We find ourselves hoping so much her journey will have a happy ending, not necessarily that she will come back to the Church but that she will find a resolution of some kind and peace at the last; that she will find some answers. Yet, at the end, I felt so very glad that she was just like I am. I should have known that a journey would always be a journey and that things would always be "up in the air."

It reads like a mystery story. The thirst to know what happens next makes it a page turner. Folded into the narrative are her own personal trials and those of her heart-broken daughter over the loss of a boyfriend, and the taunting of her rational friends, like the characters in the Book of Job. She stepped outside her own world in order to understand the sisters who stepped into another world themselves and left the old one behind.

In addition to getting to know and like Kris, we also get to know the fascinating and mysterious contemplative sisters she interviewed one by one. How she won their trust is a story in itself. I thought it was neat for her to compare her trips to interview the nuns with "Tuesdays With Morrie."

This is a book not just for hardcore Catholics like myself who can identify with every page, including knowing the same types of loners who hang around the "Shrine," but for all people who are on journeys seeking enlightenment. I predict this book will have a large audience. Conservative Catholics will love it for sure, but New Age folks will also like it, partly because of the killer title which really is what the book is about.

I am sending it to a couple of atheist friends, not to win an argument but help them understand me a little better. I want to show them that I and other people like me aren't sure about much of anything but remain curious about everything and live in the hope that at the end there is a lot more to life than just our own fulfillment.

Maybe I can convince them that in stalking God, the nice surprise at the end will be for us to find out that God is always stalking us...sometimes with books like this one.

A friend pointed me to this book back when I was in junior high and I've a few times borrowed it through Inter-Library Loan just to re-read. It is one of the funniest books I've ever read and certainly one of my all time favorites.

This book and the two that follow are some of the best written, most captivating material I've had the pleasure to read in far too long. The stories will bring tears to your eyes and stay with you long after you've finished the book. I do hope Mr. Bellamy has more tales to tell.

This book describes the history of Cleveland, OH during the early 1900's when Euclid Ave was referred to as MILLIONAIRE ROW. Simoultaneously it describes the how and why of the conception of the world famous Cleveland Clinic Foundation and each of it's medical specialties.

I found this book to be very easy reading and enjoyed it very much. The boy's adventures taught them many values that I'm sure could be used the rest of their lives. They were honest and reliable young men who learned how to manage their lives and enjoy the ride. I believe today's young people would profit by reading this book.