The love response : your prescription to turn off fear, anger, and anxiety to achieve vibrant health and transform your life

 by Eva M. Selhub. Verdict: A compassionate and inspiring approach to managing stress, fear, and anxiety that underscores the connections between mental and physical health. Self-help enthusiasts will appreciate the author's nurturing tone and ability to synthesize Eastern and Western philosophies. Recommended for all libraries. Background: Selhub, an integrative health specialist and a senior staff physician at the Benson Henry Institute for Mind/Body Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital, offers practical and nurturing instructions, guided meditations, and imagery to invoke optimum mental states for total physical and spiritual well-being. Citing patient case studies, the author emphasizes the importance of spirituality and psychology in treating chronic health and medical concerns. --Library Journal (Check Catalog)

A marginal Jew : rethinking the historical Jesus

 by John P. Meier. Meier (theology, Univ. of Notre Dame), a Roman Catholic priest and author of this work's previous three volumes, draws careful distinctions between Christology (theology) and the study of the historical Jesus (history) and between Christian ethics and Jesus's teachings about Halacha (Jewish law). Meier defines law both in intertestamental and in rabbinic Judaism while relating it to both Christian Testaments as a preliminary to a nuanced discussion of Jesus's teachings on law. Meier is forthright about the positives and negatives he uncovers that point to Jesus's provincialism and apparent lack of a system of moral values. Verdict Christian, Jewish, and Muslim scholars as well as educated laity may find the book interesting; it is essential reading for those focusing on its specific themes. Well indexed, this will also be useful for reference purposes. --Library Journal. (Check Catalog)

Talking with Sartre : conversations and debates

 by John Gerassi. Across almost five years, Sartre's godson Gerassi (a former editor at Newsweek) met with the philosopher monthly to discuss family, politics, theory, identity, and other topics high in the minds of both men. As recorded in this aptly titled volume, the discussions remained personable, intellectual, and well guided. Stories about Sartre's nearly lifetime companion, Simone de Beauvoir, and Gerassi's father, artist and Spanish revolutionary Fernando Gerassi, are interwoven with memoirs of Sartre's earliest childhood as well as his then contemporary travels in the Middle East. In spite of the familiarity between the two discussants, the reader feels included rather than either excluded by lack of context or in the role of eavesdropper. Sartre's wit and warmth are nicely revealed without losing his still-active and engaged theorizing. VERDICT The whole makes for an eminently readable and compelling window on 20th-century intellectual social life, as well as philosophy and politics. Of wide interest not only to scholars but also to more casual readers. --Library Journal (Check Catalog)

Just Love; Transforming Civic Virtue

 by Ann Mongoven. By engaging John Rawls and other ethicists who prize impartial standpoints in ethics and politics, Mongoven (Michigan State) shows how the work of caring for particular others in activities such as parenting forms individuals to participate in civic life. Proposing a notion of "disciplined vulnerability," this volume argues for citizens who can recognize moral traditions, but employ and translate them as they navigate tensions between autonomy and relatedness and between smaller communities and the general polis. The work of Mothers against Drunk Driving, an organization founded on the passion of parental love, serves as an important exemplar. This book also presents an overlong tour of liberal theory that seems to detract from its carefully constructive case. The appendix contains case studies showing how the book's argument functions in real politics, allowing Mongoven to ground her case in a way that is too rare in contemporary political theory. This interesting but occasionally meandering book makes important contributions to the debates about the tensions between love and justice, particularity, and impartiality. It models engagement across the disciplines of theology, ethics, and political theory. --Choice (Check Catalog)