CLRI REVIEWS
DECEMBER 2011
EDITED BY KHURSHID ALAM
Contemporary Literary Review: India (CLRI) brings to you its online newsletter titled as CLRI Reviews. Each month CLRI Reviews will feature reviews on books, journals, magazines, and products such as automobiles, phone sets, electronic gadgets, video games, kids’ items and many more things available with online portals, shops, malls, and mega malls in your cities, countries or next you door. CLRI voluntarily selects literary journals and magazines from around the world, both online and print versions on which we bring out reviews. However, those who want us to write reviews on their journals may send us their entries so as we can include them in the next issues. We also present a list of new releases. Please send us your new releases. Buy Books at http://www.contemporaryliteraryreview-buybooks.com
CLRI REVIEWS
DECEMBER 2011
EDITED BY KHURSHID ALAM
Review on Inner Pilgrimage by Nishi Sharma Inner Pilgrimage: Ten Days to a Mindful Me by Raji Lukkoor is a multidimensional spiritual journey— using Vipassana meditation—a secular tool that Raji thinks can change anyone’s life dramatically, forever. When you immerse yourself in the goose-bump arising, spiritual experiences of Inner Pilgrimage; be sure to keep your senses and sensibilities open, so you can navigate through the unpredictable sensations in your body. The description is so picturesque and captivating that you feel as if you have plunged into Raji’s sea of words and encountered a spiritual experience so deep that it feels like your own experience. Vibrating and passionate, thrilling and incredible, Inner Pilgrimage is an inspiring tale of ten days of Vipassana mediation that practitioners can use to expel fears, materialistic delusions, frustrations, relationship problems and many more inevitable sufferings of existence—a complete flushing of life’s ills. Inner Pilgrimage is divided into three sections— Senses, Sensations and Sensibilities—that lay out the author’s journey of eventual self-transformation through attention to the physical sensations. Vipassana, the quintessence of this book, was rediscovered by Gautam Buddha two-and-a-half centuries ago, and focuses on the relationship between mind and body. It is an observation-based, self-exploratory exposure to the common root of
mind and body that dissolves mental impurity, resulting in a balanced mind that is filled with love and compassion. Initially, Raji seems somewhat skeptical of becoming a hermit for ten days, away from the coziness of her home, but she remains firm. On day one, her spiritual odyssey starts with the prerequisite teachings of Vipassana, the three jewels of Buddhism: Buddha or acknowledging enlightenment within self: dhamma or living in the present moment, and sangha or refraining from evil. She discovers the milestones of an individual’s spiritual journey including: sila or morality, samadhi or concentration, and panna or wisdom. By day two of practicing anapana or the awareness of the natural breath, the author experiences an “Aha“ moment during which she feels as if she is “moving effortlessly, floating, gliding in the joyous nothingness of a grand immensity that appears to stretch to infinity.” On day four, she discovers anicca or that the true nature of sensations varies from moment to moment, Sankhara or reactions, and Adhitthana or the determination to remain motionless. Moving forward, she continuously scans her body for sensations, which emerge in the form of pain, numbness, creepy-crawly, pricking, pins-andneedle type sensations, and so on. Sensations arise; “they pass away. They arise; they pass away”-incredible sensations, larger than life!
CLRI REVIEWS
DECEMBER 2011
EDITED BY KHURSHID ALAM
On day seven, she learns the challenging sweep–enmasse technique, which involves scanning the whole body for sensations in one sweep, from the top of her head to the tips of her toes and then back up. She feels strong sensations across her body in the form of pressure, rippling sensations and pinpricks. She does not react to any sensations because now she knows that this is the key to maintaining equanimity in the midst of sensations. On the final day, she learns the second half of the Vipassana
B o o k R e l e a s e s! Title: Concept of Man In Sri Aurobindo's Poetry Author: Jitendra Sharma Publisher: Anmol Publications Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi ISBN: 978-81-261-4932-2 Pages: 182 Price: Rs. 900 Available: Anmol Publications Pvt. Ltd.
Title: Inner Pilgrimage: Ten Days to a Mindful Me Author: Raji Lukkoor Publisher: THIRD EYE ISBN: 978-81-8274-502-5 Pages: 176 pages Price: Rs 195 Available (online): www.flipkart.com, www.printsasia.com.
practice, Metta bhavana and Dana. Metta bhavana invokes the feeling to share the purity and wisdom developed during the ten days with all beings and Dana invokes charity, generosity, or donation. On the eleventh day, a transformed personality with a renewed vision of life, Raji is eager to go home. Come on readers, let’s jump in and accompany Raji on her journey of self-discovery and attain enlightenment.
CLRI REVIEWS
DECEMBER 2011
EDITED BY KHURSHID ALAM
Newest Titles From Lummox Press Title: Catalina Author: Laurie Soriano Publisher: Lummox Press ISBN: 978-1-929878-87-1 Pages: 112 pages Price: $15 Recognition (if any): October pick of the month (Small Press Distribution) Available (online): http://www.lummoxpress.com/lummoxpress/catalina.htm ; Amazon; Small Press Distribution Catalina by Grady Harp Laurie Soriano’s debut collection of poetry (already named as a “pick of the month – 10-2011” by Small Press Distribution & the highest selling Lummox book on Amazon.com to date) is “a poet to watch” (according to reviewer Lawrence Kessenich in the Boston Area Small Press Blog run by Doug Holder). “Some poets search for a niche where they are comfortable in sharing with the reader the secrets that have become part of their world perspective—an emotional landscape that further defines regions of our minds that have been hazy or too full of fear or pain to see clearly. Laurie Soriano takes our hand and in the process our heart and invites us to accompany her on re-creations of moments that feel like balm, like a friend who is willing to admit she has been through life experiences as delicate or fragile as ours and in doing so allows us to cope with memories or ideas or concepts whose doors we have electively locked from consciousness. She is a wordsmith as fine as any writing today and entering the pages of this radiant collection of poems changes us—whether we wish it or not.”
Title: The Accidental Navigator Author: Henry Denander Publisher: Lummox Press ISBN: 978-1-929878-88-8 Pages: 130 pages Price: $15 Available (online): http://www.lummoxpress.com/lummoxpress/denander.htm ; Amazon
CLRI REVIEWS
DECEMBER 2011
EDITED BY KHURSHID ALAM The Accidental Navigator by T.L. Kryss One true test of anyone’s poetry, perhaps, is the extent to which it encourages you to share it with others. When you’re through reading Henry Denander, the poems aren’t merely buried on your bookshelf, but foisted upon the nearest innocent bystander. In this case, the lucky recipients happened to be my wife and daughter. “Hey, listen to this...”
Title: BORN TO BE BLUE Author: Tony Moffeit Publisher: Lummox Press ISBN: 978-1-929878-85-7 Pages: 100 Price: $15 Available (online): http://www.lummoxpress.com/lummoxpress/blue.htm ; Amazon Born To Be Blue by Tony Moffeit “I never tire of reading Tony Moffeit's poems—they always haunt, pull me back. I never read them just once. The rhythms, the dusky hotel rooms, the music, the wind ghosts and coyotes are so often tight, stunning, strong, electric. You can taste, feel, smell the darkness of adobe huts, the pinon, feel landscapes in the rearview mirror. I love the mix of what is colloquial and magically strange, of what's water-clear honed with visions, stars and voodoo.”
Title: LAST CALL: The Bukowski Legacy Continues Author: Various (54) Editor: RD Armstrong Publisher: Lummox Press ISBN: 978-1-929878-86-4 Pages: 154 pages Price: $18 Available (online): http://www.lummoxpress.com/lummoxpress/buk.htm ; Amazon
CLRI REVIEWS
DECEMBER 2011
EDITED BY KHURSHID ALAM
LAST CALL: The Bukowski Legacy Continues by RD Armstrong “You don’t even have to say that this is a book about Charles Bukowski. You can just say Bukowski and nearly anyone who claims to be well read will recognize the name. This is the hallowed place in pop culture where all you have to say is the last name, like Hemingway, Faulkner, Chandler, and Steinbeck. Just say the name and you are there. You have entered that man’s territory. And, each one of these writers has created an unmistakable plot of ground… Several of Bukowski’s contemporaries are here. Ann Menebroker, Alan Catlin, Gerald Locklin, Edward Field, Gerald Nicosia among others. And, the feel for the memory of Bukowski is here, but as Raindog, assures us in his introduction, LAST CALL really isn’t meant to be a “lovefest” of Bukowski, the man or the myth. However, the spirit of Bukowski resonates throughout LAST CALL.
LAST CALL is not just about Bukowski’s legacy which seems obvious. A book like this is never completely about the man it is about. Instead, this book is about a whole generation of writers who are or have been attempting to come to grips with not just Bukowski’s legacy but their own separate legacies as well” (from a review by Todd Moore). “I have come to the realization that one has to be true to oneself; one has to follow their own path, even if the party is always on the other path. You have to be strong if you’re to go it alone. Or you have to publish the occasional anthology that a lot of people want to be in. I think I’m somewhere in the middle. So in this book I have attempted, again, to showcase a number of writers whose work shows the influence, not necessarily in style or form, but in the feelings that their pieces (especially true of poetry) evoke in the reader…”