The Book of Calamities
Five Questions about Suffering and its Meaning
by Peter Trachtenberg
In his introduction, Trachtenberg talks about a friend who suffered and died from a terrible disease, and who provided
him with his motivation for writing this book. And, sure enough, the first several pages suggested my fears were
correct. I thought this would be a testament to his lost friend. It was that... but so very much more. Each of the
five chapters deals with a specific kind of calamity and its meaning to a hurting world and a hurting individual.
Don't misunderstand. This is not a book one picks out because he is feeling depressed. This is an extremely well
thought out and researched treatise on suffering, meaning, justice, revenge, endurance, and theology. This is a book
hard to get through but equally hard to put down. Trachtenberg doesn't use philosophical or theological jargon; he
uses real life experiences he has knowledge of. He speaks with equal understanding of personal tragedy from disease
to Rwandan genocide with a compassion which seeps through, no matter how hard he tries to hide it, as I suspect. This
is a powerful book, not one to be taken lightly. It has changed me in reading it. I think it changed Peter
Trachtenberg in writing it as well. |
The Book |
Little, Brown and Company |
August 27, 2008 |
Hardcover |
978-0-316-15879-4 |
Miscellaneous Non-fiction / Psychology / Sociology |
More at Amazon.com |
Excerpt |
NOTE: |
The Reviewer |
Chris Querry |
Reviewed 2008 |
NOTE: |
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