A review of my book "Keepers of the Soul"

I have taken the plunge (see my blog More about books of 1 July), and now one of my books, Keepers of the Soul, can be downloaded on to Kindle.  Confirmation that it was good that I have done this has just come through a lovely email I received yesterday from China.  The writer, Feng, studied acupuncture in Chengdu, but did not complete her studies because she did not like the approach she was being taught.  She moved to Europe, and then, quite by chance (if there is such a thing!), made contact recently after many years with my friend Mei, with whom she studied in Chengdu.  She is now so enthused by five element acupuncture that she will be coming to my seminars in the autumn, and wishes to become a five element acupuncturist.  

As you can see from her email, she has bought one of my books in its e-book version, and has sent me the following review.  I pass it on to you in her words:

“Dear Nora,

I downloaded from Amazon Keepers of the Soul to my Kindle one week ago and now I just finished it and want to tell you how I feel about it. I would put my thoughts together in the way as if I were telling a friend about this book and I apologize for my gerglish.

At the beginning what touched me most is the utmost sincerity of the author. As I started the reading I had the feeling as if I were watching the author explore the elements, she was a little bit tense and me too, she tried to convey to me the whole dimension of her interaction with the elements and sometimes she succeeded and sometimes left me try hard to figure out what she was confronting at that moment. I have never experienced this kind of approach the author has to TCM,  honest, sensible, totally unassuming, open, and by a highly cultivated western mind (?!). Reading the book brought some subtle awareness to my inner world and I had the feeling I could even make correction to some minor disorders inside myself without intervention of needles. This led me to imagine what the intervention of a needle would do to me! As the reading processed, the author becomes more and more relaxed and as it comes to the description of the elements with example of prominent people it is getting even entertaining. It is a book that opens and I would recommend it to everyone without restraint.

Greetings from the summer of Chengdu,
Feng”

Thank you, Feng, for these interesting comments.  I particularly appreciate your words:  “It is a book that opens.”  That is what all books should do – they should open something new inside us so that we see the world and ourselves in a slightly different way.

I also like the comment that you felt “I was a little bit tense” at the start of the book.  I probably was, as I was trying to encapsulate in words all my feelings about the elements.  Whenever I write, I always feel the difficulty of capturing feelings within the sometimes clumsy and inadequate framework of words.