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The French Gardener: A Novel, by Santa Montefiore

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A neglected garden. A cottage that holds a secret. A mysterious and handsome Frenchman. Prepare to be “spellbound by the sheer charm” (Daily Express, UK) of Santa Montefiore’s tender and powerful novel about passion, loss, and the healing power of love.

It begins as Miranda and David Claybourne move into a country house with a once-beautiful garden. But reality turns out to be very different from their dream. Soon the latent unhappiness in the family begins to come to the surface, isolating each family member in a bubble of resentment and loneliness.

Then an enigmatic Frenchman arrives on their doorstep. With the wisdom of nature, he slowly begins to heal the past and the present. But who is he? When Miranda reads about his past in a diary she finds in the cottage by the garden, the whole family learns that a garden, like love itself, can restore the human spirit, not just season after season, but generation after generation.

Wise and winsome, poignant and powerfully moving, The French Gardener is a contemporary story told with an old-fashioned sensibility steeped in the importance of family and the magical power of love.

• Sales Rank: #537924 in Books
• Brand: Montefiore, Santa
• Published on: 2009-06-02
• Released on: 2009-06-02
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: 8.00" h x 1.00" w x 5.25" l, .44 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 406 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Montefiore's well-crafted, evocative novel is instantly sensual and welcoming. When Miranda Claybourne's seven-year-old is expelled from school, the stylish Londoner, magazine writer and mother of two, ditches her posh Notting Hill digs for the idylls of a country estate. But her simple-life fantasies soon fail. Her husband's preoccupied with his job and his mistress; the kids lash out at each other while Gus, the elder, terrorizes both farm animals and his new classmates. Enter Jean-Paul, a handsome, mysterious Frenchman with an offer to tend her woefully neglected gardens. Cleaning out the estate's rundown cottage for Jean-Paul, she discovers the secret journals of the previous lady of the house—a brilliant gardener, Ava Lightly, and her love affair. As if by magic, Miranda's garden begins to thrive and she owes it all to Jean-Paul, with whom she thinks she's falling in love. The drama of the journals distract from her own failing marriage, and Miranda delights in the idea that her life is running parallel to Ava's—it's a lovely coincidence, until she stops to consider exactly what may have drawn Jean-Paul into her garden. (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
A rambling country estate may have lured Miranda and David and their children from their elegant London lifestyle, but not even the enchantment of once magnificent gardens, or fascination with an abandoned cottage can mend the emotional and physical chasm that is deepening between them. Left alone while David returns to London during the week, Miranda is overwhelmed by establishing a new home, disciplining an unruly child, and maintaining her own career. Her prayers are seemingly answered when a charismatic Frenchman suddenly appears with an offer to restore the gardens to their former glory. As the friendship between Miranda and Jean-Paul grows, so do her suspicions about David’s fidelity, leading Miranda to seek refuge in an abandoned diary that details a passionate tryst between the estate’s former owner, Ava, and her intriguingly unnamed gardener. Despite the obvious D. H. Lawrence overtones, Montefiore crafts a sweetly provocative romance that transitions seamlessly from Miranda’s contemporary marital discord to Ava’s past affair. --Carol Haggas

Review
"Montefiore is a grand storyteller."

-- Emily Melton, Booklist

Most helpful customer reviews

60 of 66 people found the following review helpful.
This is no garden of eden
By Natasha Montgomery
The French Gardener: A Novel

I basically purchased this book because of the positive reviews I read on Amazon. And while the book has a certain charm it is was not of the caliber that I had hoped. First off, the book gets off to a very, very slow start, to the point where I was tempted to put it down. However, I hate starting books and not completing so, I read on. Sure enough the last quarter of the book picked up.

Here is the problem, the book reads like a drug store paperback. You know the kind you took away to the beach when you were 14 and dying for a little romance. The characters are not developed, the plot is silly, and you know how the book is going to end 100 pages before you get there. I was not looking for War and Peace but, give me a little intellect. The most fun in the book is listening to the main character Miranda talk about the goodies in her closet, Jimmy Choo, Prada, Gucci ect... but I wasn't reading the Devil Wears Prada! Nor do I want to. The book I read before this was The Help. Which was an extraordinary, rich character driven novel. That may have been why I was so disappointed it was like going from a fine crisp Montrachet to a glass of Boone's Farm strawberry wine. Only a 14 year old could love it!

21 of 24 people found the following review helpful.
The Perfect Summer Book
By Nancy
Seldom does a book come a long that you can just feel your body relax and you just melt away into the story. For me, this summer, The French Gardener did just that.

This book spins two tales that are brought together by a single French gardener and his story of love that could not be and a garden that hold the secret that is slowly told through a scrapbook read by a woman that has a similar story but is not the intended recipient. That may sound confusing but this gentle paced story unfolds in a way that you see the beauty but don't want the love story to come to an end.

Stuck in an isolated country house Miranda has the life that she though she would like; that is until she realizes that her high fashion life and mud don't always come together. Her husband is away at work if he`s not with his mistress, her son is in constant trouble at school, she has no friends, no life, nothing but this rotten garden that was once a showplace.

So what's a girl to do, she hires a French gardener to put the garden to rights and with it a story that will bind them all together in a way that they never thought possible.

Montefiore creates wonderfully likeable characters each with a voice and a story of their own. You can feel the garden, the town, the people and the heartache that must be endured for there to even possibly be a happily ever after.

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful.
An Unfortunate Disappointment
By OnlineShopper
After reading this book, it felt like I just spend 10 hours viewing a Picasso in watercolor and on construction paper. The work was certainly there but the true art of developing a good story was missing. It was a book of many "other" books which gave it little originality. The French Gardener is filled with subterfuges and superficialities, especially when it comes to deep heart issues.

Pardon the brevity of my review but I'd rather be curled up near a warm fireplace, reading a really good book.

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# Free Ebook Moby Clique (The Bard Academy), by Cara Lockwood

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Some literary classics have been around for centuries. Miranda Tate's just hoping to survive junior year....

Her summer reading assignment is Moby-Dick, but Miranda's vacation hasn't exactly been smooth sailing. Between working at her stepmother's hideous all-pink boutique, and having broken up with her basketball champ boyfriend Ryan, not to mention snoozing her way through one of literature's heaviest tomes, she's almost looking forward to returning to Bard Academy. That was before her kid sister Lindsay smashed up their dad's Land Rover and got shipped off to Bard herself. Is the punishment Lindsay's -- or Miranda's?

A private school staffed by the ghosts of famous dead writers is hard enough to navigate without a freshman kid sister in tow, but now Miranda's trying to sort out her feelings for her brooding friend Heathcliff, who happens to be a fictional character, while keeping Bard's secrets from her nosy sister. And when her nemesis Parker handpicks gullible Lindsay to be a Parker clone, Miranda knows a storm is brewing. Then, Lindsay disappears in the woods...and a frantic search sends Ryan, Miranda, and Heathcliff to Whale Cove, a spot rumored to hide a sunken pirate's ship. But something -- or someone -- even more ominous and terrifying lurks there. Can Miranda stay the course and save her sister?

• Sales Rank: #2712516 in Books
• Published on: 2008-03-04
• Released on: 2008-03-04
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: 7.00" h x .80" w x 5.00" l, .46 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

About the Author
Cara Lockwood is also the author of I Do (But I Don't), which was made into a Lifetime movie, as well as Pink Slip Party and Dixieland Sushi, and Every Demon Has His Day, all available from Downtown Press. She was born in Dallas, Texas, and earned a Bachelor's degree in English from the University of Pennsylvania. She has worked as a journalist in Austin, and is now married and living in Chicago. Her husband is not a rock star, but he does play the guitar -- poorly.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
One

Call me bored.

As in -- terminally.

I'm a hundred pages into the Longest Book I've Ever Read -- Moby-Dick -- Bard Academy's summer reading requirement. If you ask my opinion, Herman Melville could've shortened this tome by about five hundred pages if he wasn't so long-winded (I mean, twenty pages alone on the color white? Yeah, I got it -- okay? The whale is WHITE. Sheesh. Get on with it!).

I glance out the grungy window of my Chicago Transit Authority bus seat and see jet skiers and windsurfers dotting the horizon on Lake Michigan. I have to take the bus to work because my driving privileges are still revoked (see: Dad still holding a grudge about his totaled BMW from a year ago). Looking at the long stretch of water, I find myself wondering what it would be like if that whale came to life. I can almost imagine a wave becoming a giant whale, rising up, and swallowing three jet skiers whole.

A bike darts in front of the bus and the driver slams on the brakes, throwing me forward and nearly making me drop my book. For an instant, I feel adrenaline running through my veins and my muscles tense up, ready for a fight. I half expect Moby Dick or some other menacing fictional character to appear out of nowhere. I have to remind myself that those things don't happen out here in the real world. My heart rate slows down and I take a few deep breaths. I'm not at Bard. Not where ghosts walk the halls and fictional characters come to life. That was just another posttraumatic Bard moment.

But some of you probably never heard of Bard.

Let me recap.

My dad sent me away to delinquent boarding school (Bard Academy) for my sophomore year after wrecking his Beemer. But what he doesn't know is that Bard is not your ordinary, run-of-the-mill boarding school for delinquents. It's staffed with the ghosts of famous writers, and fictional characters sometimes come to life and wander the campus. This is Bard's big secret, but few people know it. Just me and a few of my friends. And by the way, we managed to save the school (oh yeah, and the world) twice from total annihilation. You see, not all the ghosts there are good ghosts. I found that out the hard way.

I close the book on my lap and take a deep breath. At Bard, some books hold special powers. But out here, away from school, the book is just ordinary, I remind myself. Nothing to worry about.

Still, just in case, I tuck the book snugly into my backpack. You never know.

I glance out the window and recognize the strip shopping mall where I work. I'm about to miss my stop. I grab my bag and push open the back door, then step out into a humid August day. There, glaring at me in hot pink, is the sign I've come to hate. It reads "In the Pink" and it hangs above the store that belongs to my Dad's third wife, Carmen. I've been forced to work here all summer without pay to help "offset my Bard tuition," which is how Dad puts it. I never thought I'd see something scarier than some of the ghosts I'd come face-to-face with at Bard Academy, but Carmen's shop is one big horror show. There are pink plush toys, pink garters, pink toothbrushes -- and (serious ew here) pink edible underwear. It's nice to know that instead of saving for my college education, Dad has opted to fritter my tuition away on inflatable flamingos and posters of pigs in ballet tutus. Clearly, In the Pink (or, as I like to call it, In the Puke) is of so much more social significance than, say, me becoming a doctor and one day curing cancer. Not that I would, but In the Pink definitely isn't going to.

"You're late," Carmen says to me the minute I walk through the door. She's snapping pink bubble gum at me as she tosses a pink, furry boa over my head. This is what she forces employees (i.e., me) to wear. I glance up at the clock.

"Technically, I'm an hour early," I tell her, nodding at the giant neon pink clock in the shape of lips on the wall.

"You know that clock doesn't work," Carmen snaps.

"Like half of the stuff in here," I mumble, but she doesn't hear me.

"Honestly, Miranda. If you were mine, I would seriously think about disowning you," she says. This is Carmen's idea of being warm. My "stepmom," who hasn't been able to keep a goldfish alive and has the mothering instincts of a brick, is twenty-six. That's not even a decade older than I am. This is why I sometimes call Dad a pedophile just to see him get mad. It works every time.

I ignore her and take up my place behind the cash register. I plunk down my bag and open up Moby-Dick. There aren't exactly dozens of people clamoring to buy broken lip clocks.

"Reading? Again?" Carmen scoffs. "I don't know what's gotten into you since you've been back from Bard Academy, but you're reading way too much. You know reading causes you to have to wear glasses. And that would just spoil your whole face."

I want to tell her that never having read a book in her life has probably spoiled her whole brain, but I managed to bite my tongue. Comments like that just make their way straight back to Dad, and then he threatens to send me off to juvenile detention. As it is, I'm just three days away from heading back to Bard Academy for my junior year. Normally, I'd be dreading it. But, recently, I've found myself actually wanting to get back to Bard.

In some ways, the real world just seems so, well, boring. Besides, at Bard, I'm someone special. Turns out I'm part fiction, distantly related to Catherine of Wuthering Heights fame. At Bard, I'm more than just my dad's child support payment or Carmen's surly employee. I really am someone. Someone who saved the school. Twice. Here, I'm just one more underappreciated adolescent taking the bus and working a grunt job.

"Anyway, I've told you a million times that you can't read while we have customers," Carmen scolds as she wraps a long piece of her newly highlighted hair around one finger.

I glance up and around the store. There are no customers. Not unless you count the eighty-year-old woman who's been nosing around the fifty-percent-off bin. As I look up, she picks up a pack of edible underwear, sniffs it, and then drops it back in the bin.

Gross.

"No reading while we have customers," Carmen says. "We have an image to uphold."

I can think of a million smart things to say here. Like the fact that I'm sorry to be reading when we've got such a stampede of customers lining around the block to buy pink Post-it notes that say "Queen of Pink" on them. Or the fact that I can't see how Moby-Dick would do anything but improve the image of a store in a strip shopping mall stuffed between a dry cleaner's and a Dunkin Donuts.

Instead, I settle for, "Oh yes, we're the model of sophistication," while I hold up a pink roll of condoms in a package shaped like a lollypop.

"Shut up," she snaps, because Carmen never can think of anything smart to say back to me. Dad certainly didn't marry her for her sparkling personality, that's for sure. She grabs the neon condoms out of my hand and puts them on a nearby shelf.

Three more days. Only three more days. And then I am out of here and back to Bard, and to...my complicated love life. In one corner, there's my ex, Ryan Kent, state championship basketball player. Gorgeous. Smart. Sweet. And totally uninterested in dating me anymore. In the other corner, there's Heathcliff. Brooding. Mysterious. Serious bad-boy mojo. And completely off-limits because he's a) a fictional character, and b) did I mention he's fiction? He is the original bad boy from Wuthering Heights and the Bard faculty told me explicitly that I couldn't date him because he doesn't belong in this world.

Most girls my age have to worry about whether or not the boy of their dreams knows they exist. I have to worry whether or not my boy actually does exist. It's a strange, strange world.

I put my hand to the locket I wear around my neck, the one that contains a bit of a page from Wuthering Heights. It's the one thing that's keeping Heathcliff in this world. If it were destroyed, he'd be sent straight back to his fictional universe. That he gave it to me speaks volumes about how much he trusts me -- especially since Heathcliff normally doesn't trust anyone.

The shop bell dings and my dad walks through. Reflexively, I frown. Dad and I do not get along. That's because Dad has the emotional maturity of a fourth-grader. And I like to point this out. Often.

"There's my baby!" he says in his exaggerated enthusiasm reserved only for Carmen. He gives her a leer, which makes him look like a lecherous old man. His bald head gleams in the pink fluorescent lights of the store.

"Honey bear!" she cries, and she runs over to give him a sloppy kiss. Tongue is involved, and I feel like I'm going to vomit. I long for the days when Dad and Carmen fought. That was before Dad dropped a hundred Gs on In the Puke. That's paid for probably a lot more than French kisses. The thought makes me want to wretch. There's only one thing worse than imagining your own parents having sex, and that's imagining them having sex with someone else.

He doesn't acknowledge my presence at all for a full five minutes while he and Carmen exchange sickeningly sweet baby talk. Just when I feel like I'm very close to putting my own eye out with one of Carmen's pink fuzzy disco ball pens, Dad looks up and sees me.

"How's my little worker today?" Even Dad can't manage to keep the sarcasm from his voice. "She hasn't caused you any trouble today, has she, Carmen?"

I haven't caused trouble the whole freakin' summer. Not that Dad would notice. Even now, he's already distracted by the edible underwear display. He doesn't even have the attention span to listen to Carmen's answer. Not that I want his attention. If he's not ignoring me, that means he's threatening to send me off to juvie.

"She's been fine, although you know she's reading too much," Carmen says. "It's a distraction for the customers."

"Oh yeah, and that isn't?" I mumble, glancing over at the bachelorette section with the giant blow-up pink penis. You know, because little old ladies who are shopping for pink stationery and pink ballpoint pens are a...

Most helpful customer reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful.
Courtesy of Teens Read Too
By TeensReadToo
In WUTHERING HIGH, Miranda Tate gets sent to the remote boarding school, Bard Academy, on Shipwreck Island off the coast of Maine, because she smashed her dad's Beemer. Throughout WUTHERING HIGH and its sequel, THE SCARLET LETTERMAN, Miranda discovers that Bard has interesting secrets, and slowly adapts to the strange ways of the school. Now, after a summer at home, she's actually looking forward to returning to school.

Things have changed this time, though. Now, her younger, popularity-seeking sister, Lindsay, decides that Bard is the cool place to be. After their father has another car destroyed, Lindsay is beside Miranda on the boat that takes them to the remote island school. Waiting alone at the dock is the mysterious Heathcliff. Readers of the previous novels have come to know that Heathcliff is really the fictional character from the book WUTHERING HEIGHTS, who has been released from the pages of the book for a three year reprieve with the promise that he won't leave the island nor become involved with Miranda.

This is easier said than done. There have been electrical sparks between Miranda and Heathcliff from the first day they encountered each other. Throw in an ex-boyfriend, Ryan, that Lindsay is crushing on. Add a motley group of friends: Blade, the Wiccan ex-roommate; Samir, sent to Bard for refusing to an arranged marriage when he turns 19; and Hana, Miranda's new roommate. And last but not least, don't forget Parker, the popular girl that is out to destroy Lindsay and Miranda for trespassing on her turf.

Now, back at school for her junior year, Miranda hears stories of pirates and buried treasure. Her sister has gone missing to prove to Parker that she deserves Ryan. Instead of settling in to be a good girl this new semester, Miranda and her friends journey into the forbidden forest on the fringe of campus in search of her sister. There, the group of students encounter all sorts of events and try to keep their wits about them.

You will get drawn into the ghost stories that surround Shipwreck Island. The speed of the events that unwind in the forest will keep you engrossed and your heart racing. From pirates, to ancient burial grounds, to the legendary ship Pequod, there is never a dull moment in the story. You will be left feeling winded but wanting more.

Cara Lockwood writes a fascinating story intertwining literary works with a current tale. For those that are not fans of old works of literature, Ms. Lockwood is able to bring some of that knowledge to you without you even realizing you are learning about them anyway. Even for those that have never read the classic MOBY DICK by Herman Melville, references are made to parts of the story that everyone will recognize. You do not have to have read the previous two books in THE BARD ACADEMY series to enjoy this one. Details are much clearer with the background of WUTHERING HIGH and THE SCARLET LETTERMAN, but they are certainly not necessary.

For fans of both modern teen stories and classic works of literature, this will not disappoint!

Reviewed by: Jaglvr

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful.
moby clique
By Viola Sanders
"Moby Clique" is the 3rd installment in the Bard Academy series, and, as usual, Cara Lockwood has written a hilarious book. In my opinion, she writes some of the funniest books out there. Much to my excitement, this Bard novel showcases Sylvia Plath & a pirate theme. Throughout her adventures, Miranda's relationship with Heathcliff develops-- I sincerely hope there are more Bard novels to come.

0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
Love this!
By Jaded_Gal
I stumbled upon this series by accident & LOVED IT. After finding a copy of the 1st book, Wuthering High in a bargain bin at a local book store I immediately hit Amazon for the next available 2 books. I was not disappointed with either, Moby Clique or The Scarlet Letterman. The book centers around Miranda, a spoiled, very spirited 15 year old from Chicago who gets sent by her parents to a strict & secluded boarding school after one of her tantrums totals her fathers car & maxes out her step moms credit cards.

Yeah, I didn't want to like Miranda, but it was hard not too. I was attracted to the book series because of how Lockwood uses literary characters throughout, not because a desire to read teen angst. Miranda begins obviously as a bratty one dimensional character but grows into so much more, I loved her by the end of Wuthering High. After giving in & embracing Miranda, I enjoyed reading each book just to watch her emotional growth & maturity change from book to book.

What I WAS disappointed in was MTV books. They were the 1's that published the 1st 3 books in Cara Lockwoods "Bard Academy" series & for reasons unknown to me they did not wish to publish the 4th & final book, A Tale of Two Proms. REALLY MTV? You'll publish Rich Boys by Jenny O'Connell, not exactly "high art" but refuse to be part of the publishing of the 4th & final book in a series. A series that I'm sure sold as well, if not better than O'Connell's Rich Boys.

In the end I had to buy the last book as an ebook, which sucks, I'd like to have a PHYSICAL COPY to place on jt bookshelf with the other 3. But, no dice....

This will appeal to females, ages 11-18, not very racy, some kissing but it's all PG. I like how Lockwood used literary characters throughout the series, it was a fresh new take that was fun to read. This series is light, fluffy, a total guilty pleasure read, yes there are tense moments where Miranda & friends have to save the day, but it's so innocent I'd have no problem letting my 8 year old daughter read it. Nothing disturbing happens within the pages of any of the books. If you have a tween-ager, teenager or just like lightweight fun reading material, give it a shot.

5 stars all around...from start to finish!

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In the twentieth century, mind over matter was emphasized. In the twenty-first century, soul over matter will transform all life.

The Power of Soul reveals divine soul secrets, wisdom, knowledge, and practices to transform the consciousness of humanity and all souls, and enlighten them in order to create love, peace, and harmony for humanity, Mother Earth, and all universes.

The Power of Soul teaches soul healing, soul prevention of sickness, soul rejuvenation, soul transformation of every aspect of life (including relationships and finances), and soul enlightenment. It offers you practical soul treasures to empower you to apply all of these teachings. This is the divine direction for the fifteen-thousand-year Soul Light Era, which started on August 8, 2003.

The Power of Soul is the leading authority for Dr. Sha's entire Soul Power book series. The divine soul secrets, wisdom, knowledge, and practices in this book will lead humanity and all souls to the universe of soul over matter. This book shows humanity and all souls the way to heal, rejuvenate, transform, and enlighten all life.

• Sales Rank: #605203 in Books
• Brand: Atria Books
• Published on: 2010-01-26
• Released on: 2010-01-26
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: 9.00" h x 1.10" w x 6.00" l, .76 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

Features

• Great product!

Review
"Through his Soul Power book series, Dr. Sha guides the reader into a consciousness of healing not only of body, mind, and spirit but also of the heart. I consider his healing path to be a universal spiritual practice, a journey into genuine transformation. It is with the utmost confidence that I recommend Dr. Sha as a teacher to any organization whose mission it is to promote well-being and expand the capacity of its members to experience life in all of its richness." -- Dr. Michael Bernard Beckwith, founder and spiritual director of Agape International Spiritual Center and author of Spiritual Liberation

"Dr. Sha is the most inspirational healer and teacher available in North America today. Master healers are rare. Here is one of the living masters of soul healing and its effects upon mind and body." -- C. Norman Shealy, M.D., Ph.D., president of Holos University Graduate Seminar, founding president of the American Holistic Medical Association, and author of Life Beyond 100

"Dr. Sha is an important teacher and a wonderful healer with a valuable message about the power of the soul to influence and transform all life." -- Dr. Masaru Emoto, author of The Hidden Messages in Water

"All cultures have produced authentic healers from time to time. Dr. Zhi Gang Sha is such a healer -- a man of deep wisdom and compassion, and a gift to the human race." -- Larry Dossey, M.D., author of The Extraordinary Healing Power of Ordinary Things

About the Author
Master Zhi Gang Sha is a soul leader, an extraordinary healer, and a divine servant. He was trained as a conventional medical doctor and a doctor of traditional Chinese medicine. The founder of the Institute of Soul Healing and Enlightenment and of the World Soul Healing, Peace and Enlightenment Movement, he is a grandmaster of many ancient disciplines, including tai chi, qi gong, feng shui and the I Ching. Master Sha is also an expert in the most advanced cellular healing science now occurring in China. In the West, he is involved in breakthrough research on the effects of spirit on the human system. Master Sha was named Qigong Master of the Year at the Fifth World Congress in Qigong. In 2006, he was granted the Martin Luther King, Jr. Commemorative Commission Award for his humanitarian efforts. His Soul Power Series reveals soul secrets, wisdom, knowledge, and practices to transform every aspect of life. Visit www.DrSha.com.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
1

Soul Basics

For many years, I have traveled around the world to teach soul secrets, wisdom, knowledge, and practices. I always ask my students, "What is the soul?" Common answers include: Soul is the inner being. Soul is the inner child. Soul is the spark of the Divine. Some people say soul is one drop of water in the vast ocean. Others describe the soul as the essence of one's life. There are many different answers. Every answer has some significance and correctness for the concept of soul. I honor every answer but I would like to share my own insights on the fundamental wisdom of the soul.

What Is the Soul?

A human's soul is a golden light being. To see a soul, you must open your spiritual eye, which is named the Third Eye. Then you will see clearly that every human being has a golden light being inside his or her body. The soul can sit in different parts of the body. There are seven main areas where a human's soul can sit. These seven houses for the soul are located:

1. just above the genital area

2. between the genitals and the navel

3. at the level of the navel

4. in the heart chakra, which I call the Message Center

5. in the throat

6. in the head

7. just above the head, over the crown chakra

Where your soul sits is extremely significant for your spiritual journey. The significance is that the location of your soul represents your spiritual standing in Heaven. The higher your soul sits in your body, the higher your spiritual standing in Heaven.

A soul has to do Xiu Lian (pronounced shew li-en) in order to uplift its standing. Xiu Lian is an ancient spiritual term. "Xiu" means purification. "Lian" means practice. Xiu Lian represents the totality of the spiritual journey. It includes the cultivation and purification of your soul, heart, mind, and body. Neither you nor your soul can decide where your soul sits inside your body. This simply means that your spiritual standing is not determined by you or your soul's desires. The Akashic Records decide where your soul sits inside your body according to your spiritual standing. The Akashic Records are in a special place in Heaven; there, all of your lives are recorded, including all of your activities, behaviors, and thoughts. They also decide your spiritual standing in Heaven based on your life records.

If you offer good service, such as love, care, compassion, kindness, generosity, and purity, the Akashic Records record this good service. If you offer unpleasant service, such as killing, stealing, harming, and taking advantage of others, the Akashic Records also record this unpleasant service. There is a book in the Akashic Records for each person's soul. This book is dedicated to recording all of your services, good and unpleasant, in your present lifetime and all of your soul's previous lifetimes. Your soul also carries a copy of this record. A highly developed spiritual being can read this record directly, either from the Akashic Records or from your soul. However, such spiritual beings are rare, as they must be given a spiritual order from the Divine to access this information. Not many beings in history have received this Divine Order to access the Akashic Records.

I cannot emphasize enough that where your soul sits inside your body is a vital factor for your spiritual journey. Today, many spiritual teachers talk about soul enlightenment. What exactly is soul enlightenment? The key to soul enlightenment is the soul's standing. To be enlightened, a soul must sit in the Message Center or higher. If your soul does not sit in these layers, you cannot be considered to have an enlightened soul. This teaching about the divine standard for soul enlightenment was given to me many years ago. Every year, I have two or more Soul Healing and Enlightenment retreats. In each one, the Divine enlightens every participant. The Divine has enlightened thousands of human beings in the last few years. In chapter 13, I will reveal the vital soul secrets, wisdom, knowledge, and practices of soul enlightenment.

I am extremely honored to be a servant of humanity and the Divine to offer divine soul enlightenment for humanity. The Divine gave me the task to offer soul enlightenment for all humanity. I am extremely humbled, honored, and blessed to offer divine soul enlightenment to humanity in my Soul Healing and Enlightenment retreats. I am simply a servant and vehicle of the Divine to offer the Divine's enlightenment to humanity. All credit belongs to the Divine. I am extremely honored to be a servant and vehicle. I cannot thank the Divine enough for choosing me to serve humanity and all souls in this way. Thank you, Divine, from the bottom of my heart.

Characteristics of the Soul

A human being has a character. Some people are very active. Some people are very quiet. Some people are very humorous. Some peo-ple are very serious. A soul has its own character. From my personal experience, I would like to share my insights on the main char-acteristics of the soul:

• Your soul (which I also call your body soul to distinguish it from other souls, such as the souls of your organs) is independent. A human being has a soul, mind, and body. They are separate but united. They are separate because they are independent. They are united because they reside in the same body and communicate with one another.

• Souls have consciousness and intelligence. They have awareness. They think. They analyze. They learn. They have likes and dislikes. One person may like to travel. Another may love food. You may like to read. Someone else may like sports. A soul has its own likes and dislikes, which it has developed over hundreds or even thousands of lifetimes. To help balance and harmonize your soul, mind, and body, it is important to know your soul's likes and dislikes.

• Souls have emotions. A soul can be happy, peaceful, sad, fearful, or upset.

• Souls have incredible wisdom. After you open your spiritual communication channels, you will be able to consult with your soul. You will be amazed to learn how much your soul knows. Your soul is one of your best consultants and guides.

• Souls have great memory. A soul can remember experiences from all of its lifetimes. For example, you may travel somewhere for the first time but clearly feel you are familiar with that place. You may feel like you were there before. Some places make you happy. Some places make you scared. You may have had past-life experiences in those places. You soul has memories of those experiences. Therefore, you have special feelings at those particular places.

• Souls have flexibility. Walk toward a corner of your room. When you reach the corner, you will have nowhere else to go. You have to turn around to move farther. In life, many times you could be stuck in a situation like a corner. You must turn around to get unstuck and move farther. This teaches us to realize the importance of flexibility. There is a famous statement from ancient times: hua you san shuo, qiao shuo wei miao. The essence of this statement is: There are three ways to say something. Find the best way in the moment. This tells us there is flexibility in speaking every sentence. Therefore, there is flexibility in every aspect of life. Your beloved soul has profound wisdom, knowledge, and experience from hundreds of lifetimes. Your soul has great flexibility. Make sure you use the strength of your soul's flexibility to deal with your life.

• Souls communicate with other souls naturally. Your body soul communicates with other souls naturally. People often talk or dream about a soul mate. When you meet some people, you may instantly feel love. You may feel there is something special between you. The reason for this is that your souls were close in past lives. Your souls could have been communicating for many years before you met physically.

• Souls travel. When you are awake during the day, your soul remains inside your body. But when you are asleep at night, your soul may travel outside your body naturally. In fact, many souls do this. Where does the soul go? It goes where it loves to go. Your soul can visit your spiritual teachers to learn directly from them. It can also visit your old friends, or Heaven and other parts of the universe.

• Souls have incredible healing power. In this book, I will teach you how to apply Soul Power for healing, including self-healing, healing of others, group healing, and remote healing.

• Souls can help you prevent sickness. In this book, I will reveal the soul secrets of soul prevention of sickness.

• Souls can help you rejuvenate. In this book, I will share soul wisdom and practices for soul rejuvenation.

• Souls have incredible blessing capabilities. If you encounter difficulties and blockages in your life, simply ask your soul to help you: Dear my soul, I love you, honor you, and appreciate you. Could you bless my life? Could you help me overcome my problems and difficulties? Thank you so much. Invoke your own body soul in this way anytime, anywhere. Your soul can help you solve your problems and overcome your difficulties. Love your soul. Ask your soul to bless your life. Your soul will be delighted to assist you. You could be fascinated and amazed to see the changes in your life.

• Souls have incomprehensible potential powers. In this book, I will teach you how to develop the potential powers of your soul.

• Your soul connects with your mind. Your soul can teach your mind. Your soul can transmit its great wisdom to your mind.

• Your soul connects with your Heaven's Team, which includes your spiritual guides, teachers, angels, and other enlightened masters in Heaven.

• Your soul can store messages. Messages can be stored in your Message Center and in the souls of your body, systems, organs, cells, and more. After you develop the potential powers of your soul, you will be able to access those messages anytime and anywhere.

• Your soul is constan...

Most helpful customer reviews

139 of 145 people found the following review helpful.
commercialized dogma
By Anonymous
It is with mixed feelings that I write this- The world DOES need a soul movement - and Dr. Sha's teachings are based on some basic truths and provide empowering tools that can provide benefit...

But, I'm just not sure it needs the ultra-organized commercialized dogma of the Dr.Sha "Mission":

First of all, similar to his previous books, don't be duped by the "best seller" status or 5 star ratings:

1) members of the Mission contribute thousands of dollars in lieu of `blessings' from Master Sha as a part of a `book campaign' - these funds are used directly by Master Sha's institute to internally buy books from retailers 2 or 3 at a time to falsely and unethically stage the book's popularity (Google "Dr Sha book campaign" if you don't believe me)
2) members of the Mission are urged to write positive reviews about Master Sha's books, and get discounts for it...thus all the prosaic 5 star reviews.

It's not really that they want to sell lots of books - they want to attract more members to the Mission- i.e. to join the Sunday Blessings and the Retreats....which is where the real money is made. It's not that unlike this story: google "Did dirty tricks create a best-seller"

Sure, the members deeply believe that they are promoting truth (indeed, other religions have done much worse in the name of God)...but personally, I don't find these methods to be all that `saintly'(it might even be karmic)... if there are real truths in the book and the Mission it would sell itself on its own merit like most best sellers do.

And what `services' does Master Sha offer at his blessings and retreats? Well, Master Sha believes that he is a "Channel" of the Divine, and he (and only he) has been given special powers. So he (and only he) can offer you- via the "Dr Sha dot com" channel (check it out for yourself):
- Divine Protection against every imaginable hazard
- clear your Karma for $2000. just like that - no followup or practice or nothing...even Dr, Sha calls it a "short cut"
- Transplants for diseased organs
- Body Soul Transplant for $5000 (not explicitly listed in the web site, but it is a prerequisite, among others, to be come a Master Teacher Healer)
- Etc.
(actually, you can usually get the blessings for less because there is always a last minute special to appeal to the "shoppers")

What is a Body Soul Transplant? You current soul leaves you and a new soul (a saint) chooses you. Its sad that some people are so down they feel they need a brand new soul....and I guess all the poor folks have little chance at becoming a saint...how exclusive.

By the way, for the higher services, you aren't told the cost of these until you apply first, in which Dr. Sha receives Divine guidance in whether he should accept you. Imagine trying to say no after the Divine supposedly accepted you (but of course, these are "priceless treasures").

But that's just the tip of the iceberg...the later chapters of his books speak of the higher Soul Transformations etc. The "highest" downloads for the `chosen' ones are offered only at the "invitation only" retreats (i.e. for those who have `passed' the previous courses)...

Dr Sha's Sunday blessings are as follows:
He offers a free blessing (download). Then his top assistants (the "professionals" on "dr sha dot com" who have gone through the full Soul transformation and have received all the highest downloads so that their souls reside in their highest chakra and they can see with their third eye- paid for either with $ or Universal Service(tm) to the Mission) describe what they saw. Then all the people who have registered get their downloads. That's it.

Yes, the downloads might feel empowering, but inevitably you are left wanting more...if the top assistants can really see with their third eye, wouldn't you want that too? Well you can get there by getting the downloads, becoming indoctrinated through the courses and practice practice practice (the practice e.g. chanting, empowering statements etc can make you feel good) - till you believe it (or some would say become deluded?)

So inevitably, most are drawn to take the courses and to become a Universal Servant (requires you to volunteer time to the non-profit Institute that does all the `work' - whereas payments go to Dr Zhi Gang Sha LLC.). The courses all link together and coax you higher and higher, with the light at the end of the tunnel that eventually you might be able to charge for your services, like the "Professionals" on the web site - it's the classic pyramid marketing scheme.

But here is the hard part for me: people DO feel better... faith in the empowerments can help heal. But any one will feel better if they spend time getting out of their thinking brain and doing some chanting, setting good intentions, and having faith that they are empowered to make choices to make their lives better. And the collective energy at (any) group retreats is very powerful and healing. Why not rejoice in that - it might be the piece some people really need...

But when that collective energy at the retreat is highest, and people are feeling their best, that is when Dr. Sha `suggests' that his downloads can make you even better....which is made so easily done by sticking your personal barcode on a form (& voila, your credit card is charged). It's so effective that retreat registrants have to sign a legal disclaimer saying that all though the downloads are `priceless', they must spend `within their means". From my experience, few of the faithful do, unless you call credit card bills and liquidation of savings as `within your means". (many retreat attendees spend 10's of thousands)

Seems like Dr. Sha is selling water to people standing in a river. It's a shame that our consumerist society thinks we can `buy' everything. Its part of the reason we need a true soul movement.

Members of the Mission have made a huge leap of faith to jump on these tracks. But the light at the end of the tunnel might just be an oncoming train. After investing so much, it might take an even bigger leap of faith to get off...

59 of 61 people found the following review helpful.
The Power of the Soul
By David J. Majernik
This is terrible book that is poorly written and full of repetition. I don't know how this got on your recommendation list. I am an avid reader of spiritual books and this book certainly doesn't measure up technically or in content.

I am suspicious that there was some kind of corruption involved that such a low quality book got on a recommendation list. And I feel cheated since I purchased the book based upon this recommendation.

44 of 48 people found the following review helpful.
Audiobook is a horror
By Cheryl
I found this audiobook to be almost impossible to listen to. While I am a fan of all introspective types of books that make one contemplate our existence, I found this one to be almost laughable. The reader's accent is very difficult to understand for one. But even so, the idea of soul "downloads" seemed ludicrous to me, along with many of the other concepts that this person claims are being transmitted through him from some higher power. I truly do not understand all of the 5 star ratings this book got; I have to believe that the author has some kind of following that I don't understand. I've never written a review before, but found myself compelled to write about this one. I was so totally disappointed in the purchase. Or maybe I just don't get it.

See all 100 customer reviews...

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Rumor has it...

...that the Zimmerman twins, Ginger and Cinnamon, are the hot hair-stylists in Santa Bonita. Their Do It Up salon has been swamped ever since hometown-Hollywood-star Courtney Day had her wedding hair done there. Now the sisters know every secret of every bride-to-be that crosses their threshold: does she or doesn't she, will she or won't she, how often, and with whom?

What happens at Do It Up stays at Do It Up -- until Craig Esposito strolls into the salon with the latest wedding party. Cinnamon's dazed reaction suggests there's something only she knows about this handsome cousin to the groom -- making Ginger wonder if he's the mystery father of Cinnamon's young daughter (which should kill her attraction to him, but doesn't). Now the sisters' own secrets are the subject of small-town gossip...and Ginger is about to tease out some surprising truths about her family, her town -- and herself.

• Sales Rank: #3966905 in Books
• Published on: 2007-06-19
• Released on: 2007-06-19
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: 8.25" h x .80" w x 5.31" l, .55 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 265 pages

Review
"Surprisingly moving...engrossing."
-- People magazine, on Eileen Rendahl's Un-Bridaled

"Rendahl's characters are like the friends you wish you had."
-- Cara Lockwood, USA Today bestselling author of I Do (But I Don't)

About the Author
Eileen Rendahl is the author of the Downtown Press novels Balancing in High Heels and Do Me, Do My Roots, which was nominated for a RITA Award. Her short fiction appears in the New Year's story collection In One Year and Out the Other. She lives near her tight-knit family in California.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Chapter One

February 8, 2006

If it wasn't the wedding of the decade, it most certainly was the wedding of the year. Courtney Day and Brett Sedd vowed to love and cherish each other in front of a crowd so beautiful, it would have made Michelangelo weep. No one (except maybe the groom) was more beautiful, however, than the bride, who returned to her hometown of Santa Bonita, California, to have her hair done by her high school chums Cinnamon and Ginger Zimmerman at Do It Up for the lavish beachfront ceremony complete with fireworks.

Cinnamon's rune card for the day was Haegl, the Dark Goddess, the goddess of chaos and creativity.

"I don't understand," Cinnamon said, waving the card at me as she packed Sage's things up for a day at Grandma Rosemary's. We were thrilled to get the wedding business, but it did mean finding somebody to babysit Cinnamon's seven-year-old daughter, Sage. Keeping her at the salon didn't work. The last time we'd tried that, Sage had burned herself on a curling iron, spilled a soda all over the counter that almost hit the bride's veil, and generally pestered Cinnamon until I was afraid Cinn was going to duct-tape her daughter to a wall. Wouldn't that have given everyone something new to talk about? We could maybe even have made the Santa Bonita Daily Mail with that one.

"Courtney's a blonde. A white-blonde even. You can't be blonder than her without having no pigment in your hair at all," Cinnamon said, continuing to fret about her rune card. I wondered if I could duct-tape Cinn to a wall. But then, who would do Courtney's hair? I knew Cinn had something in mind already, probably something I wouldn't be able to pull off. And when an honest-to-goodness movie star is getting her hair done for her wedding at your salon, you want your A team playing. "She's even a real blonde, unless she started dying her hair in second grade, which I sincerely doubt. So this doesn't make sense. Why would I get the dark goddess?"

I resisted the urge to tell Cinn exactly what the odds were that she would eventually pick the goddess of chaos and creativity from the deck of twenty-five cards. I had taken statistics last semester and was pretty sure I could calculate that one in my head (four percent, if you'd like to know). I also wanted to tell her that because random chance dropped the goddess of chaos and creativity into our lives on that day didn't mean that anything chaotic or creative was going to happen. Or that the chances of the card she'd randomly picked having anything to do with what our day held were about as good as the chances of the alignment of the stars on the day we were born determining our personalities. Unfortunately, it wouldn't have worked. Cinn loves astrology almost as much as she loves runes.

I was pretty sure that the gravitational pull of Calista Flockhart probably had more impact on my birth than the stars Cinnamon consulted so regularly. My sister, however, doesn't allow facts to dissuade her from her favorite theories, and especially not from New Age-y belief systems, which she mixes and matches like a kid with a new wardrobe full of Underoos.

We were born all of seven minutes apart, and looks-wise we are peas in a pod. Personality-wise? We could get into a "tastes great/less filling" debate at the drop of a hat, but then we'd just be one more set of twins in a beer commercial, and I really don't think the universe needs any more of that.

"I'm sure it will all be clear by the end of the day," I said, and gave the screen door a little kick at the bottom so it would unstick. We all headed for the Mustang; I crossed my fingers that she'd start. That kind of chaos I did not need.

I twitched back the curtain of the shop and was nearly blinded by the flashes. "Geez, Courtney, I think every photographer in California might be out there."

Courtney giggled. It was good to know she still did that. It was less good to know that she also still tried to bum cigarettes, borrow jewelry, and cadge free snacks. "Isn't it great, Ginger?"

I tried to peer through the slit in the curtains without actually moving them and saw a sea of camera lenses trained unerringly on Do It Up. "I guess. If that's what you want." Having my every move recorded did not exactly sound like a good time to me, but then again, I wasn't trying to climb the ranks in Hollywood, and I have spent way too much time being the object of gossip here in Santa Bonita to make it sound like a good idea ever.

"It's not a matter of want or not want, Ginger," Courtney said from my sister's chair, her face a perky little ball on top of the purple cape Cinnamon had draped around her. "It's a matter of survival. This wedding will put Brett and me on the cover of every magazine in every grocery store for the next month, which means I'll be in front of every director and producer casting a movie. I'm getting tired of the sitcom schedule. Plus, don't you think half the girls we went to high school with are eating their hearts out?"

"No," Cinnamon said from behind Courtney as she slid Courtney's hair off her curling iron, using a comb so as not to damage the ringlet. "They all are. Every single one of them."

They could have gotten married anywhere. Hawaii. Greece. The Taj Mahal. Someplace where the morning mist would be guaranteed to burn off so no one's hair would frizz. Instead, they were getting married in Santa Bonita and everyone in town knew. Hell, everybody in the country knew, except possibly those who chose to live in caves.

Talk about getting the best revenge. After high school graduation, Courtney had left for Los Angeles as little more than the Santa Bonita version of trailer trash, and she was coming back the closest thing that America had to a princess without becoming a Kennedy, which as we all know can be detrimental to your health.

Her star had risen fast. First there'd been a toothpaste ad with her happy-go-lucky California-girl grin splashed on billboards all over the country. Then there'd been a guest appearance on E.R. as a bipolar college student whose blonde gamine looks captured the heart of Dr. Barnett. After that, there'd been an appearance on one of the Law & Orders as a rape victim whose pluck and courage helped the detectives catch her assailant. It seemed like those had barely aired when she got her big break: the part of Brandy, the feisty law-student-cum-cocktail-waitress on Bar None, the Cheers-meets-The Paper Chase sitcom that had been number one in the country three seasons in a row now.

Since then, there'd been a few movies, too. A clever indie to give her some street cred and a romantic comedy to test her box-office draw. But her biggest role to date was the fiancée of Brett Sedd, the pouty-lipped blond superstar whose name could make a thousand adolescent girls (and a few well past adolescence) swoon.

Having the wedding here was absolutely the perfect revenge on all the snotty rich girls who had gotten places on the pep squad instead of Courtney, despite the fact that she could jump higher and cheer louder, and on all the snotty rich boys who had wanted to spend time with her behind the stadium after the game, but hadn't wanted to take her to the Santa Bonita Country Club for the big winter dance.

Courtney could have had her hair done anywhere, or flown someone in. Instead, she was having her hair done right here at Do It Up, the shop Cinnamon and I own. I guess she felt partial to us. I had to admit, it was satisfying to play even a tiny role in serving up Courtney's sweet, cold dish of vengeance. It's not like Cinnamon and I went to the country club winter dance, either. After all, we're "those girls."

It's actually very unfair that we have slutty reputations. We are not slutty. If you start with Grandma, most of us are the exact opposite of slutty. It seems that Zimmerman women give their hearts once and only once. We just don't seem to give them to the right men.

Oh, and we seem to get knocked up as well. So far, I'm the exception to the rule.

Courtney settled back into the chair with a satisfied smile on her face. I tried to peer through the curtains without twitching them. Apparently, the photographers had seen that trick before and I once again received the supernova blast in my face. "I dunno, Courtney. I think I might get sick of having people watch every damn thing I do."

She shrugged. "There are ways to make sure they see what you want them to see and don't see so much of the other stuff. It's not so different from living here."

She had that right. Sometimes I felt like if I farted in the bathtub, they'd be discussing it over at Café Ole! before the bubble popped. Still, there were ways to keep a few secrets if you really tried. Cinnamon and I had certainly been privy to more than a few. "And you wanted them to see you ducking in here to get your hair done?"

"No. You wanted them to see me ducking in here to get my hair done. I'd be willing to bet you guys end up with more business than you can shake a curling iron at, after this." Courtney cocked her head, but Cinnamon straightened it back out immediately.

"It's true, Ginger," Cinnamon said. She'd seemed so absorbed in Courtney's hair that I hadn't realized she was still listening. Cinn often goes into almost a trancelike state when creating a particularly intricate updo, and Courtney's hair was nothing if not intricate. "This is great publicity for us."

I knew they were right. I wasn't sure it was going to translate into us making more money, but I hoped it would generate at least enough to replace all that grass that was getting trampled in front of the salon.

After Cinnamon finished Courtney's hair, she moved on to her entourage: her co-star from Bar None who played the downtrodden single-mother waitress, and another young up-and-coming actress who had played the quirky small-town girl slowly losing her mind while working at a fast-food drive-through in the indie movie Courtney had done. They w...

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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful.
Another great one!
By V. Frankel
Once again Eileen Rendahl has given readers a treat to read! Un-Veiled is a captivating journey, using life circumstances with a big helping of humor and secrets to keep the book flowing and hard to put down. It's a perfect summer (or anytime) read!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful.
Secrets un-veiled.
By Little D
Un-Veiled is all about secrets and the lives we live holding them in. I think it was written in a very clever way. Throughout the book, the secrets come out and we see how it affects each and every character. At first I didn't see why it titled Un-veiled (besides it being partly about weddings) but now it makes so much sense.

I can't wait for Rendahl's next book!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful.
fine contemporary tale
By A Customer
Cinnamon and Ginger Zimmerman of Do It Up believe that hair stylists are like priests, lawyers, and spouses as "What happens at Do It Up stays at Do It Up". Their customers discuss love affairs, one night stands, and other family secrets knowing full well that the Zimmerman duo will say nothing even if Ashcroft and Gonzales tortured them.

Like those who come to get their hair done, Cinnamon and Ginger also have secrets that they prefer not to reveal. Cinnamon wants to leave the hair salon and town to become a doctor's assistant. However, a family crisis caused when secrets are revealed leaves both to wonder about the adage of their salon "What happens at Do It Up stays at Do It Up".

The two spicy Zimmermans and their customers make for a fine contemporary tale as everyone has secrets that the environment leads to revealing rather than concealing. The story line focuses on Cinnamon and Ginger even when someone else is telling their latest tryst. Although the ending leaves some split hairs dangling, fans will enjoy this interesting chick lit tale starring two likable protagonists dreaming and pondering whether doing people's roots is all that there is in life even as they appreciate their role as father confessors.

Harriet Klausner

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# Ebook Free Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare?, by James Shapiro

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For more than two hundred years after William Shakespeare's death, no one doubted that he had written his plays. Since then, however, dozens of candidates have been proposed for the authorship of what is generally agreed to be the finest body of work by a writer in the English language. In this remarkable book, Shakespeare scholar James Shapiro explains when and why so many people began to question whether Shakespeare wrote his plays. Among the doubters have been such writers and thinkers as Sigmund Freud, Henry James, Mark Twain, and Helen Keller. It is a fascinating story, replete with forgeries, deception, false claimants, ciphers and codes, conspiracy theories—and a stunning failure to grasp the power of the imagination.

As Contested Will makes clear, much more than proper attribution of Shakespeare’s plays is at stake in this authorship controversy. Underlying the arguments over whether Christopher Marlowe, Francis Bacon, or the Earl of Oxford wrote Shakespeare’s plays are fundamental questions about literary genius, specifically about the relationship of life and art. Are the plays (and poems) of Shakespeare a sort of hidden autobiography? Do Hamlet, Macbeth, and the other great plays somehow reveal who wrote them?

Shapiro is the first Shakespeare scholar to examine the authorship controversy and its history in this way, explaining what it means, why it matters, and how it has persisted despite abundant evidence that William Shakespeare of Stratford wrote the plays attributed to him. This is a brilliant historical investigation that will delight anyone interested in Shakespeare and the literary imagination.

• Sales Rank: #381817 in Books
• Published on: 2011-04-19
• Released on: 2011-04-19
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: 8.44" h x .80" w x 5.50" l, .67 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Shapiro, author of the much admired A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare: 1599, achieves another major success in the field of Shakespeare research by exploring why the Bard's authorship of his works has been so much challenged. Step-by step, Shapiro describes how criticism of Shakespeare frequently evolved into attacks on his literacy and character. Actual challenges to the authorship of the Shakespeare canon originated with an outright fraud perpetrated by William-Henry Ireland in the 1790s and continued through the years with an almost religious fervor. Shapiro exposes one such forgery: the earliest known document, dating from 1805, challenging Shakespeare's authorship and proposing instead Francis Bacon. Shapiro mines previously unexamined documents to probe why brilliant men and women denied Shakespeare's authorship. For Mark Twain, Shapiro finds that the notion resonated with his belief that John Milton, not John Bunyan, wrote The Pilgrim's Progress. Sigmund Freud's support of the earl of Oxford as the author of Shakespeare appears to have involved a challenge to his Oedipus theory, which was based partly on his reading of Hamlet. As Shapiro admirably demonstrates, William Shakespeare emerges with his name and reputation intact. 16 pages of b&w photos. (Apr.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review
"Fascinating."
—The New Yorker

"Shapiro is an engaging and elegant guide . . . a masterful work of literary history, an empathetic chronicle of eccentricity, and a calmly reasoned vindication of 'the Stratford man.'"
—Kevin O'Kelly, The Boston Globe


"James Shapiro is an erudite Shakespearean and a convincing one. . . . A bravura performance."
—Saul Rosenberg, The Wall Street Journal


"It is authoritative, lucid and devastatingly funny, and its brief concluding statement of the case for Shakespeare is masterly."
—John Carey, The Sunday Times (London)

About the Author
James Shapiro is the Larry Miller Professor of English at Columbia University, where he has taught since 1985. He is the author of several books, including 1599 and Contested Will, and is the recipient of many awards and fellowships. Shapiro is a Governor of the Folger Shakespeare Library. He lives in New York with his wife and son.

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42 of 49 people found the following review helpful.
Sweep away this madness...
By Kirk McElhearn
I'd always ignored the so-called Shakespeare authorship question, because I think it's irrelevant. I don't care who wrote Shakespeare's plays, because it's the plays that count, not the man. But I decided to read James Shapiro's Contested Will out of curiosity about how the theory that Shakespeare didn't write Shakespeare took hold.

It so happens that I'm familiar with a lot of the backstory - the rise of biblical criticism and the questioning of who Homer was - that serve as a foundation to the earliest anti-Stratfordian theories. It's easy to understand how, in the early 19th century, people who felt this approach so important could be convinced that another great author was not who he seemed. But as time went by, this became a story of lies, deceit and forgery, as well as convoluted conspiracy theories.

Deep down, it seems that there are two essential elements that come into play. The first is that, according to skeptics, there is no way the son of a glover could have written so eloquently about so many things. His limited education could not have enabled him to write such profound plays. As if in the nature vs. nurture argument, only nurture counts. This has been proven wrong with many artists, musicians and authors who came from humble beginnings, so it seems like a moot point, and surprises me that so many people bring up this point to deny Shakespeare's legitimacy.

The second element is the belief, which became prevalent in the romantic period, that all art is personal; that art reflects personal experiences. If this is the case, the skeptics say, then Shakespeare, who never visited Italy, could not have written about Italy. This argument seems childish to me; could a writer who has never visited Mars write about that planet? Could one who wasn't alive in the middle ages write a novel about the period? It's obvious that Shakespeare was a cosmopolitan man, in contact with people who traveled, and a few discussions in a pub would have given him enough information to write about Italy, or any other country.

Of the many possible alternate Shakespeares, Edward de Vere, the Earl of Oxford, has become the most accepted candidate. This has as much to do with books being published about him as it does with the oddity of the theories behind his authorship. Since he died in 1604, before Shakespeare wrote many of the plays, there is much massaging of evidence to prove that he was the one. He would have, the Oxfordians say, written the plays before his death, and had Shakespeare "write" them over time. Elaborate ciphers are used to find hidden messages in the texts of Shakespeare's plays, pointing to Oxford. Yet this would have required a massive conspiracy reaching as far as typesetters and printers...

Contested Will looks at the various anti-Stratfordian theories, but also their genesis, and shows how these theories developed, as well as how they are all wrong. Read it if you're interested in the history of ideas, and how a conspiracy theory of this type could take root.

51 of 68 people found the following review helpful.
A fascinating book about the frailty of human beings who yearn to believe strange things.
By Robert S. Hanenberg
There is something about Shakespeare scholarship which engenders greatness: Greenblatt, Kermode, Wells, Shapiro, Bate, Bloom--these are not dry scholars, but deep thinkers, writers of powerful prose, all with a profound sense of life in other times. None of them believes that someone other than Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare's works.

But there is a long tradition that Francis Bacon or Edward deVere (or many others) wrote Shakespeare's works, and that somehow generations of scholars have been fooled. Why anyone would think anything so preposterous on the face of it, has always interested me. I once put it down to snobbery, that the son of a glove-maker from Stratford could not have been smart enough to write such plays.

But it is more complicated than this. Shapiro's main idea is that many people want to believe that such great writing has to be based on experience, and Shakespeare could not have had the experiences which led to the poems and plays.

Shapiro is a scholar of Shakespeare, but in this book he had to treat many times and subjects, from 19th century positivism to Freud, and had to try to explain why such great thinkers as Mark Twain, Henry James and Sigmund Freud believed that someone else wrote Shakespeare. Surprisingly, Shapiro is respectful of what others would call lunacy. To explain one phase of the movement, which purported to find hidden codes in the plays, he explains how the development the telegraph and Morse code infused the culture of the times.

Shakespeare's poetry is of such extraordinary depth and beauty that it seems that it could only have been written by a man of letters, not an actor. But at the end of the book, Shapiro shows how Shakespeare was above all a man of the theater, and his plays are full of evidence which supports this. We know enough now about the business of operating an Elizabethan theater that we can describe in some detail how Shakespeare was an actor, playwright and businessman of his time. We can see how his plays changed in subject and style when his company moved to an indoor theater, how he wrote plays specifically to use the talents of certain actors, and how he collaborated with others to churn out copy when necessary.

A fascinating book about the frailty of human beings who yearn to believe strange things.

156 of 221 people found the following review helpful.
Why Some Think It Wasn't Shakespeare
By Rob Hardy
I can't remember, but I think it was Woody Allen who wrote the joke: The plays of William Shakespeare were not written by Shakespeare himself, but by someone with the same name. The only reason the joke works is that for a couple of centuries there have been skeptics who have denied that Shakespeare's works were actually the works of Shakespeare. In _Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare?_ (Simon and Schuster), it's not a surprise that James Shapiro answers the question in the subtitle the way he does: Shakespeare did. After all, Shapiro is a Shakespeare scholar whose most recent book was a look at one year (1599) in Shakespeare's life and how the plays he was writing were formed by the political and social environment of that time. So, yes, "He would say that, wouldn't he?" will be the response from the current skeptics, all of whom have their own candidate for the position of Bard. Shapiro's book, indeed, puts an unassailable case for Shakespeare of Stratford being the author, but that is only at the end. Everything that goes before is a history of the anti-Stratfordian movement. It is a wonderfully clear explanation of why skeptics started going wrong and have continued vehemently on their wrong paths. It is an entertaining and often hilarious tale, a path strewn, as Shapiro says, with "fabricated documents, embellished lives, concealed identity, pseudonymous authorship, contested evidence, bald-faced deception, and a failure to grasp what could not be imagined."

There is no evidence that anyone in Shakespeare's time thought that the plays came from anyone else. In fact, it was only a couple of centuries after his death that doubters started piping up. It was a response to a lack of knowledge about the man himself; we don't have his letters or a journal, so why not simply read the poems and plays to get glimpses of biography? This was in harmony with the philosophy of the Romantics. The cases against Shakespeare started with Delia Bacon, an American intellectual and lecturer who picked Francis Bacon (no relation), who may have been a polymath but whose output shows no evidence that he could write plays and poems. The idea of Bacon's authorship was taken seriously by many, including Mark Twain, who won over his friend Helen Keller into the Baconian camp. The most popular counterproposal to Bacon is Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford. A schoolmaster named J. T. Looney (whose name has caused titters to non-skeptics ever since) proposed that the plays had so many details of such things as legal lore, falconry, and foreign travel that a mere actor from Stratford could not have written them. Oxford, however, knew plenty about such things, and had three daughters (just like King Lear!) and his wife married at thirteen (just like Juliette!). Looney made many converts, chief among them being Sigmund Freud, whose advocacy of Oxford got in the way of friendships and of the psychoanalysis of at least one patient who would not come around to the right way of thinking on the issue. I have written flippantly in some of the above summaries, but Shapiro is never condescending, and makes earnest attempts to understand the cracked ideas that were taken seriously. There was a slump in the Oxford camp in the twentieth century, as its members used their brand of research to expand their boy's authorship not just of Shakespeare's works, but also of those of Christopher Marlowe and Edmund Spenser, and showed as well that he had been Queen Elizabeth's lover (you can look it up!). The Oxfordians, however, took advantage of publicity in 1987 and afterwards of show trials in which the authorship of the plays was pled before such legal minds as Supreme Court justices. Oh, Oxford didn't wind up being judged the author, but the publicity fed the idea that there was a controversy about the authorship, and also that Oxford was the chief alternate. This is despite the difficult fact that he died in 1604, and many of the plays are confidently dated as written after that. It is not coincidence, Shapiro shows, that the rise in Oxford's shares has come at a time when there is a greater willingness to believe in governmental conspiracies and cover-ups.

It is a relief to come to the end of the book and see what a case can be made for Shakespeare himself. Shapiro demonstrates that only a long-term partner deeply involved in the joint workings of the stage could have written in such a fashion, not an aristocrat working solitarily in a room and delivering the plays anonymously to the actors. There are contemporary witnesses, there are clues from printing houses, there are many details that point to the conclusion that Shakespeare was, after all, merely Shakespeare. In addition, genuine Shakespeare scholarship is coming to understand that many of the plays are joint productions; the Stratfordians are not loath to accept that their man could partner with other writers, collaborations that the skeptics do not tolerate for their candidates. The claims for other candidates is based on snobbery; a hick from Stratford, son of a glove-maker, could not have had the knowledge or the life experience to write such plays. If Shakespeare the actor could imagine himself into plenty of roles, Shapiro argues, why could not his powerful imagination bring forth the roles in his own plays and sonnets? Shapiro's book is capped with this advocacy, but all that has gone before is a sympathetic understanding of why and how we subject the Bard (as we do no other author) to authorship disputes. _Contested Will_ is less a broadside in the Stratfordian's defense than it is a humane examination of an idiosyncratic bit of literary history.

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