Breaking Back: How I Lost Everything and Won Back My Life By James Blake Published by HarperCollins Publishers

Do you need to “break back?” Has a traumatic situation taken charge over you? Or perhaps you just need a little motivation to kick-start the personal growth your life needs – whether it be physically or emotionally. If so, Breaking Back: How I Lost Everything and Won Back My Life could be the inspirational book you need. This book is the autobiography of professional tennis player James Blake.

Although this book provides a look into the personal life of the pro-tennis athlete, including Blake's important performances and “behind-the-scenes” information about him and his interview-shy coach Brian, most importantly it is the story about the value of friends, hard work, and family. In this book, Blake shares how he dealt with the death of his father, his battle with shingles (an adult form of chicken pox), and recovery from a serious accident. The reader learns lessons about goal setting, confidence, and discovering what is really important in life. Through telling his own story, Blake instills in his reader a desire to make the best of every situation.

Even if you have never picked up a tennis racquet, it is easy to identify with the riveting story of James Blake and the lessons Blake chose to share. I urge you to not pass up this unique opportunity for a behind-the-scenes look into the thoughts, values, and upbringing of a man who is much more than just a tennis player.

Reviewed by Benjamin Szweda. He can be contacted at writerfeedback.bjs@mac.com.

Forgiveness and Child Abuse: Would You Forgive? By Lois Einhorn, PhD Published by Robert D. Reed Publishers

According to Lois Einhorn, PhD, in her book Forgiveness and Child Abuse: Would You Forgive? one out of every three girls and one out of every seven boys is sexually abused by the age of 18. As much as we would like to not think so, child abuse, whether sexual, emotional and/or physical, is extremely widespread in our society. Einhorn and her sister were victims of abuse as children by the hands of their parents. The abuse techniques that were used on them were on the level of those in a Nazi concentration camp during World War II. These were the people who were supposed to be nurturing, loving and a source of protection. The abuse continued until Einhorn left home at the age of 17.

In her book, Forgiveness and Child Abuse, Einhorn begins by graphically detailing a typical day or weekend in her home. The description of what she and her sister endured is heart wrenching indeed, and the reader may even doubt that parents could be that cruel to their own children. But as an adult into her healing journey, Einhorn is faced with the question of forgiveness. Our major religions teach that forgiveness is important in our lives. But with the horrors of her childhood, Einhorn wonders if she could forgive her parents. Are some things just too horrible to forgive? So she wrote out her story and sent it to 53 people – actors, clergy, inmates on death row, former inmates, politicians, writers and teachers to ask them: “Given these circumstances, would you forgive? What would you do?” She then compiled their answers into this thought-provoking book. The result is a unique and powerful book that will make you think, as well as encourage discussion, dialogue and debate.

Many readers of this magazine probably have been faced with similar situations and also have wondered if they should forgive. This book, with all of its tremendous viewpoints, may help answer that question. Even if you are not a victim of childhood abuse, this book is a tribute to the power of love and serves as a testimony that even severe pain can be transformed into a gift of love through our willingness to forgive.

Reviewed by Dennis Ehren, DC, director of Ehren Chiropractic & Wellness Center. He can be reached at (216) 221-9990.

Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1500 Years By S. Fred Singer and Dennis T. Avery Published by Rowman and Littlefield

The earth's temperature is warming up, our climates are changing. There is no doubt that this is happening. It is in the news daily with dire predictions of horrible storms, plagues, coastal drownings from rising seas, starvations and mass extinctions. The finger pointing has begun, and it is pointed at us. According to the doomsayers, our reliance on fossil fuels for the past 150 years has raised atmospheric CO2 levels to such an extent that earth's heat is being trapped, and now we are on a runaway train creating a desert planet unless something is done soon. Or is it?

S. Fred Singer, an internationally-known climate physicist and professor emeritus of environmental science at the University of Virginia, and Dennis Avery, a senior fellow with the Hudson Institute, have authored this extremely well-researched book, Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1500 Years, which argues that global warming is indeed happening. However, they write, it is part of a natural 1,500-year cycle of warming and cooling that the earth has gone through for millions of years, and man's activity has had little effect on the change in climate that we see now.

Al Gore's movie, An Inconvenient Truth, shows a graph that illustrates increased CO2 levels in the atmosphere followed by an increase in the earth's temperature. In this book, this information is presented differently: when the earth's temperature goes up, CO2 levels increase. And the major contributor to atmospheric CO2 levels is the oceans. Carbon emissions from our cars and industry contribute only to a very small percentage of the total CO2. They also point out that a greenhouse effect is not occurring, because if it were, the upper levels of our atmosphere have to be heating up along with the earth's surface temperature. The atmosphere's temperature has not changed at all; therefore heat is not being trapped.

In Unstoppable Global Warming, we are shown how the earth's climate changes coincide with sunspot activity. The last time the earth actually was warmer than it is now was during the early middle ages. Then from about 1300 to 1850 AD, sunspot activity virtually stopped, and the earth was plunged into a mini-ice age, evidence of which exists on every continent of the earth. Currently we are in a post mini-ice age warming trend.

Throughout the book, Singer and Avery take us on a point-by-point discussion of what the mankind-driven global warming advocates say, and what is actually happening from scientific climatologic, geologic and historical points of view. The question that we should be answering is not how do we stop global warming, but rather how do we adapt? It is happening, it has happened before, and one day, after it cools off, it will happen again. If you wish to understand the truth about global warming, spend some time with this book.

Reviewed by Dennis Ehren, DC, director of Ehren Chiropractic & Wellness Center. He can be reached at (216) 221-9990.