- Paperback: 256 pages
- Publisher: O Books (10 Dec 2009)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 1846942640
- ISBN-13: 978-1846942648
- Product Dimensions: 21.3 x 13.7 x 1.3 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 668,836 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
 Trade In this Item for up to £0.25
Get an extra £5 when you trade in books worth £10 or more until June 30, 2012. Trade in The O of Home for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £0.25, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Find more products eligible for trade-in.
|
|
There is a newer edition of this item:
|
Product details |
More About the Author
Product Description
Review
The O of Home is a remarkably honest, unpretentious, clear-eyed account of a courageous woman getting rid of her worldly goods, and a lot of emotional baggage, and finding a new and exhilarating freedom. --Guardian Books, Robert McCrum
This is a book that opens the heart. Tender, thought-provoking, compassionate, and insightful, it leads us on a circular journey from understanding what we need and mean by home, through experiences of homelessness and forced displacement, to a true coming home to the self and the divine. --Marian McNaughton, Chair of Trustees of the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust
Home - in the heart, in the head, a physical space that shifts and moves withemotions, a locale, a dream, a site of conflict and cruelty and also intimacy and safety, homelands, exile- all this and more are explored in this tender and moving book which makes you wonder what home really is or ever was. --Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, Columnist and author of Settler's Cookbook a memoir
This is a book that opens the heart. Tender, thought-provoking, compassionate, and insightful, it leads us on a circular journey from understanding what we need and mean by home, through experiences of homelessness and forced displacement, to a true coming home to the self and the divine. --Marian McNaughton, Chair of Trustees of the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust
Home - in the heart, in the head, a physical space that shifts and moves withemotions, a locale, a dream, a site of conflict and cruelty and also intimacy and safety, homelands, exile- all this and more are explored in this tender and moving book which makes you wonder what home really is or ever was. --Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, Columnist and author of Settler's Cookbook a memoir
Review
This is a book that opens the heart. Tender, thought-provoking, compassionate, and insightful, it leads us on a circular journey from understanding what we need and mean by home, through experiences of homelessness and forced displacement, to a true coming home to the self and the divine. (Marian McNaughton, Chair of Trustees of the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust.)
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This book analyses the concept of Home and spends time in defining this by looking at homelessness.I started to think this writer Jennifer Kavanagh was burdening herself and the reader with other peoples problems. Poor him and poor her, poor them, but bear forth to the later chapters and her true mission emerges in this very personal tome. You know a lot about Jennifer by the end of this search for the meaning of and a purpose in life. You are left feeling your position in life is ---- well read the book.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
2 reviews
In the beginning is relation. --Martin Buber
5 Jan 2012
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
The O of Home is an amazing and important book--a must-read for anyone concerned about the future of humans and of this planet. What, indeed, IS home? As one couple the author spoke to described it, "It's about the energy and moments the place soaks up and radiates out, that determines whether we feel comfortable inside it." And another insight, offered by Jeannette Winterson: "I believe that ... gradually if you have one safe calm space, the bigger space around you becomes safe and calm too."
These issues are not just for those involved in political decision-making and future planning in regard to shelter. All of us are affected, in ways we may not envision, by the limits and expansiveness of what other people call "home"--and by the ways we enable and thwart each other in our attempts to find it.
There are so many dimensions to Jennifer Kavanagh's carefully researched and heartfelt study of "home," its meaning for humans, and the implications for the body and soul of homelessness--not having a place or "one single thing that you call your own." A warning to readers: the collective pain experienced in the stories of losses, in Kavanagh's interviews of the homeless, of visiting the displaced, and of considering the deprived people on our planet (especially in chapter 9, Broken Circles Displacement) is palpable.
In eleven generous chapters, ending with "The O of Completeness Coming Home," Kavanagh branches out from basics, weaning us from our usual understanding of the meaning of "to live." Perhaps, as one couple remarks, "Home is a place and a series of relationships." And, for instance, why do we say that we "live" only with family--and not during working hours apart as well? How can some people live in the same geographical locations but experience different "worlds"--varying levels of safety and contentedness--in them? Could an early, underlying sense of "home" deter some young people from criminal offenses in adult life?
Through it all, Kavanagh asks the underlying and most important question: What will we do about all this? "Acquisition is fulfilling but addictive; our yearning is without end. Can we bring back that infinite yearning, from its material expression to its proper spiritual dimension?" p. 161
The O of Home is an essential read in our beginning to learn how to answer that question, both individually and collectively.
UPDATE I received from the author: "The O of Home is to be reissued in April 2012 with the title Journey Home, to tie in with a board game I have originated."
Look for it!
http://www.amazon.com/Journey-Home-exploration-inner-identity/dp/1780991517/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1325767071&sr=8-1
These issues are not just for those involved in political decision-making and future planning in regard to shelter. All of us are affected, in ways we may not envision, by the limits and expansiveness of what other people call "home"--and by the ways we enable and thwart each other in our attempts to find it.
There are so many dimensions to Jennifer Kavanagh's carefully researched and heartfelt study of "home," its meaning for humans, and the implications for the body and soul of homelessness--not having a place or "one single thing that you call your own." A warning to readers: the collective pain experienced in the stories of losses, in Kavanagh's interviews of the homeless, of visiting the displaced, and of considering the deprived people on our planet (especially in chapter 9, Broken Circles Displacement) is palpable.
In eleven generous chapters, ending with "The O of Completeness Coming Home," Kavanagh branches out from basics, weaning us from our usual understanding of the meaning of "to live." Perhaps, as one couple remarks, "Home is a place and a series of relationships." And, for instance, why do we say that we "live" only with family--and not during working hours apart as well? How can some people live in the same geographical locations but experience different "worlds"--varying levels of safety and contentedness--in them? Could an early, underlying sense of "home" deter some young people from criminal offenses in adult life?
Through it all, Kavanagh asks the underlying and most important question: What will we do about all this? "Acquisition is fulfilling but addictive; our yearning is without end. Can we bring back that infinite yearning, from its material expression to its proper spiritual dimension?" p. 161
The O of Home is an essential read in our beginning to learn how to answer that question, both individually and collectively.
UPDATE I received from the author: "The O of Home is to be reissued in April 2012 with the title Journey Home, to tie in with a board game I have originated."
Look for it!
http://www.amazon.com/Journey-Home-exploration-inner-identity/dp/1780991517/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1325767071&sr=8-1
The O of Home
26 Nov 2010
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
A thoughtful book that opens one's heart to not only the plight of the home-less, but also to what "home" means to oneself. It is a nice mix of researched facts and personal stories from a variety of people. A very good read! Ro Rainwater
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
