“How to Survive Death” is also about the author’s journey, an autobiography, from rebellious youth to a fulfilling life, helping others achieve their full potential. On that journey, he never stopped searching for better answers to life’s mysteries—solutions that consistently work. Many of those who read the book will tell you that you can find those answers in it.
Niels Kjeldsen, Credit photo: NK
“Death could be considered as natural as life itself. There is no life without death. It begins and goes on for some time, hopefully long, but for sure, it ends. And it’s better to know before it ends. Perhaps you can learn something about it, something not so bad, something even magical, that is worth knowing.” says Niels Kjeldsen, the author of the book “How to Survive Death“.
In the last chapter “What to do and what not to do when you leave the body” Kjeldsen approaches the “three parts of man” and hints that you may finish being equipped with “enough information to help any being that wants to know. It guarantees a safe trip between lives. You and your loved ones need that.“
In this hectic life that we live in “far too many things can happen so why not be on the safe side. It’s like a spiritual ‘life insurance’ you get” said Kjeldsen to The European Times.
Of course, Kjeldsen says, “you can leave it up to luck and hope everything goes well“, but according to the author who has studied the subject for many, many years “it’s not recommended. Do not hope before you go, but know before you go” affirms with serenity and certainty.
After death, whether the body is cremated or buried, we know that flesh perishes. “But what about the spirit that animated the body, that gave it personality? What happens to it after body death? Some call this entity that runs the body the spirit or soul” says the author.
Others use different names. How come there are so many different opinions about such an important subject? This is what is covered in this book. In the last chapter, you will find body, mind, and spirit defined in detail with the appropriate references.
For the longest time, science has been unable to recognize the spirit, for the simple reason that the spirit is non-physical, and science has too often dealt exclusively with the material universe. However, Niels Kjeldsen continues, “the technological age has finally advanced enough to prove that there is a spiritual aspect to life and that it can be measured“.
“The reason for this book“, tells the author “is to clarify where the soul goes after the body is dead“. Why does one want to know? Well, when you reach a certain age or lose too many loved ones, death is sort of thrown in your face, like it or not. It is worth knowing that “death might not be as bad as you have been led to believe” concludes.
“You were not given an instruction book on how to live life when you were born, but you’ve had plenty of advice—good or bad—along the way. There’s been no instruction at all on how to handle the end of this life properly” Niels tells me, “this book remedies the omission“.
I must say that Niels had left me with the candy two centimetres away from my lips, and now I can tell you, after the easy and capturing reading of the 117 pages, that this book is certainly for you, whether you believe it now or not. I hope you also enjoy the reading.
Sci-fi books: Speculative fiction has long attracted teens and young adults—the lure of the unknown and magic. From space opera to hard sci-fi, from military science fiction to post-apocalyptic and dystopian, and from magical realism to dragons, we know the stories we love and grew up on and those that enthrall readers today.
Guest blogger Judith Duckhorn
RECOMMENDED BOOKS FOR TEENS
Teen readers will love these sci-fi and fantasy novels.
But who are your favorite authors? This is more important than the genre.
With any luck, your list is long.
With their marvelous imaginations, sense of humor, deep personal understanding of honor and hard choices, and adventurousness, these authors engage us in a way only a book can. Then they add scientific and technical knowledge to convince and often teach us.
If these qualities match your taste in reading, you will enjoy these truly stellar books and authors! This is not a complete list of young adult books (which would be impossible), but recommended books for teens and young adults and for those of us who are young-at-heart.
I love these books and these authors. You may already know some of them, but maybe I can introduce you to another winner or two with my book review.
WELCOME TO SCIENCE FICTION CLASSICS
I have been friends with the Gaiman family (the world-famous fantasy author Neil Gaiman) for many years. His spot-on truth about the term “classic” became crystal clear to me:
Neil had simply said that “books are special; books are the way we talk to generations that have not turned up yet.”
Simply said, but a profound datum for any author to know, isn’t it?
I want to start with a couple of my favorite science fiction classics, novels by L. Ron Hubbard and Orson Scott Card.
L. Ron Hubbard wrote in the field of sci-fi and other fiction for decades. To celebrate 50 years with the muse, he delivered a knockout with his masterful 1,000-page novel: Battlefield Earth. I bought and read the book, and so did everyone in my household, from teens on up. It was abuzz with people reading it everywhere—busses, taxis, airplanes, libraries, and restaurants. Even one prominent politician declared that this sci-fi novel was his favorite book. It raced up the bestseller charts.
It is a saga of adventure, daring, and courage when man is an endangered species and the future survival of what’s left of the human race is at stake. A young hero rises from the ashes to unite humankind in a final quest for freedom that erupts across the continents of Earth and ultimately across the cosmic sprawl of the Galaxy. Truly epic sci-fi.
This year celebrates the 40th anniversary of this outstanding volume. Decade in and out, the publisher still receives letters detailing admiration for this imaginative story and thousands of reviews on Amazon and Audible (one of the best sci-fi audiobooks ever). In fact, I reread it this year, and it is even richer than I remembered!
Because it is so popular with teens and a perfect science fiction book for middle school, it is part of the accelerated reader program (AR 5.8 / 62 points, Lexile 780, GRL Z+). It has a lesson plan and a reading group guide available. You can read the first 13 chapters free or listen to the first hour of the audio to check it for yourself. I warn you, it is addictive.
I am very pleased to offer a salute to Orson Scott Card’s mind-boggling Ender’s Game. He followed up with a series of books to further his unique and stimulating world where children suddenly became the highlighted heroes and often the villains in a world of astounding new technology and fantastic, futuristic war. Excellent stuff, and another author who bears rereading and rereading.
In this one, our young hero (and I mean really young when his adventure begins) needs to overcome bullying in his family and onboard the space station when training. The peer pressure and Ender’s resilience in this hero’s journey are perfect for teens. They will be able to relate.
One of my early favorites is H. G. Wells’ War of the Worlds, which I first heard dramatized as a play on the radio. When the librarian got me the book, I noticed it was first published in 1897. The librarian assured me that many 11 and 12-year-old readers pick it up when their teenage siblings bring the book home for their own reading. She called it “a perennial favorite,” that has continued to engage young readers!
This is a story of our planet being invaded by Mars. H. G. Wells does such a thorough job of putting you in the story, it sent people panicking in the streets when the radio show first ran. The Martians’ planet is becoming uninhabitable as their resources are dwindling, so they invade Earth with plans to take it over and make it their new home. Scary and engaging.
This story took me to a strange territory far across space. The hero is a teenager who inherits a tremendous responsibility due to a twisted enemy plan that his father, Duke Leto, falls prey to. It is a complex plot with a lot going on, but the integrity and honor of the hero and his family to set things right shines through.
Frank Herbert developed the story into a brilliant series of novels, followed avidly by readers around the world. There is a very recent remake of the movie. Awesome.
The world-building is vast, stretching across galaxies. The majority of the story is on the desert planet Arrakis (also called Dune) whose only valuable export is a drug know as “spice” or melange. It is a dangerous world where your body water needs to be preserved when outside. In addition to the dangers of the enemy factions who want control of the spice, there are also massive sandworms that can can destroy the spice mining facilities. It is so well written, you can feel the grit of living on a plant covered in sand.
But if you have not actually read the book, don’t cheat yourself of that experience, okay?
Star Wars should be mentioned here, but only because the storyline and characters created by George Lucas and ghostwritten by Alan Dean Foster have become an epic franchise inspiring the love of science fiction in teens, young adults, and the rest of us for decades.
It was so stunning to see on the screen. The opening lines will remain with me forever, introducing a space opera story as coming to us from long ago in a galaxy far away. The public surrendered to this tale instantly. Now it is a “multimedia property” in the hands of dozens of writers and illustrators, including many Star Wars novels (great young adult sci-fi books).
In rounding out this collection of truly treasured classic sci-fi, the last story I want to mention would have to be Suzanne Collins for her astonishing trilogy, Hunger Games. It swept up a fan base around the world. This young adult book series bears the “YA” designation, but I know readers from 9 to 99 that are fans of these books.
In this dystopian story, our young hero Katniss Everdeen kicks off the action by volunteering in place of her younger sister in a cruel game where teens are pitted against one another to fight to the death (or nearly so). It is one of the top young adult books with good reason. Katniss has courage and strength and wants to survive. She is down to earth and relatable. The odds are impossible and the cast of characters memorable. It is a great escape.
ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS
I wanted to add something more on Battlefield Earth.
I have seen evidence of the impact of this novel for years and years now. A high school teacher once told me that in her fourteen years of teaching, “Mr. Hubbard’s Battlefield Earth was a great read for my students interested in science fiction. It is set way in the future, in the year 3000, when Psychlos have ruled the planet for 1000 years, and Man is now an endangered species.”
Her students became deeply involved with the story. They could just throw themselves into the author’s imagination, into the universe he built, and run with it. These teen readers were caught up in the theme of what one man can do in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds while being thoroughly entertained scene after scene like a really engaging movie. The high adventure is heady, and new perspectives on the developing situations raise the readers’ hopes again and again.
My own daughter first picked up Battlefield Earth when she was 10 and couldn’t quit reading it. She read it again a couple of years later, and again when she was 16. As an adult, she has continued reading it periodically. She still bubbles over with observations on the richness of the story, its settings, characters, scope, and more, whenever anyone introduces sci-fi or Battlefield Earth as a topic of discussion.
HOW MY LOVE OF READING STARTED
I’ve been an avid reader from the age of six, and though I have sampled all kinds of novels, I have to admit that sci-fi gets me most often.
This started when I was 9 or 10 and got a hold of Jules Verne’s novel Journey to the Center of the Earth. I withheld it from my brother for a couple of weeks while I poured over it, again and again, trying to believe my good fortune at discovering this amazing story! And when I finally decided I could give the book back to the library, I began recruiting family members and friends to read it.
Why? Because I was on fire with enthusiasm and amazement. I wanted to discuss the book with others! I am sure this is why book clubs are so popular. Through sharing the love of a good book—and an ignited love of reading—I found out that there were more fascinating books, more “science fiction.” I was hooked.
That would have been in the 1950s (don’t do the math to come up with my age, okay?). The important point is that the book I fell in love with was already NINETY YEARS OLD back then!
What is your story? What book made its way into your heart and imagination that began your life-long love of reading?
CONCLUSION
What a grand sweep of creativity these sci-fi classics can bring to a reader. My goal here is to recommend a few truly great stories. They may not be the most popular young adult books, but they are sure to be engaging and will help teens and young adults discover the love of reading.
I congratulate you on choosing this rich genre for your own, and I wish you many, many enormously happy hours of reading.
Judith Duckhorn, known to her friends as Jae, is a self-described “grown-up army brat,” since her father, a career officer in the army through WW II, Korea, and the Cold War, took his little family everywhere he was assigned, on three continents. She had the opportunity to study one year at Oxford University in putting together a BA degree in literature, philosophy, and music. Later, she turned most of that education into teaching skills and fell in love with that profession. Nowadays, Jae has advanced happily up the scale of Toastmasters training, as a public speaker, and also is readying to teach Tai chi. L. Ron Hubbard’s books came to her attention many years ago, and remain a central fascination in her world. “I always learn so much from reading Ron,” she says, “What a storyteller, what an author!”
In coordination with the Allegheny Health Network (AHN) and the advertising agency Doner, Marvel has created a comic book, called The Vitals: True Nurse Stories, based on an amalgamation of experiences had by nurses in 13 hospital facilities in Western Pennsylvania.
Marvel’s new comic book pays tribute to nurses. (Photo:Getty Images)
“Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, we have been in awe of the courage and resourcefulness of our nurses, who put their own health at risk to care for these vulnerable patients,” said AHN chief nurse executive Claire Zangerle in a statement. “We are so proud of them, and we want to make sure they know how much we appreciate their exceptional work. We hope that in seeing themselves as real Marvel Comics Super Heroes, they can take a moment to look back in pride on their exceptional work and compassion during an exceptionally difficult time for our communities.”
In a video made in conjunction with the comic book, the children of AHN nurses talked about their parents and the tireless work they’ve done throughout the pandemic. “We didn’t see her for like two months,” says one little boy of his mother, a nurse. “It makes me feel good that she’s being able to help,” says another.
In the video the children and their parents are given the comic book, which results in no shortage of tears. “That one looks like my mommy,” says one little girl as she points to a nurse on the cover of the comic. “You’re a hero,” says a little boy as he tearfully embraces his mother.
The comic books will be distributed at AHN hospitals and recruiting events, and are also available digitally on Marvel.com.
“At Marvel, we tell stories about heroes every day. But this story is special. It tells a story about our everyday heroes — the nurses and health care professionals working tirelessly and courageously to save lives,” said Dan Buckley, president of Marvel Entertainment, said in a statement. “Along with AHN, we are honored to help tell these stories, which we dedicate to the real heroes who are saving the world.”
On the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the death of Jaswant Singh Kharla CAP Freedom of Conscience, United Sikhs, Khalra Mission Organization and the author of the book The Valiant – Jaswant Singh Khalra Gurmeet Kaur made a statement to the UN during the 45th session of the Human Rights Council.
According to the president of CAP LC,
“it is time for the truth to be revealed and for the families of the victims to know the truth about the fate of their loved one” and continued saying that “it is the duty of the Indian authorities to shed light on this crime against humanity”. (Their full statement can be seen here)
Jaswant Singh Kharla’s crime is to have uncovered, according to his book
“thousands of state-enforced disappearances, illegal detentions, custodial killings, and mass cremations of the Sikhs under government’s orders, which constitute the Sikh genocide”.
After its discovery Jaswant Singh Kharla took as his mission to stop the “government’s tyranny” by exposing and “holding it accountable through legal means”.
On January 16, 1995, he made public evidence of 3,100 illegal cremations of disappeared persons in just three crematoria from one out of the then thirteen districts in Punjab. He estimated there were a total of 25,000 cremations of disappeared persons throughout the state.
On September 6, 1995, Jaswant Singh Khalra himself was abducted in broad daylight, tortured in illegal custody for 52 days before being shot dead; his body dismembered and dumped into the very canal that was used to dispose other bodies that he had set out to find.
Author Gurmeet Kaur who wrote The Valiant – Jaswant Singh Khalra said:
“Twenty-five years later, we hope the government will not obstruct efforts to document the gravity of the state-sponsored genocide before nature takes its course and the aging witnesses and parents of the disappeared die”.
On July 9, 2020, the Swiss anti-cult associations JW Opfer Hilfe (Aid to the Victims of Jehovah’s Witnesses) and Fachstelle infoSekta (Center for Information on Cults) issued a press release, announcing that a 2019 decision of the District Court of Zurich had become final, which acquitted Dr. Regina Ruth Spiess, a former employee of infoSekta and current representative of JW Opfer Hilfe, from criminal charges of defamation brought by the Swiss Jehovah’s Witnesses, (JW Opfer Hilfe and Fachstelle infoSekta 2020).
On July 17, 2020—the two events are not related but, as we will see, they came to interact with each other—the USCIRF (United States Commission on International Religious Freedom) published a document on the anti-cult ideology (USCIRF 2020). The USCIRF is a bipartisan commission of the U.S. government, whose members are appointed by the President and designated by the congressional leaders of both political parties, Democrat and Republican. The document focuses on anti-cultism in Russia, but goes beyond it, to identify the anti-cult ideology in general as one of the most serious threats to religious freedom internationally. Parenthetically, we would emphasize that the German word “Sekte” should not be translated into English as “sect” (a neutral word, without derogatory implications in the English language) but as “cult.” Similarly, “anti-sekten” should be translated as “anti-cult,” and vice versa.
On July 23, 2020, the spokeswoman of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, answered during her periodic briefing the USCIRF Report, which was highly critical of Russia and, in particular, of the Russian’s decision to ban the Jehovah’s Witnesses as an “extremist organization.” She confused two different documents—the annual yearly report of the USCIRF and the USCIRF document on anti-cultism of July 17—but she intended in fact to answer the latter.
Zakharova stated that, “Regarding the Jehovah’s Witnesses—perhaps the United States is simply unaware of this, so I would like to enlighten our partners about a court decision recently enforced in Switzerland, one originally issued in July 2019. The court recognized some of the methods used by the local group of Jehovah’s Witnesses as violating fundamental human rights. Don’t you know this? I am referring to the practice where persons who choose to leave the sect or who fail to follow its instructions, are boycotted by their families and friends, children are boycotted, and psychological and social pressure is put on dissidents using various manipulative methods to influence consciousness, punishments, as well as unpunished cases of sexual violence. The sect’s members are actually denied the right to freedom of opinion and conscience, and this is what warranted the attention of Swiss justice” (Zakharova 2020).
There are two problems with Zakharova’s statement… (continued)
Reporter Gabriel Carrion launched his book on Scientology and controversies surrounding it with a Church’s spokesperson answering over 50 questions about it.
MADRID/BRUSSELS, SPAIN/BELGIUM, August 24, 2020 /EINPresswire.com/ — Journalist Gabriel Carrion has launched his second book on Scientology and the controversies surrounding it with the Church’s European spokesperson answering over 50 of the most asked questions about this religion.
Gabriel Carrion, a writer, scriptwriter, and director, has worked as an investigative journalist since 1985 in the press, radio, and television. Expert in national terrorism, media, sects, and new religious movements, he has published two books on the Spanish terrorist group ETA. Retired in 2004 from much of his public activities, he returned in 2008 to research and investigate his book “Scientology the Longest Battle”[only available in Spanish], which was published in 2011.
An essential book to know in depth the foundations and pillars of a religion, which due to the closeness of its founder allows us to throw more light than shadows on its history”
Gabriel Carrion
Since then, he has published two more books, one of them on self-help, and, after several years, his recently released book on Scientology (in Spanish, French, and Portuguese so far) entitled: “THE POWER OF THE WORD [EL PODER DE LA PALABRA], through the publishing house “Walking Away”.
El Poder de la Palabra, said Carrion toThe European Times, sees the light as an essay of questions and answers that responds in a clear, yet simple way, to some of the hottest topics related to Scientology, a subject on which the author plans to publish three more books in the future finishing off a project he began in 2008, and to which, when he expects to finish in 2022, he will have dedicated 15 years of his life.
Asked about the book, Carrion stated that:
“When in 1950 L. Ron Hubbard wrote: ‘DIANETICS, The Modern Science of mental Health’, he was possibly unaware of what was coming his way. Shortly thereafter, after further investigation, he felt he had to take an additional step, and so Scientology emerged as philosophical and religious thought that has derived from the sources of its founder, developing exponentially over time. If thousands are its detractors, millions are its followers throughout the world…
“With a controversial record around the world, Scientology and its leader have left no one indifferent. However, the explosion of social media has allowed, often in an orchestrated and tortious way, falsehoods, and comments about L. Ron Hubbard and his Church”.
Gabriel Carrion, writer, free-thinker, and humanist and Ivan Arjona, President of the European Office of the Church of Scientology for Public Affairs and Human Rights, come face to face in THE POWER OF THE WORD to formulate and answer some of the questions being asked by societies around the world, in order to clarify some of the issues that are part of the fabulous world of lies and dogmatic distortions that also exist.
As Carrion describes it: “An essential book to know in depth the foundations and pillars of a religion, which due to the closeness of its founder allows us to throw more light than shadows on its history”.
