The Temple Of My Familiar Paperback – Illustrated, September 3, 2010

Even tho is was confusing between characters going to the past life to present life then moving to siblings then moving on to lovers, this book is very memorable. It's background on racism starting in Africa is truly heart breaking but it happened. I wish and hope the younger generation know their origins and be proud.

Nice book but I ordered hard cover and I received soft cover. I will still be looking for the hard cover to match the other 2books. Fast service too.

This is one of the books that I absolutely cannot live without. It’s not a novel. It’s an oral history. A branch off the family tree. It’s the child sitting between her mothers knees getting her hair greased and parted while listening to her mother’s friends spill everyone else’s business but their own.Sometimes I might read a book that takes me out of my safe zone and into dark and turbulent territory. This is not that book. This is the book I call on to immediately pick me up and take me back to my happy place.If you haven’t already, get familiar with Alice Walker’s The Temple Of My Familiar.

I read this book in my early 20s and it has remained my all time favorite book. I am about to read it again at the age 65 and am looking forward to experiencing it at this stage of my life. I remember the intricate tapestry she wove with her words, beliefs and thoughts. The connection she made made me visualize from the single celled to the living creatures we are now. To see the everyday magic that is real in our lives seen through the quantum physics of it all! A masterpiece of writing that I have related to many books I have read that relate to those searching for the meaning of life and our power to manifest our dreams through the magic of the power that we all have access to. This book is about religion, spirituality, love, and our oneness with this amazing universe that we are all a part of. An amazing book written by a woman who is clearly in touch with her place in the Iniverse.

Alice Walker is a great storyteller, she intertwines two stories with different cultures and similar backgrounds and for many it is confusing to keep up with. She weaves it in a way you always know which character is which and what story you are learning about. I can put myself visually in the situation watching it happen and can't imagine the pain, humiliation, a stripping of your humanity at the hands of people who have no regard for human life. The boats and the conditions were horrendous and those that survived were never the same.I'm still in the middle of the book but I feel with these stories and occurrences the people never forget the treatment of their experience, but they never let it overtake them and inhibit their movement forward. It is a lesson for all of us that the world can throw curveballs and hand you lemons but you make something out of yourself and never stay a victim. She is one of my favorite authors and I never grow tired of reading her books over and over.

This marvelous book contains so much I've been reading it a decade. I can't believe only one person wrote it. I can't believe she's gone. Or was ever here. And that's the sense of the book, if that helps. From the apes to Africa to modern day...from a character named Lissie needing two men to love her she was so much people to the richest colored Latin fabrics & feathers you could dream. Please someone make several movies of it. The parts that are poetry won't translate medium as well, but call Coppola.

My friends and I decided to start a book club and someone recommended this book. To sum it up, the book is beautifully written. Alice's writing technique is enriched with a heighten level of cultural and relatable and real experiences. Amazing book.

Yeah, I get all the metaphors and the strung-through history - even Goddess references. Yet, even with all that, I could not stand this book. The sentences jumble (a lot) and the characters are just too unbelievable, yet, sent to the reader as real. The thoughts behind thier "lives" seem great. I mean, the whole read feels as if Walker had this as an outline (flushed out a bit, but incomplete) and it was published. Unlikeable characters? Yep. But, having read Bukowski, that's no issue. The distaste comes from the rambling utter uninteresting on and on-ness of these characters. Our book club is very in to the thought provokers. This, we all were just perplexed. A small contention too...there's a documentary out called A Small Act, about a Swedish woman who helps a young man get educated, leave a village, and grow into a remarkable human rights, and Foundation (Hilda Back) leader; one of those $15 a-month-save-a-child stories w/ an awe inspiring result. Here, a similar would-be-helpful woman is described with a venomous spat as an eccentric...ToMF just has no respect for anyone, even each other and selves running through it; maybe Walker was in a bad mood when she wrote. There no thought provoking, no eye-opening, no joy here.

Definitely came used and a bit worn but well-loved and readable. Excellent story of intertwining lives, and as usual Alice Walker takes characters from her other novels and weaves them throughout her universe to create a well-rounded group of souls who have impacted the structure of our world today from a unique and mysterious historical perspective. This book--my second copy, and happily reread--forces your mind to expand and your eyes to widen.

A man developing Alzheimer's and the treachery he felt daily until he was placed in a residence, and how his family made allowances for him while never stopping loving him.

This book is excellent. If you read it in spurts, it is hard to follow the characters and remember how they are connected. The writing is spectacular.

Beautifully written. I’ve read this book many times and it reveals something new and beautiful to me each time

All good!