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Review Date: 2/21/2010
The author uses a (slightly annoying)light, amoral tone in writing about his immersing beguilement by crossword puzzles and puzzle-makers. Some interesting history of crossword puzzles, cross-cultural tidbits, well-known puzzlemakers, and the annual, national crossword competition.
Review Date: 1/11/2010
Judith grew up to be a smart and accomplished writer and editor as well as a great lover of literature and words. Her childhood was forlorn, neglectful, and messy, and the way she ended up, as an adult, is very affirming, though she continued to have problems with food and in her relations with others.
I have to stand up for this book. I really liked the author, and after reading her book, I felt that I genuinely knew her - this author seems to have written what was in her mind as she discussed her life and her experiences. While she is reflective, she does not intellectualize, nor does she attempt to "persuade" or "uplift." I loved the book, and I loved the author's telling of her story, and I think I'd love to be in her company.
I have to stand up for this book. I really liked the author, and after reading her book, I felt that I genuinely knew her - this author seems to have written what was in her mind as she discussed her life and her experiences. While she is reflective, she does not intellectualize, nor does she attempt to "persuade" or "uplift." I loved the book, and I loved the author's telling of her story, and I think I'd love to be in her company.
Freeing the Whales: How the Media Created the World's Greatest Non-Event
Author:
Book Type: Hardcover
2
Author:
Book Type: Hardcover
2
Review Date: 1/11/2010
If you are over 30, you may remember the three whales who were "frozen in" near Barrow, Alaska in the mid-80s; they had frolicked too long, and were frozen out of their annual passage south. Several governments and agencies contributed to trying to free these struggling and progressively wearying creatures, including Russia's sending a huge freighter to try to break an ice passage. In the end, the youngest whale did drown, but the othe two were saved. Tom Rose, a WSJ reporter then, joined the huge contingent of reporters who flew to this northernmost part of Alaska, where living - and visiting - is rough, primitive, and extreme. Mr. Rose's rather scoffing title - calling the whales' misfortune a "non-event" (we all know the answer to that one: not to these whales) because, after all, several of these mammals do drown every year in the same conditions, with no attention whatsoever -does not reflect how he approaches his experience and his reporting. Everything about the "event:" the Eskimos and the residents of Barrow, the oil workers, the sled-dogs and their keepers, the reporters, the individuals directly involved in the rescue efforts (including a resulting marriage), as well as the author's observations and philosophy and his analysis of how this got to be "the world's greatest," is treated conscientiously, seriously, and descriptively (for example, though I first read the book twenty years ago, I still remember the startling skill, practice, and composure required to relieve oneself safely in the outdoor privies).
Review Date: 1/24/2010
From the publisher: Surveying historical thinking in the West from ancient times until the present, this very accessible text focuses on historiography, philosophy of history, and historical methodology, introducing the main issues and problems to beginning students with thorough and balanced discussions.
Review Date: 1/24/2010
Complex, volatile but knowable characters in an enclosed environment (mental hospital for veterans); well-told story; intense; shock of an ending. (By the way, obsession to duty is indecent to the rest of the self).
Review Date: 1/20/2010
I don't like Martha very much after reading this biography (nothing shocking; she's not very kind nor fair to her employees, seems to have been born without a maternal gene; false front), but I still enjoy her magazine.
Review Date: 1/23/2010
"Mary Reilly" writes in the first-person, and she is a very charming, likeable girl (as Dr. Hyde agrees) as a narrator. As in "Alias Grace" (Margaret Atwood), I also liked reading about the life and thoughts of a Victorian/Edwardian-era servantgirl, with her difficult, dangerous (I mean household work was harmful and dangerous), unquestioned, unresented, and dawn-to-dusk working life. Of the "alternative history" genre (cf. Gregory Maguire) of the last ten years or so, that I also enjoy so much.
Review Date: 1/20/2010
I gave the book three stars because the writer is witty and fresh and tells a great story. But the behavior of her employer, not towards the nanny-author, but towards her own child, was so sickening to me that I stopped reading the book early. I paraphrase what someone said, "The rich are different from you and me. They have more money." After I read this book, I questioned whether "more money" is all that's "different." I wondered about the effects of extreme wealth on character, and about its link to the erosion of something as instinctive and fundamental, if not biological, as the maternal drive.
Review Date: 1/24/2010
Neat instructions with large diagrams for propagating house plants from cuttings, runners, offshoots, division, and layering, and from seed. Book contents divided: I. Propagating from Plant Parts II. Propagating from Seeds III. Propagating Chart IV. Pruning.
Review Date: 1/24/2010
Sandra Mackey is an excellent writer - no dry history or political study, but details of everyday life and values of Saudia Arabians we might meet and those we will probably never meet, with a culture and its beliefs very foreign to North Americans. Mackey has written several books on Middle Eastern countries and cultures.
Review Date: 1/24/2010
Irving Stone may be scandalous but he is a good writer. If you love Michelangelo, the Pieta, or sculpture (artists or sculptors), this story is entrancing. The back flap of the dustjacket says this: "In the course of his years of research on Michelangelo, Irving Stone moved his family to Italy, worked in marble quarries, and apprenticed himself to a marble sculptor."
Review Date: 1/20/2010
Helpful Score: 2
I read this book in high school, as every one of my friends did. Since then, I believe the author and/or "Sybil's" physician have come under some criticism for the account of the patient as written in this book. And, of course, MPD as a diagnosis (it's very existence) is controversial, also.
The Taverner Novels: Armed with Madness and Death of Felicity Taverner (Recovered Classic Series)
Author:
Book Type: Paperback
1
Author:
Book Type: Paperback
1
Review Date: 1/24/2010
From Publishers Weekly: First published in 1928 and 1932, these novels follow an ensemble of close friends in the beautiful Cornish countryside. The earlier Armed with Madness is the more mystical story: a small jade cup, possibly the Sanc-Grail, is involved in events that culminate in Scylla Taverner being tied to a wax statue of her lover and wounded with arrows by a temporarily insane friend. Death of Felicity Taverner, set at a later date and featuring most of the same characters, is more traditional in structure and plot. Felicity, a relative of Scylla's and saintly friend of all in their group, is dead. Her husband, the evil Jew Nick Kralin (an ugly stereotype in an otherwise intelligent novel), had a hand in her death. Now he plans to besmirch their sacred woods with a resort and publish a scandalizing version of Felicity's diaries. Scylla and her friends must stop him. This could be the outline of a melodrama, but Butts's work is richer and more complex, finally suggesting that evil cannot be fought with good but instead with more evil, or at least with amorality. Butts (1890-1937), a friend of numerous writers on the Paris scene including Gertrude Stein and Ernest Hemingway, now is due her share of recognition.
Review Date: 1/22/2010
"The Temple Bombing" is a voyage through what Ms. Greene calls "American grass-roots fascism", as well as a portrait of a city of steaming conflicts and an embattled rabbi. The emotional power of the narrative is heightened by the author's gifts as a storyteller...This book is as illuminating as it is shocking." New York Times Book Review (from back cover of book)
"Beyond praise ... This book is moving without being sentimental ...It ought to command an immense audience, as much for its moral firmness as for its admirable style." Christopher Hitchens, Mail on Sunday (from back cover of book)
"Beyond praise ... This book is moving without being sentimental ...It ought to command an immense audience, as much for its moral firmness as for its admirable style." Christopher Hitchens, Mail on Sunday (from back cover of book)
Review Date: 1/24/2010
Well-written, fast-moving, lots of illustrations including paintings, drawings, and contempory newspaper cartoons. Written for older kids but, like "A Little History of the World" by E.H. Gombrich, adults can learn or refresh their (American) history quickly and enjoyably. This history book is notable for its initial "capture" of people and events, without being brief or summary in telling the good story of the Louisiana Purchase; for example, there is an initial six-page "cast of characters" with a short paragraph describing each; good learning style.
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