No comments about American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer Part 2.

No comments about Force of Nature : the life of Linus Pauling - Parts 1 AND 2.

5 comments about Chasing the Dream: My Lifelong Journey.

1. Unlike most of you reviewing I grew up as a southern girl and fell in love with the New York Yankees in the late fifties.
   
   I too think Torre has been one of their best managers although there have been others. The book was too much about Torre himself and not enough about my team.
   
   A little too much ego involved but would have to have it to be a Yankee manager or probably even a player.
   
   I have, over the years, read much about my team, and would not rate this as one of the best nor the worst. Just hope we win this year.



2. Great guy, great story. Read this book and see how it came about that Joe Torre is one of the classiest things that has happened to Major League Baseball-



3. This is a good book about an exemplary player, manager and overall good person from the game of baseball. The book puts forth his philosophy of working hard to achieve your goals. I was impressed even more than I already was with Joe Torre after reading this. How he got to manage the Yankees and to successfully perform with quiet restraint and insightful reason once he made it that prestigious position makes for very fine and captivating reading.



4. As an avid Yankee fan, I was looking forward to reading this book, and I was not disappointed. With the help of Tom Verducci, the book was put together very well and kept me interested the entire time.
   
   Many people see Joe Torre as only a great manager, however, he was a very good ball player as well. As you read the book and learn about his experiences while growing up in the Major Leagues you learn why he does certain things as a manager, which I found to be possibly the most interesting part of the book. It was great the way he explained how he dealt with certain situations, based on his past experiences. It was interesting to see exactly how he thinks during a game and how he bounces ideas off the great Don Zimmer. The 96 Yanks were a special team, and he definitely helped them win with this managerial techniques and philosophies. This would only be the first championship for what would soon be a dynasty.
   
   The book covers his entire life, from childhood to the time he wrote the book. You see exactly how certain aspects of his childhood stayed with him and influenced his personal life for years. Torre is a great man, with a very interesting past, and this book will teach you a lot about the game and the way things are behind the scenes of the game. You will also notice how baseball goes through changes during his time in the game. If your a Yankee fan, this is a must read. If you aren't, you will still find it to be enjoyable if you are a fan of baseball.



5. While I am a Yankee hater I admire Joe Torre.
   I enjoyed the book and learned a lot more about a great person and manager

No comments about Evelyn.

No comments about Sharing Stories: Listening to and Recording the Stories of Older Peope.

No comments about Stephen Spielberg : A Biography.

No comments about Billy.

No comments about Albert Einstein: Young Thinker, Library Edition (Ready Reader).

5 comments about Map of the World.

1. This novel is set in and around the last remaining dairy farm in a rapidly suburbanizing Wisconsin county. Being a diary farmer is the fulfillment of the dream for Howard Goodheart, a dream wholeheartedly shared by his wife Alice. They enjoy a lifestyle that harkens back to a simpler time, as well as the bond of friendship with one of the nearby families who live in a new suburb that abuts their farm acreage. The two women are best friends, the kind who can breeze into each other's kitchen with a yoo-hoo instead of a knock. Their ordered and pleasant lives are abruptly changed when an accidental drowning occurs in the Goodheart's farm pond. The repercussions are immediate and devastating for both families and for the community. At the same time, one of the main characters is falsely accused of a crime unrelated to the drowning, and from this false accusation, their lives further unravel.
   
   This novel (as has become somewhat a formula in contemporary fiction) is told alternately from the viewpoints of several of the protagonists. The reader must readjust to the various vantage points. Thankfully, Hamilton limits the narrative shifts to large sections of the book, rather than an every other chapter (a frequently disconcerting style popularized by other authors and book editors). It is fair to observe Hamilton's voice is more effective when writing from the female point of view than from the male.
   
   One of the most ominous characters, albeit in a small supporting role, is the gossip, Mrs. Glevitch. "What Mrs. Glevitch thought she knew was as potent as truth, and pretty soon would become truth... she would take the bits of information and dress them up with her distinctive brand of poetry." (page 62). We all know people like her, the deceitful, manipulative, rude, and malicious people whose unchecked behavior we must occasionally interact with, for whom passing on a daily dose of malevolent falsehood is like mother' s milk. Any novelist who sheds the spotlight of truth on such spitefulness gets a big thumbs up from me.



2. Couldn't hardly put this one down. It isn't a happy story, but the writing was fantastic and the story really makes you think how quickly your life can change and how hard it is to recover when bad things happen to good people.



3. This was a beautifully written novel about how our minds can often trip us up. A tragic accident has caused a young woman to blame herself for the death of a little girl; and a domino effect is triggered. Shortly, the entire community is blaming her not only for the child's death but for atrocities far worse than her supposed negligence.



4. I'm not 100% sure "enjoyed" is the right word for how I experienced this book. It was hard to put down, and I was emotionally involved with the characters, but along with enjoying the story and the character development I found it frightening. It's so easy to find yourself out in the cold, accused of something you didn't do, or at least finding that your life is completely altered by an event that only took seconds to happen. A bit haunting. I liked seeing the story from both Alice's and Howard's viewpoints.



5. This books appears to have quite a bit going on, but the reading is a little slow going.
   
   "A Map of the World" is a novel about a city family who now lives on a farm in a small town. The "heroine" of the novel, the mother, is present when an accidental death occurs for which few forgive her. She is then falsely accused by the small-town folks for unspeakable crimes and jailed.
   
   The plot is interesting, but as I said, the reading is slow going. The characters either develop very slowly, or their depth is so shallow that I didn't realize they were already developed. With so much going on and so much plot, it is hard to imagine not caring about how it turns out.
   
   I enjoyed "Book of Ruth" much, much more.

5 comments about Hollywood Hulk Hogan.

1. Hulk Hogan, the modern icon of pro wrestling, admits right away the supposed "sport" is rigged, the outcomes of matches predetermined. For that he should be commended. Otherwise, this book isn't that great, it's Hulk Hogan's autobiography telling people he wanted to see how much money they could make off this. Hogan was making like a million dollars a show and when WCW peaked it was a hundred million dollar a year industry. Vince Russo ruined wrestling for good, making Hogan job to people like Billy Kidman, which ended up in Vince McMahon buying WCW for a mere 3 million dollars. His only halfway believable angle with was Zeus in 1989. Brutus Beefcake was blown way out of proportion; he doesn't even mention the near fatal face accident and current blindness. It's marketed at families with no sense of humor. He comes clean on his steroids abuse, which we've all known for years. Hulk Hogan strikes me as someone who took his real life persona too seriously, as a redneck body builder. He admits finally although he's really part French, he is otherwise of descent from a third world country- the blonde Irishman wasn't believable. They should've made Roddy Piper the main guy, inflation wouldn't be so high. Commend Hogan for picking up the ball that was dropped by: Bob Backland, Ultimate Warrior, Lex Luger, Sting, The Giant, Batista...



2. I could go into long detail on his "rationalization" of controversial fixes Hogan was caught up in like steroids, Vince and holding back younger wrestlers through his backstage politics.
   However, this one important timepiece Hogan makes pretty much no mention of whatsoever was Starcade 1997 and Sting. He never once admits to having too big of an ego to cleanly lose to Sting/Steve Borden at all in this book. Skirting a well known wrestling feud where his ego was put ahead of "what was best for business" in WCW at the time with Sting automatically negates this book as a TRUE AND HONEST AUTOBIOGRAPHY.



3. Despite the two Star Rating that I gave to this book, This book did have it's good points. I liked how Hogan told the story of how he was a fat little kid who would eventually become the person that put Wrestling on the map. According to Hogan, he was a fat kid. Also his rise through the Wrestling ranks, and how he had to pay his dues before he became the Hulk Hogan we all know today. He seriously thought about giving up Wrestling altogether. Thank god he didnt, otherwise we wouldnt of had such Wrestling Master Pieces like Starcade 1997.
   
   
   I'm a huge fan of Hulk Hogan, but this book left a lot to be desired.
   I know others touched on this, but he says the word "brother" an awful lot, it was like he was cutting a 400 page promo.
   
   I have two main critcisms with this book. The first one is, this isnt a biography really, its more like Hogan trying to protect his massive ego.
   Like how he said Warrior wasnt worthy of being the new champion and he was right, He also defended his plan to Win the belt at Wrestlemania 9, 10 seconds after Bret Hart already lost to Yokozuna. Bret Hart couldnt beat Yokozuna in a 15 minute match, but Hogan beat Yoko in like 10 seconds. I dont know how you can defend that but Hogan managed to do it.
   
   
   My other criticism of this book is, he touched on things nobody cared about. Like his role in Rocky 3, he wrote a lot about that. *yawn*
   or his matches with Dennis Rodman as his tag team partner, against Karl Malone and DDP *yawn*
   
   I wanted to hear more about his last years in the WWF/E the creation of NWO and his take on it. And more about the bad blood between him and Savage. But all that is skipped over. All the interesting points in his career are glossed over real quick, or barely mentioned at all.
   
   If you're a fan of Hogan, I reccomend reading it, but if you're not a fan of his Massive Titanic sized Ego, dont read it.



4. HULK HOGAN ABOY BORN IN VENICE BEACH CALIFORNIA HE STARTED PLAYING BASEBALL IN FLORIDA THEN AFTER A FEW YEARS LATERS HE MET MUTSADA AND BECAME A REALLY GREAT WRESTLER AND HE BECAME THE FIRST THREE TIME CHAMPION THIS BOOK REALLY ENSPIRED ME TO GO FOR MY GOALS AND NEVER QUIT.



5. There is no denying Hulk Hogan's place in pop culture; the charismatic character, along with Vince McMahon then being on top of his game in marketing, made pro wrestling a major entertainment vehicle.
   
   I saw it in the Cleveland, OH, which once had weekly TV tapings and shows, but fell apart literally overnight when popular wrestler Johnny Powers fled the city in the midnight hour, leaving behind unpaid bills and unpaid employees from a series of closed health clubs.
   
   Periodic shows were being run by a number of companies - including the WWF - at the Cleveland Convention Center. But the area caught fire with the WWF's second show at the Richfield Coliseum with the first appearance of Hogan, defending the world title against Jesse Ventura. The show sold out, which became common during Hogan's peak years as the champion face who would pin the bad guy or avenge the "loss" - those Dusty finishes - at the next show.
   
   Like all the books in the WWE catalog, it follows a standard script of bringing the character to real life. I found particularly interesting his dealings with Mr. T and how he got the part in Rocky III (and why Hollywood contracts need to be read and re-read and read some more before signing).
   
   The book may not change the minds of critics who have ravaged him over the years for a lack of technical wrestling ability and for the oftentimes embarrassingly bad movies. But his story is as important as any pro wrestler's from the 1980s to today.