No comments about My Brilliant Career.

No comments about His Excellency George Washington.

No comments about The Legend of Sleep Hollow, the Minister's Black Veil, the Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (THE ONE HUNDRED GREATEST BOOKS, VOLUME 2) [ABRIDGED], VOLUME 18).

No comments about Seven Pillars of Wisdom (Playaway Adult Nonfiction).

No comments about My Early Life.

No comments about Walden (Naxos Audio).

1 comments about Susan B. Anthony: Champion of Women¬s Rights, Library Edition.

1. Susan B. Anthony is an awesome book. If you like history then you should read this book. If you are a girl especially you would want to know who was the"Champion of Women's Rights." It gives you so much imformation.It gets you into what happen in her life, and how hard it would be to get a job back then. My recommendations for future readers is if you like history than this is the book for you.

4 comments about Miss America 1945: Bess Myerson and The Year That Changed Our Lives.

1. I just finished reading the book "Miss America,1945:Bess Myerson and the year that changed our lives" and i tell you it's very thought provoking book about what Bess Myerson went through during her reign as Miss America with all the prejudices that she went through.Although it's set in 1945,It's still holds true today.You can honestly say that from the end of World War 2 up to the late 1940's was an important period of change in America where a Jewish girl from the Bronx achieved the dream of every girl who wanted to win the crown of Miss America and two years later Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in Major League Baseball.Over all it's a great book and it's something that everyone must have for their book collection.



2. There she goes, Miss America. And Bess Myerson was America's first (and still only) Jewish Miss America, an groundbreaking achievement that makes for riveting cultural and social history. This is not a new book --- it is the first paperback edition of Susan Dworkin's landmark collaborative biography that was first published in 1987, and it is still an important one. Dworkin weaves together oral histories, research and commentary to present not only a vivid portrait of pre-feminist America in the '30s and '40s, but one of Jews, of women, of the anti-Semitic riddled Miss America pageant and of Myerson's own life. A crowning success. Still.



3. Ably narrated by Bess Myerson and Adam Grupper, Miss America 1945 is Susan Dworkin's engaging rendition of Bess Myerson's memoirs of her self as a naive Jewish girl from the Bronx, a scheming beauty pageant promoter, and rampant anti-Semitism within the context of a national post-war euphoria. What is particularly fascinating is Myerson's candid revelations of what it was like to be the first (and only) Jewish Miss America and her emergent political activism that resulted from her experiences with the beauty pageant. This abridged-by-the-author audiobook edition features flawless production values and has a running time of 5 hours, 10 minutes. Miss America 1945 is an ardently recommended addition to personal and library audiobook collections.



4. Absolutely intriguing portrait of a truly fascinating and remarkable woman, not to mention a unique era in history. Bess Myerson symbolized so much, at a very important time in American history. Well worth reading/listening to!

No comments about Autobiographical Reflections.

5 comments about A Great Improvisation: Franklin, France, and the Birth of America.

1. This book was hard to listen to because it is hard to follow. It doesn't keep me interested enough to want to listen to the next disc. Very disappointed.



2. Sometimes plodding account of Ben Franklin's role as commissioner to France from 1776 to 1786 shows the great debt we owe Franklin for our independence, the great difficulties of diplomacy in an era when communication between continents took months, and the great difficulty of negotiating personalities and cultures in a climate of fear and uncertainty. Throughout, Franklin acted always honorably, though not without fault, and with more success than any of his American peers sent to replace, augment, or spy on him.
   
   Put simply, no other American could have accomplished what Franklin did in the circumstance, least of all John Adams, whose legalistic and conspiratorial rantings show him in the most negative light. Without Franklin in France, the American experiment may well have been still-born.



3. This is a well-written and actually funny book. The energy and joie de vivre of Franklin drove this book. You learn that Paris during the American Revolution was chaotic. Everyone was spying on everyone else. Its a miracle that Franklin got the financial support he needed. Paris loved Franklin and you can see why. I loved this book. In fact i gave my copy to a friend and had to buy a replacement.



4. A Great Imporovisation is the third leg of a triangle that has long been incomplete. Though several books on Ben Franklin's stay in Paris have been written, none see through the Parisian lens the way Schiff does. None have her flair for physical context and dipolomatic nuance that reflects in their style. Schiff's treatment of this important and even weighty subject may not please the most exacting historians, but it's the way history should be written. Dreary is as dreary does, and none of that will be found here.



5. Despite enjoying a lot of books from this genre, I found this book to be almost unreadable. The author is too intent on bowling you over with her writing to write clear and interesting prose.
   
   Here's an example:
   "The slippery stew which was a Paris thoroughfare accounted for the city's most singular danger. No man who had the means walked through the filth of the streets, and no man who had the means hired a driver with any respect for the individual who did."
   
   I think I understand what this means, but I'm not even sure I do. In any case, I think it is an arrogant exaggeration to make a statement like this. I guess she knew about every man in Paris.
   
   For what it is worth, I am in a book group and there seemed to be universal dislike of this book for similar reasons. I didn't attend, however, because I could not force myself to read past page 80.