No comments about Monarch Life and Times of Elizabeth II.

2 comments about Her Name Is Barbra.

1. Though not perfect, this is Streisand's best biography for three reasons (1) it is well researched, (2) the author is not in awe of Streisand and avoids writing a tribute, and (3) it is interesting from beginning to end.



2. My biggest complaint is that Mr. Riese steps into the shoes of Streisand more often than he should. The research is good, but only as good as the people he has interviewed (the majority of whom hold a grudge against Streisand). There are statements in the book in which he actually tells us her thoughts, this is not only arrogant on his behalf, but unfair. I think he takes too much creative license. Good attempt though.

1 comments about Harry Crews, a Childhood: The Biography of a Place/Readings.

1. I KNEW HARRY AND ROOMED WITH HIM ONE SUMMER SESSION AT U OF F. I HAVE SEEN HIM SEVERAL TIMES SINCE. HE SOUNDS THE SAME AS HE DID IN 1960. THE TAPE IS EXCELLENT BUT TOO SHORT AND CONTAINS A VERY GRAPHIC BUT SMALL PART OF HIS LIFE STORY. HARRY READS SO WELL I WISH HE WOULD DO SOME MORE RECORDINGS.

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No comments about The Memoirs Of William T. Sherman: Atlanta And The March To The Sea Excerpts, 3 Audio Cassettes, Autobiography Narrated By Nelson Runger.

5 comments about The Worst Journey in the World: Library Edition.

1. You will NOT be sorry to embark upon this wonderfully written, dramatic, brave and heartbreaking story by a man who survived infinitely more than you and I ever will. With typical English stoicism, but with a beautiful and compassionate effort, he tried to understand Scott and all the others who travelled with him.
   And when you're finished, read "Cherry", an authorized biography by Sara Wheeler for more of his life and times.
   And sit by your warm fireplace...



2. The Worst Journey in the World (purchased on 04/05/2008)
   by Apsley Cherry-Garrard
   
   This order has NOT been received. Please advise as what has happened to it.



3. i had been meaning to read this book for ages and when i started it i could not put it down.....what a read. thank you Amazon and keep up the good work.. yours Fintan.



4. Cherry-Garrard is a literate,educated man, writing his experiences as well as including the memories, and journals of the other expedition members. Interesting how this young man of means who is accustomed to comfortable living,could endure such extreme hardship without complaint. The hardship and adventure begins with the terrible storm experienced on the ship from New Zealand to Antarctica. The description of this ordeal grabs hold and they haven't yet reached the Southern continent. The first year on the ice and the sledge trip during the winter months is gripping.
   
   A compelling aspect is the matter of fact descriptions of the unbelievable [to us] hardship and daily rigors of living, sledging, carrying out scientific experiments, etc., in -20 to -70 degrees. Wind conditions that regularly must have sent wind chill factors [they never recorded such a thing] to -80 to -100 degrees,and the physical exertion. They regularly experience frost bite, hunger, occasional ptomaine from spoiled food, symptoms of Dysentary, and scurvy. Yet, they are able to recover. They never lose their spirit and comeraderie.
   Until discovering the Pole parties' bodies the following year, Cherry-Garrard writes of his contentment and pride in being a member of this expedition.
   In the subsequent years, until he writes the book in 1922, he becomes guilt ridden as to whether he and the other survivors could have reached and saved Scott before they died,[it seems apparent they could not have reached them. [In fact, rescueres would probably have died in an attempt]. It's impossible to imagine living in such conditions for 3 years. Constant cold, diet of seal, penguin, sometimes dog and horse, blubber, biscuit, and tea. Occasionally, chocolate, butter and sugar as a treat.
   I agree with other reviewers that there is redundancy and repetition but I found it interesting to read how different members experienced the same events.
   I thought from reading other books that Scott was somewhat naive and a dreamer when it came to planning and preparing for this expedition. I now feel differently. Scott prepared and planned diligently. He was well liked and respected by his men, in general, he was a strong leader. A terrible mistake was deciding at the last supply depot, to take 5 men on the final push to the Pole rather than the 4 which was the original plan. The 5th man, for which they did not have adequate supplies and the physical collapse of one member after reaching the Pole, probably cost them their lives.
   Reading of a group of men living for years in these conditions, survival aways in doubt, out of touch with the rest of the world, gives perspective and toleration for what we think are trying experiences today. Early explorers are compared to to our astronauts. However,when one considers that communication is constant with space travelers. These men left and were never heard from again until they returned, if they did return, years later.



5. If you watch films like "The yourney of the penguins" you get not the slightest idea how brutally hostile for humans the environment of the South Pole is. If you read "The Worst Yourney In The World", you do. The book is a detailed description of the whole Scott Expedition, complete whith descriptions of packing lists, frostbite, snowblindness, awful food, recalcitrant ponys, and heroic English gentlemen. But the unpoetic language is exactly what makes the book such a worthwile read: The description is written in simple, honest words, that it gets your own imagination going. It reaches its climax with the Winter Yourney, where a small goup of men undertook a journey that was painful and horrific to a downright ridiculous extend, just to get their hands on some penguin eggs. Any romantic exaggeration would have destroyed the impact of this event in the readers mind, it is the simple, honest, sometimes even technial language that transforms this event into a classic tale. The character and the Winter Journey live on in literature, for example in Thomas Pynchons "V". The stuff of legends, on of my alltime favourites.

5 comments about Point Last Seen: A Woman Tracker's Story.

1. Hunted or hunter? Hannah Nyala has been both as she relates in her sometimes chilling frequently hopeful autobiography.

   "Nothing can adequately prepare a human being for becoming another's prey," she writes. Yet for 19 years Nyala has been the quarry in a twisted game of cat and mouse.

   She has also been the hunter, saving lives as part of a National Park Service search-and-rescue team.

   Little in a bucolic childhood spent in southern Mississippi prepared her to contend with violence. The simple evangelistic Christianity embraced by her family taught her meekness, obedience, to turn the other cheek - even when it will be beaten bloody.

   Kevin seemed quiet and sensitive when they met at a religious camp meeting. They married several weeks shy of her high school graduation. She had entered purgatory.

   He beat her. Even when her waist was thick with child. Why? Because there were not exactly six ice cubes in his glass of tea. The cycle of bludgeoning accelerated, later laced with threats to kill their children, Jon and Ruthie, before dismembering her body.

   If hand towels were perfectly folded but the space between them was incorrect, Kevin might choke her until she lost
   consciousness.

   "So after leaving him," Nyala writes, "no matter where my children and I lived, we deliberately hung our towels sloppily - not out of proposed rebellion, but as a marker: If we ever came in and found two hand towels folded precisely in thirds and hung on the towel bar with exactly one inch of space between them, it meant that he had been in the house. And might still be there."

   Knowing that Kevin is pursuing them, Nyala and her family live in terror. Her worst fear is realized when Kevin kidnaps their children. Numb with grief she can only put one foot in front of the other, turning to the mountains for spiritual solace and survival.

   The slow solitary process of studying footprints, tracking was her salvation. She learns to read broken twigs, bent grass, pebbles pressed into the earth, as well as to discern "The almost imperceptible trail a scorpion leaves behind."

   Eventually she met Frank, a park ranger who became her second husband. They move to Joshua Tree National Park in southern California's Mojave Desert.

   In graceful prose the author describes nature's world, the lush unexpectedness of desert flowers, animals scurrying to shade between rocks. She learns patience in the desert, and that "Tracking means learning to walk alongside, caring enough to reach out to other people."

   After being largely responsible for finding a lost child and the subject of attendant publicity, Nyala finds that her team mates regard her as competitor rather than comrade. Uncomfortable in this situation, she decides to pursue a college degree in anthropology.

   Being reunited with her children should provide the anticipated happy ending. But Nyala's life isn't written by the Brothers Grimm.

   Her marriage to Frank ends in an amicable divorce. While she is at last awarded custody of her children, Kevin is allowed to post bail. Her home is broken into sixteen times. She and the children find towels precisely folded in thirds hanging on the towel bar. Today Kevin is a free man.

   "Tracking marks my continued search for a safe place, while violence marks my repeated encounters with fear," she tells us. "Neither has yet canceled the other out."

   Nonetheless, Nyala's story is ultimately one of empowerment, growing strength, and survival. Point Last Seen is the compelling account of a family's courage, which speaks to all who love and seek to protect each other.

   - Gail Cooke




2. Hannah Nyala's life is of duality and parallels, where a childhood skills of tracking is her saving grace in her family and professional life. I was far more interested in learning how people track and how they see the world compared to the rest of us who generally have heads in the clouds, where as trackers are literally grounded. Nyala skillfully applies the tracker skills to narrating why women such as she stay in abusive marriages and how she would eventually find the confidence and strength to search for a different and better life, which parallels her growing skill as a tracker of lost hikers and frightened children. She would even journey to Africa to better her tracking skills and there she would realize domestic violence crosses culture, race, and class. Her writing style is calm and lacks self-pity. Nyala has a clear eye for those around her even when the future (goal) is yet to be found.



3. I loved this book immensely. Loved how she wove her two tales into one, loved how she unflinchingly followed her heart, loved that she had the courage to finish her journey despite the immensity of the obstacles. The most important point this book brought out was how the legal system adresses domestic violence. Hannah and her children received little or no protection from the law. When women tell the truth about their lives it may increase our awareness to the point where women and children will no longer have to fight such lengthy, grueling and lonely battles. Hannah was fortunate and strong, were it not so her story would not have such a successful outcome. As she says, "As we track we too are being tracked. Every action, every inaction, every word and every silence leaves clear signs for the next generation....By learning to really see and listen to one another...we can overcome what would destroy us"



4. POINT LAST SEEN is a fascinating autobiography not because it provides an insightful look at a female tracker rising above an abusive relationship, but because the nonfiction book lacks the polished skills of a professional co-author sanitizing any feelings out of the account. Instead this time the reader obtains the heart-felt inner soul of an individual seeking to better herself and her children through a skill learned from her grandmother that brings the author in harmony with herself, her family (except the ex) and nature. Hannah Nyala describes the duality of her life. Her anecdotes of locating individuals lost in the wilds are incredible, as these stories read more like strong fiction similar in a sense to her wonderful novel, LEAVE NO TRACE. She also describes her personal life starting as a Mississippi dropout to becoming a teenage battered spouse with two children to her escape to freedom and finally to tracking her abducted children when her husband and his goons kidnap them. Though lacking a professional sheen, biography fans will want to track down this strong account of a woman survivor.

   Harriet Klausner




5. Female trackers are rarer than female hunters and Hannah Nyala is a master female tracker. Her book reveals the painful side of her life as she takes us down the battered trail of "a woman who stayed with a husband that beat her". And she opens up the tasks and thinking of a professional tracker. She shows how the act of following footprints on the ground leeds to a philosophy of life. For example these tracker truths are worth pondering:

   1) As we hurry towards our goals in life we miss the subtleties of life itself.

   2) Details mater enormously as you track...evidence of life, of movement, is what a tracker must find first.... Pattern are crucial.

   3) Retracing steps requires getting alarmingly close to what is most unknown in ourselves

   4) It is the little things, the tiny decision or non-decisions, that contribute most to losing one's way.

   5) Part of the process of getting lost is losing sight of your reference point without noticing that it has disappeared.

   Point last seen ...for a tracker is vitally important, getting to that location before all signs of the lost are destroyed is the trackers first priority. This is an enterating and engaging book. Recommended

1 comments about I'll Tell Them I Remember You.

1. This book touches your heart in the first few pages as William Peter Blatty vividly describes his very dynamic and entertaining mother. Although seemingly perturbed by his mother's behavior at times, Blatty lovingly illustrates his mother as a caring, strong and yet bizarre woman hell bent to make it in NYC while raising her kids alone. The book is quick to read and will have you laughing out loud at this woman's crazy take on the world around her. The story follows up with Blatty's adult life and portrays how his time with his mother influenced him to be the author, man, and father he later became.

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