5 comments about Let's Roll!: Ordinary People, Extraordinary Courage.

1. "Let's Roll" is the story of the lives of Lisa Beamer of her husband Todd, who was killed aboard United Flight 93 on September 11th, 2001. See my review of the hard cover for details.
   
   The two stars are for the horrendous job of narration. Lisa Helms gives Lisa Beamer a voice that is so chirpy, perky and mindless that I could hardly stomach the book. The first 3-4 CDs were so relentlessly cute and smug that I almost couldn't stand listending to more. Only when the book rolled around the describing the events of 9/11 and its aftermatch did Helms calm down enough to be tolerable.
   
   Read the book, or skip the first 4 CDs if you have a weak stomach for saccharin.



2. This audio book went into a complete background of both Lisa and Todd Beamers lifes: from childhood, through school, to college and how they meet. It gives you great detail on the background of these two peoples lifes, but I felt it was too wordy at times, especially when I was expecting this book to be mainly an account of the 9/11 incidents. But when Lisa finally gets to this account in her book, it is very detailed and interesting. Lisa and Todds closesness and devotion to God give hope to the reader and our Nation .. a great reminder.



3. The book Lets roll is a good book for people to read what happened to Lisa. In this book she talks about her life, marriage, children and staying home taking care of her kids. A normal staying home mom. Lisa beamer is a wife of the 9-11 hero Todd beamer. Lisa was talking to Todd her husband on the phone while the terrorist were on the plane with him. Lisa has a lot of courage to write this book and put her life on the line for all of the nation to read she wrote the book of her life and her family. To tell the world what she was thinking the day of 9-11 and the days before and after the attacks was very hard for her as she said in the book but she was incredible open about it. Lisa talked about how her and her husband was a very close. Lisa now has three wonderful children. The title of the book Lets Roll came from when she was on the phone with her husband Todd and He was talking to another person on the flight and they were talking about how they were going to take down the terrorist or they wouldn?t make it through the day. I give this book four stars. Lisa beamer had a great deal of courage to talk about her life and her husband?s last words. Lisa was a great mother to her children. In 9-11 the attacks made a lot of family?s go lonely those nights. I liked this book because it shows a women who has great courage to talk about her husband she expressed her emoations. In a way that no women usually would



4. The book Lets roll is a good book for people to read what happened to Lisa. In this book she talks about her life, marriage, children and staying home taking care of her kids. A normal staying home mom. Lisa beamer is a wife of the 9-11 hero Todd beamer. Lisa was talking to Todd her husband on the phone while the terrorist were on the plane with him. Lisa has a lot of courage to write this book and put her life on the line for all of the nation to read she wrote the book of her life and her family. To tell the world what she was thinking the day of 9-11 and the days before and after the attacks was very hard for her as she said in the book but she was incredible open about it. Lisa talked about how her and her husband was a very close. Lisa now has three wonderful children. The title of the book Lets Roll came from when she was on the phone with her husband Todd and He was talking to another person on the flight and they were talking about how they were going to take down the terrorist or they wouldn?t make it through the day. I give this book four stars. Lisa beamer had a great deal of courage to talk about her life and her husband?s last words. Lisa was a great mother to her children. In 9-11 the attacks made a lot of family?s go lonely those nights. I liked this book because it shows a women who has great courage to talk about her husband she expressed her emoations. In a way that no women usually would



5. I think this should be required reading for every married couple with children. Lisa explains how dedicated (sometimes too dedicated) Todd was to his job and how he discovered there was more to life than just his job. It discusses the couple's negotiations over family time versus work time, and strong work ethic and faith values. I highly recommend anyone to give this book a read or a listen!

No comments about Land's Edge.

No comments about Mother Teresa: A Complete Authorized Biography.

5 comments about Fighting Fire.

1. Love this book; have read it over five times. The best part is her description of fighting fires..you can actually feel the heat of the fames as she fights the fire from the nozzle point. She could be a Joseph Wambaugh or Gina Gallo of fire fighting if she wanted to be. I think she's trying to go in a more literary direction, but I'd really like to see more fire fighting books out of her. The part of the book that surpised me was the "east coast" idea that a fire fighter was a "lowly" blue collar job. I'm from San Francisco, and here everyone looks up to the position of fire fighter as a very special job, that only a few chosen can do. It never occurred to me that people looked at fire fighters in any other way.



2. This and other books like this that focus on the minorities are the types of books that try to destroy the brotherhood of being a fireman. All the othe men that have had books written about them did something heroic to get that book about them these women did not when they do i will be more then happy to read their book.



3. I really enjoyed reading this book. I think everything that was written had it's place in the book. It was her book her story, told the way she felt it needed to be told. I think this would be a good book for anyone interested in becoming a firefighter.



4. This book had all the potential to become one of my favorites. As a young, aspiring female firefighter I anticipated finding in Paul a trailblazing mentor I could look up to. Instead I found myself faced with a colossal disappointment.
   
   First of all, she begins the book by mentioning her sexual escapades with a girl in college. Is that really necessary to the tale of becoming a firefighter, or did she just throw that in to sell a few extra copies of this book?? Next, not only does she take her testing with SFFD lightly, she repeatedly insults the profession throughout the book, all the way to the end. She grimaces with distaste and embarrassment that it is "blue collar work", god forbid! What will her Stanford friends think? Gasp!
   
   Furthermore, she seems high maintenanced and hyper sensitive when relating to the men of the department. She waxes on for years about some stupid fire station prank that a captain pulled on her. In my department, if you never have any good natured pranks pulled on you, you basically are not perceived as part of the family! It's a GOOD thing to be part of the jokes, and a healthy boost to morale.
   
   For a Stanford graduate, she seems to really have a hard time grasping simple concepts. "What does this mean?" seems to be her mantra throughout the book. This is not rocket science, it's firefighting. While academy certainly gives us a lot of information to process, it's pretty basic concepts!
   
   Finally, I find it hard to like her as a person due to her seemingly high level of conceit, which she unsuccessfully tries to disguise as modesty. She never fails to inform the reader of how beautiful or talented she is. Granted, the female firefighters of yesterday deserve to pat themselves on the back for making it a bit easier for us now, and I am truly humbled when in the presence of those female captains today. But Paul is a far cry from those aggressive women who refused to let a boys club like the fire department keep them out, fighting for their profession because they saw it as a noble and meaningful one. Paul is the opposite of the kind of women I seek out to train and mentor me, and I feel she gives women in the fire service the kind of negative press that anti-diversifying departments crave.



5. I would recommend this book to anyone in the field who has friends that are curious about the profession. While it's certainly one person's opinion, look past that and it's still a good read. Overall, it gives a good picture of what it's like to fight fire, save lives, and most importantly- live with the tragedy that you witness. I've given this book as a gift to friends who wonder what my job is like. It's entertaining and well written.

5 comments about Outwitting the Gestapo.

1. This "diary" was written 40 years after the events, so given that memories fade or are embellished, it's a little hard to know what to believe. I was hoping for another "Berlin Diaries" by Marie Vassiltchikov, but alas, it doesn't come close. A good editor was needed here because names are tossed around with little or no explanation, plus though it's in diary form, there are many lengthy flashbacks, making it confusing at times as to what is actually going on. You really don't know who half the people are but if you just forget about that and go with the story, it doesn't really matter. The other reviewers admirably described what Lucie Aubrac accomplished. Even if Raymond was a Nazi informer, as has been intimated, I don't think Lucie could have ever known or believed it. She is remarkable in that she doesn't just accept her husband's death sentence, she thinks up a clever plan to rescue him. She is tenacious and despite setback after setback, she just keeps focused. Unlike the Germans, Austrians, Belgians, etc., the French have had a very good public relations campaign to perpetuate the belief that just about everyone was in the Resistance. Of course now we know that only a small percentage of the populace were actively in the French Resistance. Lucie's book is a little biased--she rarely encounters anyone who doesn't feel the way she does. She takes few precautions and doesn't seem to be afraid of being caught. And sometimes it is hard to believe what she gets away with--you wonder if she really was as fearless as she portrays herself. Still, it's a good story and shows what people are capable of if they refuse to sit on the sidelines.



2. ..Set in Lyon after the Germans had invaded the southern 'zone libre' this book purports to be a diary, written during a nine month period of 1943 by one of the most France's most famous resistance 'personalities'. Claude Berri's acclaimed 1995 film 'Lucie Aubrac' was based on the events described. As a number of reviewers have already remarked , many scenes in this account appear to have been directly conjured up from the author's imagination and the Aubracs themselves, subject to media scrutiny as France's resistance history is increasingly put under the microscope have admitted that this book is indeed part novelisation. Translated from the French 'Ils partiront dans l'ivresse' the author revels in her self portrayal as mother, heroine, & machine gun toting guerilla fighter and resistance cell leader. No where does she state that she and her husband were leading lights in a communist resistance grouping and no light is shed at all on what their role might have been in the capture by the Gestapo of De Gaulle's envoy and resistance unifier Jean Moulin in Caluire, a suburb of Lyon during June 1943. One of the main espisodes of the book is Aubrac's attempt to liberate her husband, captured at the same time as Moulin and held by Gestapo chief Klaus Barbie. The facility with which she is able to come and go from Gestapo headquarters in Lyon has led more than one writer to question whether or not the Aubracs were indeed on Barbie's payroll; either that or many elements of Raymond Aubrac's subsequent escape are pure invention. Of course Klaus Barbie muddied the waters somewhat at his trial in the late 80's but the brutal portrayal of him here simply begs the question...how could he possibly have been taken in as Aubrac suggests. Post Liberation, Aubrac's husband oversaw the 'épuration' or cleansing in and around Marseilles and effectively presided over a killing spree as suspected collaborators were ruthlessly hunted out of French society and summarily executed in many cases. Facts that sit uneasily with the rather rose-tinted view of resistance presented here...In France the Aubrac's are still taking to court authors who question the veracity of their accounts...



3. Lucie Aubrac captivated me. She writes about facts with the warmth of a woman who is dedicated to the Resistance, to her husband, and to her child. When you read this you are plunged into the French Resistance almost as if you had been there!!!



4. Lucie Aubrac's first hand account of her "career" as a key member of the French resistance in the city of Lyon can't help but evoke an emotional connection between the author's gripping story and the reader sitting in comfort at home. I mostly second all that the previous reviewer lauded. The story itself is compelling, and the glimpse that it offers of a woman's struggle to balance the cares of wife, mother, "girlfriend," "fiancee," patriot, etc., provides a much needed balance to our understanding of the total effects of a conflict such as WWII. The personalness of the book is perhaps its greatest strength.

   The translation is extremely fluid and detracts not at all from the author's tale.

   Some criticism to keep in the back of the mind: it could simply be the author's purpose, however, I was struck by the seeming lack of concern of being caught -- until the end of the book (I won't spoil it for you). Lucie's life seems to be minimally impacted by her resistance ties. Like I said, maybe she left out those details on purpose, I don't know. The other thing the "bothered" me was the unconvincing account of how she was able to arrange for the purchase of silencers in Switzerland, travel to Switzerland to pick up the silencers, and then recross the border the same day without arousing suspicion. I doubt she was able to pick up the telephone and call a gun dealer to arrange the transaction -- maybe I missed it. Whatever, just something to consider.

   On the whole, I heartily endorse this book; it is exciting without being Bond-ish, and it is personal without being too proximate. Furthermore, it convincingly demonstrates the various motives of resistance, and it illustrates the fact that even a single person can make a difference in a struggle as vast as a world at war.




5. Outwitting the Gestapo is the real life experience of one woman's determination, at all costs, to save her husband, her true other half, from execution by the infamous Klaus Barbie, "Butcher of Lyon." That is what makes it so compelling. I was drawn to this memoir, written in diary form, from May 14, 1943 through February 12, 1944, because I had seen the French film, * Lucie Aubrac *. A gorgeous film, that follows the same experience as this book, I was left wanting more. I was richly rewarded by reading this intimate revelation of the French Resistance and the couple who are equally committed to each other and the freedom of France. This story is a vivid portrait of devotion and fortitude. Raymond, Lucie Aubrac's husband, and the father of her young son and the child she carries in her womb, is arrested and sentenced to die. Lucie has been involved with the resistance since its beginning, but with the advent of this new ordeal, she masterminds a terrifying attempt to free her beloved husband. With her "buddies" in the resistance, a plan is orchestrated that involves the increasingly expanding Lucie to have almost daily contact with Klaus Barbie. Singlehandedly, she attempts to convince this monster to allow a contact with Raymond, making Barbie believe that she is an unwed mother who must marry Raymond to give her child a name. Constantly changing names and domains, Lucie and the other members of the resistance live with the constant fear of being caught, yet nothing inteferes with their goals. Their unflinching resolve is what makes for true heroism; their dedication to each other redefines friendship for me. The film is indeed beautiful, but it is in many ways short-sighted. There is so much more to this story than is presented on celluloid. Lucie Aubrac tells her remarkable story while enveloping her comrades into her heart, and presents the reader with the depth of her love for Raymond and France. This book gives a more complete picture of France and the Resistance, and of course, the love that many people would want to die for. Outwitting the Gestapo gave me a deep feeling of satisfaction.

5 comments about Jefferson's Demons.

1. I would highly recommend this book. Beran makes the read a fun one.



2. It is perhaps hard to be sure this book is a putdown. For some, finding that Jefferson wasn't always rational and calm may make him more human and therefore more appealing, but for me it is a downer. He seems to have had a miseable inner life. Thank God that he was able nonetheless to do a lot of good. The book helps to explain many of Jefferson's wrongheaded views: about Hamilton, about the radicals in the French Revolution, etc.
   
   The author is talented but he quotes so extensively from Jefferson's own feelings, which in themselves are so unreadable, that the book necessarily becomes unreadable.
   
   This may indeed be a useful contribution to our knowledge but I could have done without it.



3. This book is a Bildungsroman: the Education of Thomas Jefferson. It's the story of how Jefferson struggled to form himself into a man capable of action--the story of his "paideia," as the author would have it, in a bow to his subject's lifelong love of the Greeks. JEFFERSON'S DEMONS describes the mysterious ways the Sage of Monticello educated himself and learned to tap his most profound creative instincts.

   Like so many great men, Jefferson was engaged in an ongoing conversation with the great men of the past, with Montaigne, Homer, Solon, Tacitus, Milton, Isaiah, Socrates, Jesus. Beran lets the reader overhear these conversations, and he shows us how Jefferson drew on them both in his private life and his public work.

   The author's richly allusive style is itself an instrument in the communication of his vision of Jefferson: there are passages in the book in which the prose has less affinity with the rhytmically and spiritually flat prose of the present than with that of the Caroline and late Elizabethan prose-stylists. This startling use of language and metaphor prepares the reader for the book's major reassessments of whole tracts of Jefferson's thought. The book provides a nuanced reading of Jefferson's "Whig" and "Tory" qualities, shows how deeply immersed Jefferson was in a Virginia culture of decadent feudalism, and contains an ingenious reading of the connection between Jefferson's "sentimentalism" and the mediaeval romance of the rose. Jefferson's architecture emerges as something more deeply felt than the pasteboard classicism it is often taken to be; and Beran ties his analysis of Monticello and the University of Virginia to his discussion of how Jefferson tried to reconcile his civic republican ideals (the communitarianism of the classical city-state, the Greek polis) with his commitment to Whig liberalism, with its emphasis on liberty of trade, liberty of the press, and liberty of conscience.

   I loved this book. It's a splendid account of Jefferson's self-culture and his attempts to apply the lessons he learned in the young American Republic, and it enlarges the number of intellectual debates in which Jefferson participated and through which he must examined.

   But the book's most important message is an intensely personal one. Jefferson spoke hopefully of the "progress to be made under our democratic stimulants until every American is potentially an athlete in body and an Aristotle in mind." Beran shows the reader how Jefferson, in trying to realize this potentiality in himself and in others, aspired to the Greek ideal of the statesman who is also an educator, one who can help people to know themslves and do their work.




4. I bought this book after reading the review in "The Wall Street Journal," which praised it as a "profound and exquisitely written meditation on the mind of America's most enigmatic Founder." I was skeptical at first; I did not want to read another study in what is sometimes called "pathography." But the book overcame my skepticism. The writing style is, I think, very fine, and owes something to the mandarin tradition exemplified by Lytton Strachey and Sir Thomas Browne. But what impressed me most about "Jefferson's Demons" was the complexity of the personality the author reveals in his protagonist. When I was in graduate school I read F.O. Matthiessen's classic study, "American Renaissance," in which Matthiessen argued that "notwithstanding the humaneness and toleration that made Franklin and Jefferson among the strongest bulwarks in our social heritage, it is forced inescapably upon us that their rationalism was too shallow to encompass the full complexity of man's nature." "Jefferson's Demons" makes a strong case that historians have misread Jefferson's "rationalism," and in especial have failed to do justice to the daemonic qualities in his neo-classical architecture. Jefferson was not as "shallow" as Matthiessen and others have supposed. He is interesting precisely because, as this book demonstrates, he is not a caricature of an Enlightened sage, a plaster-work Voltaire. Whether the Conradian nightmare described on page 250 of the book -- the accusation that Jefferson was once seen "FLOGGING IN THE MOST BRUTAL MANNER A NEGRO WOMAN" -- is true or not I can't pretend to say; but certainly Jefferson was more familiar with human nature's dark side than we've been led to believe. In any event "Jefferson's Demons" is a profound and brilliant book, and I am grateful for it; it is, I think, a classic of its kind.



5. I found this book fascinating. If it not always completely convincing, is is utterly thought provoking. Why have conventional historians missed the stuff this author has discovered in Jefferson? They must be blind. Did the third president "go out of doors each December and burn Adonis in effigy before the pillars of Monticello"? This book left me wondering just how far this supposedly Enlightened man went with his secret studies into the ancient mystery cults, weird fertility rites, the bacchanalia of antiquity. Jefferson even put implements of the primitive sacrifices -- knives and bulls' skulls and bloody dishes -- into his living room at Monticello. Sarastro had taken over here, and Master Adamo and Michael Scott! Yet Jefferson, the book shows us, did not stop with the mumming plays of the ancient fertility cults and the old pagan demonology; towards the end of his life he was as deeply immersed in the Bible and the Greeks, and he ends up playing the part of a democratic fisher king, a redeemer president. Going beyond his demons and sprites Jefferson turns to Socrates and Jesus. Like any intelligent man, he wanted to know why he was here, and like Solon, whose life he studied so carefully, his spiritual pilgrimage is a revelation. The book is in itself an education, showing as it does how closely Jefferson sympathized with the deepest spiritual currents of his civilization: with Solon and Socrates; with the 18th century sentimentalists who revived the love-poetry of Dante; with the black vesper-pageants of the Renaissance sages, Machiavelli, Montaigne, Shakespeare; with Goethe's walpugris-night dances and the myths which T.S. Eliot later used in creating his fertility tree in "The Waste Land" (cf. Jefferson's "tree of liberty"); with the early Greek theories of paideia (education) that underlie the University of Virginia and their relation to St. Jude's and Tertullian's theories of agape (love); with Aeneas' descent to the underworld in book six of Virgil's Aeneid and the "rival poet" of Shakespeare's sonnets; with Diotima's theory of Eros in Plato's Symposium, the witch of Endor, Simon Magus, the Jannes and Jambres and other wizards of the ancient Jews, and Machiavelli's theory that "the lust captain achieves greatness by raping Fortune, who by his seed is got with world-historic child." A truly exciting book, to my mind, one that shows how Jefferson used the spiritual resources of the West to invent himself -- and invent America.

5 comments about Finding Iris Chang: Friendship, Ambition and the Tragic Loss of an Extraordinary Mind.

1. Iris Chang had a gift for reaching scholars and public with groundbreaking writing. Paula Kamen has a worthy goal in trying to understand Chang, but her book could be much better. She approaches the subject in a breathless, watch-me-unravel-the-mystery style. Thus it fits in the confessional/personal memoir genre, but focusing on her own longterm relations with Chang is unfortunate. This leaves her unable to plumb the depths of Chang's work or her death. Kamen seems mostly uninterested in Chang's concerns, including the Rape of Nanjing but also Chinese immigrants in America. Fierce commitment to redressing wrongs against Chinese, eventually shading into obsession, marked Chang's work, so any study cries out for real scholarship on the issues she pursued. Without this "FIC" can only offer raw material for more substantive work. Despite Kamen's speculations the "mystery" is plain enough: sustained study of war crimes and human rights violations is inherently depressing, and Chang presumably succumbed to the weight of history she shouldered. Her unfinished project on the Bataan Death March (also very grim) tends to support this view. Iris Chang's research inspired readers, but it was sometimes flawed, notably in overstating Japanese refusal to confront their 1931-45 history. Engaging these issues is crucial to comprehending East Asia then and now. K. Honda ed, "Nanjing Massacre" critiques Chang fairly along with other writers; S. Ienaga, "Pacific War" grapples heroically with the horror of Japanese aggression. NB, it was rated 3 stars until reading comments on the "I agree with PW" review. The info there, from within the Chinese American community, seems unimpeachable. We will truly honor Iris Chang by holding biographers to a higher standard.



2. I hope this is not the last word on Iris Chang.
   
   In a precursive phone call Iris told her "friend", Paula Kamen (who found her exhausting), to tell everyone what she was like "before this happened." I didn't count, but there were probably more pages about "this" and its aftermath, than what she was like before it. Kamen's book does not fulfill her friend's request.
   
   Kamen had, and probably still has, a wonderful opportunity to provide insight. Unfortunately she gives us more about how she reacted to Iris, than about how Iris might have reacted to her. Why did Iris reach out to her? Did her interest in being a sorority member or homecoming queen inform her later career or was it a reaction? How did she become interested in Nanking? The questions surrounding her work on Nanking are huge and very little text is devoted to them.
   
   Whether or not Iris's son was acutally autistic is resolved near the end of the book, which makes it more of a literary device than an factor. Paula is honest but, for me, too causal about her own flaws in her relationship with Iris.
   
   I doubt that this is the telling that Iris had in mind.
   
   Kamen is not the journalist her friend was. Being a lay person, I'm glad to see someone in this profession take "no" for an answer, as Kamen did with Iris's mother, (and Iris at the Tribune where stakes were higher) but the flip side of this is her relaxed approach to the reponses of those who bow (and bowed) to pressure. While I am not a lawyer or reparations expert, I expect that the Holocaust survivors also met resistance of officials citing treaties and precedents. Kamen gives the nay sayers a pass.
   
   I think the world's hunger to know and understand this heroine has led to the warm reception this book has received by readers. I view it as a starting point for a more substantive treatment that I someone is working on right now.



3. I just finished "Finding Iris Chang" and am filled with respect and feeling
   for Paula Kamen! I am so moved both by Iris' tragic life and by Paula's revealing so
   much of what she went through in investigating Iris' suicide. I am
   particularly impressed by the no-easy-answers conclusion of the book; so
   much coincided to cause this perhaps unpreventable death. I am recommending
   the book to many friends.



4. Dear Paula,
   
   Thank you for writing Finding Iris Chang. I can only imagine how difficult it must have been to tell her story. For what it is worth, your pain did help me. When I read The Rape of Nanking I actually wondered how Iris could have coped with doing the research. When I read about her death I thought that her research into the Bataan Death March may have made matters worse.
   
   While we know that the insight into the dark side of humanity would take its toll on anyone, it is your account of Iris Chang's last days which helped me the most. I don't know if Iris could have been saved from her inner demons, but her work will survive. This book has contributed much to Iris Chang's legacy. I pray that in death, Iris finds the peace that eluded her in life.



5. As a writer, I appreciated Kamen's book very much. It helped to answer so many questions I had when I first read about Iris' death. I thought Kamen was very honest and respect her for taking on such a difficult project by risking criticism. I thought the Publishers' Weekly review was completely unprofessional, catty, and downright nasty. It only shows that Publishers' Weekly shouldn't be the only voice for reviews--they're just people with their personal opinions and I would have expected a far more professionaly-toned review than the one above. The review seems rather immature, when compared to Kamen's efforts, which I felt were mature, heartfelt, searching, and compassionate. I thought it took a lot of courage for Kamen to write about her honest feelings about Iris, which were ambivalent and fluid--they seemed to change through the years. Kamen also talks about her guilt and I think she covers important issues like ambition and fear of mental illness in the Asian American community, which I am a part of. I loved the book and felt it was really well done. I would recommend to anyone, Asian American or not, who was touched by Iris' life work.

1 comments about Producer.

1. Working through all the cd's of the audiobook was a marathon, but surprisingly addicting. I came away most impressed with David Wolper's determination. He has the courage to see things through even when facing tremendous obstacles. I found that inspiring.

5 comments about Into the Mirror: The Life of Master Spy Robert P. Hanssen.

1. The Robert Hanssen story is extemely bizarre and that's putting it mildly. Two contradictions stand out. First of all he was a religious zealot who dabbled in amateur pornography. Secondly he was a raging anti-Communist who used his position with the FBI to reveal critically important state secrets to the Soviet Union. Whether or not his hyper-religiosity and/or his adolescent attitude toward sex had anything to do with his treasonous acts may never be determined. One comes away from reading Master Spy by David Schiller believing that Hanssen initially betrayed his country for the money and later for the adrenaline rush associated with risking everything.
   
   This book is a "novelization" of Robert Hanssen's life. A number of liberties are taken with the truth. Many of the conversations that take place have been made up to reflect what certain individuals might have said. A number of important events are either given short shrift or omitted completely. Some of the supporting characters are not real people, rather they are composites assembled from actual Hanssen acquaintances. In short, Master Spy or Into the Mirror as the hardcover edition was originally titled is essentially a work of fiction based on the notorious Bob Hanssen case.
   
   When viewed as a reality based work of fiction, this book works reasonably well. The story is an interesting one, that point cannot be argued. The narrative flows relatively smoothly and gives the reader significant insight into the inner lives of Bob and Bonnie Hanssen and to a certain extent that of Bob's long time friend, Jack. It's a compelling tale, competently told. However, because it is a novelization, rather than a meticulously researched case study, Master Spy can only be a starting point for those readers wanting to know the factual underpinnings of this unique and highly disturbing episode in FBI history.
   
   I have only one major bone to pick with this book. Most of the dialogue Schiller puts in the mouths of his characters is not authentic sounding. Too much of it consists of formalized sentences that do not reflect the way people really talk to each other.



2. This is simply not a serious piece of work. It tries to be non-fiction while writing it within the style of fiction.
   
   It reminded me of those books that come out with a film saying "Based on the screenplay of the film."
   
   The Bureau and the Mole by David Vise was far better and revealed the same information.



3. Every page of this book is surprising and thought provoking. You gotta' read it. Lawrence Schiller's outstanding and concise writing is greatly aided by his research collaboration with Norman Mailer. They found a theme despite the fact that the deepest motivations of Robert P. Hanssen's behavior while turning himself into the spy who created the greatest breach of security in U.S. history--remain buried within himself. Critics of the movie of this book, cry out for a better peek into Hanssen's psyche, but it is unattainable. The book's theme had to be what it is, describe the observable conflict between Hanssen's psychosexual,religious, and political views, match them to chronological events, then put it all in such a way as to invite readers to pick up from there. I guessed that the doors to the Opus Dei group, to which Hanssen and his family were devoted, were barred to Schiller and Mailer. The most that could be written about it was written. (Opus Dei is also a subject of "Godfather III"). Schiller captures Hanssen's Moscow handlers, themselves conflicted between operating procedure and the collapse of the Soviet Union. The book left me thinking and imagining what Hanssen still keeps a secret, or maybe doesn't understand himself.



4. The newspaper and television reports of Robert Hanssen -- the FBI agent who spied for the Soviets in a frightening breach of national security -- were fascinating. But this book by Lawrence Schiller is silly.
   
   Schiller has borrowed heavily from Norman Mailer's screenplay. And this is what spoils it. In a screenplay, you have to invent dialogue for the characters, and you can get away with invented dialogue if people know it is based on a true story. But in a book that is supposed to be factual, such as this one, invented dialogue becomes a barrier to credibility if it is used frequently in private situations.
   
   In The Author's Note at the front of the book, readers are told that neither Hanssen nor his wife could be interviewed for the book because of a plea-bargain agreement they made with the Justice Department. So how the blazes can the author give Hanssen's conversations with himself in his bathroom, private conversations with his wife, and even how Hanssen's dog behaved when Hanssen took it for a walk?
   
   Every few pages of this book talk about things that happened in private -- in Hanssen's office, at his home, in the park. Hanssen is quoted in all these places, even though the author wasn't there, and neither was anyone else who was interviewed for the book. I found this distracting and very unbelievable. Even worse was the author's obsession with sex -- even making up details of what Hanssen allegedly thought and did when no one but Hanssen could possibly know these things.
   
   I rated this book as two stars because I didn't find any spelling mistakes or typographical errors. But as for the believability of the dialogue and private incidents, it doesn't even rate one star.



5. Certainly Robert P. Hanssen was a difficult man to understand but the main problem that I have with this book it is impossible to determine whether you are reading real facts or fiction.
   
   After reading the book, I am not sure whether it was the excitement or the money that was the major cause.
   
   Anyway I was hoping for a study of what Robert P. Hanssen gave away. The effect on security etc. There is little of this.

No comments about Ladies of the Court: Grace and Disgrace of the Women's Tennis Circuit.