5 comments about Flags of Our Fathers.

1. I'd read "Flags of Our Fathers" after the superb "Flyboys," and perhaps it was only too easy to be disappointed. "Flyboys" is an amazing book, both focused on the immediate and on the greater picture; even for people who've read plenty of history, there are fresh revelations on every page.
   
   "Flags of our Fathers," on the other hand, is a much more conventional history book, much more narrowly focused. Bradley does do a good job of reaching beyond his father, as he didn't have to do; but he doesn't do a particularly good job of bringing readers into the moment, or of putting them into the greater context.
   
   The story of the men in the famous -- almost ignored -- photo is one that could be told, and should have been told, and was told well enough in "Flags of our Fathers." It's just hard not to wish for something a bit more, as when the author caught his voice in "Flyboys."



2. 
   This book is the story of the the amphibious landing, the battle for Mount Suribachi, the three airstrips, Nishi Ridge and finally Kitano Point. Sixteen of three hundred and 82 pages tells briefly of the stateside Bond Drive.
   
   Nothing in this book, approaches the moral ambiguity shown in the film of the same title, which shows only the amphibious landing as far as battles for the critical features of the island. With Bradley's book, there is only a respectful tone, and the heroism of the men is never brought into question. This is one of the great military histories concerning a critical battle in the South pacific.
   
   /



3. I'm so glad to have read this book. It created so much discussion among my social circles because I was amazed by the information. I learned more about WWII than I did in my history classes in high school and college because I was drawn into the book through learning about the lives of the 6 flagraisers at Iwo Jima. The book introduces you to each character, how they "joined" the war, their experience at the flagraising and their life after their service in the military. A GREAT read!



4. I am glad I saw the movie first. The book and its story of the real life men who raised the flags over Iwo Jima is far superior. Better yet is that the book focuses more attention on the Battle of Iwo Jima itself, whereas the film devoted a inordinate attention to the bond drive.
   
   FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS is not just one story, but multiple tales about the Marines who stormed ashore on the black sands of Iwo Jima and raised the second flag over the pork-chop-shaped volcanic isle. Through the book we follow them through their very unremarkable varied beginnings through the survivor's post war battles with their fame. Author James Bradley had particular interest in the subject matter as his father, Navy Corpsman John Bradley, was one of the flag raisers.
   
   John Bradley rarely spoke to his son about his part in the flag raising. Indeed Bradley's method of coping with his horrific wartime experiences was to be a loving husband, good father, successful businessman and contributor to his community. James Bradley's search for his father's wartime experiences found his dad's story linked to that of that great battle and the Marines. Of the three surviving flag raisers John Bradley was the only one who was able to pull his life together and move on, albeit with occasional nightmares that left him sobbing.
   
   The book does a great job contrasting the lives of the surviors. Bradley's veteran years contrast sharply with that of fellow flag raiser and Pima Indian Ira Hayes. In the book we find the beginning of Hayes' downward spiral months before he even set foot on Iwo Jima. Hayes eventually sought post war refuge through alcoholism and inability to rise above anything other than living a hard life. Bradley's narrative highlights some intersting parallels in both men's lives. John Bradley harbored the true fate of his horribly tortured close friend Ralph Ignatowski, while Ira Hayes carried the truth about the misidentification of one of the flag raisers. Both men made their own pilgrimages to the families of the dead Marines to unburden their souls.
   
   A large portion of the book covers the battle itself. Twenty-two thousand Japanese defenders fought from caves, concrete blockhouses, and miles of tunnels carved through the volcanic tuff. For many Marines, supported by numerous quotes in the book, Iwo was Hell itself.
   
   There are very few good contemporary books written about Iwo Jima. Although FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS leans heavily on actions directly related to the flag raisers, it includes numerous vignettes representative of the overall battle. FLAGS is much better than Bradley's subsequentwork FLYBOYS. Where FLYBOYS straddles a potpourri of seemingly unrelated topics, FLAGS remains focused on the flagraisers.
   
   This book is available in several different editions, sizes, and print formats.



5. I'm an amateur World War II historian, a huge fan of the USMC, and I love the country of my birth, the United States of America. So please don't think this review is meant to be anti-soldier or anti-American.
   
   What's funny about this book is that the son/author TOTALLY misses the big points that his father/warrior tried to teach. Namely: (1.) if you have to serve your country in wartime, you do it AND THEN YOU SHUT UP, and (2.) the heroes of conflict are THOSE WHO DIED FIGHTING, not the ones who acted bravely and were lucky enough to survive. And I'm not making this up out of spite: I have read the book, and that's the understanding I derived from the description of the father/warrior.
   
   Yet in "Flags of Our Fathers," the flag-raisers of Iwo Jima are somehow superior to the thousands of GI's who died fighting on that island because the former were in an iconic photograph, and the ones who died weren't. The author of the book both milks that photograph (i.e., no photograph = no book entitled "Flags of Our Fathers") for personal glory and simultaneously shames the federal government of 1945 for cashing in on that iconic image.
   
   Throughout the whole book, there is some sort of "you-can-have-it-both-ways" fog. For example (and I cite this example from another Amazon citizen reviewer), why is it BAD for the Iwo Jima flag-raiser Rene Gagnon to have tried to make money off his experience, and OKAY for James Bradley (who wasn't even born in 1945) to write a book and make money off the same event?
   
   Why is it commended in "Flags of Our Fathers" that the Marines are all about teamwork and brotherhood, but also okay for the Bradley family of suburban Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to arrange a VIP trip for themselves to Iwo Jima in the 1990's to deposit a plaque on Mount Suribachi that mentions and honors ONLY their relative, and NONE of the other flag-raisers?
   
   This is a GREAT book about The Greatest Generation, and a great honor to a small group of brave, very young men who raised the flag over Iwo Jima on that hellacious day. No doubt! But this text is limned in insincerity, contradiction, and (what must be unintended) irony.

1 comments about On the Big Blackfoot.

1. "On the Big Blackfoot" is a series of readings and narratives by Norman Maclean and his son, John, plus an interview with Norman Maclean that I found to be the most interesting part of the recording. The focus of the discussions is quite naturally "A River Runs Through It," but they do go a bit beyond it. If you are a fan of any of Maclean's work, then hearing his voice is a treat.

5 comments about Remind Me Who I Am, Again.

1. I thought this was a thoughtful, touching memoir written by a daughter about her Mother. I wish she would have written more about the two of them.



2. Linda Grant, a feature writer for the Guardian [UK], has written a memoir about memory, focusing both on the loss of her family's history as the older generations die off and the deterioration of her mother's mind due to Multi-Infarct Dementia [MID], which stifles short-term memory and gradually scrambles older recollections. The book is also a intensely personal struggle against the guilt and helplessness one feels when making the necessary decision to commit a loved one to an institution.
   
   Grant is descended from Jewish immigrants who arrived from Russian and Poland and settled in Britain and America before the Second World War. (Many of her family's relatives who remained behind were, of course, killed by the Nazis.) A somewhat rebellious daughter during the heady and reckless Sixties, she soon realizes that all those stories that used to bore her as a child will soon be lost forever: "My mother, the last of her generation, was losing her memory," she mourns. "In a hundred years there will no one left alive who remembers her, who can tell you who she was.... Without the past we're nothing, we belong to nobody." All that remain are a few scattered photographs and letters lacking any basic context and the occasional recollection that her mother summons up out of the blue and whose authenticity Grant can no longer verify.
   
   The second aspect of the book is the most moving--and the most laudable. Grant recounts the frustrations and the episodes that led her and her sister to intercede and commit their mother to a care center, and she describes the legal and bureaucratic obstacles that nearly prevented them from making this step. What makes this decision particularly difficult--and, to some strangers, hardhearted--is that her mother is capable of periods of perfect lucidity and social grace. Grant describes how, while her mother's domestic conditions and intellectual capacity deteriorated to the point where she became a danger to herself, she retained an acute awareness of how she appeared to others as well as "the basest, most acquisitive part of ourselves"--the urge to go shopping: "So we shop together, outside time, mother and daughter united each in our own purposeful quest to do what we have always done, and which to her goes on making sense."
   
   What keeps this book from surrendering to guilt and self-pity is Grant's admirable sense of humor--some of her sketches are heart-achingly funny--as well as the research that lends its framework an aura of objectivity. "Remind Me Who I Am, Again" certainly provides comfort and advice to relatives of those with aging family members, but it is also a valuable read to anyone who cares about individual memory and family history.



3. I bought this book after hearing the NPR interview with the author, because a close friend was coping with a similar situation (mother slipping into dementia, angry outbursts, fighting to get out of nursing home). This book is a fascinating portrait of the author's parents, their good points and bad. Very readable. I didn't want to put it down.



4. Linda Grant has just won the British Orange Prize 2000 for her new book "When I Lived in Modern Times". As with her first well-received novel "The Cast Iron Shore" (out of print), this is a skilful combination of the personal and the political. In the Orange winner book, we follow the fortunes of Evelyn Sert who leaves postwar UK after her mother's death for a new life in Palestine. Evelyn never knew her father and grew up in what she describes as a 'shadow family', her mother the mistress of a married Jewish businessman. Arriving in British-ruled Palestine, Evelyn is like a blank canvas, in search of an identity for herself. An admirer of all things modern and with no interest in the past, she finds herself in a country with its face turned firmly towards the future. Evelyn settles in the modern city of Tel Aviv and soon becomes involved with the struggle for Jewish independence. Assuming the identity of hairdresser enables her to pass information about the policemen husbands of her British clients to her lover in the Jewish underground movement. Tel Aviv is home to the Jewish refugees of the world and Evelyn soon discovers that it is one thing to survive, but another to survive intact. Grant produces strong visual imagery and dynamic characters with memorable voices that resonate throughout this enticing and satisfying novel. A deserved prize, then.



5. If you've ever had a relative or loved one slip away into dementia, this book will strike home. And if you've had a friend going through this experience, this book will help you to understand what they are going through. This book, like the experience of living with dementia, is at times funny, at times tearful. It's an honest picture of what it's like to be with someone who is rapidly losing who they were.

5 comments about Natural Blonde: A Memoir.

1. This is a very entertaining book, full of interesting anecdotes about a wide range of people. Liz Smith is known as the gossip columnist who doesn't sling mud, and what a relief that is! In this age of tell-all tabloid journalism, she has remained a cut above and is all the more fascinating because of it. This is perfect reading that delivers one from the harsh realities of everyday life, but which is not at all escapist. Liz Smith has the gift of being in the right place at the right time with the right people and writing about it with graceful humor.



2. Oddly dull, considering the author makes her living by writing and that her writing is on gossip.
   
   I was surprised at how many times I thought to myself, "I guess you had to be there," in response to her narration of an allegedly wild and crazy party.
   
   I was amused when she noted how something or another she wrote created a "sensation." Perhaps they created a sensation among certain cliques in Manhattan or the Hamptons, but they didn't hit my radar screen. Just goes to show how each of us is the center of our own universe.
   
   Possibly the most irksome feature in the book was when she'd refer to "my friend so-and-so" [insert extremely interesting person's name here]in passing, without offering up any information about that person. Instead, she squandered many pages on the likes of the Trumps and others of that ilk.
   
   She kept my interest most when she described her childhood and young adulthood.



3. Liz Smith was gossip columnist par excellence but, no, she wasn't a natural blonde. The book is full of photos (half her life, she had dark hair) with the famous and infamous. She was the ultimate party girl in the early fifties in New York.
   
   She had a lovely mother but her two grandmothers looked like mine in Tennessee. Age was not good for women in the thirties, forties, and fifties unless they were rich and, though her father owned a farm and horses, they were not on the upper scale. She liked Tom Mix, the cowboy and never got over her desire to be a real cowgirl; kept his picture even through two marriages.
   
   Growing up in Texas, she had a lot of LBJ's 'bigger-than-thou' bravado. Seems to me I remember her at one of his press conferences but she claims the closest she got to doing a piece on the Johnson daughters for Cosmopolitan was a clandestine meeting at the St. Regis Hotel with Homer Busby, an aide to the president. She'd known him at the University of Texas where she was a journalism student. She says she was in her 'tart' dressing at the time, min-skirt and all.
   
   The photo display shows her with a plethora of important people always partying. She is shown with a young Barbara Walters, who describes her as "provacative without being vicious." She was not impressed with Sonny and Cher, put them down; guess they weren't "classy" enough. Sonny went on to become a Mayor.
   
   There are photos of her with Liberace, Truman Copote, and Bill Clinton. She had an active social life and was the Joan Rivers of her time. In 1976, she wrote a column for New York Daily News.
   
   A memoir is just that, memories we want people to know about us, and she furnishes a full plate. She sought a campy, bohemian life and had a ball fulfilling it on a large scale.



4. After reading this autobio, I feel I know little more about Liz than I would have from reading her resume. She chronologically recounts the passage of her life without revealing much about herself personally or emotionally. She gushes over most people. Most seem to like her too, but aside from her generous charity work, it's hard to understand why, since we don't learn much about her as a person. She conveniently elects not to reveal the names of those she wishes to protect, while having no qualms about publishing gossip about those she doesn't. The last portion of the book is marginally more interesting than the first.



5. Go. Go now and get this book. Lots of lovely yummy tidbits from a sweet-spirited, good writer. I'm not usually keen on memoirs, but not one page of the book bored me. A fabulous read and a great gift--for yourself.

5 comments about Bend in the Road Is Not the End of the Road, A.

1. Having recently gone through a major change of my own I saw this book on tape and thought I would listen to it. I have read quite a few self help books on change from more "accepted" authorities but she has given me inspiration and really made real the fear that one can feel and how to calm yourself. I have read a lot of self help books but this was like listening to a friend tell you how she got through it. It made me realize that my change is only a fork in the road and that life can get better.



2. I tried to like this book, but it was a little too dull and boring. Her sense of humor seems contrived. I'm sure she is a nice person, but this book did not hit home with me. It didn't speak to me.

   It seems like she just wrote this book to make money.




3. I reviewed the audio tape several times and found it to be very helpful in our approach of how we deal with issues in everyday life. While many of the stories were insightful and inspiring, the one that most stuck with me was when she talked about one of her aids on Good Morning America that told Joan that she could start her day over whenever she liked, when she felt that Joan was off to a bad start in the early morning hours when most of us are still in bed. We all deal with rough times in our lives, and it is important to learn how to best deal with those times. Joan Lunden shares some idea's that would help most anyone. I also attended an Anthony Robbins seminar a few years ago - where he had assembled numerous celebrity or high achievers to speak to the thousands assembled. Joan Lunden was by far the best speaker there. This is not only a great tape or book to review, it would be one that others would really benefit from.



4. I picked this audio book up in a discount store. It was truely what I call a diamond in the rough. Sometimes people give them selves a self evaluation and feel that they need to make changes in their lives but just don't know how or where to begin. I am at that point and thru much prayer my answer came from this book. It makes you realize that though change is a part of life and sometimes it is vital, it is how we handle it that can make the difference. I've read the reviews and I while they are all different it is how we view something as to how we will benefit from it. There are some things I did not agree with and I chose not to focus on those things. There was much that I can use to my advantage and I choose to do just that. My whole life is about to change. From a person who felt that there was no hope I can say keep looking and keep praying. Faith is the substance of things hoped for. Keep an open mind and an open heart and be ready to recieve the blessings.



5. I picked this audio book up in a discount store. It was truely what I call a diamond in the rough. Sometimes people give them selves a self evaluation and feel that they need to make changes in their lives but just don't know how or where to begin. I am at that point and thru much prayer my answer came from this book. It makes you realize that though change is a part of life and sometimes it is vital, it is how we handle it that can make the difference. I've read the reviews and I while they are all different it is how we view something as to how we will benefit from it. There are some things I did not agree with and I chose not to focus on those things. There was much that I can use to my advantage and I choose to do just that. My whole life is about to change. From a person who felt that there was no hope I can say keep looking and keep praying. Faith is the substance of things hoped for. Keep an open mind and an open heart and be ready to recieve the blessings.

4 comments about Noah Webster: The Life And Times Of An American Patriot.

1. I found this fantastic book on the clearance stack at Border's. I became aware of Webster's importance from references to him in other books on the Founding Fathers. However, it wasn't until I read Unger's work that I fully appreciate how important Webster really was. Soon after graduating from Yale, the Connecticut native embarked on a lifelong dream of improving the educational system of the fledgling country to both unify it and to instill the young with the moral and intellectual virtues necessary to maintain a free republic.
   
   The first step was to have America adopt an agreed upon spelling convention tailored to the US to replace the current chaotic spellings borrowed from Britain. After years of hard work, he succeeded in getting his spelling books adopted in practically all schools within the US. The book later was nicknamed The Blue-Backed Speller and was the standard in American schoolrooms throughout the 19th century. To protect his creation, he successfully petitioned national leaders and all state legislatures to enact America's first copyright protection laws. In the course of his campaign he befriended George Washington, Ben Franklin, James Madison, and John Jay. An ardent nationalist, Webster wrote a widely read political tract in 1785, Sketches, calling for a strong national government to replace the Articles of Confederation. This work would have a powerful impact on the Convention of 1787 as Washington summoned Webster to Philadelphia to meet nightly with him and other attendees to solicit his views on how to craft the new constitution.
   
   In 1793, he returned to the national political scene to take the lead in countering the French representative Citizen Genet, who, on behalf of the revolutionary government, actively attempted to convince the American citizenry to overthrow President Washington in order for the US to support France in its struggle against Britain. (France's malevolent intentions included having the US become a French vassal state. ) Couching his speeches in the ideals of the American revolution, Genet gained quite a bit of popular support. However, Webster exposed the ruse and denounced American supporters for Genet as dupes. He publicly defended Washington and his administration's stand on neutrality against the onslaught of the anti-Federalist press, who sympathized with Genet.
   
   Besides serving in local politics, Webster led scientific inquiries with help from Benjamin Rush to combat infectious diseases (a world first) and to abolish slavery. Toward the end of his life, he embarked on his greatest achievement: a new, comprehensive dictionary of the English language. His endeavor comprised decades of research which included his learning several languages, both old and new, and traveling to the national libraries of France and Britain for etymological histories of words. His achievement won him stunning praise from the world over.
   
   A family man, Webster's indomitable character was forged by his strong Calvinist beliefs. This book traces the life of a most remarkable individual and too sadly neglected Founding Father. The book is written in an easy style and an obvious result of a great deal of research. A must for those seeking to appreciate the reason behind America's success over the last two centuries.



2. This is an outstanding biography of a person who, because he never held high political office, is less well known than he deserves to be. In reading about Webster's life, one also learns much about the political controversies of the early United States--how many know, for example, that George Washington had bitter political enemies while President, or that the War of 1812 was so unpopular in New England that it prompted many there (including Webster) to discuss seceding from the Union? This biography deserves to be widely read.



3. In his preface, the author notes that Noah Webster is so famous for his dictionary that it's overshadowed his many other achievements. Too true! I was amazed to learn of Mr. Webster's achievements in politics and education reform, particularly the influential role he played in shaping the U.S. Constitution. This book is a Must Read for anyone who wants a deeper and more accurate view into early American history.



4. If you're ready for a reprieve from contemporary biographical sleaze, read this fine biography of Noah Webster, a good and moral man who held his family and country in balanced respect. You have lots to learn from this book if all you know about Webster is the dictionary. What surprised me was a life that spanned the years from colonial times to the mid-19th century. This was a man who never held high elective office but was an influential friend of those who did -- Washington, Franklin, John Adams and Madison. He spent months traveling up and down the East coast, espousing his beliefs in the ideals of Federalism. He advocated tirelessly for an American language and literature independent of the British tradition. To protect himself against piracy of his highly popular reader for schoolchildren, he campaigned successfully for copywright legislation. For this reader, whose last course in American History is a blurred memory, the "times" part of this story was as fascinating as the "life." I was reminded of the chaos of the country in the interim between the Revolution and Constitutional Convention, of Shay's Rebellion, of the acrimonious regionalism that nearly tore apart the young country, of the XYZ affair, and the threat to a fragile democracy of the War of 1812. I was made to recall the inadequacies of early American education and the perils of public health before urban sanitation systems. In this carefully-researched portrait, Unger presents Webster sympathetically as an American Renaissance man, curious and informed in fields from law to medicine to philosophy to lexicography. One of Yale University's early graduates, he spent his life educating himself. Because Webster was such an assiduous diarist and letter-writer, the book also provides a rich portrait of his family and private life -- his devotion to his wife and children, his frustration with a ne'er-do-well son, his financial concerns, and his delight in hearth and home. The culmination of the story is the dictionary, the product of a lifelong belief in the necessity of a uniform American language to unify the disparate voices of a young nation. Webster the scholar devoted years of careful research to this project, both at home and in Europe. His efforts secured his mention in history books. Harlow Unger's book fleshes out the man and his times with substance and grace.

5 comments about Educating Esme: Diary of a Teacher's First Year.

1. "Educating Esme" is a great book for any new or perspective teacher. She uses humor to demonstrate the struggles of a first year teacher, and yet the book isn't entirely about those struggles. It also includes some cute anecdotes about the little things that make you want to be a teacher and some great classroom ideas! This book is a great read if you want to be inspired as a teacher!



2. Things have fallen to a very low level indeed when the best an institution has going for it is a single star. Think of a ballet company, a baseball team, or even a corporation. What would it be like if only of person in the group was doing a good job? This is the premise of Esme's memoir. "Look at me! I'm edumacating 'em!" Mind you, this has been a trend in American education now for some thirty years. These earnest Antioch College types with zebra leotards and high-top tennis shoes want to dance on their desks. It's the Robin Williams to-the-rescue syndrome. Meanwhile the schools fall apart: there is no discipline, no curriculum, no learning. Ms Esme's is a name-caller, whose deepest insight is that her principal is "homophobic." Of course. But she'll straighten them all out with her philosophy of inclusion and her love of diversity. The career teachers are dismissed by these walk-through reformers as standing in the way of change, with the result that most inner-schools are revolving doors of "burned-out" do-gooders who take Fridays off to recharge their batteries. After two years they hit the road and tell everyone they miss the kids. How long can a society survive such an assault?



3. This book is a great book for anyone looking at the teaching profession. I used it in an education introduction class and it is very insightful as well as just a great read. This is a real life personal experience in the first year of teaching for Esme, and shows the good and the bad of teaching as well as effective and ineffective teaching strategies. Great for education, thought, or just enjoyment!



4. Everthing that Esme says really hits me hard because I'm a student in the typical public school. I really wish I had a teacher like this, who could make boring subjects interesting, instead of reading everything straight out of the text book.
   I didn't think she was too self-absorbed, as many reviewers have said, I think her need for approval is very appropriate. I mean, I would just scream having to be in the unhealthy enviroment Esme is in. She handled everything with confidence and was always there for her "children."
   This is a great read for anyone who has ever stepped foot in a public school. All of her stories are either entertaining or shocking, and definitely worth reading twice.



5. In our day and age, years equal experience. Well, not in this story! As an educator, I, like Esme, can see the profound lack of capability in American schools. Teachers are expected to follow guidelines and do what the principal suggests with no argument (apparently that is a guarantee of keeping one's job these days). Esme questions the status quo and challenges each of us to do the same. Many of the decisions that are made regarding schools are done by politicians who have never set foot in classroom. I've read some of the other reviews. I think the people who didn't like the book thought so because they are the types of people that Esme bulldozed in the story; those lousy teachers who run any idea into the ground because it wasn't their own-- who have sat all day in front of a class for 20 some years and have yet to come up with an individual thought. She deserves self-promotion. Clearly she's not too bad-- she got asked back for a 2nd year at the same school and won an amazing literary award. I think I would share my excitement with my diary.

No comments about John F. Kennedy: A Personal Story (Biography Audiobooks).

3 comments about The Middle Place.

1. This book is wonderful. I do not feel worthy to write about this, as she is such a beautiful writer!
   
   I am a working mother with 2 young kids and I feel harried all the time. This was such a treat for me in my crazy life. I looked so forward to my reading time every night before bed. One minute, I was crying (as she detailed the special relationship she has with her dad) and the next I was laughing out loud (at the story of her losing her virginity). Kelly has an amazing gift. I was left inspired to be a better mom, friend, wife and daughter, and at the same time, I just thoroughly enjoyed myself while reading this.
   
   I went to a reading by Kelly in the Philadelphia suburbs and she is as delightful and funny in person as she is in the book.
   
   This is a special book. Do something nice for yourself and read this book. You'll be happy you did.



2. I can't believe I'm only the second person to review this on Amazon. That's okay, because the author Kelly Corrigan, might actually read this then.
   
   Kelly (and everyone else), AWESOME book. I picked up the book at Borders while I waited for my husband to finish deciding on a purchase. The cover and blurb made me only mildly interested. But in the five minutes that I read I thought, "Wow, this is really good." And the next day I checked on Amazon to see if there was an audio version, which there was, and I heard a snippet of the audio which is played with the video on this page. I assumed it was 'read by the author.' I think I assumed that because the story is deeply personal and so is the telling of it. 'Reading' doesn't do justice to how this book comes alive.
   
   I do much of my 'reading' as I drive to and fro work on a long commute and this book falls into my category of being so good that I 1) am sorry to have finished it. 2) brought it inside my house to play while I did dishes. Just listening to it on the car ride was not enough!
   
   Somewhere in the Epilogue or Acknowledgements, there is a statement that the author is "not really a writer, but just a housewife with a laptop." Oh, no you don't. 'Writer' doesn't even do justice to the great storytelling ability of Kelly Corrigan. This is a tremendously honest and poignent narrative that will touch your heart.



3. Aptly titled, The Middle Place refers to the times in our lives when we're both child of our parents and a mother or father ourselves. We can be torn by these allegiances or as Kelly Corrigan did discover untapped resources within us and a deeper understanding of life.
   
   The author begins her memoir with "The thing you need to know about me is that I am George Corrigan's daughter, his only daughter." For her that was akin to being royalty - totally loved, always encouraged, protected, safe, and happy. George, often called Greenie, was a larger than life man, a robust Irish Catholic ad salesman and lacrosse coach who never knew a stranger, enjoyed life to the fullest, and doted on his only daughter.
   
   How could any boyfriend or husband begin to give Kelly what she received from her father? That's a difficult, almost impossible act to follow. She recounts a time after she and Edward have begun living together when she had excitedly told him that she's just gotten a new job with a great salary. Of course, she expected some sort of mini celebration that evening. Instead, Edward came through the door and began checking the day's mail. When she became exasperated at his lack of enthusiasm for what has just happened to her, he replied, "I'm not Greenie, Kelly. No one is." That was the truth and in a way the beginning of her emergence into adulthood.
   
   The time came when Kelly was diagnosed with breast cancer and her beloved father who lived some 3,000 miles away was also cancer stricken. The man who had always been her mainstay now needed support himself. She is a married woman with two young children and as she says absolutely no time for "lumps."
   
   That this story can be told with humor, honesty and grace is a tribute not only to Kelly Corrigan the person but to Kelly Corrigan the writer. She is superb! Her descriptions and similes are unique, true, and sing as her pen reveals what her eyes have seen and her heart has felt.
   
   An accomplished voice performer, Tavia Gilbert is equally at home with commercials, jingles, songs, business presentations, and even assuming a fine British accent. Her narration of The Middle Place appropriately captures Kelly's tragedies and triumphs. Excellent listening!
   
   - Gail Cooke

No comments about The Soldier's Wife.