1 comments about The Nazi Officer's Wife: How One Jewish Woman Survived the Holocust.

1. The Nazi Officer's Wife: How One Jewish Woman Survived The Holocaust is an unabridged audiobook detailing the true story of an intelligent Jewish law student who was forced into a slave labor camp during the genocidal horrors of World War II. To survive, Edith hahn Beer had to adopt the identity of a Christian friend and hide. A Nazi Party member fell in love with Edith and helped her remain concealed throughout the war. Edith's story is now documented in the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. A profound and unforgettable true story, The Nazi Officer's Wife is deftly narrated by Barbara Rosenblat. 6 cassettes, approximately 9 hours.

2 comments about Giving Birth, Finding Form: 3 Writers Explore Their Lives, Their Loves, Their Art.

1. Listening to this tape is like sitting across the table having tea with these three wise and wonderful women. They bring their insights into life from different cultures, and yet show how much we all share. You will absolutely love this tape. Listening to any one of these women is a fabulous experience, and here that is compounded.



2. One does not have to be Alice Walker's, Isabel Allende's or Jean Bolan's admirer to listen to this tape. The language, sincerity and humor are simply irresistable. I would recommend this tape to everyone - not only women. Men can learn a lot from these three wonderful writers.

5 comments about Theodore Rex.

1. It is difficult not to come away from "Theodore Rex" impressed. Indeed, after I read just the first few pages, I was completely hooked. In "Theodore Rex," Edmund Morris hasn't just written a great book about TR's presidential years, he's drawn in vivid, rich, delightful detail a great story about America's most unique modern President. While I won't say this book is as good or substantive as say David McCullough's "Truman" (and in a sense, it doesn't need to be since "Truman" rehabilitated President Truman's place in history whereas TR's strong place among our greatest executives has been well-established for some time), I can't imagine anyone writing a more engaging, fascinating book about TR's years in the White House.
   
   I strongly disagree with the reviewers who have argued that "Theodore Rex" does not give the reader a great sense or understanding of TR himself. In his stories and descriptions of TR in his relations with family, allies, cabinet members, Congress, the press, and his enemies, Morris has drawn a strong as well as complex portrait of the 26th President. He was all at once a brilliant man and surprisingly well-read in a multitude of different fields of literature, a skilled outdoorsman who loved not only to hunt big game -- a lasting image even today -- but to just spend weeks on end outdoors watching, documenting, and enjoying nature, a loving family man who doted on his six children and wife, a shewd politician for his day who was keenly aware of political strategy and worked hard to bolster his party's strength in Congress and across America, and perhaps most of all a plain and powerful force of nature (using the description of Henry Adams) who in many ways defied explanation or analysis from many learned observers of his day who had simply never seen or encountered any one quite like Theodore Roosevelt. In sum, therefore, Morris does a great job in "Theodore Rex" not just of telling a great story, but also in crafting a superb, rich picture of the first President Roosevelt.
   
   After reading the book, I was struck by the belief that TR really was the perfect leader for America as it was becoming a world super power at the dawn of the 20th Century. Despite being perceived as an accidental President and a ruffian cowboy, TR's boundless reserve of energy turned out to the perfect tonic to lead the U.S. In turn, he was received with open arms by Americans, and could have easily been elected to another term in 1908 had he decided to run again. Furthermore, "Theodore Rex" only reinforced my belief that TR could have been a great leader of America today. His energy, optimism, strength in the face of enemies both foreign and domestic, uncorruptability (if such a word exists!), and deep compassion for others were timeless qualities.
   
   "Theodore Rex" is a top-notch political biography, certainly up there with some of my favorites including "Huey Long" by T. Harry Williams, the LBJ series by Robert Caro, and "Truman" by McCullough. Incidentally, while the book is not particularly heavy on academic analysis of TR's policies, particular attention is paid to numerous key events including TR's negotiation of peace in the Russo-Japanese War, his formulation of the Northern Securities case and greater government regulation of big businesses, his strong determination towards national conservation, and even TR's cautious (and albeit limited) steps to embrace Booker T. Washington and greater rights and protections for blacks at the turn of the century.
   
   Let me close out this way. I like to consider myself a fairly good writer, but reading work like this shows me I'm pretty much nothing. If I could write like anyone, I would like to possess Edmund Morris' unparalleled ability to tell a story. "Theodore Rex" flows perfectly and the prose runs like butter. Reading his work in "Theodore Rex" is a pleasure.



2. Theodore Roosevelt was such an engaging personality that it would've been very hard to make this book anything less than terrific, and the well-written prose takes things to a very high level. The pages rolled by quickly, and I regularly found myself thinking "How in the world did this man accomplish so much with his life and his Presidency?" From the early battles with Mark Hanna to the final return of the Great White Fleet, Morris follows the endlessly energetic Roosevelt through the highs and lows of his (almost) two terms. His careful attention to details of Roosevelt's private life adds even more color to the man.



3. Edmund Morris provides yet another great addition to the life of Theodore Roosevelt in this look at his time as president. This is a very thorough and well written account. It covers everything from the Great White Fleet, trust busting, the national park movement to the rise of American imperialism. The first term of the presidency is covered a little better than the first but regardless of the time frame you get an excellent view as TR the person. The dedication that this man had to learning, reading, physical activity is truly amazing and Morris does a superb job of bringing that out. Overall this is a very fair biography that takes great pains to remain fair and balanced. It looks at the immigration policies even handily and takes an honest look at American policy at the hands of the youngest president at that time. The first president to be born after the civil war put a different trend on national politics and reigned in the progressive era. All in all it is a Bully of a read!



4. After I read the "The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt", I can't wait for this book to arrive. The book continues from the point which the last book left off when T.R was to take over the presidency from William McKinley who was assassinated at Buffalo. There are a few pointers that I will like to point out after reading this book. Compared to the first book, I felt that this book involves more on T.R that we all know when he was the president rather than the personal side that we learned on the first book. In addition, the book's narrator seems to prefer to provide hidden plots that may seemed to deter T.R's life in the future. For example, the development of the person who attempted to assassinate T.R during his bid for his third presidency. Anyways, this book is a good read and I certainly recommend it to readers who enjoy American History since the book is able to provide a great picture about American Politics in the early 20th century and the impact of it on America today. I can't wait to read the third book which should sum up the life of T.R.



5. After reading the book Leadership: Past, Present & Future by Carlos M. Rivera he talks about Theodore Roosevelt as one of the best Past Leaders, and at the back he has a list of recommended great books one of them is The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt By Edmund Morris and this one. When you read Leadership: Past, Present & Future is like the best of Theodore Roosevelt and you want to learn more about him and about others leaders in the book. After reading the 3 books I have learn to admire him more and more.

5 comments about The Double Helix: The Story Behind the Discovery of DNA.

1. I ended up getting copies of two different paperback editions.
   
   The Simon & Schuster Touchstone Book, with a little bit of an introduction by Sylvia Nasar, has easy-to-read print and the photographs are pleasantly large. Good for reading in the subway.
   
   But the Norton Critical edition, edited by Gunther S. Stent, is the one to get if you can only afford one. Its typeface leaves much to be desired, and, in my copy, some of the pages are hard to read because the printer seems to have run out of ink in the middle of the job. But the edition has materials that are indispensable for an understanding of this classic work of science. I enjoyed, most of all, Stent's essay "reviewing the reviews," showing both the wisdom (by some) and the foolishness (by others) with which the Double Helix was received by the scientific community.



2. Excellent book formulating the personalities and egos behind the race for DNA. Interesting and well written. Add a star if you are in the field.



3. I read this as a requirement for a class but actually found it interesting. It show the human sides to the people behing the discovery of DNA and exposes the drama and gossip going on. It also shows just how difficult it was and is to be a woman scientist (Rosalind's story).
   It is a short book, an easy read, I recommend it.



4. Clarification is in order. First of all, this is not a substantive science book. For all the significance of the discovery it chronicles, The Double Helix never bothers to explain how, for example, x-ray crystallography actually works, or what the difference between a keto- and an -enol is, or even why Watson's and Crick's discovery brought on a new era in the life sciences. Aspiring students of genetics and molecular biology are urged to inquire elsewhere for answers to these questions.

   Second, to label The Double Helix a book on scientific method is almost equally misleading - the reason being that there is no room in the rarefied formalism extolled by the likes of Karl Popper for Watson's subjectivity and sarcasm, not to mention the latter's frequent excursions on nubile au pairs and the deplorable student housing market at Cambridge.

   Third (not that it matters for an appreciation of the book, but it's a common misunderstanding), Watson and Crick did not discover DNA itself, or even the function of DNA. Rather, they were awarded the Nobel Prize for solving the molecular structure of DNA.

   With those clarifications in mind, The Double Helix is a profitable read. Watson shows us non-scientists that the practice of science is "just" another human endeavor, and not some remote, sterilized activity conducted by emotional eunuchs in white coats. Watson's first-person narrative is downright conversational, as if he's talking shop over a pint of stout in an English pub. He is unabashedly honest about both his ambitions and his naivete (he was only 23 at the time the events in the book took place). And his sometimes scathing portrayals of his colleagues - in all their brilliance and banality - give the impression that working in a world-class research facility is a lot like working anywhere else.

   Francis Crick comes across as that certain guy we all knew in college (wherever and whenever that was) - impish and boisterous, egocentric but big-hearted, who might be dapper if he didn't sleep in his clothes, whose eccentricity is the bane of faculty advisors, whose attention is everywhere but on task, whose breath sometimes smells like beer after lunch, and whose serendipitous genius comes through at all the right times. The supporting cast is equally colorful: Maurice Wilkins, the quintessential English academic stuffed corpse; Rosalind Franklin, a Freudian caricature of icy feminine competence in a man's world; the godlike Linus Pauling playing with his tinker toy molecular models in California.

   And it wasn't just his colleagues who made Watson's work interesting. There were the aforementioned au pairs, the pubs and the parties and the formal receptions, there was the professional competitiveness between the English and the Americans - with Watson (a Yank in Cambridge) more of an American insurance policy against the Brits getting all the credit for solving DNA if Pauling wasn't fast enough. And there was the Cold War, which had an impact on research priorities and, sometimes, hampered communication in the scientific community.

   But most importantly - although Watson never deigns to make this point explicit - The Double Helix is a fascinating chronicle of the scientific method in action, notwithstanding the politics, the distractions, and the idiosyncrasies of the protagonists. The task itself was daunting. Watson and Crick already knew what DNA was composed of, and they knew with some certainty the proportions in which the bases were represented, but there could only be one correct way to put all the pieces together and the haystack was a big one. The researchers were quick to offer and to accept criticism, and false leads were abandoned without regard to ego or sunk time. Even though each wanted to get there first, London shared their findings with Cambridge, Cambridge shared their insights with London, and England and California held nothing from each other for long - admirable examples of the "sociable competition" of science that expedites discovery.

   In the end, Watson's and Crick's success relied heavily on Wilkins's and Franklin's crystallography, with important contributions from whomever happened to stop by the lab during the two year period, and insights from conferences and the textbooks and articles Watson happened to read at the time. Creativity, serendipity, and openness to the ideas of others eventually yielded hypotheses, which were tested using Pauling's modeling methods. It could not have been done alone, as Watson makes clear, and the structure of DNA would have been discovered sooner or later. While ultimately it doesn't matter who gets the credit for the discovery, the world seems a better place for James Watson's being involved, if only because The Double Helix is such an entertaining read.




5. The Double Helix: A Personal Account of the Discovery of the Structure of DNA written by James D. Watson is a rather engaging with a easily readable down to earth style book on the discovery of the structure of DNA. James D. Watson and Francis Crick worked on the structure of DNA, as did other of the time L. Pauling and R. Franklin were hot on the heals of Watson and Crick.

   This is the story of how they made history, a story by a scientist about scientists, this is a superbly human tale of how a very unusual 23 year old American saw his chance for scientific immortality and set out to seize it.

   If you like reading about about discovery and how it was done, then you'll like this book. Written in a folksy mannor, this is a book that is thrilling as you get to experience the discovery firsthand. Here you'll read about observation, the suspense of making this discovery before others and the mounting tension associated with science. You'll feel Watson's brilliance come through the narrative, his frank tone mixed with humor all making this a fast read, but never boring.

   You'll be transported back to college, Cambridge, off to London and Paris, experience things like wine, movies, and girls, but you'll feel the undertone of scientific politics at its finest. This is a very entertaining book about the beautiful experience of making a great scientific discovery.

No comments about Grant: A Biography Part 1 Of 2.

5 comments about The Oath: A Surgeon Under Fire.

1. This book is far more than a memoir -- it is a page-turning narrative of the wonderful and terrible drama of life and war in a region about which we think little and know even less, written by a man of exceptional bravery and humanity. I met Dr. Baiev shortly after his arrival in Washington, DC, where my girlfriend (working for Physicians for Human Rights at the time) coordinated PHR's assistance to Dr. Baiev in Washington. At the time I had little appreciation for just what this man had been through, although it was obvious he had survived a harrowing ordeal. To read now the full story behind the brief weeks in which his life intersected ours has been both fascinating and deeply moving. His account of living as a Caucasus youth in the Soviet Union, his struggle to become a doctor, and his extraordinary dedication to his profession, his people and and his faith through two protracted and brutal wars is by turns fascinating, inspiring and heartwrenching. You will not find a more intimate account of the conflict in Chechnya, nor a better illustration of the way that such conflicts have become simultaneously global and local. If you care about peace, if you care about the prospects for a free and prosperous world, you cannot afford not to care about the gross violations of human rights that accompany conflicts increasingly economic, sectarian and cultural all at once. Dr. Baiev's gripping account puts a profoundly human face on the complexity and the urgency of coming to grips with the destructive conflicts that need not and should not continue into the twenty-first century.



2. If you are interested in war, modern politics, news, or human rights, you need to read this book. It shows what warfare is really like, what happens to people after governments make decisions. And it is heartbreaking, but you cannot put it down.
   
   The conflict in Chechnya is mostly forgotten and then often miscontrued topic for most of the world. Dr. Khassan Baiev's memoir sheds a light on the horrors of life in Chechnya since 1994, what this ghastly, genocidal war means for the common people and Russian grunts. Baiev is a surgeon with a big heart, and never turned anyone away. He explains casualties from the rather disturbing anatomical perspective of a surgeon, illustrating how fragile bodies and how much pain people can suffer.
   
   The book starts with his life before the war: of the ancient and beautiful Chechen traditions, of the extreme and often brutal Russian racism. As you read the book, the cultural differences between the ancient highlander Chechens and the rest of the Western world seem dwarfed by how lovely their life was, and how, as you read it, you can see yourself in their world. What stays with you is that once you empathize on this level, the eruption of war and desolation is utterly heartbreaking. Because Baiev lived it we see an intimate world being shattered, not a headline.
   
   Baiev (narrowly) survives years of war until both the Russians and Chechen guerillas are out for his head because his clientele includes everyone (and mostly civilians) so he has to escape to America, and eventually moved to Boston. His observants description of coming to America, seeing how peaceful it is here, how people of many races coexist, and how a town in Vermont took care of his family, gives you a deeper appreciation for what we have in this country and that many take for granted.
   
   I've never read anything that captures so vividly and personally the heartbreakingly human face of war. I think everyone should read it just to be educated on something that is going on at this moment, but that many people do not know about or simply don't understand. It speaks of overwhelming swaths of cruelty and evil, but also transcendent moments of grace and joy, humanity between enemies. Baiev treated anyone who needed help, so we see souls, not sides.
   
   What steals the breath from you, what made me rather emotional, is how war is revealed here as so useless, so tragic, so profoundly evil because we are all people, and war destroys and perverts this sacred life that we all share in.



3. If you plan on investing your time in reading one book this year make it this one. It is a remarkable tale of an honourable man trying to survive in barbaric times under the tyranny of Putin's Russia. Hassan Biev states that one in every five chechens has been killed as a result of the conflict. However after all this carnage the war stills continues and the state still exits in the hearts of men like Dr. Biev. Perhaps the actions of people like him will ultimately lead to peace in that most violent of places.



4. Let me begin by saying that if everything in this book is true Dr. Baiev has my total respect and admiration. It's inspiring to realize that people of his caliber do exist.
   
   There are, however, one or two disquieting features of this book that I feel compelled to mention. After having read the initial reviews I had expected not only a compelling story of human strength amidst tragedy, but a book of high literary accomplishment. That has not come to pass. Whatever Dr. Baiev's own writing style, it has been submerged in the journalistic style of Nicholas and Ruth Daniloff. Nick Daniloff is he of the famous Soviet espionage sting of the 1980's when he was arrested in Moscow in an apparent KGB set-up. Ronald Reagan himself is reported to have been involved in getting Daniloff released. I just wish Dr. Baiev had been able to choose a more literary writer to assist him in developing this book.
   
   Another point I'm almost embarrassed to make is that Dr. Baiev comes across in this book as almost too good to be true. Not only is he an heroic doctor, brave humanitarian, and loyal son, brother, and friend, he is also described a medical entrepreneur, a doctor who not only moonlights as a cosmetic surgereon, but who is also a national martial arts champion! If this book is made into a film I can only imagine Harrison Ford playing the part of Dr. Baiev. It almost seems as if some of Dr. Baiev's financial and sports successes were included in the book just to appeal to the certain segment of the community that might find those aspects of his life as compelling as the humanitarian work of saving lives and limbs amidst war and destruction.
   
   Nevertheless, the book is full of unique tid-bits. While many people reading it will be aware of Russia's halting attempts to convert its military forces from a large army of draftees to a smaller one of professional soldiers this is the first time I'd seen such a negative depiction of these new contract soldiers. I don't think I'd have gotten this insight anywhere but in this book. Likewise, it was also very interesting to read that in addition to the fight between the Russian military and the Chechen rebels there is a criminal, opportunistic element also actively engaged in exploiting the tragedy of Chechnya and which appears to be much more influential than I would have imagined. I think that this insight is very valuable, not only in the context of the Chechenya, but in understanding the influence of criminal opportunists in other conflicts. For me this insight itself was worth the price of the book.
   
   I certainly recommend The Oath, worts and all.



5. This book opened my eyes to the tragedy in Chechnya, and now I want to know more. A compelling, first-hand narrative of the situation in Chechnya that everyone should read.

5 comments about My Losing Season: The Point Guard's Way to Knowledge.

1. Pat Conroy hasn't written a basketball book in the style of the wonderful "A Season on the Brink". Here, the actual season takes a bleacher seat compared to the main theme of coming of age and dealing with a wide emotional range, from great pleasure to enduring abuse that can make a reader squirm.
   
   The basketball itself is interesting enough, with details pulled together after 30 years thanks to a concerted mining expedition with former teammates, a rather successful lot in middle age. As Conroy says, winners develop bonds with each other that last, with memories they want to keep. Losers, well, they move on and don't need any reminders.
   
   The Citadel team underachieved, losing several close games, with the finger-pointing going to themselves and their mediocre coach Mel Thompson. One might think of Bobby Knight or some other screamer as a coach, but at least Coach Knight knew what he was doing and could usually motivate his boys. On Coach Thompson, we hear plenty of how he brought out the worst or sapped their energy with an ill-timed remark or action. Plus, the average college player didn't have to survive the brutal hazing of freshman year and the other challenges of a military school.
   
   In Conroy's case, life intervenes even more in the presence of his father, well-known to people already aware of Conroy's work. A vision of Robert Duvall as the obnoxious Dad was impossible to avoid, with never a kind word and, in reality, degrading insults even when Pat was at his best. How he could (usually) shrug off the abuse is beyond me, other than it must have come from the same reservoir that make him a tough scrapper on the court.
   
   Other threads include some fine mentors on campus who helped Pat survive and develop his literary interests, a distressed pregnant girl he falls for, the honor system, and a nice summary of high school hoops while on the move. As with many survivor stories, a key individual often makes the difference at a critical time or over a sustained period, and Conroy had his benefactors. There is no doubt that he is a very loyal person who appreciates what others did on his behalf. He even had enough loyalty to Coach Thompson, for some reason, leading to some strange appreciative remarks at the end, and he even had some surprising partial reconciliation with Dear Old Abusive Dad. Conroy is one guy who is all over the map emotionally.



2. Pat Conroy, the brilliant novelist, brings his fantastic writing style to his own memoirs in My Losing Season. Pat describes his life from his early childhood through his college years at The Citadel. His father, a Marine, was both physically and verbally abusive throughout Pat's lifetime. When Conroy Senior wasn't beating Pat's mom, he was taking his aggressions out on any one of the seven Conroy children. They learned to avoid him whenever possible and do what they could to avoid raising his ire. Pat found solace in the game of basketball anywhere he could find it. In school he found structure and guidance, on the street courts he found art and guts. But no matter where Pat played he loved every aspect of the game and the various nuances that he could learn.
   
   Conroy chronicles the difficulties of his home life and then the hardship of being a plebe in a rigorous military college where athletes were practically loathed. In many ways, Conroy's situation did not improve when he escaped his father's daily wrath. But what Conroy explains is that these tribulations were the basis of his personal character building and moments that he now looks back on with feelings of gratitude and appreciation. He writes of his journey to becoming a writer and how he balanced his academic studies with the rigors of college athletics.
   
   Conroy has written a delightful book that reads like his novels but with the added touch of his reality. He does not hesitate to address his own shortcomings as a human, writer, and athlete. This lends credibility to his descriptions of his youth and how that youth shaped his adulthood. My Losing Season contains many references to Conroy's works of fiction and at times discusses the outcome or plots of his novels that may be considered spoilers by those that have not read the novels. However, mostly, it is a unique insight into the author's thought process that will likely lead to a more enjoyable reading of these fictional books. My Losing Season will be enjoyed by those already loyal to Conroy and those that are finding him for the first time.



3. My Losing Season is the story of The Citadel's '66-'67 season. Pat Conroy begins the book with a little background as to how he got into basketball and fell in love with the game, as a child in a military family moving from town to town every year. He takes the reader through his journey up until he arrives at The Citadel for college. While Conroy does give tremendous details about his experience at The Citadel, the majority of the book deals with the '66-'67 basketball season. Conroy takes the reader game for game through the ups and mostly downs of the season - their crazy coach Mel Thompson, the Green Weenies, the loss of confidence of the starting 5, and all the teams they play in the Southern conference.
   
   As a reader you'll get to know these guys - DeBrosse, Cauthen, Kennedy, Zinsky, Tee Hooper, etc - you truly feel for them especially because they're real people and these games really happened! It's a great lesson on what one can learn from losing. Are those lessons more important that having a winning season? My only complaint was that since every chapter was really a different basketball game it got tedious at times. You definitely have to be a sports enthusiast to enjoy this book!



4. I have a message for Pat Conroy: STOP YOUR WHINING. I read the book on a recommendation from a friend - however, I wish had not wasted my time on it. Mr Conroy did a masterful job of weaving the story of his life into his expereinces at the Citadel. But, personally, I could not take his whining attitude - the tough plebe system at the Citadel, his "Great Santini" father, his demeaning basketball coach, the reaction from Citadel alumnists over his bashing of their school. This book seemed to infer that he was suffering some inhumane, life-long injustice. Give me a break!! I regret that Mr Conroy's reputation as a great writer and the publisher's willingness to support this project allowed the book to be published in the first place. For anyone paying attention to the rest of the world, this book is a crock...one word of advice for Pat Conroy: suck it up!! Alas, I think it's too late for Mr Conroy. One other note: You would never, ever see wrestler write a book like this!!



5. Conroy's fiction has always been a biography of sorts (Great Santini in particular) but I think his choice to chronicle his life through his final basketball season at the Citadel was brilliant. It brings together all the elements of his fictional life that we have come to love and respect: His overbearing father, the south in the 1950s and 1960s, and the one character common to all his books: Sports.
   
   I think that Pat Conroy is the kind of person who most would envy the life he's had, it's ups and downs, and this book only solidifies that belief for me.

5 comments about Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing.

1. Average prose, a real cure for insomnia with some interestging tidbits. It's a book I now own that will forever collect dust.



2. Awarded a 2001 National Book Award and selected as a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, Newjack Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing has become a sociological classic, a gritty, eyewitness account of the escalating tragedy afflicting the American penal system. As a journalist-turned undercover prison guard, Conover demonstrates the sweeping irony of a prison system that has engulfed certain minorities on such a massive scale that prison culture has influenced popular culture through trappings such as baggy, beltless, low-slung pants or laceless sneakers, all with a pervasiveness that reflects a dark reality: "Prison has unwittingly given rise to its own empowering culture," observes Conover, "...one that keeps inmates resentful and resistant to incarceration's `reformative' goals...."
   
   The failure of prison to reform its inmates not only fails the incarcerated, observes the author in this hard-hitting narrative, but our entire society, which pays millions of dollars each year to warehouse dysfunctional human beings and must face the broken families they leave behind, in a vicious cycle that expands exponentially with each new generation.
   
   A string of powerful and insightful anecdotes portraying the wastefulness of inmate life and the struggle of both guards and prisoners to maintain their humanity in an inhuman environment buttresses the author's point: Investing in preventative measures to strengthen families and communities would reduce childhood trauma, provide hope, and avert the far higher societal and financial costs of rampant violent crime. In sum, Newjack offers a suspenseful, cinema noir style that engages the reader while conveying a bleak, cautionary vision, one that we ignore at our own peril.



3. While on the surface, the idea of Conover immersing himself into the NY maximum security prison system as a corrections officer (CO) seemed to be a recipe for an exciting book, Newjack did not live up to its hype. Somewhere in the book it was mentioned that to become a mature CO, 4-5 years of work experience is necessary. Consequently, the one year Conover spent in New York's Sing Sing maximum security prison was hardly enough time to learn and build the kind of relationships necessary for a thoughtful and entertaining book. Instead, the parts of the book I found to be the most interesting were the historical accounts of who had the most influence in how the U.S. and NY prison systems evolved.
   
   Unfortunately, there wasn't a lot of new ground covered through Conover's personal experience during guard training or in Sing Sing. The old clichés of prison guards as mean SOBs and apathetic prisoners beyond rehabilitation were reinforced.
   
   I commend Conover's dedication to compiling material from firsthand experience, but Newjack was mildly entertaining and even less educational in terms of observations of inmate behavior, or new ideas in improving the system. Like most journalist authors, Conover is not much of a story teller, and his book would have had richer content had he been allowed to shadow an experienced CO as he set out to do initally, but was denied.



4. Chameleon journalist Ted Conover trains as a prison guard and works in Sing Sing, giving readers an intense look into prison life and the dynamics of the guards and guarded.
   
   Intense, intensely personal, and full of insight into the prison system itself.
   
   Best part is his history of the US penitentiary system, which most of us don't study in US History classes! Highly readable, well-researched section that should be of interest to all US citizens.
   
   An incredible journey, a well-written account.



5. I have to give the author credit. When he was denied the right to shadow a C.O. (Corrections Officer), he became one. This is not as simple as it sounds. He literally swore an oath to protect the inmates and the lives of his fellow officers. He worked the job with dedication, and got some great material out of it. I was wary, because I thought he might have been playing C.O. But, working in Sing Sing, you don't "play" anything. Bravo.

5 comments about Mark Twain: A Life.

1. I've read several biographies of Twain over the years, none more beautifully written than this book. It reads like a cultural history of the US during Twain's lifetime. I highly recommend this book to any serious student of Twain's work.



2. I was disappointed by this biography of one of the most interesting and popular figures in American history and letters. Unlike so many of the other reviewers I found this biography to be excruciatingly long and boring. It takes quite an effort by a writer to make as fascinating a person as Mark Twain dull, but the author succeeds. The writer kept throwing in his personal asides in an effort to be clever, but instead was merely annoying. The writing style is awkward and stilted and it takes a real effort to push through to the end. The author seems to be trying to direct attention to himself as much as the subject. This style makes the 722 pages seem twice as long.



3. This biography is a well written, comprehensive account of Twain's life. What is missing is a coherent, compelling life story or insightful interpretation of Twain's creative process.



4. Powers gives us a terrific chronology, densely packed information, charming and insightful prose, plenty of great Twain quotes and anecdotes, empathy for the tragedies of Twain's life and twitting of his oddities when called for. I found it quite remarkable that the book could be so factual and also so readable. There's an excellent index, solid background references, and many laugh-out-loud moments. Adding to the pleasaure of this reading experience are some delightful and - new to me - photographs. Strongly recommend this outstanding biography.



5. This thorough and well-written biography of a gifted indivudual leaves one with the feeling of having known Mark Twain, Samuel Clemmens, personally. The book offers two additional values: One is getting a glinpse of what life was like during the late 19th century. The other is what it meant to experience the Civil War from a state so far removed from the action that the war seemed to be going on in another country.

5 comments about Out of Africa.

1. Out of Africa is Karen Blixen's memoir about her years in Africa, writing as Isak Dinesen. She recounts the world of Africa, specifically Kenya. It is, like the England of her friend Denys Finch-Hatton, "a world that no longer existed" even then and certainly as she left it. The memoir is a slow read, yet a book with prose in which you can luxuriate, or languish perhaps as it seems to mirror the mammoth African landscape. Reading like a pastoral novel, the narrator interested me with her myriad experiences. It presents people, cultures, landscape, and wildlife through her eyes, sometimes noble, sometimes paternal. The culture of the various tribes and religions with whom she had contact on her coffee farm became almost real, so that as I read certain moments became funny or sad or wistful. The reader comes to view animals differently, the fecundity of life struck me particularly. The different forces at work are both natural and foreign; the paradoxical nature of the presence of two churches (Roman Catholic and Church of Scotland) is sometimes presented as working for good yet other times it is in conflict. Blixen's memoir is truly literate and the importance of books and writing is evident throughout. Early in the memoir she tries to explain her wirting a book to a native. Near the end of her stay as she is selling off the furniture and other estate provisions their is a poignant moment when, as she sits on her remaining books, she comments:
   "Books in a colony play a different part in your existence from what they do in Europe; there is a whole side of your life which they alone take charge of ... you feel more grateful to them, or more indignant with them, than you will ever do in civilized countries." (p.373)
   Blixen's memoir of this "uncivilised" land is both memorable and effective in sweeping the reader away into a very different world. Definitely a worthwhile read.



2. The two-cassette abridgment was way too limiting for such a magnificent book. Also disappointing was the fact that the product was a rejected one from a public library, and the second tape was stretched and half of the second tape was not able to be heard. This product should never have been sold in this condition.



3. This was the first of many books I've read about Africa. At the time, I had a romanticized view of The Dark Continent, a naieve view.
   After doing some more research, I realize Karen Blixen's view was VERY romanticized....to the extent that many of her contemporaries thought her somewhat odd and out of touch with reality.
   If you want a lyrically told story colored with emotion...this is for you.
   If you're interested in Africa as it really was, read the many accounts extant by settlers who spent far more time, and ranged over a wider area.



4. The book, "Out of Africa," is a memoir of the Danish Baroness Karen Blixen's habitation near Nairobi in Kenya from 1914 to 1931 on a fertile 6000-acre coffee plantation, "at the foot of the Ngong Hills" (1992: 3). Blixen writes under the pen-name Isak Dinesen. Karen Blixen went to British East Africa (in a location in present-day, Kenya) to join her German husband (Baron Bror Blixen), and upon separation she stayed in Kenya to manage the farm by herself. The extent of her adventures in Africa, and to what extent she is a feminist is borne out by the book, as well as the film "Out of Africa," that is based on the book. This piece will examine such, as well as comparisons between the book and the film.
   
   Isak Dinesen (Karen Blixen) presents geographical detail, oftentimes comparisons and contrasts within this fertile land of the Kikuyu people that would several decades later be the crux of the Mau-Mau rebellion over whites' displacement and dispossession of natives from their land. Dinesen also compares features with those of her native Europe. Dinesen writes of the equatorial habitat, "Everything that you saw made for greatness and freedom, and unequaled nobility...Up in this high air you breathed easily, drawing in a vital assurance and lightness of heart: Here I am where I ought to be" (1992: 4). Dinesen writes of "heavy-scented lilies," of "long-rains," "ever-changing clouds," of "hills from the farm [that} changed their character many times in the course of the day, and sometimes looked quite close and at times very far away" (1992: 4). Dinesen, in precise and elegant language displays love and fascination for the geography, the clean air, the animals, the beauty of this African environment; she becomes possessed by the place.The movie captures the large, picturesque, mysterious, and varied eastern equatorial Africa where the eland, the buffalo, and the rhino are quite common sights; the movie impressively and unanimously earned, Oscar, "Best Picture of the Year."
   
   In the end Dinesen is forced to give up her plantation, this scenario elicits a heartache and sadness. Dinesen's memoirs, years after she had left Africa could be a reflection of her nostalgic dealing with her loss of the farm as well as overall experiences in Africa. Dinesen stands out as a courageous and strong woman, one who is in the feminist direction. She lost her philandering husband, but stayed on bravely, for nearly 20 years in a foreign harsh environment, one with languages and cultures far-fetched from her own. Dinesen worked well at being appreciative of an environment that was new to her, during an era of colonialism in Africa, a time when Darwinian relegation of black Africans to the lowest of human species and elevation of whites to the upper rung was very strong. Dinesen cuts through the female traditional roles, she tries flying in planes, the goes on safari, she learns how to shoot and even shoots and kills game. She is open and welcomes countless visitors from all over the world to her home and farm. This was an age of exploration and acquisition of "Dark Africa," by Europeans and Asians. Dinesen is quite aware of her feminine strength. She rescues and adopts a wounded antelope she names Lulu; Lulu becomes a celebrity on the farm; Dinesen searches, discovers and celebrates the feminist strength in Lulu: "But Lulu was not really gentle, she had the so-called devil in her. She had, to the highest degree, the feminine trait of appearing to be exclusively on the defensive, concentrating on guarding the integrity of her being, when she was really, with the force in her, bent upon and defensive" (1992: 74). Also, "Lulu of the woods was a superior, independent being...she was in possession. If I had happened to have known a young princess in exile, and while she was still a pretender to the throne, and had met her again in her full queenly estate after she had come into her rights, our meeting would have had the same character" (1992: 78).
   
   The book displays that Karen Blixen exemplified the Europeans with the upper hand in colonial world conquest and politics. It is to be recalled that the three weapons used by Europeans to subjugate Africans were the gun, the Bible, and the anthropologist. Karen used guns to protect herself. Catholic (mostly Belgian and French), Protestant (mostly British), and Muslim (mostly Arabic) agencies vied for power in Africa. The Germans were in present-day neighboring Tanzania (German East Africa) to the south. They would be ousted during this significant, "Scramble for Africa." The book illustrates how Karen Blixen took great interest in which religious group the young natives (some of whom served her) adhered to. Many native followers, taught to kneel and pray to an invisible white Almighty god, became converted to the political/ religious groups, as they became dispossessed of their land resources. The anthropology aspect, as mentioned, involved relegation of black Africans to the lowest rungs of evolutionary mankind...the white was relegated as the superior, the master, the savior, the benevolent, the genius. The movie is great at casting Meryl Streep as the beautiful, rosy-cheeked clean, statuesque woman amidst muddy, black African paradise! The real Karen Blixen likely had more rugged looks and likely often got "down-and-dirty," than is depicted in the movie. An equatorial Africa of long and heavy rainy seasons, of continuous tropical sun, and of limited running water would not leave the Danish heroine so clean and collected.
   
   It is to be recalled that Dinesen is writing from an overly European point of view, hence, negative criticism of her will not be short. Her attitude to black Africans is racist and condescending. In the movie, Denys Finch-Hatton (Robert Redford) rebukes her for instructing native porters to get off her belongings by "shooing," them off!. Finch-Hatton, in shock, remarks to her, "Shoo?" as if telling her, "I do not believe you addressed these people that way!" Finch-Hatton (who became Dinesen's lover) knows the native languages (Kiswahili and Kikuyu), and goes on to communicate her instructions to the porters. Black Africans are prevalently depicted in the movie as poverty-stricken servants, laborers and porters, as helpless people close to animal nature. In tune with the movie, here Dinesen writes, "They were poor people, small and underfed; they looked like a pair of badgers on my lawn...I could hardly distinguish them against the grass. They were sank in deep grief; their bereavement and their economic loss melted into one overwhelming distress" (1992: 108). Dinesen is surprised that the, "Natives," are strikingly open, adapting, welcoming and unprejudiced. Yet, as prevalent in the colonial fashion, she does not attribute this to the inner traditions and workings of indigenous African society, but from influence from foreigners including slavers! "The lack of prejudice in the Natives is a striking thing, for you expect to find dark taboos in the primitive people. It is due...to their acquaintance with a variety of races and tribes, and to the lively human intercourse that was brought upon East Africa, first by the old traders of ivory and slaves...and...by the settlers and big-game hunters" (1992: 54).
   
   Dinesen wishes the natives would understand and appreciate her more. It is always presumptuous to be confident of having fully understood a foreign culture and people; she does not seem to believe she is prejudiced and why the natives to a good extent regard her as a foreigner far different from them, and difficult to comprehend. She writes, "If I know a song of Africa,---I thought,---of the Giraffe, and the African new moon lying on her back, of the ploughs in the field, and the sweaty faces of the coffee pickers, does Africa know a song of me?" (1992: 83). At the same time, Dinesen quite often acknowledges that newcomers from Africa are from a noisy and rushed world, they do not have the patience and connectedness of native Africans. European colonialists imposed on the natives an alien system of forced dispossession and displacement and of monopoly. So much of this colonial intrusion was quite new to the prevalently communalist and family-oriented, egalitarian way of native African subsistence.
   
   Karen Blixen's marriage starts out as more of a convenience than of romance. She left Denmark to marry the German Baron Bror Blixen (Klaus Maria Brandauer) and start a dairy in Kenya. Bror is actually the brother of her lover. Karen is offering her fortune for companionship and adventure (and for the title of, "Baroness") much more than for enjoying the security of a man. So, from the outset, Karen's feminist inclinations are strong. The husband changes his mind about the diary, and instead invests her money in a risky venture of growing coffee. The husband is unfaithful, philandering, gives her syphilis that will disable her from having children; the marriage breaks up. Karen is left to manage the farm, she has to battle with floods and fire. Hardly anything of British big game hunter Denys Finch-Hatton's romance with Dinesen (Karen Blixen), is mentioned in the book; the movie likely borrows from other sources depicting the life of Karen Blixen. Unfortunately the English accent of Denys Finch-Hatton is not conveyed by Redford, compared to Karen's excellent outflow of a Scandinavian accent. Yet, the movie depicts their chemistry, Denys is impressed by her strength and independence, Karen's ability to tell and weave stories, they kiss, and in one scene have sex. Karen does seem to desire long-term companionship and commitment from Denys, desire for a man who will sacrifice to be with her. She stands against having a man like Denys who wants to be "free-wheeling," one who will come and go depending on need and desire, he loves the African outdoors. Finch-Hatton is mysterious, elusive and emotionally distant, but he is miscast in that in the movie: he seems to represent an all-American jock that waywardly found his way into Africa. Karen was wounded before, and this encounter with Denys is only a brief moment of ecstasy, but she bravely soldiers on, appreciating more of what is around her. Karen is indeed confident, stoic and creative in face of the odds. She did resist going on safari with Denys, but she eventually succumbed to his quite undeniable invitation. Eventually, they got closer, she broadened her horizons, she better adapted to and better accepted foreigners and their ways.
   
   In conclusion, the movie emphasizes the romantic issues and episodes in Karen Blixen's life in Africa (romance and sex sells in Hollywood), much more than the book does. The book seems to be constructed from a breadth of notes of what Blixen put together while in Africa, and weaved them into a good fairy tale. The truth is that Blixen dealt with aspects like fluctuating coffee prices, sometimes drought and heavy rains, discontented dispossessed natives, scrambles for Africa amongst several European agencies, African diseases and sometimes unsanitary conditions, wildlife from untamed neighborhoods. The movie does display the exquisite beauty of tropical Africa which Blixen did dwell on, but not on the colonial wranglings. There is lyrical beauty in Blixen's writing, and the movie does elicit an African peaceful mood through the excellent music. Blixen, in both the movie and the book is a strong and opinionated woman, yet flexible and open to ideas, people, and adventure. She is a significant precursor of modern-day feminism.



5. It's tough to bungle a memoir set in Africa - early 20th-century, a hilltop coffee plantation, with lions, hyenas, giraffes, zebras and views of Kilamanjaro - and Karen Blixen largely avoids it. Surrounded by offbeat adventurers and Kikuyu retainers, the author has innumberable sources of interest to draw from.
   
   I saw the movie when it premiered in 1985 and, maybe because of my youth, found it to be quite a sleeper. Some twenty years later, I find the book, as is often the case, to be significantly better. But, this doesn't disguise the fact that Blixen's written work can be somewhat disjointed. She skips hither and yon and too often casts aside a recollection before it's much anticipated completion. Kamante, a cherished and endearing Kikuyu child, a seemingly essential component, disappears without trace though ostensibly remaining within the author's immediate employ. One is left disappointedly pondering where this disarming youngster has gone.
   
   All things considered, however, the period and place overpower any literary shortcomings. Blixen's scattershot approach still manages to bestow a palpable sense of wonder. It feeds the pull a person feels for the savannah, the safari, the elemental mystique which is the continent of Africa. I recommend it. 4+ stars.