5 comments about The Road South: A Memoir.

1. This book was truly an inspiration to me! I read it in only two days because I just could not put it down! I'm saddened to read another review that gave a negative image of Mr. Stewart. Having met him and worked with him, I have only seen positivity and generosity in him. Anyone who thinks that they can use their past as an excuse not to go forward should read this book. You cannot dwell on the past, and Mr. Stewart is a great testimony! This book is a must read for all ages!



2. Wow, I started reading on a December 12th and finished on January 2nd. Not because the book was not intresting, but for the simple fact I started telling my husband about the book and he began to read it and finished it in two days then he handed it to my mother law who in between prepring the Christmas feast could not put it down. I was lucky to finally get my hands on it on News Years day to finish the last three chapters . This book tuged at my heart strings in so many ways. A picture of Shelly should be in the dictionary next to the word Preserveriance and Determination. I have had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Stewart and he is every bit of exciting,intelligent,hardworking, and personable as he appears in his book. Thank you Shelly for sharing your journey with the world, thank your for chronlizing a piece of history for all of the free world to appreciate.



3. Shelley Stewart is absolutely NOT the man he appears to be. As a member of his family, I have seen his astonishing greed and selfishness towards the family he supposedly cares so much about. He has poor relationships with his son, and most of his other children. He cares only for himself, and offers no help his family. Take it from me; buy another book. Large portions of this book were admitted to be largely fictional.



4. you think you had a bad childhood? Shelly Stewart had one that is hard to believe. This is shown in this wonderful book, and how he overcame this handicap. He is now a successful businessman and is helping other people. This memoir reads like a novel, I could not put it down.



5. I don't know how to start this, but I just got to write something about this book. If this book don't affect you to the point of sadness or tears, I don't know what to say for you. This book was nothing short of a miracle. I have encountered people with similar backgrounds and they just get by, and expect you to feel sorry for them. With Mr.Stewart, you just want to applaud him. The fact that their father would kill his wife in front of his children with an axe and let her fall out the window onto a tree with not so much as remorse,well, I had no sympathy,no nothing for him, and like his sons, I felt nothing for him or that second wife or those aunts for that matter. What kind of woman feeds fried rat to children? Where is your humanity, where is your heart? what kind of man tells his son(a child) such heartless things, and allow such treatment that your own children leave you before puberty? what kind of woman mentally and physically break down a child just so the white man doesn't? Yet, it was a white man that took him in his own family when you didn't want to be bothered? This is just too much, and then here comes the military giving shock treatments just because you speak up for yourself and feel that despite your early life you should just go on? What kind of stuff is that? This is what happens in Shelley Stewart's life. He went through so much abuse, so much living from one pillar to post,so much betrayal(like the high school principal who wouldn't give him a chance at a scholarship despite the fact that he had the grades and know how to do so) yet despite all of that, he STILL makes something out of himself and is one of Birmingham's living legends..Folks, we hear of how we can't do this because of our background, childhood, someone said this or whatever, I say if this man can go through the stuff he went through and still live to tell the story, and is a man(and we know that men just keep their feelings to themselves and all),well, he deserves my salute, and I say GET THIS BOOK. You may want to scream, you may want to cry(Lord knows I did), but if the best thing you can do with this book is give it to some person who needs a lift in the right direction and say,"Read this",perhaps, we have made the life of one person better in order for him to make a contribution to this world.I reccommend this book highly, but, if you are faint at heart and always need a kleenex(which you may need), you have been warned.This ain't no pretty story.It's gritty,and if I could get this man down to my neck of the woods in lower Alabama, I would. Matter of fact, the book deserves 10 plus stars.

5 comments about Blue Monday: Fats Domino and the Lost Dawn of Rock 'n' Roll.

1. Blue Monday is an interesting but not a compelling read. We never get inside Fat's head to understand the man, so we get an expanded discography. The dates, times and places seem to be well researched which begins to wear after a while. The matter of fact style just does not bring Fat's personal life into focus, although there are many descriptions of incedents about him. He remains a mystery in reference to his personal motivation, dual life style, and reclusive habits.
   Russ H.



2. I guess if Antoine "Fats" Domino could keep the President and First Lady waiting, then he could keep us waiting for his first biography - this is a Natural Born book about a musical genius, intriquing personality, and unassuming cultural revolutionary.
   The author tells his story and includes many entertaining anecdotes about life at home and on the road with several sets of support players - the greatest names of course being Dave Bartholomew, Herb Hardesty, and Lee Allen. We get a strong picture of the smiling, "safe" rock and roller, as the often defiant man's-man. And a complex artist/showman: he could sing The Rooster Song while flashing rings to make Freddie Blassie envious.
   A great bunch of previously unpublished black and white photographs from Look magazine, among other handsome prints of lesser known shots really bolster the text.
   A serious ommission for the audiophiles: not even a selected discography and no sessionography. [Though there are "Notes" in the back of the book on the mysterious Broadmoor recordings, including personnale and dates!]. Of course the '50s period sessions can be found as a booklet in the Bear Family 8-CD set, and in a European book, "Jazz Records"; also in a fairly recent issue of Goldmine magazine. But Fats Domino ABC-Paramount, Mercury, Broadmoor and Reprise FD session data has never, to my knowledge, appeared in print, and what a fabulous component that would have made.
   Speaking of the ABC-Paramount tracks, the author did not mention in the text a very important 4-CD set, "The Paramount Years", which included the *incredibly* rare fourth l.p. for that label, plus the 1980 "If I Get Rich" from another record company!
   The idea that "The Fat Man" is the first R & R record also doesn't agree with me. Yes, the elements are there, the upbeat shuffle and bright lead vocal, but that powerful sound (and many others by Fats in that '49 to '54 period) were not *primarily* for the youth. The first discs to be produced for teenage tastes came much later. I wouldn't even include "Tutti Frutti" in that category, as it too, lyrically and instrumentally echoed an earlier, "swingin'" sound. [It was "Ready Teddy" folks which screamed out...Rock and Roll!!!].
   Still, this book should be "required reading" for those dedicated followers of those Rock and Roll Hall of Famers.



3. From his first record in 1949 until his harrowing escape from Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Antoine "Fats" Domino has defined New Orleans and its culture. This book puts Fats, his city, and his music into perspective in amazing detail. In the process, Rick Coleman convincingly demonstrates that Fats and his collaborators--especially songwriter/arranger Dave Bartholomew and producer Cosimo Matassa--have as solid a claim as Elvis, Carl, and Jerry Lee with Sam Phillips in Memphis or Wolf, Muddy, and Chuck with the Chess brothers in Chicago as the prime architects of rock 'n' roll. The product of more than 20 years of exhaustive research, this is, surprisingly, the first biography of one of the greatest early rock stars. Coleman had his work cut out for him; Fats is notoriously reclusive. Nevertheless, you come away from this book admiring Fats's talent and drive, and Coleman's exhaustive research and evocative writing. All the other great Louisiana rockers are here--the bayou wild men, backwoods musical savants, and forgotten honkers, shouters, string-benders, and drum-thumpers who helped create the Crescent City sound. I highly recommend this to anyone who wants to understand the real, complete history of rock 'n' roll instead of the revisionist pap that passes for such. -Mark Hoffman, co-author of "Moanin' at Midnight: The Life and Times of Howlin' Wolf"



4. Rick Coleman's new book "Blue Monday" is the first full biography of Fats Domino. Many interesting things are therein.
   - Fats was the first black rock & roll star. His records made the pop charts before r&r's dawn in 1955.
   - Kids did not buy albums in the 50s, but Fats' albums sold, meaning he had an adult following like Louis Armstrong's.
   - Fats concerts were often scenes of teenage riots. He may be known for `Blueberry Hill,' but his fierce rolling piano ignited his audience.
   - "Blueberry Hill" was the product of a botched session. Engineer Bunny Robyn edited together the best parts of several incomplete takes and simply repeated the chorus.
   - The string-laden "Walkin' To New Orleans" was a big breakthrough which traditionalists lamented. But it hit R&B (#2) even higher than pop (#6).
   - Roy Brown once ditched a plan to have Fats open for him on tour. Fats never forgot it, and refused to have Brown open shows for him when the tables were turned.
   
   Of the Big Five (EP, FD, CB, JLL, LR), Fats is the least lionized because he was not a "rebel." Historians normally embrace only people with bold lifestyles.



5. Boy ol Boy, Rick Coleman has written a great book on the TRUE story of Rock & Roll! I know as I was there and if you want to know what it was really like to be on the scene when true rock & roll was called race music on a juke box, Boogie Woogie and the down home blues was taking over the country then get this book and turn others on to it also. No one person was more responsible for the birth of R&R and R&B than the Fat Man! This was long before Elvis, Haley and the hand full of others came on the bandwagon. [...]

No comments about Swing Along: The Musical Life of Will Marion Cook.

5 comments about Blueprint for Black Power: A Moral, Political, and Economic Imperative for the Twenty-First Century.

1. Blueprint for Black Power details a master plan for the power revolution necessary for Black survival in the 21st century. Blueprints posits that an African American/Caribbean/Pan-African bloc would be most potent for the generation and delivery of Black power in the United States and the World to counter White and Asian power networks. Wilson frames this imperative by deconstructing the U.S. elite power structure of government, political parties, think tanks, corporations, foundations, media, interest groups, banking and foreign investment particulars. Potentially strong Black institutions as the church, media and think tanks; industry; collectives such as investment clubs and credit unions; rotating credit associations such as Afrikan-originated esusu, tontine and partner are analyzed. Pan-Afrikanism, Black Nationalism, ethnocentrism and reparation are assessed, often misused and underused financial institutions as securities, mutual funds, stocks, bonds, underwriting, and incubators advocated, thus elucidating oft-negated opportunities for economic empowerment.



2. Blueprint for Black Power details a master plan for the power revolution necessary for Black survival in the 21st century. Blueprints posits that an African American/Caribbean/Pan-African bloc would be most potent for the generation and delivery of Black power in the United States and the World to counter White and Asian power networks. Wilson frames this imperative by deconstructing the U.S. elite power structure of government, political parties, think tanks, corporations, foundations, media, interest groups, banking and foreign investment particulars. Potentially strong Black institutions as the church, media and think tanks; industry; collectives such as investment clubs and credit unions; rotating credit associations such as Afrikan-originated esusu, tontine and partner are analyzed. Pan-Afrikanism, Black Nationalism, ethnocentrism and reparation are assessed, often misused and underused financial institutions as securities, mutual funds, stocks, bonds, underwriting, and incubators advocated, thus elucidating oft-negated opportunities for economic empowerment.



3. A lot to read, but well worth the investment. This book, if taken to heart, should be required reading for all Blacks and anyone interested in the advancment of Black people. Every thing you ever wanted to know about the who, what, when, where and why of the Black condition and how to rise above White dominance is right here.



4. The late Amos Wilson wrote a blockbuster with this book. In in he states why African-Americans are economically powerless. He also states how they are to achieve power. A book well worth reading.



5. ECONOMIC DESTINY DETERMINES BIOLOGICAL DESTINY!This book although big and thick it really is the blueprint for power. It expands on what BLACK Labor White Wealth by Claude Anderson PHD talks about. This book covers all the bases. Mr Wilson's book shows how insightful he is about the problems we face today. He shows several ways how we can have heaven while we LIVE overnight if we do what he suggests. It shows how the power is within our grasp if we will only wake up and raise our consciousness of what is really going on, I was awakened several times in this book; Wilson names names of the organizations and the people in the organizations that are anti black. He names the black leaders that are anti black too. He explains what's going on and why it continues unabated. He talks about how the nation uses psychic warfare to keep African Americans down. He explains how they deliberately keep blacks out of higher education; yes, we do get an education but there are different levels of education. There's the education that will teach you how to use a computer and then there's the education that will teach you how to make a computer from raw materials. Big difference! He talks about how blacks have very few people who have this very high level of knowledge that can be used by blacks to be more valuable to the world. He explains how too many blacks have a consumer mentality not a producer mentality. He has charts and references galore showing startling comparisons between blacks and whites that should not be missed by anyone of african ancestry. He goes deep into the obstacles that are holding blacks back in spite of drive and determination to succeed(Think and Grow Rich a black choice IS NOT the last word on success). He really made me rethink whether or not it is probable not possible to succeed when starting with no money. Wilson says the odds are against it. Of course you can always find someone who has succeeded from all the ghettos in the world but what about the other people in the same situation who didn't have any money, no inheritance from parents, no references, no relatives, no insurance money coming to them because their parents just died, no money coming to them from an injury and no one to give you advice. This is why so many blacks find themselves in jail or working menial jobs according to Wilson. The author suggests an african centered consciousness that will help the weakest one of us and help all of us to see immediate progress. This book is truly shocking; over and over again he talks about the consequences of not raising ourselves up:BIOLOGICAL DEMISE! Really this is no joking manner; the author has me convinced and Black Wealth White Labor says the same thing that if we do not learn how to compete with white people we will go the way of the indians. It is imperative that we adapt this philosophy before it is too late.

5 comments about Marvin Gaye, My Brother.

1. In this bio about his brother, the late Frankie Gaye makes constant references to the Seventh-day Adventist Church as being the church the Gay family grew up in. As a lifelong Seventh-day Adventist myself, I can safely tell you that this poor man has us mixed up with someone else. The Gaye family actually belonged to the House Of God, Inc. (a Hebrew Pentecostal sect); while they are similar to Seventh-day Adventists in their beliefs about the Sabbath, dietary laws, and the state of the dead, there are other differences. When he started talking about the dos and don'ts of their faith, I said, "Oh no! Those weren't Adventists! We have our standards, but they are nowhere near that strict (not even for the era he grew up in)! I have read the official website of the House of God, and they do not site their origins as having any connection with the Seventh-day Adventist Church. I'm so sorry that the author is deceased and unable to correct this error, although I'm quite sure he meant no harm.
   
   I will say this, that I enjoy the music of Marvin Gaye, especially as an adult. His was a wonderful talent. I was 11 years old when I heard of his murder, and I thought it was such a sad way for his life to end. If only his family wasn't so dysfunctional, if only he hadn't gotten hooked on those stupid drugs (what a robber of human life drugs are in our communities!)! What else can we say but "Makes Me Wanna Holler", "Mercy Mercy Me", and "What's Going On"? Thank God we have his music as a legacy!



2. WHen I read this book, I was a little disappointed with a few things. First to know that Marvin Sr. got really no time for commiting murder. Weather of not, Marvin pushed him did not give him any excuse to pull the trigger. I felt that Marvin Sr. was probably jelous of all the attention or that some of his songs were about sex.
   I honestly thought that Marvin My brother was pretty well written and pretty interesting.



3. This book is very intersting, it let me know more about Marvin Gaye and his brother. I'm going through the book again.



4. This is the second book I have read about Marvin. This book had far more insight as it was written by his brother. Very good reading for fans of Marvin, Motown or Music.



5. I've read Divided Soul twice, once when it was first published and again in the late 90's. For me, it was the definitive Marvin Gaye book, until I read Frankie Gaye's book!
   
   Frankie Gaye's book is so compassionate and tender, so factual. After all, he was Marvin's best friend and confidante. Whatever you do, do not skip to the end. Read the entire book and when you get to the ending, you will have gone through Marvin's struggle with him, with Frankie. My only regret about this book is that I never bothered to know more about Frankie Gaye.

5 comments about Crusade for Justice: The Autobiography of Ida B. Wells (Negro American Biographies and Autobiographies).

1. THIS IS ANOTHER BOOK ABOUT THE INJUSTICE OF THIS HYPOCRITICAL COUNTRY OF GOD FEARING BARBARIANS, WHOSE ANCESTORS PRACTICE GENOCIED OF THE INDIGENOUS PEOPLE OF TURTLE ISLAND AND THE ENSLAVEMENT OF AFRICANS. WHEN THOSE AFRICANS TRIED TO VOTE AND TO EXPERIENCE THE SO CALLED AMERICAN DREAM, WHO THEY WERE VICTIMIZED, AND THIS BRAVE LADY HAD TO CARRY A SHOT GUN TO PROTECT HERSELF FROM THE euro-american TRASH, WHO THREATED HER LIVE AND HER LOVED ONES. IT'S ABOUT TIME THAT THE TRUTH ABOUT america BE KNOWN.



2. I read 'Crusade for Justice: The Autobiography of Ida B. Wells' as part of a class in ethical and prophetic witness for seminary. This was, frankly, not the kind of book I was likely to read apart from a class assignment. But I am very glad to have been given the opportunity -- sometimes things we have to do are in fact good for us!

   Ida B. Wells was an African-American woman of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. She was born and grew up in the South, born in Mississippi during the Civil War. It is significant the impact of the legacy of slavery on her life -- she recounts how her parents, who were married as slaves, remarried each other as free persons after the war. Wells was a determined and intelligent woman -- her parents died while she was young, yet old enough to be left with the responsibility of her younger brothers and sisters. At the age of 14 she found herself at the head of a household with five younger children.

   She worked hard to make sure that her education did not suffer, and eventually (a rarity for women of any colour in America at the time) went to work for a newspaper.

   In an incident that foreshadowed Rosa Parks, she was once removed from a train for sitting in the wrong section, despite her ownership of a valid ticket for the seat. She sued the railroad and won (newspaper headlines read 'Darky Damsel Gets Damages' without concern for the racist tone), but the judgment was overturned on appeal, and she later discovered her lawyers had been paid off by the railroads, and the appellate judges had thought she was just being uppity to pursue the matter.

   Such was the state of the African-American community that none came to her assistance as she pursued this fight. This made her more determined to organise and fight.

   Several of her newspaper partners and other friends in Memphis were lynched for these efforts, and Wells was threatened herself, and left the South, but did not give up her crusade. Where ever she went, through cities and towns in the North as well as over to Europe (where, she said, she felt like she was treated as a real human being equal with others for the first time) she decried the injustice of laws which dismissed charges or gave light sentences if victims were coloured, and prosecuted more strongly, gave out harsher sentences, or even resorted to lynch mobs if the defendant (who was often not guilty) was coloured.

   'She fought a lonely and almost single-handed fight, with the single-mindedness of a crusader, long before men or women of any race entered the arena, and the measure of success she achieved goes far beyond the credit she has been given the history of the country.'

   She continued speaking and publishing up to her death in 1931. She was never afraid of making herself unpopular, and often upset the African-American community by being critical of their complacency (especially the upper and middle classes). She became unpopular by standing against the military service during World War I, because of prejudicial and discriminatory practices, and never quite recovered in popular esteem from that.

   But Wells had courage and determination that is rare in persons, male or female, of any colour, of any time, to take on such a task as the exposition and combat of lynching in the South during the post-Civil War decades. Talking directly with governors and even a president, Wells made her voice heard, and it was a difficult hearing in a difficult time.




3. This book sin't really anything special although it is interesting.The author describes her life all the way from her childhood where most of her family died, and through her success as a teacher and a newspaper editor who fought for freedom of speech in her articles.I recommend this book for those who are interested in the history after 1800s and how life went on at that time.Overall,it is a good book but I found it boring at times.



4. Even though some of the material in this book is redundant, this is an opportunity to read primary source material about the actions and reactions of a woman many of us know little about. Learning about Ida B. Wells in the first person puts you into the times in which she lived. There is no way a biography can give you the same experience. This is a book I would recommend to anyone wanting to understand this period of our history and the personalities--their strengths and limits--that dominated the crusades of those times. I like knowing about Wells' frailties as well as her strengths and the insights that she shared. And I like hearing her viewpoints about other leaders of her time. The three star ratings may say something about the readability of the book, but not about what you gain by staying the course.



5. The historical merit of Ida Wells' story is profound: here we have a history of African Americans written from the perspective of a fellow A.A. at a time when black history was otherwise sadly neglected. This book provides information about the foundation of A.A. activist groups, such as the NAACP from the perspective of an insider. The events of Wells' life coincide with other great A.A. figures, such as Frederick Douglass. She also provides a candid and heartfelt commentary on the injustices suffered by blacks in her time, most notably episodes of lynching. Truly and inspirational story of a very strong and very motivated woman.

   In terms of readability, however, the book gets a little redundant and repetitive after the half-way point. The details of Wells' many meetings and interactions are sometimes hard to follow and...well,repetitive.

5 comments about Before Freedom, When I Just Can Remember: Twenty-Seven Oral Histories of Former South Carolina Slaves.

1. I've read the original South Carolina Volumes of the WPA Slave Narratives that this book was edited from. This book could have been a whole lot better. While the current editor did a good job of making the SC African-American dialect more accessible to lay readers (even she admits to having trouble with printed versions of this dialect), many of the better stories were either highly edited or left out, such as Elijah Green's Reconstruction Narrative that was heavily edited and Isreal Nesbitt's recollections of the Vesey Rebellion, which aren't included.

   However, to the layman and non-historian, this is a good start in understanding slavery from the sources. Some interesting stories do remain, such as the Union County narrative about the Ku Klux Klan. So it's good for starters. The Tennessee and Georgia anthologies in this series are better, though.




2. This book was given to me by my social studies teacher as an extra credit reading assignment, so I read it just for the credit thinking that I would hate it. Little did I know how many metaphors and parallels to my life I would find. When I finished the book, I could not believe what some slaves had gone through. There were many theories that came out of this book, including that for many slaves, freedom was a two-edged sword. Yet to figure out what I mean by that, you will have to read the book yourself! I would strongly recommend this book to any 8th grade social studies teachers teaching the Civil War who want to make an impact on their students and wake them up to realize that history repeats itself and that the "killing of an old person is like the burning of a book in a library" - Mrs. Mahoney (my awesome 8th grade social studies teacher)!



3. A fantastic book that reveals the details of slave life through personal interviews of former slaves. Throw away the history books, forget what you learned in social studies, this is real. The book is printed using the dialects of the interviewees, so you almost feel as if you can hear the person speaking. A great read. Difficult to put it down once you pick it up.



4. This book was a very realistic view into the lives of slaves. I have gotten a better feel for the lives slaves through this book more than any other. It is well put together.



5. Belinda Hurmence is a excilent editor. It was a great idea to have this book published. It describes a lot of interesting situations. If you like books on slavery buy this one You will learn alot on the subject.

5 comments about Confessions: An Innocent Life in Communist China.

1. this would be a more profound work if the author had shown an insight into the quandary faced by all those in this totalitarian society. It is unsympathetic in its portrayal excepting the personal history of the author.



2. There are many great books on life in Communist China...Wild Swans, Life and Death in Shanghai, Mandate of Heaven, Iron and Silk etc.....Confessions is a great addition to the field.
   
   Well translated and utterly captivating and scary. A look into the horrors of life under Mao's totalitarianism.
   
   Some guys might be put off from Life and Death in Shanghai or Wild Swans which are told from very strong female points of view....Confessions is from a males point of view...I am not saying the other books are chick books and this is a guys book...but to some who might not want to read about generations of females this is a good alternative.
   
   Its a great book and I hope it reaches a wide group of readers.



3. 
   In his highly readable memoirs Yale University Professor Kang Zhengguo almost apologizes for not having it so rough in the Chinese Communist prison where he suffered privation and humiliation for three years, from September 1968 to September 1971. He reminds us that others have had it far worse, and points us to their books. But his tale of the common ailments including constipation and hunger that he and other prisoners suffered under the tyrannical rule of Mao Zedong's all-knowing and all-powerful party apparatus might be enough anyway to bring beads of sweat to a reader's brow. And for this precocious child of Xian, Shaanxi Province, who would never stop reading or learning or thinking, the prison term imposed for ordering Boris Pasternak's Dr. Zhivago by mail from the Moscow University Library in the "revisionist" Soviet Union was not the least of his suffering.
   
   The Cultural Revolution rendered an already ailing China almost useless as a productive country. In a land where education and scholarship had been given almost religious importance for more than 2,000 years, questions and the people who asked them suddenly became suspect. Students took over classrooms; workers became the arbitrary, vengeful bosses. Kang Zhengguo's father always urged him to stick to the sciences as he was growing up in a middle class family in Xian - knowing instinctively and through his own suffering that books and the ideas in them could ruin a person. That's the way it was under the Communist tyrants. Yet Kang would read, and write, like his grandfather before him. Suffering was his calling.
   
   His writing and reading cost him his place at college, alienated him from his father, landed him in prison, left him a second-class citizen for a decade and haunts him even now, he explains in Confessions: An Innocent Life in Communist China. He can't return to China - or won't. The last time he was there, in the enlightened year 2000, he was detained and interrogated and threatened for two days. Only his connections to Yale saved him. The Chinese citizen has no power in China, not political power anyway. Mao's death in 1976 changed little and the reforms of Deng Xiaoping brought economic prosperity for a few but at the price of everyone forgetting that they were stuck in a political quagmire. Kang Zhengguo escaped all that for the idyllic life of the bookish language teacher in New Haven, Conn. His writing got him in trouble, then provided his escape valve. His story will be especially compelling to writers and others who trade in ideas. But it will provide delightful reading for any student of China, filling in the details of the lives of ordinary people living through an extraordinary time in world history. - THOMAS BRENT ANDREWS / more reviews at http://chronicdiscontent.wordpress.com ##



4. Highly recommended for the reader interested in how one thoughtful young person might have survived during the madness of Mao's years. Professor Kang Zhengguo provides a well-written reaffirmation of the ultimate power of the lone individual. He, while adapting to hard circumstances, quietly strove for what was just in a time of unjustness.
   
   A harsh, deadeningly corrupt political/economic system, seemingly designed to bring out the worst in all people, is described in powerful detail.



5. I am now reading the book Confessions and it is very interesting and well written.Kang gives you a very descriptive picture of what it was like to be in China during the cultural revolution. Very frightening! I think it also gives one some insight into the culture of China today,and why their culture seems to drive their economic growth to excede sans a sense of responsibility or morality.

5 comments about Love Me, Hate Me: Barry Bonds and the Making of an Antihero.

1. This is quite simply one of the best sports biographies I have ever read. It is written in a very readable and interesting manner. Very highly recommended.



2. The author certainly did his homework by interviewing over 500 people who have had some interaction with Bonds over his life in order to write this book. What was grat about this book was that it wasn't written by Bonds or from the perspective of the author it was more other peoples true experiences about Bonds spun into a book. This was a fresh look at this guy and not written to drag him down or to glorify him, you are left to make your own opinion. I liked it.



3. I thought this would be a good book for a teen to read, however, there was much too much foul language.



4. Excellent book. Very entertaining. If you are a baseball fan this is a must have as it talks of Bonds throughout his baseball career. There are many quotes from his teammates on the Pirates and the Giants as well as items from his college days.
   
   The book talks about his marriages and his relationship with his dad.
   
   I finished this book in a week when it usually takes me a month or so to finish a book. I could not put it down.



5. This book is ironically titled because the real Barry Bonds, who you feel like they know after finishing Jeff Pearlman's thrilling biography, is a man one can neither love nor hate. His excellence is tarnished by his personality which is so obviously confused that, despite the brutality with which he treats others, renders one incapable of hating him. Barry Bonds is yet another example of self-esteem having an inverse relationship with success. Had Bonds been a satisfied young man, he would have never expended every particle of his physical and mental energy conquering a craft which would one day make him a national celebrity and a fabulously wealthy person. Bonds's infinitesimal self-doubt caused him to train like, and with, Jerry Rice and even cry on the rare occasion he had to miss a game, but it also alienated almost everyone he came into contact with. He is a petty, abrasive, and irritable man who is entirely devoid of social skills. This reality makes one pity him which is not the reaction one expects to have towards a finger pointing, whining mega-millionaire. When you look at the numbers over the course of his career, it is readily apparent that Bonds really is the Michael Jordan of baseball, and that most of us don't realize it is directly related to the horrendous way with which he interacts with peers, the press, the fans, and your average citizen. I am a fairly hardened person, but I was shocked to read the passages documenting this icon's habit of berating small children who ask for his autograph. He seems to insult and slight others for absolutely no reason whatsoever. As for steroids and BALCO, Pearlman does not hedge on the issue which is quite appropriate considering the evidence. The author is certain that the allegations against Bonds are true, and the stigma he is now under is doubly tragic because the reality is that the Giant would have gone to the Hall of Fame without an ounce of illegal substance. After the scandal, it's now a crap shoot as to whether or not he'll ever make it to Cooperstown. This is a cautionary tale.

3 comments about An Illuminated Life: Belle da Costa Greene's Journey from Prejudice to Privilege.

1. Serious bibliophiles know that J.P. Morgan's Library (The Morgan Library & Museum is its current name) is the holy shrine of book collecting - the greatest archive of rare books, historical and literary original manuscripts, exquisite medieval illuminated manuscripts, music manuscripts, fine art drawings, ancient seals, etc... in the Western Hemisphere - and perhaps the world. Belle da Costa Greene, as one of the primary forces in molding the collection, and the institution's first director, would be worthy of note for that role alone. But Belle is far more. She was a brilliant art historian, whose tastes and scholarship made a real impact on bibliography and art criticism. She was also a coquettish beauty and epic flirt, whose long and literary infatuations (particularly the torrid one with the titanic art critic Bernard Berenson) are worthy of note. She's also worthy of note as a pioneering independent woman in a field dominated by men. Ultimately, however, it's her ambiguous and troubling racial identity for which she is best known.
   
   The fact is that Belle Greene's father, Richard Greener, was the first African American graduate of Harvard University. Greener had a distinguished but troubled career as a civil rights leader - ending up estranged from his family and serving as a diplomat in Vladivostok. Belle's mother took the family across the racial line in Belle's late childhood and they all passed as white. So Belle was raised as a black in her early childhood and as a white in her late childhood. She attended Amherst and Princeton as a white (obviously, since Princeton wouldn't have a black graduate until 1951). She worked very closely with J.P. Morgan - a man of very traditional racial and ethnic biases. (J.P. Morgan famously wouldn't meet with Joe Kennedy (JFK's father, and director of the NY Stock Exchange at the time) because he was Irish). She also had a close professional relationship with Jack Morgan - J.P.'s son and CEO of the Morgan empire through its period of greatest power - who had even more conservative views than his father. Belle traversed the world of high society, constantly attending the cultural events, parties, and dinners of the NY elite 400. How she reconciled race, power, prestige, and her own identity is a fascinating subject. Heidi Ardizzone treats the subject with admirable finesse - particularly her lovely postmodern racial sensibility that the label of "blackness" was prejudicial and punitive - that the notion of "passing" is limited and obsolete. No one should be quick to judge Belle for her actions, given that the question of which of her roughly equal mix of white and black ancestries should take precedence is a racist question to begin with. The issue of dishonor in not acknowledging race is complicated by the amoral quality of wrongful discrimination in the categorizing of race to begin with.
   
   Belle is a tough subject for a biography because she burned all her papers near the end of her life - a romantic and extravagant gesture for a romantic and extravagant woman. Ardizzone pulls a rabbit out of hat in creating a detailed biography by sheer grit and determination. She has combed all the archives of those who conversed with Belle (at a time when everyone was prolific letter writers and the letters of important people were often saved). Bernard Berenson's archives contained 400 of Belle's letters - but Ardizzone went far further. She takes historical sources of all kinds from the places she knew Belle was to reconstruct parts of Belle's life for which there are no primary sources. The end result has pockets of speculation, but a remarkable wealth of detail. The whole thing is rigorously end-noted. I'll confess that sometimes I found it had too much detail slowing the narrative pace - but Belles amazing life makes the bit of persistence necessary worth the (sometimes) effort. Ardizzone isn't too dry. I love the moment where she punctuates a combative exchange between powerful women with the decidedly un-academic narrative flourish "Meow"! Ultimately, it's easy to recommend this book to anyone with a taste for biography and an interest in art history, The Morgan, or identity politics.



2. When you read this book it should be clear to you that Belle Da Costa Greene was not "black" or "African American" but a mixed-race white or white person of mixed ancestry. Her mother and siblings also embraced their European heritage and rejected the forced "Negro" stigma that a racist government might have imposed on them if they had been subservient enough to allow it. Belle and her family should be praised for the bravery and self-respect that allowed them to live as they wanted to live. Imposing a forced "black" identity on Belle or anyone else accused of "passing for white" is the moral equivalent of endorsing the Nuremberg Laws that condemned Jews as too "inferior" to claim a German or other European culture and identity because they were only "inferior" Semites.
   
   It is amazing to me how people who claim to be against "racism" are often prepared (usually at the behest of the black-identified) to condemn other whites as too inferior to be white because of "black blood" (Note that Hispanics and Arabs are usually exempt from this stigma because of their political power and social cohesion). Of course, the "politically correct" terminology is to claim that the alleged "passer" rejected morally superior blacks for morally inferior whites, but "everyone" understands what is truly meant. Books that should be read in addition to this one in order to give a fairer picture: PASSING FOR WHO YOU REALLY ARE and LEGAL HISTORY OF THE COLOR LINE.Passing for Who You Really Are



3. In 1911 one Bella da Costa Greene made New York newspaper headlines by buying a book from one of Britain's finest printers, succeeding at a high-profile auction which allowed her to walk away with the book for half of what her employer had authorized her to pay, despite aggressive bidding. She would spend some forty years at her employer's resulting library and become its first director - but the real story of her achievement, which includes her African-American heritage, lack of formal art education, and bohemian lifestyle, remained hidden until now. AN ILLUMINATED LIFE charts her rise to culture and prosperity and provides an extraordinary, gripping memoir of an amazing woman which is perfect for any general interest library strong in biographical memoirs, art history, or even Afro-American notable figures.
   
   Diane C. Donovan
   California Bookwatch