1 comments about Hot Sun, Cool Shadow: Savoring the Food, History, and Mystery of the Languedoc.

1. Essential reading for anyone planning a trip to the Languedoc. Part guidebook, part history, part culinary journey, part cookbook, it's also the story of a couple who actually did what many of us dream of doing: finding a second home somewhere warmer, sunnier and more relaxed, with, in this case, better food.
   Angie Murrills is a vivid writer with a keen eye, a warm heart and an insatiable appetite for food and food history. Each chapter ties a food - cassoulet, confit, anchovies, cheese - with a Languedoc town or region, illustrated with small, charming ink drawings by Peter Matthews.
   I dare you to read this and not start planning a lazy trip boat trip down the Midi Canal, or a trip to the Camargue, to see a bloodless bull fight in Stes. Maries de la Mer.

5 comments about Punk Rock Dad: No Rules, Just Real Life.

1. We picked this book up at Borders when we were looking for other baby books one night. My husband and I both really enjoyed this book. It was a lot of fun to read, we laughed out loud several times while reading this book. Jim Lindberg really helped us to see ourselves as future parents. Maybe being a huge Pennywise fan didn't hurt either, but you don't have to be a punk rocker to enjoy and learn from this book.
   
   One of the hardest things for me to figure out during my pregnancy is that I don't have to magically become this perfect Mom person. All I have to do is be myself, that's who my husband wants to be with and who my child should get to know. Becoming a parent doesn't have to change who I am at my core, I just will have a new role as a parent as well. This book prepared me for that role.



2. Some people have complained that Jim is not punk, that he name drops a million bands, enough and one person even called him a "neocon". Ridiculous. I think they missed a huge point of the book - Jim acknowledges he was a suburbanite kid who felt like he didn't belong there. Feeling like an outsider is a basic tenant of "punk". He mentions many times that he wishes he could be the guy in the suit with the great job and could feel connected to his neighbors. He also mentions that when talking to the other parents he finds that they are all more alike than he thought, regardless of social strata or politics - they all just want to do right by their kids. That they don't do the same things are irrelevant, they want the same things. But he is nowhere near a neocon, or even a right-winger.
   
   Jim doesn't name drop a million bands or act like a huge star. He mentions the people and bands he works with because it's his job. The people he knows just happen to be part of a celebrity community. If you wrote a book about parents you know, if you were a "celebrity" they probably would be, too. He is really modest about his celebrity.
   
   He talks about how great his kids are, but he also talks about what perfect monsters they can be - and blames himself for most of it. He talks about setting boundaries, but about how hard that is given his history. He expresses no regrets, and talks about finding that balance between the Pennywise song "F@$& Authority" and making his kids go to bed on time.
   
   Essentially, Jim gives simple and useful parenting advice that basically boils down to Be Consistent, Be Respectful, and Be a Good Role Model. Great book.



3. I am not a fan of the band - probably couldn't tell you a single song? (but my husband could!) I am, however, a great fan of this man and his book. Super reality, written in a way that will have you on the floor laughing and crying simutaneously, and you'll want to read over & over again. I consider myself to be a responsible, streamline, almost boring person - but this is the parent that I strive to be. Kudos Jim!



4. An extremely funny read. It's amazing to me that not too long ago seeing Pennywise with No Use For A Name play at the Hard Rock in Las Vegas and not knowing that Jim had three kids already! It didn't show when he was on stage and if anyone told me that he had kids I would have called them a liar. But being a huge fan of Pennywise and not a huge fan of kids I figured I would read his book to maybe prepare myself for what was in my near future, my own little monsters running around and screaming at me! If you're a punk like me and plan on having kids then I recommend reading this book.



5. I got this for my husband's birthday when we found out we were 6 weeks pregnant. I was looking for a parenting book that was not all caveman-ish and more enlightened dad and I glanced at this book and bought it and LOVED it! He read it in one weekend and then gave it to me, and then I read it in one weekend. We read it again when we found out we were having twins, as he talks about jealousy between sibs and balancing kids' personalities. Now that we're closer to the end and suspect we're having girls, we just re-read it again! I've never been a punk-rocker, and never heard of Pennywise, but my husband loves that type of music. I do think that if you're not a punk rocker kind of person you'll still enjoy the stories. It's all warm stories about learning he's going to be a dad, the pregnancy freakout, the birth from the guy's side, and then the stories about infanthood through kindergarden. It's not preachy at all and more of "this is what I did, learn from my mistakes" kind of book, which I really love. (Particularly his first night home alone with his daughter, and the time he had to change the baby out and didn't have any baby wipes!)
   
   I will say however, if you are giving this as a gift, it's not for the right-wing conservative, NRA card carrying, or redneck husband/father. He will absolutely not appreciate it, and I suspect the bad reviews are from those kind of guys who are more of a hands-off type of dad. However, if your hubby is a left-leaning or mainstream kind of guy who is concerned about not becoming his father, taking an active role in his kids' lives and wanting the world to be a better place for the next generation, this is your book.
   
   I really really hope he comes out with another book in a few years time when the girls are older. I'm so curious to see how he handles the school-aged years, especially middle school and high school. I would buy that book in a second!!!

5 comments about Point to Point Navigation: A Memoir (Vintage).

1. Ok, so I read palimsest nearly..yes it could be a decade ago as a student. I bought Point when I wa scasually shopping last year. Vidal amazes in his clarity and liberal views. A true independent in all spheres!



2. A poignant, if somewhat rambling, stroll through the latter half of Gore Vidal's extrodinary life.



3. D. In listening to Gore Vidal's second memoir, POINT TO POINT
   NAVIGATION, I was immediately struck by how much
   name-dropping seems to be taking place . . . his list of friends
   and acquaintances reads like a Who's Who of important people
   in the 20th century . . . it includes such notables as Tennessee Williams,
   Johnny Carson, Rudolph Nuryev, Eleanor Roosevelt,
   Paul Newman, Orson Welles, JFK, Princess Grace, Amelia Earhart,
   and Gretta Garbo, just to name a few.
   
   Many of these individuals he liked . . . in listening to this book, which he
   also narrated, you get to know them better . . . if he didn't like
   you (think Truman Capote), watch out . . . he wrote about him and even
   his own mother in quite unpleasant terms.
   
   I generally tend to prefer a book that follows a more linear
   fashion . . . POINT TO POINT skipped around a bit too much
   to my liking, though Vidal explains his reasoning for doing so
   by mentioning the fact that he was forced to utilize this means
   of navigation whenever compasses failed when he was in the
   navy during World War II.
   
   Vidal has written some 46 books, as well as numerous
   essays . . . you'll get a better feel for his life by reading
   this memoir, though it was actually his moving account
   of his companion-for more than half a century--Howard Auster--that
   I found most interesting.
   
   They met on Labor Day in 1950 . . . years later, Auster told
   Vidal "that he thought he was just passing through my life and was
   surprised as the decades began to stack up and we were still together.
   But then it is easy to sustain a relationship when sex plays no part and
   impossible, I have observed, when it does. Each had a sex life apart from
   the other: all else including our sovereign, time, was shared."



4. It sounds funny to say this about a writer who has had as long and successful a career as Gore Vidal, but there are times I suspect that he is the most under/rated of our writers: He is quite simply a master novelist and the finest writer of essays of the last half century. Point To Point Navigation is a lovely, understated summing up of a long and varied life. If one cares about effortless prose- and a clear-eyed overview of the last few deacdes, you owe it to yourself to read P To P Navigation.



5. Yes there's the charm, the wit, the astonishing offhand stories about his friendships with a diverse crowd of 20th century legends, but in a nutshell: read Palimpsest instead! He actually repeats a couple stories from that book here. A few good new stories, but not many. If you have already read Palimpsest, this is something of an addendum.

5 comments about Not Even My Name: A True Story.

1. Extremely well written and oh so true! Many of us heard these stories from your yiayias (grandmothers) and/or mothers who experienced the exile of Greeks from Turkey. Women, desparate for a better life, would willingly marry whoever to get out of the turmoil and economic depression of their countries. Well worth the read.



2. This poignant memoir written in such astonishing detail is an unforgettable story that will capture the reader from the start. Sano is like a small but sturdy flower growing in the most unlikely and least advantageous of garden spots. In her we see goodness and love survive heart rending loss and the cruel displacement of senseless war. I could not put the book down once I began to read it.



3. This is not a book to read if you want to be cheered up, yet I will never forget the story. I wept off and on reading of the author's mother's experience on the death march. I have traveled to Greece and Turkey twice yet had no knowledge of the genocide of the Pontic Greeks. I thank the author for the courage to live through her mother's amazing journey as she told her unforgettable story.



4. I am also of Pontic Greek and Assyrian origin. Even though our lands were taken away, our people still exist, we still maintain our language, and the gospel is still spreading which is a blessing. I am glad to see someone wrote a book on the Greek/Assyrian/Armenian Genocide. The Turks tortured and massacred millions of Greeks, Assyrians and Armenians. I am happy to see you raise more public awareness about this. I pray for the Greeks, Assyrians and Armenians still living in Asia Minor that deal with constant persecution for their Christian faith. Great Book Thea!



5. I am John Halo the brother of Thea Halo. I am very proud of my sister for writing such a wonderful book, NOT EVEN MY NAME, that depicts such an accurate account of my mothers life, that discribeds the pain that my wonderful mother endured in her childhood and throughout her life. Thea Halo is a champion and a woman with a beautiful hart and a loving sole that deserves the recognition of a grate author, and I hope someone will relize the value of this true story and make a movie and documentary so to educate our generation and future generation from repeating this horror. I would also like to let everyone know that my mother was so grateful and proud that Thea wrote this book and is also grateful to all of the wonderful people that came to see her speak. And last I would like to say how proud and thankful I am of my sister Thea Halo for being my sister.
   Sincerely
   John Halo

5 comments about Life in the French Foreign Legion: How to Join and What to Expect When You Get There.

1. There is no need in saying that this book was very informative. That is given by the other reviews found here. The only problem I had was that the events in the book happened nearly twenty years ago. This however doesn't impede on the books ability to be very informative on its own. For more up-to-date information, one could visit the FFL forums and ask some questions there.



2. The book is (in my opinion) all right, just for somebody who is
   either an "ancien" or already knows the legion quite a bit, it
   contains nothing new. Anyway, thumbs up!



3. McGorman did an excellent job writing this book, it's well organized and well written. He recounts his experiences in the Legion with astounding detail, and with a very human insight into the way a man deals with hard times in the military...and that is with a combination of great pride, and yet at the same time a desire to be anywhere else. He is easy to relate to and this is what makes it such a good book, he doesn't fill it with chest-pounding fluff, just how it is. It takes place about 1989 to 1995, spanning the course of the standard 5 year enlistment. He does a pretty good job of laying out the enlistment and training processes and then life in a unit, for those considering joining, which really is who this book was written for. The only thing potentially dated is how much of the enlistment process or other things may have changed in nearly 20 years, considering also that this was before the internet, computers, etc. changed the world, and the military. This does not detract from the book much though, as you could say it is mainly a memoir with alot of good advice. It reminded me in many various ways of my time in the Marine Corps. and this, in my mind, added to the author's credibility of giving an accurate description of the everyday life in this elite, yet sometimes fabled branch (for lack of a better word) of the French Army. He gives his honest opinions on the ups and downs, and what runs through a person's mind when dealing with the military's often aggravating ways of doing things. I would recommend this as a good first pick for a Legion book. The issue with trying to get a good picture of service from Fr.FL books however, is that every author seems to have a very different perspective on their service. While one hates it, another enjoys it, and while one cries about it being "brutal" another will say the Legion is much like any other elite military organization (this book is fairly neutral, however, which is one reason why it is a good first choice). I feel this makes it necessary to buy several books on the topic, especially for those considering joining, and this one is well worth picking up!



4. This is a one-of-a-kind manual for the alienated or adventurous youth of the world an utterly fascinating read.
   
   If you're thinking about joining, or just want to know more, this is the most practical book you'll find on the subject. It should help dispel any illusions that you have of romantic days spent marching mile after mile through the desert. Be prepared for a life of Spartan confines and discipline.
   
   But it's more than that. I can't really tell you how many times I've picked up this book just to have something to read. But it says something about a book when you return to it over and over again. I even emailed the author a few questions and was pleasantly surprised by receiving an answer.
   
   The book even caused a minor controversy with my parents as the author explained some of the finer points of "telling people off" in French. Apparently, my rather sensible French mother didn't quite understand the totality or extremeness of some internationally known gestures or expressions. Needless to say, my father and I had a good laugh over this.
   
   I left this book on my desk at work in 2004 just before going on vacation in Europe. Oh, how the rumors started to fly!



5. This is a great book for anyone contemplating joining the Legion and it's a great read for anyone remotely interested in the Legion. I think the author is very honest in his assessments of the Legion and its ventures.

5 comments about Love and Consequences: A Memoir of Hope and Survival.

1. This book, billed as a truthful memoir of the life of a white girl raised by a black family in the South Central LA ghetto, is not factual, but is in fact the product of "Margaret B. Jones's" very febrile imagination. For starters: White children are not placed in black foster homes; the author claimed to be of mixed American Indian - White, but not a drop of the former made it into her face; that the first thing she did with the money from her first drug sale was buy a cemetery plot; that she had graduated from the University of Oregon, and the list goes on. Was the purpose to determine how naïve the reader, and more importantly, professional reviewers are of the true conditions in the ghetto?
   
   Lessons abound. Clearly all too many professional reviewers do not read critically, and are prone to "groupthink." Why do so many reviewers, all at the same time, think a book like "Love and Consequences" is significant; worthy of a review, and not a single ONE detects anything amiss, when virtually everything is. Why must the reading public rely on a truthful sister to reveal the true facts?
   
   Should the average reader mourn the curtailment of book review sections in major newspapers? Clearly a better solution may be reading rationale and thoughtful reviews posted at Amazon. With the prevalence of these incidents in the publishing industry, it stands to reason that more exist, waiting to be found.



2. I didn't know the book was fiction until I went to review it. I'm disappointed that the author couldn't be honest about this, but the story is still good. I have a sister who lives in the Bakersfield area, who raised two African American children in grinding poverty in a very bad neighborhood. There are many things about the story that rang true from what she has told me. The question for me: does the story move us forward? I think it does. I feel more compassion for poor people and the circumstances that lead them to crime and the gang life. Maybe I'm naive, but I think that's a good thing despite the deception by the author.



3. This is ridiculous, anybody who been involved or even been around this life on the outside edges would be able to tell right from the beginning where she says the thing about using K's for c's. becuz they would know that C's would not be spelled with a K, but a cK. so right from the beginning it prooves that she is ignorant of what shes talkin about. c's become cK=crip killer, there is many different parts of the language that gets changed, not just c's, so if that is all she bothered to change to the "blood speak" (just typing that made me roll my eyes) then its even more ignorant becuz she couldnt even bother to find out what language really gets used n what it stands for, just uses someone elses life as a frame to make her own picture look better and thats sad.
   
   Books like this make me sick, for real, cant people just write somethin real, or somethin fiction and admit it. you cant get away with lying like that forever. its sad also, that she robs other peoples lives, when in reality there IS many white kids as the minority in the ghetto, but it aint a myth. But people like her faking it, takes away from the reality of their situations, like its just some concept to be used for your own good and not someones actual life and suffering. What a pathetic thing to do, now being upper class and priveleged is so hard that people gotta pretend they had a different life to get acceptance?
   
   Her use of the slang wasnt even on point, that should tell you straight up at the start what kind of suspect book you have.



4. This is a well written, most engaging story and it is so unfortunate that the author chose to label it as a true memoir which caused the publisher to recall it. BUT give her a chance... it should be read, not "banned"! (I chose to read it anyway because I'd heard the NPR interview with the author and was intrigued. And, I certainly was not disappointed at all in the book.)
   I think the author has a real gift to tell a story with feeling. Her descriptions of events and people are indeed well crafted. She has a talent for painting pictures with words. This tale of a youth growing up in the inner city is a fascinating, believable and captivating one. And, if you "read" the book on CD, you'll be treated to not only a well-written story but a well-read one as well. It's truly a "hard to put down" book. I hope she writes more, honestly!



5. Memoir or Fiction it is a wonderful and interesting book. Read it and see.

1 comments about Jesus the Christ, The Life of a Master (Fireside Series, Vol. 4, No. 1) (Fireside).

1. This book helps people to understand what Jesus really was like, why he did what he did and what that means for the average person.It is both uplifting and informative.

5 comments about Lords of the Earth (International Adventures) (International Adventures).

1. I bought this book for my mom. She's a big fan of missionary stories and she loved this one! I recently bought her Peace Child by the same author. She enjoyed it as well.



2. This book is incredible. Sad and at the same time so incredibly uplifting. It shows how God's plans are so much bigger than ours, and His hand works in ways we cannot comprehend.



3. Lords of the Earth (International Adventures) (International Adventures)
   
   My boss recommended this book to me, and I'm so glad he did. It was not an easy read as many of the things in it are difficult to hear. It is an incredible story though, and worth reading.



4. "Lords of the Earth" is the term the Yali warriors use to describe themselves. They live in the Heluk valley in Irian Jaya, and the only knowledge of them to reach the outside world are the dark rumors of the cannibals beyond the mountains. The first section of the book is about them, their customs, and the awful fear and darkness they lived in. Don Richardson does a great job portraying a people bound by chains of sin, and longing for release. The horror of their pain is graphic, and not suitable to be read to younger children.
   
   The second part of the book describes the early life of Stan Dale, his conversion, and his burden for those in darkness. He is drawn as a determined man, physically strong and fit, with firm convictions.
   
   The book goes on to tell of Stan's coming to the Yali people. How a strange story begins over his identity, protecting his life. How the first few Yali Christians were killed, and later Stan and a fellow missionary were brutally murdered. How another missionary family died in a plane crash, except for the nine-year-old son, whose friendship with the Yali paves the way for them to turn to Christ.
   
   The book reminded me Christ's words in John 12:24, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit." On earth, Stan Dale never saw the fruit his life and death brought forth, but he will rejoice in heaven with the Yali that are there through his witness.



5. My heart was torn apart as I read the story of the Yali people. This is one of those 'I can't put it down' books. I'm still somewhat smitten in my heart over the price these missionaries paid and the intense need for the gospel these people so desperately demonstrated. God help us to heed the call to go into all the world.

No comments about On the Edge: My Story.

2 comments about Reyita: The Life of a Black Cuban Woman in the Twentieth Century.

1. Reyita describes her life as a black woman, being born in 1902 and growing up through all the violence and poverty of Cuba in the twentieth century.
   
   In 1912 Reyita, was living with her godfather and his wife, the latter being terribly abusive. This lady was also head of the women's section of the local branch of the leading Afro-Cuban political party, the PIC. The PIC had been formed in 1908 in order to fight against racial discrimination. It was been banned by the Cuban government in 1910 on the false ground that it was anti-white. As a result of what Reyita claims was a trap laid by the Cuban president Jose Miguel Gomez, the PIC launched a revolt. The Cuban military responded by executing and torturing thousands of ordinary Afro-Cubans. Reyita's aunt was arrested on bogus charges and thrown into prison.
   
   Reyita spends a great deal of time in this book discoursing her use of herbal remedies and other home-grown medicine to cure various ailments of her neighbors. In this way, as a medicine woman, also as one with a reputation as receiving accurate visions from the spirit world, she found a certain niche for herself in Cuba's patriarchal culture.
   
   Reyita was alert to any opening in Cuba's political sphere which might serve as veichle to better the condition of her people. The PIC seemed to offer a ray of hope and Reyita tried her best as a young girl to support her neighborhood chapter. After the PIC was crushed, Afro-Cubans were virtually terrorized into submission. The biggest attraction after this was the fatalistic "Back-to-Africa" movement of Marcus Garvey, which Reyita was enthusiastic for, roughly, in the 1918-22 era. This movement was also repressed by the Cuban state. Then there was Reyita's involvement with the Cuban Communist Party, the PSP, in the early 1940's....
   
   Reyita married a white man who was virtually disowned by his family as a result of this inter-racial marriage and had problems with some of his neighbors in places they lived. Her husband, of course, never brought Reyita along when he was invited to dinner at the houses of his bosses at his factory. Reyita admits that she married this man in order to produce light skinned children who would have a considerably easier time of it in Cuban society than she did growing up. In spite of his steadfast commitment to his marriage to Reyita in the face of society's hostility, her husband was at the same time a rather traditional and dull fellow. He was very controlling towards her and their children.
   
   Reyita tried to engage in small activities that would earn her own money and which could give her a measure of independence from her husband. For instance, in what is perhaps the most vivid and interesting section of the book, the family's life in the 1940's living in the poor neighborhood called Barraccones in Santiago De Cuba, Reyita first opens a diner in her family's home.. She reports how several of these prostitutes lifted themselves out of their [...] and their children that Reyita took care of while their mothers were trying to get their lives together, turned out well. Many of these prostitutes were white, but they shared a bond with Reyita because they were all very poor. Reyita also briefly mentions the gay men who patronized her dinner and she speaks about the lifestyle they practiced with no hint of any disfavor whatsoever. A very tolerant woman was Reyita.
   
   
   On the years after the triumph of the revolution, Reyita mentions that great progress has been made, but that discrimination is still present, that black candidates for jobs can be excluded in favor of less qualified white ones and so on. She mentions that in film and literature, some of the old stereotypes of Afro-Cubans remain. She notes that oral historians in Cuba post-revolution, made little effort to interview people like her, who had witnessed such events in Afro-Cuban history as the massacres of 1912.
   
   This book does not exactly evoke great feeling in the reader, though at times it can. The stanzas of poetry that open each chapter, apparently selected by the poetry buff Reyita, are quite beautiful.



2. Reyita's story is both touching and inspiring. As a Black Cuban woman she suffered a great deal of hardship, which she worked very hard to overcome especially for her children. Stories about her life were very interesting and informative and present a picture of Cuba that is not generally known. Black women all over the diaspora can relate to her story and her desire to have more for her children. Some may question her decision to marry outside her race as a product of poor self-esteem, but she provides a well-reasoned argument to better the lives of her children. I would have loved the opportunity to meet this lady.