5 comments about Summer at Tiffany.

1. This memoir of working as one of the first women on the sales floor at Tiffany & Co. was informative and sweet, but a bit dull. It's an easy read and definitely suitable for a young adult reader. If you like stories about New York and "career girl" narratives you might enjoy it. I'd hoped for a bit more.



2. The summer of '45 was full of discoveries for the author: New York City, the elegance of Tiffany's, the euphoric end to WWII, happenings with friends, and meeting a beau. Well-written picture of the times. A really fun read - highly recommended.



3. I enjoyed the time this book was set in. The budgeting the girls had to do and the amazing experinces that they had was the stuff of dreams. I wish I had had a summer that memorable



4. I really thought this was a delightful and charming book! It's the true-story of two girls from Iowa, best-friends Marjorie and Marty, who take a summer to find jobs in New York. It's mid 1940's (already a plus for me as it's one of my favorite eras for stories) and the war is coming to a close, so in addition to the story itself being simply lovely, there's a fair amount of historical information as well. Marjorie and Marty are loveable characters and it's easy to see why the make such great friends. The antics and adventures that ensure, the relationships that build, and the events that take place are all entertaining and heartwarming. Highly recommended! A great summer read!



5. I read this book in just a few hours and loved it..
   
   I was born in 1945. My mother had gone to live in Baltimore to work in 1943 at the same age Marjorie was when she went to Manhatten. Although Baltimore is a much smaller city, I can only imagine the parallels that must have existed. It truly was an innocent time and one I somehow feel cheated in missing. Despite the war and all the problems it entailed for people both financially and emotionally, they somehow found a certain joy in living with a minimum of complaining. Certainly a lesson for the young people of today and many adults as well.
   
   I'm going to buy this book for my Mom as I know she'll enjoy it as much as I did.

5 comments about A Rare Breed of Love: The True Story of Baby and the Mission She Inspired to Help Dogs Everywhere.

1. If you love animals, especially dogs, buy this book(the proceeds go to the Humane Society in the fight against puppy mills.) I bought several for family and friends and everyone loved it. Some even gave money to donate to the Humane Society who are working with Jana to make puppy mills illegal.



2. This is a must read book. This is an important and compassionate story about a woman's journey to find a dog. In a search for her dog Baby she encountered the horrible conditions dogs endure at the hands of unscrupulous breeders. As a result Jana became inspired to do something about it. She and the now famous Baby, her three legged dog, travel the United States to speak to groups about changing the laws that allow puppy farms to exist. An inspiring story that moves one to action. Bravo, Jana Kohl.



3. One of the best stories I have read in a long time, I highly recommend it.



4. I purchased this book on a trip to Costco - having no intentions to shop other than routine groceries --- then the CUTE dog on the cover compelled me to open and browse. Not only did I stop and look inside - I purchased 3 copies to give to my fellow animal lover friends.
   
   This canine biography works on so many levels with the endearing photos of pro-animal activists and citizens - but most of all - telling the story from the point of view through Baby's eyes brings home the agony of the suffering caused by puppy mills. Credit should also go to the Oprah show for devoting air time to this sad subject giving it the attention it deserves with Lisa Ling's in-depth puppy mill profile. I believe Baby was a featured guest on that show - so I was moved to see the photos in this book.
   
   Jana - Keep up the good work on your mission to educate people to the suffering inflicted by our fellow humans - I agree with Andy Rooney's quote - "the average dog is a nicer person than the average person" - how sad but true!
   
   Buy this book to share with family and friends ... most of all don't forget to spay and neuter your pets.



5. A Rare Breed Of Love is a beautifully written book, one that WILL touch your heart each and every time you turn the pages. This book is a wonderful tool for education about the cruetly of puppy mills. Give this book to everyone you know who loves dogs. Reach out to stop this horror. I was lucky enough to meed Baby and her 'Ma', what an incredibly beautiful and sweet girl. This is probably one of the most important books written about animal advocacy.

5 comments about Confessions of a Video Vixen.

1. After hearing all the hype of Karrine Steffins book Confessions i had to read it, i had to know who was going to be outed and how her experiences changed her life. To my sadness and my dismay i must say that this is a novel i refer to as a "fake" book. I finish the 250 page book in two hours. The book told me exactly what i wanted to know but in many interviews she told that this was the biography of her life and she couldn't tell her life story worth out mentioning names of the people that played a part in her life i feel the purpose of the book was not to teach young girls to think better of themselves but to put money in her pocket simply because she didn't mention any normal average Joe Blow she was with no the only mention of any men in the book other than her father and the boy who raped her were famous powerful most of them married with children i can not be told that the only men Karrine ever slept with were the rich and famous. I am highly disappointed with her book and will not be purchasing the Vixen Diaries I can simply read the "tell-all" parts in a blog somewhere since that is the only reason worth reading this excuse of a book.



2. I thought that her back story was interesting. But I also think this really became a tabloid story because she never called out a lot of celebs.
   
   She exposed a lot of people for the dirt they did. And while if you're doing wrong in the dark, things eventually come to light, the way she did it wasn't impressive. I did like how she didn't tell on that one specific person, although that got out anyway. But I couldn't blame all the people she mentioned if they didn't have anything to do with her ever again.
   
   The book wouldn't have been interesting at all without the name celebrities she mentioned, though, so that's why they are included.



3. Karrine Steffans is a highly unlikable character, which is kind of hard to imagine since I usually feel a lot of empathy towards people who have been reportedly abused and also raped. Not one word from her ilicited anything but disgust from me. Yes, this is an entertaining read, but this book did not make me care about her. She says she wrote this book as a cautionary tale, but when asked, in an interview, would she have lived her life diferently if she got a second chance, she said that she would not, that she would have chosen the same path. I would not suggest this book unless you just really need to know about what some of the celebrities are like behind closed doors



4. This book was full of gossip, she ratted out almost everybody in hollywood that she had been intimate with! She is a prositute and proud of it, if you like hearing about who she has been with sexually, this is the book for you, I didn't learn nothing that I didn't already no, I would'nt get her newest book!



5. I feel sorry for Karrine Steffans, but she CANNOT write! Her editor sucks! She should have had someone else edit her work because neither she nor her editor can proofread. She brags about being a novelist without going to college...that's BS. She clearly should have gone to college or taken some type of writing class, but since she didn't her book turned out like this. I felt like she kept saying the same thing over and over again...and I couldn't even finish the book. I was so bored with the content and the way in which it was delivered. This girl needs help...I do feel bad regarding the horrible things that have happened to her. However, she needs to get a life and this type of nonsense is not the way to go...I'm sure the second book was just as useless as this one...Let's get it together people!

5 comments about Forward From Here: Leaving Middle Age--and Other Unexpected Adventures.

1. This is one of the best books that I've ever read. I've ordered others for my friends.



2. FORWARD FROM HERE will delight you if:
   
   --you remember with great fondness the writings of Reeve's mother, Anne Morrow. Making allowances for the generational differences, their styles and subjects are similar: family, nature, the written word per se, etc.
   
   --you have read and enjoyed Reeve's other books. I found her UNDER A WING more tightly focused and thus, to me, more engaging; and NO MORE WORDS more frank and moving. But FORWARD FROM HERE has much of the charm of a lovely, simple dessert,what Anne Morrow Lindbergh called "something sweet at the end of the day." I was happy to have this book waiting at my bedside table for several nights, and only wished it a little longer.
   
   --you are actively engaged in "moving forward" from 60-plus. The book deals honestly but cheerfully with a generous handful of the standard challenges of ageing. We are also offered time-tested insights on matters such as parenting, reading, writing, and modern drugs(pro and con).
   
   --you want to know a bit about Reeve's reactions to her father Charles Lindbergh's three secret simultaneous mistresses and families. (The "Lone Eagle" indeed!) Of course this long-hidden aspect of Charles Lingbergh's otherwise much-celebrated life might well be the subject of a complete and probing book of its own, written not out of prurience but with the intent to better understand the puzzling psychological and emotional temperament involved. But Reeve Lindbergh will not, I think, be the one to write such a book.



3. What a pleasure to read! I am not quite finished with this Kindle book and the more I read it, the more I'm enjoying it. Lindbergh is a sensitive, thoughtful, writer and I can relate to her experiences on so many levels. I, too, am a woman of a certain age, a mother, grandmother, potential (me, not her) writer. Her perspective on life, the natural world, her family just drew me in and I found myself wishing she were my friend.
   
   Thank you, Reeve, for a lovely reading experience. I'm recommending this for all my friends and if they don't buy it, they're getting a copy for their birthdays or Christmas/Chanukah.



4. Forward from Here is Reeve Lindbergh's best book yet. Funny, tender, compassionate, profound, Lindbergh reveals herself to be an accomplished and graceful writer--something you might already suspect if you have read her earlier books, Under a Wing (about growing up Lindbergh, with two extraordinary parents, Charles Lindbergh and Anne Morrow Lindbergh) and No More Words (about her mother's decline and death). In this book, Lindbergh (an author of books for children) explores the happiness and hazards she encounters as she journeys from middle age into her sixties--the "youth of old age." "I might as well enjoy the view as I travel along from my birth to death, inhabiting this being I call myself," she writes. "I may be a passenger on the journey, or I may be the vehicle itself, but I'm definitely not the driver. I'm here, but I'm not in charge."
   
   Maybe, but she's not just along for the ride. In this collection of nineteen personal essays, she laughs at the pleasures of her rural Vermont life--the joys of reading, writing, raising lambs and boys and encountering turtles--and takes a sober look at the challenges of living in an aging body. The vanities of youth are gone (she quotes her beloved sister Anne, now dead of cancer: "After a certain age, there's only so good you can look.") and she is making "friends with reality." Not sure that she wants to wear purple, with a red hat that doesn't go, she looks back on a time when she wore lavender eyeshadow and white lipstick (do you remember doing that? I do) and laughs at herself. In fact, she knows that's the best thing to do: "laugh at myself when laughter is called for, weep when I need to, and feel all of it, every bit of it, as much as I can for as long as I can."
   
   As far as feeling all of it goes, the most remarkable essay is the "Brain Tumor Diary," an account of the months (July 2006 through May 2007) when Lindbergh was dealing with a brain tumor--benign, thankfully, but large, intrusive, undeniably there, and needing to come out. It was a difficult time for her and her family. The saving graces were her writing and her focus on daily life: "Dailiness outlasts despair," she says. "For a while the rhythms of daily life may seem to be submerged, even drowned in disaster, but that is never true." The "Brain Tumor Diary" is a report from the front lines of daily life, lived in the face of possible disaster.
   
   The Lindberghs are no strangers to life on the front lines and in the public eye. Reeve and her siblings have had to deal with as many as fifty men who have claimed to be the Lindbergh child kidnapped in 1932. But there is more, and in her final essay, she writes movingly about the way she felt when she learned that her father, the picture of rectitude, a "stern arbiter of moral and ethical conduct," had three secret European families and seven children. Indignation, anger, rage at her father's deception and hypocrisy, shame--it's all there. But in the end, there is compassion, and even humor:
   
   I certainly could have done with his [my father's] endless lectures on the Population Explosion...A man who fathered thirteen--I think, I still have to stop and count us!--children, haranguing one of his daughters about world population figures? Give me a break!
   
   And in the end, knowing her father to be at once "deeply intelligent and incredibly energetic," and "angry, restless, opinionated...obsessed with his own ideas and concerns," she has to admit that the multiple families made a certain kind of sense: "No one woman could possibly have lived with him all the time."
   
   "I'm hoping that as I get older I'll get braver," Lindbergh writes at the close of this splendid and moving book. I'm hoping that Lindbergh will take us with her as she bravely explores her future, forward from here, and that soon we'll be able to read the next chapter of her journey.
   
   by Susan Wittig Albert
   for Story Circle Book Reviews
   reviewing books by, for, and about women



5. Reeve Lindberg is a sensitive, wonderful writer. The subject she chose for these essays are pertinent to us over 60 and beyond. I'm recommending this book to all my lady friends.

5 comments about Without a Map: A Memoir.

1. Did not like it. Writer seems to bounce from story to story. I could not really get into this book and ended up reading two other books in between. This book will probably end up on my yard sale box:(



2. Without a Map: A Memoir Meredith Hall is so young and so unprepared for motherhood at the age of sixteen. In 1965 pregnancy out of marriage was so taboo. No one came to this girl's assistance. Everyone shunned her - parents, school, community and church. She has spent her whole adult life searching and the events of her life are forever influenced by that incident. This book lends iself to discussions of so many topics( relationships, identity, the sixties vs the present, adoption, and survival to name only a few.



3. without a Map, captured how some women live their lives wondering every secound what happened to their child which was given up for adoptions.



4. of Hall's ... That's How the Light Gets In: Memoir of a Psychiatrist by Susan Rako, M.D. The title comes from a song by Leonard Cohen, "There is a crack, a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in." True for Hall, true for Rako, and true for all of us. Rako's book is really fascinating, insightful, and wonderfully well-written. The writing simply flows.



5. This sad, yet inspirational memoir is moving and beautifully written. You won't be able to put it down and it will make you think long and hard about teenage pregnancy, abortion,and adoption. Meredith Hall tells her dysfunctional story with emotion and a small amount of well deserved self-pity. Some memoirs of late are written with such little emotion despite their sadness that I have felt the author was removed from their own story. Not so with Hall, she lets you feel her profound sadness and range of emotions and you will be so grateful that she included you in this amazing story.

No comments about The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life.

5 comments about Comfort: A Journey Through Grief.

1. How to get through a parent's worst nightmare? I don't know why I was drawn to this but I felt that I should listen to her message. I will read more of her writing.



2. I have read another of memoir of by the author Ann Hood so I was familiar with her name. She wrote a very moving, heartfelt memoir in this most recent book--"Comfort" I began reading it a couple of days ago and got about 1/4 through it and today on a car ride taking my son to camp I read going up to camp and coming home from camp and I just finished it. I was moved by many things Ann said about her daughter, and her family before, during and after her daughter's death. I won't say much more about that time I will leave it to the reader to learn more about that by reading the book. :)



3. This may be the saddest and most uplifting book you will read this year.
   
   On April 18, 2002, Grace Annabelle Adrain --- five-and-a-half-year-old daughter of business executive Lorne Adrain and novelist Ann Hood, and sister of nine-year-old Sam --- died in Providence, Rhode Island, of a rare form of strep that brought about massive organ failure less than two days after she fell ill. Those are the sterile facts reported in Grace's obituary. COMFORT is Hood's searing portrayal of the struggle she and her family endured to deal with a loss so grievous it defies our understanding.
   
   Through Hood's loving portrait we come to know Grace, a bright and cheerful little girl who wore glasses, could count to 10 in flawless Chinese, loved to dance, paint and listen to the Beatles. Whose favorite meal was sliced cucumbers and shell pasta with butter and parmesan cheese. Whose hair was often tangled, who hid candy in the recesses of her drawers and who responded to her mother's sometimes exasperated urging to get moving in the morning with the protest, "You can't hurry an artist, guys."
   
   In a prologue, Hood grimly trots out all of the clichés family and friends offered to assuage her grief: She is in a better place; time heals; you should walk every day. And finally, the piece of advice most disturbing to a writer who finds herself incapable of writing: Are you writing anything down? In the face of these attempts at consolation, much of it perhaps unintentionally intended to assuage the helpless feelings of people offering it, Hood weeps, rages, burns with jealousy when she sees a healthy young child, even has her ankle tattooed on what would have been Grace's sixth birthday. "Grief isn't something you get over," she concludes. "You live with it. You go on with it lodged in you. Sometimes I feel like I have swallowed a pile of stones."
   
   Not a religious person herself, Hood reluctantly tries to gain solace from various faiths, none of which offer the answers she craves: "It wasn't pity I wanted, or even sympathy. I wanted Grace back. And short of that, I wanted God or someone to help me understand why she was gone and what to do without her." In the end, religion having failed her, she writes, "Knitting saved my life."
   
   "Grief is not linear," Hood observes. "It is disjointed." Reading her account brings to mind the image of someone stumbling through a thick forest, illuminated occasionally by a shaft of sunlight that quickly disappears, leaving blackness behind. And to the notion that "time heals," she replies: "Time doesn't heal, I had learned, it just keeps moving. And it takes us with it."
   
   By the time we feel as if we know Grace and her family, it's impossible to choke back the lump forming in our throat or the tears springing to our eyes as we read. This short book is laced with countless overwhelming moments, often growing out of the most mundane elements of daily life, elevated in their significance by Hood's recounting of them in prose that reveals a novelist's observant eye and bares a mother's broken heart.
   
   Years after Grace's death, four pairs of her shoes still sit at the top of the stairs, "lined up, toes pointed out, ready to be put on, ready to skip down those stairs, out the door, into the world." And when, on an "ordinary Saturday in February" three years after Grace's death, Hood finally summons up the courage to clean out her daughter's room, fingering bits of clothing that conjure memories and the ache of memories that never will be, her description is nothing short of devastating.
   
   To leaven the bleakness of this review, it's tempting to reveal the event that occurs at the end of COMFORT that, in some sense, brings Hood's story full circle. Instead, it seems more appropriate to leave that as a form of consolation to be discovered by the readers who have accompanied Hood on her difficult journey.
   
   Well-meaning people moved by the hard-earned insights of this profoundly wise memoir may be inspired, as did Hood's friends when they thrust similar books into her hands, to offer it to their own loved ones who have suffered a loss like Hood's, perhaps not as tragic but a loss nonetheless. Without disparaging the kindheartedness of this impulse, it is one that Hood's story counsels us to question. Because the inescapable truth that emerges from this shattering book is that while loss is universal, grief is singular.
   
   --- Reviewed by Harvey Freedenberg



4. I have always enjoyed Ann Hood's contributions to magazines as well as her books. This book on loosing Grace is a heartbreaker. She gives us insight to her grief, and how people try to climb back out of this deep,dark hole. Grace was a special child and so grownup in ways! A womanchild, I suppose. I could not help but to love her also.



5. I have read three of Ann Hood's books and "Comfort" is her best. She is a very good writer, making small moments (like eating pasta or singing Beatles' songs) poetic and uplifting. Her unique gift is that she can write about horrific moments (she has experienced a lot of loss) with an evocative touch. This book has the beauty of a well delivered eulogy. The obvious comparison is to "The Year of Magical Thinking," but in some ways I liked this book even more. It is one of the best I've read this year.

5 comments about Bunny Tales.

1. This book is actually quite boring. It's mean spirited and BORING. It has a few details that are interesting to know, but she talks WAY too much about herself as a child.



2. this book is plain stupid! the girl sounds incredibly unintelligent and desperate. if u want to read it, read it online, for free and be sourly disappointed! ENJOYYYYYYY



3. I read this book in 2 days... I really couldn't put it down! I don't want to give away too much, but I can't believe the rules the "girlfriends" had to live by. I think the "Girls Next Door" have it much better than the former gf's since they are making their own money now with the TV show. Oh and the thought of ALL that babyoil and Hef... yuck! LOL



4. This book reads exactly like what it is-- a gossipy tell-all written by a woman scorned. Although I was surprised by all of the the contradictions, typos, and grammatical errors--either the publisher was too eager to get this book on the store shelves to bother with an editor, or this girl really needs some lessons in English! The book really delivers the dirt on the sex practices of the world's oldest hedonist, and the playmate girlfriend hierarchy....and that is what we are really after anyhow! It makes a fun beach read for the summer, but that's about it.



5. This book was an atrocious attempt at trying to remain relevant after Hef booted St. James out of the house. Her publisher really did her a disservice in pushing this book onto the public. From attacking the other girls to attempting to paint herself in a different light, failing miserably, I would recommend this book only for a good laugh due to the inconsistencies. Holly, Bridget, and Kendra are desperate fame seeking whores while she truly loves Hef in one breath, the next she's talking about the fit she pitched when he cut their allowance for parties from 2k to about 500 because the girls were pocketing the cash in addition to their "allowance" for living there. Calling the other girls conniving cheats while admitting a chapter or two away the frequency with which she cheated on Hef. Overall, the book was boring minutia from someone who really could have just stayed quiet or auditioned to be part of the THS on Hef and come out looking better.

5 comments about Tommyland.

1. This was another way to get inside the Motley Band for me. If your a diehard fan then this is a must. It is added to my colection with The Dirt.



2. I bought this for my husband and he loves the book. It arrived in great condition.



3. I bought this book because I really enjoyed reading Nikki's book and The Dirt. I couldn't make it past the 2nd chapter of this book. In my own opinion this book is very boring. I'm not sure why either, because Tommy is such an interesting and funny guy in general.



4. I'm a huge fan of Motley Crue and have read both Dirt and The Heroin Diaries and LOVED them. This on the other hand...not so much. I was really disappointed to be honest. The book was boring and completely random and just plain shallow. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.



5. Pretty entertaining book. Written just like Tommy speaks, plenty of "dude," and stuff like that. I'm a huge Motley Crue fan, so I enjoyed that section of the book the most. You won't, however, find much in the book about Motley that wasn't already in "The Dirt." Pamela Anderson does a little bit of writing in the chapter about their marriage; it would have been kinda cool if Heather Locklear had done the same thing in the chapter about her. The book definitely shows the more sensitive side of Tommy.

No comments about Against Medical Advice: One Family's Struggle with an Agonizing Medical Mystery.