5 comments about The Education of Ronald Reagan: The General Electric Years and the Untold Story of his Conversion to Conservatism (Columbia Studies in Contemporary American History).

1. This book is more a history about General Electric and its battles with unionized workers in the late 1940's and 50's. Included in the narrative is how Ronald Reagan gained an invaluable education in big business, employee relations and collective bargaining.



2. 
   The book is just what the doctor ordered for someone, like me, who searches to understand how people and their politics evolve. How did an oily haired actor get to be president? Why is the United States in such dire straits? This book gives many answers; but, does not tell why RR and his cohorts showed no compassion for the mentally slow, the ill, the incompetent, the frightened, and all who just can't get a handle on how to 'get it.'
   
   Perhaps the reps and cons plan to take care of the problem the way the Nazis did. Great Book.



3. The Education of Ronald Reagan: The General Electric Years and the Untold Story of His Conversion to Conservatism is a far different portrait of Reagan than typical biographies have covered. For one thing, the focus is much narrower and more specific: for another, it's based on a newly discovered collection of private papers, interviews and corporate documents, and provides fresh revelations on Reagan's ideological development. From mentors and influences on his development to the ideals of modern American conservatism, THE EDUCATION OF RONALD REAGAN is a 'must' for any college-level collection strong in not only Presidential analysis or Reagan in particular, but for those strong in American political debates.
   
   Diane C. Donovan
   California Bookwatch



4. We have a tendency in this country to assume that when a president is thinking your way he is a genius. When he is presenting a position opposed to you; first he is an idiot, and second all his thoughts are really those of his handlers. Then the presidential advisors start leaving and writing books about how brilliant they are and the president just doesn't listen.
   
   It's only when the books come out much later that we really begin to learn what was going on. In this book, the author concentrates on the magical speech that Reagan made in 1964 in support of Barry Goldwater at the Republican National Convention. 'The Speech' was a turning point in American politics. And of course the sarcastic will say that Reagan didn't write it but his handlers ....
   
   This book goes back many, many years and reviews speeches that Reagan gave. From them comes a line here, a line there and in the end we get 'The Speech.' It's an interesting way to look at how Reagan changed from union president heading the Democrats for Truman to fundamentally changing the country's direction. Along the way we learn, Reagan was no dummy. And I think that as history continues to develop, his reputation will continue to go up.



5. An excellent book and well written. In addition to showing how GE gave Ronald Reagan the opportunity to become a conservative and a great communicator it also provides a fascinating perspective on the battle between business and labor from 1950-1970. This book shows the journey that Reagan takes from being a confirmed New Dealer to a Goldwater conservative.

5 comments about The Saucier's Apprentice: One Long Strange Trip through the Great Cooking Schools of Europe.

1. After just going on a 2 month tour through Europe at the age of 51, I thought this book would extend the pleasure of my trip. NOT! His whiney, self-important, self-centered view of every aspect of his trip really bugged me. Even his writing style: labored similes, over indulgent use of foreign words, expectation that everyone shares his world view just made it harder to get through. I kept waiting for the moment when he would learn some kind of life lesson and curb his infantile behavior. A little humility would have gone a long way.



2. I am on my way to Paris this week for a culinary experience not unlike Mr Spitz. I am not going to the classes he did, but am looking forward to tasting foods one can only dream about in the United States. Mr. Spitz traveled to France and Italy in 2004 following demise of a relationship (actually two relationships) and went to a number of cooking schools over a period of several months. He honed his techniques, met some interesting people and shared those experiences after a period of allowing his memories to rest.
   
   There are a number of recipes (all really good, too) and heartfelt writing that I truly enjoyed. There are some dull moments, describing times when he clearly was not enjoying himself, but I envy him the experience, and am looking forward to creating my own.



3. I really enjoyed this book as it took me on a journey of a man at a crossroads in his life and dealing with it through a love of food and friends. As a trained culinarian, you can't learn how to become a chef in three months but, if you love food, you can learn and enjoy something that really feeds the soul. Spitz took something he loved and crafted a great diary of sorts on travel, relationships, group encounters and how food, in spite of disparate languages, can help make a person whole. I read it in a few days and tightly bound me to him, his cooking school encounters and his experiences through a difficult time in his life. Highly recommended.



4. I disagree with the reviews of this book that are negative. I think it is an excellent account of a 50 year old mans search for self. The writing is exceptional, the recipes are written for the novice cook (like myself),and I enjoyed it so much I did not want it to end. I guess the negative reviewers have never suffered a "mid life crisis", otherwise they would see the value in this book. My only complaint is my own, I don't speak any French, so I needed to keep looking words up; and I have never been overseas.So as far as I am concerned his accounts are true for me.
   Give this book a chance. You won't regret it.



5. Bob Spitz rambling account left me thinking that his time would have been better spent on an analyst's couch rather than at cooking schools. The author's narcissism is left unchecked and, therefore, he rarely accepts responsibility for his situation or poor attitude. I would gladly return the book and send the money directly to him for his therapy fund.

4 comments about A Look Over My Shoulder: A Life in the Central Intelligence Agency.

1. This book is not afraid to look at fundamental problems in the area of intelligence, which America today is finding amazingly similar to the problems that Richard Helms observed in Germany immediately after World War Two. Helms was uniquely qualified to see the big picture, having been a newspaper reporter who had lunch with Adolf Hitler (Chapter 2 is called `Lunch with Adolf') the day of a big rally in Nuremberg in 1936, a privilege that Americans willing to spend a thousand dollars a plate to attend a fundraiser with American presidents more recently might be jealous of, if being a millionaire is not enough to make them happy. Henry Kissinger was happy to report in the Foreword that Helms was even invited to lunch with President Nixon after an early NSC meeting. (p. xi). There is even a picture of the famous Tuesday lunch group with LBJ, Rusk, Clark Clifford, General Wheeler, Walt Rostow, George Cushman and Walt Johnson. There is even a picture of a lunch with Vice President George Herbert Walker Bush with the caption, "At lunch in the Vice President's office. Aside from George Washington, the elder George Bush is the only President who had firsthand knowledge of the intelligence world."

   The Preface reports that February 2, 1973, was the day James Schlesinger was sworn in as head of CIA and Richard Helms lost the position which was his main claim to fame. Richard Nixon had something to do with it, and Chapter 1, `A Smoking Gun' reports enough about the Watergate break-in to give the CIA perspective from the top, and ends with "Five months later, and a few days after his reelection, President Nixon called me to Camp David. It was the last time we spoke while he was in office." (p. 13). The Preface even claims "President Nixon had ended my intelligence career with a handshake at Camp David." (p. vi). If Helms is right about that, there was no personal contact between the Director of the CIA and the President of the United States in December 1972 and January 1973, when the Vietnam ceasefire was being hammered into place and a record number of B-52 bombers were being shot down by North Vietnamese anti-aircraft guns and SAMs. That figures.

   The German spies are most fascinating in the beginning of the book. Helms calls Martha Dodd an American, as she was the daughter of the American ambassador to Germany from 1933 to 1938, but she was also girlfriend of Boris Vinogradov, the press secretary at the Soviet embassy in Berlin. After being charged with spying in 1957, she fled to Czechoslovakia. "Martha was seventy when she died in Prague in 1990." (p. 20). Spies and Richard Nixon have an acute sense of which side someone is on, and Helms seems to be particularly sensitive to the issues that Nixon would be prone to notice. Other major personalities are easy to locate in the index: Allen Dulles, James Angleton, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Henry Kissinger, Yuri Ivanovich Nosenko, and Frank Wisner.

   Chapter 8, "The Gehlen Organization," deals with the group most responsible for allowing German intelligence after World War Two to maintain some continuity with the information that had been accumulating while Hitler was in power. As the only employer in West Germany that was not averse to employing the upper echelons of the previous regime, it had no trouble recruiting four thousand former Nazis, but Helms did not find them reliable. " . . . the American officers working with Gehlen in Washington neglected to insist upon being given the names of and biographical data on the RUSTY staff personnel. . . . Even in the confusion of the immediate post-war intelligence picture, this oversight violated one of the fundamental rules of secret intelligence, and helped to set the stage for the security disasters that in time all but destroyed the entire effort." (p. 86). A lot of people have been jumping to this conclusion without having the kind of in-depth knowledge of the situation which Helms observed.

   On "fundamental rules of secret intelligence," (p. 86), Helms seems most upset that he received a felony conviction for denying something in testimony to Congress that he felt compelled to deny. Helms was bitter that in his confirmation hearings to be appointed ambassador to Iran, he was asked questions by people who knew that the answer was officially secret, so he was being forced to lie to maintain a cover story that was maintaining dubious deniability. This is the area of books on intelligence that I find most interesting. Nosenko was not allowed to participate in a free debate in America over the nature of KGB activities regarding Lee Harvey Oswald because the entire nature of the KGB was a matter of exclusive CIA jurisdiction within the American system, and holding Nosenko a prisoner for years was the perfect symbol of the amount of control that the CIA believed it was entitled to maintain over such information. Convicting Helms of a felony for lying to Congress was a matter of attempting to establish the principle that laws have a higher function than rules, and any individual within the American system is subject to the possibility of being hauled into court to be a patsy for whatever law the administration of justice intends to glorify in its present incarnation.

   Helms doesn't exactly vilify Richard M. Nixon in this book, but just honestly stating "It has long been clear to me that President Nixon himself called the shots in the Watergate cover-up," (p. 13) is damn close. On our most recent impeachment, I think the movie "Candy" (1969, DVD 2001) with Enrico Maria Salerno as Jonathan J. John provides a better joke, when the police ask, "Did you see what happened to the girl in the blue dress?" Film buff J.J.J. responded, "I don't know. Who directed it?" That is the way most Presidents feel about the CIA.




2. Pages 300/301 of the Helms book:

   One of the most disturbing incidents in the six days [war between Israel and
   the surrounding Arab states] came on the morning of June 8[, 1967] when the
   Pentagon flashed(urgent top-priority precedence) a message that the U.S.S.
   Liberty, an unarmed U.S. Navy communications(spy) ship, was under attack in
   the Mediterranean, and that American fighters had been scrambled to defend
   the ship....

   .... The following urgent reports showed that Israeli jet fighters and
   torpedo boats had launched the attack. The seriously damaged Liberty
   remained afloat, with thirty-four dead and more than a hundred wounded
   members of the crew.

   Israeli authorities subsequently apologized for the accident, but few in
   Washington could believe that the ship had not been identified as an
   American naval vessel. Later, an interim intelligence memorandum concluded
   that the attack was a mistake and "not made in malice against the U.S."....

   .... When additional evidence was available, more doubt was raised. This prompted my
   [D]eputy [Director of Central Intelligence], Admiral Rufus Taylor, to write
   me his view of the incident. "To me, the picture thus far presents the
   distinct possibility that the Israelis knew that the Liberty might be their
   target and attacked anyway, either through confusion in Command and Control
   or through deliberate disregard of instructions on the part of
   subordinates."

   The day after the attack, President Johnson, bristling with irritation, said
   to me, "The New York Times" put that attack on the Liberty on an inside
   page. It should have been on the front page!"

   I had no role in the board of inquiry that followed, or the board's finding
   that there could be no doubt that the Israeli's knew exactly what they were
   doing in attacking the Liberty. I have yet to understand why it was felt
   necessary to attack this ship or who ordered the attack.

   (299 words in a 452 page book)

   Murder... they KNEW they were murdering defenseless American kids barely in their twenties so that they could complete WHAT two Israeli Prime Ministers(Menachim Begin and Moshe Dayan) have since admitted was a "land grab"....

   ...to get more land, ....more land than they had already grabbed by the fourth day of the Six-Day War-they left 34 American families without their sons, brothers, dads... and sent a good subset of the 171 injured home to THEIR families in the US maimed for life.

   and the kids burned and maimed for life who are standing up for their 34 fallen comrades unable to rise from the dead to defend their own memories and blameless conduct... now the Israelis call them "liars" and "anti-Semites"...

   ...except a couple of the crew members of the USS Liberty were Jewish themselves... so they're not called "liars" and "anti-semites"... no, the Israeli attackers and Government of Israel call them "liars" and "self-hating jews"...

   THE OFFICIAL POSITION OF THE CIA IS THAT THIS WAS A "TRAGIC MISTAKE".... BUT HERE IS WHAT THE OFFICIALS AT THE NSA HAD TO SAY TO UNITED STATES NAVAL INSTITUTE'S, DAVID C WALSH:Former NSA Officials Agree
   David C. Walsh
   The jamming of unique U.S. frequencies during the Liberty incident seems to establish deliberate intent. And in exclusive interviews with this author, several former high-level National Security Agency (NSA) officials agree.

   On 14 February 2003, the "godfather" of the NSA's Auxiliary General Technical Research program, Oliver Kirby, noted that the Liberty was "my baby." Within weeks of the calamity, Kirby, deputy director for operations/production, read U.S. signals intelligence (SigInt)-generated transcripts and "staff reports" at NSA's Fort Meade, Maryland, headquarters. They were of Israeli pilots' conversations, recorded during the attack. The intercepts made it "absolutely certain" they knew it was a U.S. ship, he said. Kirby's is the first public disclosure by a top-level NSA senior of deliberate intent based on personal analyses of SigInt material.

   In an interview on 24 February 2003, retired Air Force Major General John Morrison, the agency's then-second-in-command (and Kirby's successor), said he had been informed at the time of Kirby's findings and endorsed them. Former NSA Director retired Army Lieutenant General William Odom said on 3 March 2003 said that, on the strength of such data, the attack's deliberateness "just wasn't a disputed issue" within the agency. On 5 March 2003, retired Navy Admiral Bobby Ray Inman, NSA director from 1977-1981, said he "flatly rejected" the Cristol/Israeli thesis. "It is just exceedingly difficult to believe that [the Liberty] was not correctly identified." He said this was based on his talks with NSA seniors at the time having direct knowledge. All four were unaware of any agency official at that time or later who dissented from the "deliberate" conclusion.




3. This is a biography we have been waiting for a long time. In fact, few even thought Richard Helms would even write his memoirs when one considers he spent his life working within the world of secrets, assassinations, political underdealings. Indeed, this can be a fascinating book for a realistic view of the world stuff like the Bond movies paint in more cartoonish terms. Helms takes us on a historical journey through World War 2 and his meeting with Hitler (where he describes the power of the Hitler aura upon the German people), he goes on into the years of Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon during which he was director of the CIA. But...should we take Helms' version of history as official? Probably not. Consider he makes an attempt to bash any theory that tries to show uptight men like him as anything other than squeaky clean. He especially tries to brush off the idea that the CIA might have been involved in the JFK assassination. He goes out of his way to especially criticise New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison who first brought the assassination conspiracy theories to the public and the Oliver Stone film based on the investigation and evidence of conspiracy, "JFK." He calls the idea of a conspiracy hogwash and tries to support the idea of Oswald acting alone with evidence that has already been shredded apart by investigators. Helms even tries to defend the image of FBI head J.Edgar Hoover, he confirms that Hoover kept certain files on people, but he attempts to deny the idea brought about by overwhelming evidence and testimony that Hoover lived a homosexual lifestyle. Helms presents a good story but also tries too hard to clean-up the image of a government that runs wild in some areas, something that has been long ago proven. It is a good read, well-written and detailed, but like any open-minded reader, read but carefully tread the waters because are we to believe Helms would honestly reveal secrets that even today would awaken rage from the general populace? Helms tells a good story, how much of it is true we will never know.



4. 
   
   Richard Helms is, after Allen Dulles, arguably the most significant US spymaster and intelligence manager in history. It is a fortunate circumstance that he overcame his reluctance to publish anything at all, and worked with the trusted William Hood, whose own books are remarkable, to put before the public a most useful memoire.
   
   Below are a few of the gems that I find worth noting, and for which I recommend the book as a unique record:
   
   1) Puts forward elegant argument for permissive & necessary secrecy in the best interests of the public
   2) Defends the CIA culture as highly disciplined--he is persuasive in stating that only Presidents can order covert actions, and that CIA does only the President's direct bidding.
   3) Makes it clear in passing, not intentionally, that his experience as both a journalist and businessman were essential to his ultimate success as a spymaster and manager of complex intelligence endeavors--this suggests that one reason there is "no bench" at CIA today is because all the senior managers have been raised as cattle destined to be veal: as young entry on duty people, brought up within the bureaucracy, not knowing how to scrounge sources or meet payroll...
   4) Compellingly discusses the fact that intelligence without counterintelligence is almost irrelevant if not counterproductive, but then glosses over some of the most glaring counterintelligence failures in the history of the CIA--interestingly, he defends James Angleton and places the blame for mistreating Nosenko squarterly on the Soviet Division leadership in the Directorate of Operations.
   5) Points out that it was Human Intelligence (HUMINT), not Imagery Intelligence (IMINT), that first found the Soviet missiles in Cuba.
   6) He confirms the Directorate of Intelligence and the analysis it does, as the "essence" of intelligence, relegating clandestine and technical intelligence to support functions rather than driving functions. This is most important, in that neither clandestine nor technical collectors are truly responsive to the needs of all-source analysts, in part because systems are designed, and agents are recruited, without regard to what is actually needed.
   7) He tells a great story on Laos, essentially noting that 200 CIA paramilitary officers, and money, and the indigenous population, where able to keep 5 North Vietnamese divisions bogged down, and kept Laos more or less free for a decade
   8) In the same story on Laos, he explains U.S. Department of Defense incapacity in unconventional or behind the lines war by noting that their officers kept arriving "with knapsacks full of doctrine".
   9) In recounting some of CIA's technical successes, he notes casually that persistence is a virtue--there were *thirteen* satellite failures before the 14th CORONA effort finally achieved its objectives.
   10) He gives Lyndon Baines Johnson (LBJ) much higher marks at a user and leader of intelligence, such that we wondered why Christopher Andrew, the noted author on US Presidents and intelligence, did not include LBJ is his "four who got it" (Washington, Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Bush Senior).
   11) He confirms, carefully and directly, that the Israeli attacks on the USS Liberty were deliberate and with fore-knowledge that the USS Liberty was a US vessel flying the US flag on US official business.
   12) He expresses concern, in recounting the mistakes in Chile, over the lack of understanding by President Nixon and Henry Kissinger (who writes the Foreword to this book) of the time lags involved in clandestine operations and covert actions.
   13) In summary, he ends with pride, noting that all that CIA did not only reduced fear, it saved tens of billions of dollars in defense expenditures that would have been either defeated by the Soviets, or were unnecessary. There can be no question, in light of this account, but that CIA has more than "paid the rent", and for all its trials and tribulations, provides the US taxpayer with a better return on investment than they get from any other part of the US Government, and certainly vastly more bang for the buck that they get from the US Department of Defense.
   
   Richard Helms is a one-of-a-kind, and this memoire should be read by every intellience professional, and anyone who wishes to understand how honorable men can thrive in the black world of clandestine and covert operations. RIP.

5 comments about Slave: My True Story.

1. Slave is an alarmingly true story about the modern day slave trade. I could not put this book down. My heart was pounding towards the end as Mende was attempting to escape. I recommend this book to anyone who is willing to have thier eyes opened to the very disturbing fact the there are people profiting from throwing children into a lifetime of Slavery and even more disturbing is the fact that there are families that will buy and "own" slaves.



2. The content of the book is a deeply moving story of a taugh girl who didn't lose her hope to be a free person. The most of the people in our world are not aware of a crude fact that slavery exists in 21 century. The highest toll pay children and women.



3. This is one of the best books I have read in a long time. I would recommend it to anyone who likes to ready true stories from someone's life.



4. I am was in shock throughout this entire book. I could not believe that this actually happen in the 21st century. Mende told her story so descriptively. I could not stop reading it. Excellent memoir.



5. Parts of this book were too graphic for me. I can't believe what women in some parts of the world have to endure. I couldn't finish it.

5 comments about Warriors Don't Cry: A Searing Memoir of the Battle to Integrate Little Rock's Central High.

1. The story of Melba Patillo Bates' struggles as a part of the "Little Rock Nine" to integrate Central High School serves as a haunting reminder to the American public, especially the South, which sometimes turns a blind eye to its unpleasant past. In the book, Warriors Don't Cry, Patillo relies on her own personal first-person narrative to tell the tale of the years 1954-1960, even including entries from her own diary that her grandmother purchased for her at the age of twelve.
   The action of her story begins with the day of the Brown v. Board of Education decision, which also happens to be the first time violence affects Melba. Her class is dismissed early out of fear of violence, and on her way home, Melba is attacked by a white man. She later writes in her diary some of the most powerful words in the novel, "I have to keep up with what the Supreme Court Justices are doing. That way I can stay home on the day the Justices vote decisions that make white men want to rape me."
   Unfortunately this is only the beginning of a tale of violence that causes the reader to be desperate to find one decent white character in the tale. Simply reading the novel makes the reader to wish that the setting was some far away country like Afghanistan, where they could write this injustice away as some other society's doing.
   Although the bulk of the plot follows Melba during her first hideous year at Central High School, in which she is attacked with fists, glass and acid, much of her story surrounds the family that supported her through the year of 1957. Melba's relationship with her grandmother, India, is a central focus of the novel. Grandmother India supports the fifteen year old Melba through her troubles, but also teaches her how to be a warrior in the face of the adversity from people who truly would rather see her dead than attend school with their children. This advice is written with the rawness of Beals' revealing something so obviously meaningful in her life.
   Beals' work is significant because it forces us to come to terms with what some of us may want to forget, some never knew, and something we all just wish never happened the way it did. Beals refuses to hold back for the sake of making the reader comfortable and refuses to settle for any story but the occasionally repulsive truth of our country's history.



2. Warrior's Don't Cry is about a young girl faced with challenges larger than life. At the age of 15, she is chosen to be one of the 9 students to integrate Central High in Little Rock Arkansas. It is the true story of Melba and her 8 African American classmates as they face all of the challenges of being placed in the all white classrooms of Central High.
   The book starts off with Melba's first day at school. We all know how stressful it is to start our first day in High School. These 9 students were never able to have a successful first day because of the hundreds of angry people surrounding the school, yelling "2-4-6-8 We don't want to integrate!" Elizabeth Eckford, one of the Little Rock Nine, takes the bus to school. As she gets off of the bus, she is faced with an angry white mob. She tries to circumvent them but they move along with her, creating a human barricade preventing her from going to school. This was during the times when people were hung from a noose by angry white mobs. Throughout the ordeal, Elizabeth keeps her head up and tries to get away. Melba and her mom concoct a plan to distract the hundreds of people and create an escape route for Elizabeth. Finally, she escapes and returns home safely.
   
   Don't let the non-fiction genre intimidate you. This book is full of all the drama of a teenagers' life. This true story shows us how scary and difficult it was to be the only black students in a gigantic school. Every chapter gives you a look to the obstacles the Little Rock Nine had to face. On Melba's first day of school, she is called out of her name on numerous occasions. Even her teachers encourage her classmates' racist behavior. Students yell the N word at her in the middle of class and the unnamed teacher ignores it and just kept on teaching. During P.E., Melba is tripped and falls to the ground. A group of her own classmates attack her and kick her while she is down. Her clothes are in tatters and she is slightly bruised.
   
   Melba's school experience is far from a normal, boring one. After her first days of school, the state militia is called in to mediate the transition. Each one of the Little Rock Nine are assigned a state militiaman to guard them and escort them from class to class during the day. This might seem to ameliorate the situation, but we know that it's not the solution when Melba is choked during a school pep rally.
   What would you do if your classmates were out to hurt you and your teachers and principal and vice-principal could not properly protect you? Would you give up or would you keep trekking on? Read Warrior's Don't Cry to find out how Melba fares out in the end.
   
   



3. Excellent book. So hard to read though - people can be horrible. I hope we have come a long way since this.



4. I read Warriors Don't Cry for school, and when I began reading it, I knew I would enjoy it. Yes, I enjoyed it, but it is actually very terrifying to read. Everything that Beals writes is based on fact, and it is very terrifying to imagine that this is what she and the other young black students faced when segregating into an all-white school.
   
   This is a must-read, and is a well-written, terrifying look into the world before blacks and whites could be as one in a school. It's a must read!



5. Title: Warriors Don't Cry
   Author: Melba Pattillo Beals
   Summary: Warriors Don't Cry is a book about a young African American girl named Melba integrating into an all white high school. It describes her journey through segregation and the hard times that Melba and her family had to go through. She enters Central High with 8 other African American students, not knowing the physical and mental abuse that they were about to endure. Melba sticks through it and fights like a warrior to make it though an entire year.
   We enjoyed reading about all the exciting events that happened to Melba , and the 9 other African Americans. It was really interesting learning about integration and knowing it was all a true story made it even more impacting. Having it written by her was empowering because she was there to witness these events. We wished that some of the more exciting events were described more in detail because it would have made the book more suspenseful to see what would happen next. If you want to learn about historical event we would recommend this book to you. Its not the kinda of book that you get a good laugh out of or a good unrealistic story.

5 comments about Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise.

1. Ruth Reichl is excellent at writing about food. She really captures tastes in poetic language.



2. I read this book for our book club and thoroughly enjoyed it. It was meant to be somewhat lighter than some things we'd been reading lately and it was that; but it was also enlightening about ourselves and how we treat others. The recipes are wonderful! I've highlighted the recipe index so I can turn right to them!



3. I was very disappointed in this audio CD book. First of all, something about this book seems very self-indulgent. For example, CD1 goes on endlessly about how the author doesn't really want this top job, but of course, she interviews and ends up with it. It seems very disingenous. Second, stories from a job of eating out at mostly very fancy restaurants seems pretty irrelevant in 2008, when most people are struggling to pay their monthly bills and save for retirement. Listening for 20 minutes to someone describe perfect buckwheat noodles is rather tiresome. Third, and perhaps most importantly, the publisher has chosen a reader who is very dramatic and overly inflects each and every voice. She mimics a 4 year old child, a portly Yankee editor, old Jewish men, the author, a haughty, constipated sounding friend (Claudia),Italian waiters, etc. I guess some listeners might enjoy this, but it personally drove me bonkers. A matter of personal preference, I guess. Be careful you can handle this type of a narration before you opt for the audiobook.



4. I loved this engaging memoir by the New York Times food critic. I particularly enjoy Reichl's egalitarian view of fine dining (everyone should have the same great experience, famous or not). As a lover of good food and fine dining, I found this to be a very entertaining read.



5. During the 1990s, Ruth Reichel was the restaurant critic for the New York Times. When she began the job, she realized that a majority of the restaurants she would be reviewing knew what she looked like and were on the lookout for her. Therefore, she created a number of disguises for herself using clothing, wigs, and makeup. I highly recommend this book for an enlightening look at how Ruth's costumes changed the way people treated her as well as the effect on Ruth herself.
   
   I found it intriguing how Ruth took on other personalities almost without trying to. When she dressed as her mother she found herself ordering the foods her mother liked, and criticizing and returning foods to the kitchen as her mother would. My favorite character was Brenda. She wore a long and oddly scruffy carrot red wig that made her look rumpled and sleepy as if she had just climbed out of bed. She wore bright colored clothing, large colorful eyeglasses, and lipstick painted on bigger than her own lips. The way people treated her was different and wonderful. They smiled at her and talked to her. They wanted to spend time with her. They wished her well. Ruth states "Brenda was my best self, the person I've always wanted to be. She was generous and funny, optimistic and smart. She was kind. I hoped that finding the Brenda inside me would not always require a wig." See the end of this review for Ruth's comments during an interview about wearing disguises.
   
   I also loved Ruth's artistic and sensual descriptions of food. Personally, I am not into food and I cook as little as possible. So I was surprised that I was entertained with her eating experiences and her knowledge of food. Some examples follow.
   
   P 86 regarding oysters. She said "You can't eat these. They've been out of the water too long. See how dry it is? An oyster should have abundant liquid in the shell. See how dull it is? When an oyster first comes out of the water, it is shiny, luminescent. It looks like this moonstone. But the longer an oyster is out of the water, the duller it becomes. This, as you can see, has no shine at all."
   
   P 60 regarding a japanese noodle restaurant: "It takes a magician to make soba. They are made of buckwheat, which has no gluten. That means that getting them to hold together is an act of will."
   
   More than once during this book I thought about truth being stranger than fiction. For example, Mr. Shapiro purchased a dinner with the author through a charity fundraising auction. He bragged to her that he always insisted on being the last person out of the restaurant. Her dinner with him lasted six hours. He was a jerk in other ways as well. My first reaction was disbelief that someone like him even existed. Another item that surprised me was about a man who would not give any money to his wife but allowed her to purchase as much clothing as she liked. Therefore, she frequently purchased two of each article of clothing and would give the second item to a consignment resale shop.
   
   There is an interview with the author at the end of the audiobook, which does not appear in my paper version of the book. In that interview, the author discusses several topics, one of which follows. I've done some editing for length and clarity.
   
   "When I first started wearing disguises, I thought it was about being anonymous and that it was all about the job, but as time went on I began to see that it's very hard to pretend to be someone and not be that person. People react to what you look like and you yourself begin reacting to how people react to you. I found being in disguise was a way of connecting with myself in a way that I hadn't anticipated. It was also a way of seeing how important (pause). You know, we always say don't judge a book by its cover and it's only the surface, but the truth is that it is more than surface deep. I started thinking how important clothes are and the way that when you're a little girl you make these choices about what you're going to look like and how important it is every time you cut your hair. You're making these decisions and thinking about what it is that people are going to think of you. The surface that we present to the world is very conscious, even when we think its not. We're always thinking about who we are in the world. Our clothing choices and our hair choices and our makeup choices are all saying to the world this is how I want you to see me, and the world really does see you as the way that you present yourself."
   
   Setting: 1990s New York area. Copyright: 2005. Genre: nonfiction, biography, food.

5 comments about Love in Black and White: A Memoir of Race, Religion, and Romance.

1. Autobiography that's more about the man than the couple, tracing from his childhood in Maine through the White House. Interspersed are sections about Janet Langhart, and her upbringing. The book is an uplifting memoir that educates readers about the decades of historical, political, military social, racial, and Black history milestones in the U.S., as well as those of Mr. Cohen and Ms. Langhart.
   
   A couple of times or so, there were disconnects from a topic launching into something else; and some occasional grammar things going on that seemed out of character.
   
   The books was informative and candid, including paths of excellence and failure for both Mr. Cohen and his future wife. Both came from trailblazing ancestors and in turn carried on that tradition. Mr. Cohen didn't spare himself with a revisionist eye to his fighting youth, bad grades, and even 'cursing like a one-eyed pirate' one day. We learn of his experiences of racism from both the Jewish community and others from a young age forward. Mr. Cohen's mother was Irish Catholic and his father Jewish. Mr. Cohen went on to forgive those who ostracized him and denied him his birthright and merit of a Bar Mitzvah.
   
   Ms. Langhart went on to lead the way from being among the first Fashion Fair models, relegated to segregated accommodations while touring the country to represent the beauty of Black women, as founder Robert Johnson, later of BET fame, and then of the Johnson Publishing dynasty, Jet and Ebony, had envisioned. The reader gets to see the underside as well as the triumphs. Apparently Mr. Johnson had to buy all of the clothing rather than the typical 'loan' of clothes from designers, as people did not want to wear what had been on black bodies. Readers get to see Janet develop from a small child holding fast to her mother's words of hope and tolerance, though she worked as a domestic for white people. Incidentally, I'd seen Janet over the years and one would've never guessed the struggles she'd faced or the disappointments. Her mother and she were basically abandoned by her father, a returning soldier, who'd been a war hero, but had advised his daughter that upon his return he would not be wearing his uniform in the South on the ride home, and he'd be sitting in the back of the bus, disheartened about fighting for freedom for others abroad while at home, he was treated as if he were the enemy. At some point in the book, Janet protests the disparaging treatment of returning black soldiers who had to sit at the back of an auditorium, while foreign prisoners of war were treated like white people and sat at the front.
   
   Incidentally, when other cultural movements such as interracial movements and gay movements look to Black culture in how to navigate in the mainstream culture, it's instructive to note how Black culture has always been of the opinion about representing a good profile to the mainstream. Countering stereotypes was the least activism one could do. In the Fashion Fair tradition, the NAACP, also continues to encourage Black people to keep representing Black culture well with its annual "Image" Awards. The idea of good representation to the public. In the book "Navigating Interracial Borders, Black-White Couples and Their Social Worlds" the author seemed off put with the idea that interracial couples would want to 'keep up a front'. Not airing dirty laundry, and keeping the positive out front to offset the stereotypes. In this regard, it's no different than what Black people have done since Day 1, and continue to do. I believe immigrants did the same as a survival mechanism, too. It works. Role modeling. If you see it, you can achieve it. You can believe, and work towards it. Like any habit, practice makes perfect.
   
   In Cohen's book, you will see the good. That's what counts. Like any married couple, a united front.
   
   We learn that the people who Janet's mother worked for were Jewish, and that Janet's mother adopted some of their practices, like cooking Kosher food, and instilling certain values in her children, in spite of their surroundings and those negative persons around them. Janet's mother didn't teach hate. Nowhere in the book did I read anything but good things about Black men, or negative remarks about shiftless Black men who didn't take care of their children or any nonsense even though Janet's father left the family. It would have been an easy stereotype to exploit given the circumstance. Instead, there were many Black History nods. In Janet's developing career, she met icon after icon in the Black community, including Mahalia Jackson and Martin Luther King, Jr., who reportedly was like a son to Mahalia, and who frequently visited and stayed in her home, as did some other Black icons. The practice of hosting Black people in residences was a collective practice to counter Jim Crow segregation that either excluded Black people from public accommodations altogether, or offered conditions that were very bad. Janet was mentored by a range of Black icons, including Muhammad Ali, who advised her when his heavyweight title was stripped because he wouldn't serve in the War, that he still had his self respect, and that was more valuable than anything someone could give and take away at whim. Years later, during her rise from model to weather girl to broadcast journalist, readers would see how the leaders around her were able to impart survival wisdom. Years later, when Bill Clinton picked Cohen to be Secretary of Defense--a Republican Cohen, no less, and a "Jew" to some, Janet would be treated with the utmost respect to the extent that she began to focus on the good that was in her life. She even began to pray and kiss the flag in Cohen's office when she took to heart lessons learned and experiences that showed her that there are different kinds of people, and there are good people who welcome good people to work for good together.
   
   In this regard, Janet's experience with the military prior to Cohen was that it mistreated Black people like her father, and gave empty promises at best. Her mother and her family had a new home in the housing projects set up by the military for returning Black soldiers. It was a glimpse of the later military 'family' vision that would again renew her faith in the good outweighing the bad. I got chills and choked up when Cohen described how he'd secretly made a special request to honor Janet to the White House leaders during his final days as SecDef.
   
   Now, there's a love story. Cohen and Langhart were formerly married. Ironically, both Janet's brother as well as one of Cohen's sons married someone of the opposite race. Readers will be surprised to hear about the intimate details of a medical situation that Janet faced, and which no doubt had enormous impact on her life.
   
   I don't think the book title really reflects the content of the book. The books is primarily an autobiography of Cohen's life, which didn't intersect with Janet's til only little more than a decade ago. However, some people believe, as mentioned in the book Janet does, in fate. In which case, there life partner was always on their way to them. It wasn't a matter of if but when the two would come together, and how they get there, is really what the book includes. I can see Cohen loving B-ball, his father loving B-ball, and thus Cohen playing on teams where he met more than just White males. I was tickled a bit about his doing the Black handshake with Black men, playing while in the Senate with some Black Congressmen. I could see that if his mother was feisty and had her own independence and opinions that she felt free to express, that Cohen would not be put off by an outspoken Black woman like Langhart.
   
   In the book Cohen mentions Janet's loving his blue eyes. I'd have to say I wish Janet hadn't worn blue contacts on the book cover. While she's got some mixed ancestry, it's not front and center, as in her parents are both black. Somewhere down the line, many Black people have Native American, or White people, etc. in their family tree. People who aim to be a 'couple' will sometimes start dressing alike, and even down the line, are supposedly starting to morph into each other, with similar features.
   
   Since the couple did not have kids, it was a bonus to them in a way because Janet could travel with him everywhere he went and he had no guilt about forsaking the family for his job, as with the case with his first marriage. That both of them could interrelate about their experiences across the board, and stand strong together, was more than a galvanizing force. Readers get to see their perspectives on a range of U.S. events, from the lynching of Emmit Till to Watergate to the assassination of MLK, Jr., Hoover, to USS Cole, Vietnam, WWII, Katrina, the Kanye West TV comment. The times did change, who'd have thought a Republican, an immigrant's son no less who rose from living in a room with 5 people to become an lawyer, Congressman, Senator, SecDef, would be right there networking across the board for better times. And walking into the White House at the invite of hipster Bill Clinton, with his Black wife by his side. In these times. The time for all good men to rise.
   
   If there's an interracial story of love and marriage, a united front, this is it. Representing. As always. That we are more than what meets the eye.



2. I was disipointed that he did not reveal the intensity or depth of of attraction/love. Howeve,his account of his political career was interesting enough for me to want to read more of the stories by politicians during critical times in this country.



3. IT IS COMMON KNOWLEDGE IN THE AFRO AMERICAN COMMUNITY THAT FAIRER SKINNED PEOPLE HAVE IT MUCH EASIER THAN DARKER SKINNED MEMBERS. THIS IS BECAUSE THE FAIRER SKINNED MEMBERS ARE MORE READILY ACCEPTED AND ARE TREATED AS IF THEIR VALUE IS SOME HOW GREATER. IT IS ALSO A FACT THAT THE DARKER SKINNER MEMBERS TRY HARDER AND WORK HARDER. YOU CAN SEE THIS IN AFRO AMERICANS WHO ARE SUCCESSFUL IN MUSIC, SPORTS, MEDICINE, AND COMMUNICATIONS. THIS IS WHY SO MANY PEOPLE IN THE COMMUNITY BELIEVE THAT THESE HAVE MORE TALENT THAN THE FAIRER SKINNED ONES BECAUSE THE BATTLE IS HARDER.
   THIS IS WHY THIS BOOK IS NOT REALY VALID TO MOST OF THE POPULATION IN THE AFRO-AMERICAN COMMUNITY. SELECTIVE RACISM AND RACISM WITHIN A RACE. I DREAM ABOUT A TIME WHEN INTER-RACIAL COUPLES STOP TEACHING THEIR OFFSPRING THAT THEY ARE BETTER THAN THOSE WHO HAVE PARENTS THAT ARE BOTH AFRO-AMERICAN



4. I find it really amusing that these people with caucasion features who have a pretty easy time being accepted in the "white world", some how think they are the authority on race relations or interracial relationships. I have friends who married very dark skinned African Americans who lived in working class neighborhoods. Their love survived more pain, hardship, and strife then that half-breed Mrs. Cohen could ever imagine. I seriously doubt that Mr. Cohen would have it as bad a dark skinned male, with a white woman on his arm.
   
   Get a clue!



5. This is a love story. The journey of two people arriving at the same place in time, finally. They share their respective experiences with sharp incisive candor. Readers are given a "no holds barred" look into their world.
   
   Quite frankly, they are right. It is the time for a book of this quality to be written. Two little children born and raised in America, each having individual, separate horrendous struggles, - yet surviving, maturing, achieving success. Through their eyes, we experience life in the political, journalist, entertainment,social, personal, civil rights, and sports arena of action. Through them We meet a young Muhammad Ali, Quincey Jones, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, Hilary Clinton, Bill Clinton, Sidney Poiter, Richard Nixon, Herbert Hoover, the FBI, Deepak Chopra, Bruce Gordon, Mahalia Jackson, John Johnson, Andrew Young, soldiers in Bosnia and many many more. Beautiful glossy photographs capture memorable moments. Thank you Bill and Janet. Your respective journeys were often jarring, but seldom boring. The book contains enlightening perspectives and is a wake-up call to the sometimes harsh yet mostly beautiful realities of life here on planet earth. And much like the lyrics of that sweet old poignant song, " We will show them as we walk together in the sun, that our two different worlds are one," -- you have indeed done just that.
   
   
   
   I have never met William Cohen and Janet Langhart Cohen, but I have observed Janet's steady progress and achievements, over the years, from the cover of Jet Magazine to the Ebony Fashion Fair, and her television show. I have always been inspired by her courage, intelligence and professionalism. I am an African-American woman. This book is excellent and informative. Its final chapter features Janet's masterfully crafted play, a dialogue between murdered Emmitt Till and the Holocaust's Anne Frank.
   
   
   My next read will be Janet's book, "From Rage to Reason."

5 comments about The Three of Us: A Family Story.

1. After reading substantive reviews of this strange memoir, I simply had to give it a read for myself. What's so striking about Blackburn's work here is her downright, unabashed honesty. Dad is a monster, alright, but his crazy drunken antics were somehow more acceptable than her mother's odd, boundary violations of an all too prurient interest in her budding daughter's private sexual coming of age. This is a torture Blackurn takes us through interspersed with passages on accounts she made some thirty years forward as this very same mother lay dying.
   
   Of course, all this makes for an exceptional memoir. One I can be thankful for in portraying complex parents one still must come to terms with long after both have departed this world.
   
   Powerful reading ranked highly on my list of must-reads. Should be better known (I think of the mega-hit, THE GLASS CASTLE, which is page-turning reading, but not nearly as well written and reflective as Blackburn's.)
   
   Recommend--especially if you've experienced, first-hand, the pain of difficult parents.



2. This book was mentioned in a Harper's review about memoirs in general, and given high marks for its unusual format and content I bought it to study the writing technique and couldn't put it down. The present and past are deftly woven into a thickly textured family drama that drew me in from the very first page. The diary entries are emphatically apropos, and along with the family pictures create a sense of intimacy with the characters and scenario that feels almost like being part of the family. The story was rough, but the telling of it rang true and lent a certain stability to the challenging terrain. I highly recommend this book.



3. I loved this book and all it's honesty. I've heard it said that we read to know that we are not alone. I do believe this may be true. This book stunned me so because I had a mother who was jealous and envious of me and I felt so alone, and yet she did love me too. Just as in this woman's experience, I only got the mother who adored and truly showed her love for me when she became ill and I tended to her in the last year or so of her life. This woman's account of her relationship with both her parents is relayed so honestly that I must praise her writing as well as her sharing her life with the rest of us.



4. This book reminded me of "Running With Scissors" in some ways. The narrator is the daughter of an artisitic ,sex- obbessed mother and an abusive English teacher, poet father in the UK. I found it surprising that the author was able to grow up into a functining adult. It's a darkly, disturbing story.



5. The Three of Us is a tawdry mess of sex and strange people written to no purpose. I think the author doesn't really understand what went on in her young life to this day. The book drags on in an uninteresting manner until the reader wants to put the book down before the end.

5 comments about A Passion for the Impossible.

1. I just finished reading this book and was so impressed with the astonishing results this woman achieved because of her total surrender to God's plans. An accomplished young artist from an upper class Victorian family, she left the comforts of England and went into Algeria, a country inhabitated by Arabs who were mostly Muslim. It was a slow but steady start, because of language problems, government interference (because of suspicions about missionaries motives), and just the differences in the different ways of thinking and lifestyles of the Algerian people.
   
   Lilias spent several decades of her life doing the "basics" in securing the beginnings of a life long ministry among a people hungry for deep spiritual lessons, but finding ways to do this required much patience, thought and forgiveness. And on top of all this, she is dealing with a new language, both spoken and written.
   
   The majority of this book is taken from Lilias's copius journals, letters and writings where she kept records of what she was involved in day by day.
   
   I learned a lot about what the foreign missionary effort entails, and especially when you're the first to go into an area with some brand new ideas where life is so different. But she won them over slowly with her love. As time went on, she had much help from other women and men who worked with her in this cause.
   
   The last couple of decades her health was not good, but she just kept on plugging away, even writing from her bed the last two years.
   She wrote some beautiful booklets that have profound lessons of faith and obedience in them. "Parables of the Cross" and "Parables of the Christ Life" are just two of them.
   
   She gleaned such meaningful lessons from nature, things that the ordinary person would hardly think of. She could see great lessons from a grain of wheat, a peach, a bee, etc. She looked deeply into the whys and wherefores of the lessons that nature has to teach us.
   
   Lilias really had a heart for these people and she felt that God gave her that heart and she was to do what she could as well as she could for as long as she could. She was true to that effort.
   
   One thing I wished this book had was a map of the area that showed all the little towns and outposts that were mentioned in the book, and were developed over many years and many travels.
   This book is a good read, even though you are dealing with some new words and another way of thinking. You will learn a lot and wish you had known this woman who was totally devoted to God.



2. As the premier art critic in Victorian England, John Ruskin was the arbiter of taste. In 1883 he revealed a hard-to-believe prejudice: "For a long time I used to say . . . that except in a graceful and minor way, women could not draw or paint." Ruskin then discounted this view, based on his reaction to the art of a young woman named Lilias Trotter: "I'm beginning lately to bow myself to the much more delightful conviction that no one else can" draw or paint.

   In a 1960s book, RUSKIN TODAY, Sir Kenneth Clark mentioned Trotter as someone lost to history. But Clark hadn't turned over every leaf, as has biographer Miriam Rockness, who discovered Trotter through bequeathed volumes of her out-of-print illustrated books.

   A bright, talented daughter of a prominent stockbroker in London, Lilias Trotter (1853-1928) was comfortable in the company of privilege. At age 21 she was among guests, including George MacDonald and Bishop Wilberforce, invited to a religious retreat, the forerunner of the Keswick Conferences.

   Spiritually stirred by this and the preaching of Dwight Moody, Lilias grew discontent with the in-vogue "charity from a distance." For more than 10 years in London, she devotedly worked to help establish a hostel for working women, the forerunner of the YWCA.

   During this time, while on vacation in Venice, her meddling mother asked Ruskin to look at Lilias's watercolor paintings --- a request that led to art lessons, weekend invitations, and extended conversations and correspondence between the Miss and the Master, who claimed she could be the greatest painter of her generation if she would "give herself up to art." To the dismay of many, Lilias turned her back on Ruskin's challenge: "I cannot give myself to painting in the way he means and continue still to 'seek first the Kingdom of God.' "

   When Lilias was 35, this whole-spirited commitment dramatically "called" her to mission work in northern Africa. With two female colleagues --- none knowing Arabic, none robust enough to pass physicals required by established mission boards --- she sailed for Algeria, where she lived a life of saintly proportions until her death, at age 75.

   Two-thirds of Rockness's biography delves into the Algerian years. Learning Arabic was the first of many challenges: Muslim resistance to a Christian message, French resistance to British interlopers, male resistance to a female witness. And yet under Trotter's leadership, the original missionary band and later recruits translated portions of scripture, distributed literature, befriended women and children, opened cafés for men, and hosted summer camps for nomadic families.

   There are no imagined conversations in this book; there's no mistaking it for a novel. This is history, relying largely on journals, with some analysis and helpful foreshadowing. Ever aware of Lilias the artist, Rockness faithfully describes the palette of the desert so well that it's hard to distinguish Lilias the missionary from Lilias the artist.

   In time Lilias envisioned a "new approach to Arab literature": writings that would speak to Algerians, instead of what Trotter called the "hitherto translated stories of Jacks & Bobs whose surroundings are as foreign to children of the east as their names" and finding an affordable means of color printing, so as to attract people who delighted in color. To meet these goals, Lilias wrote and illustrated nature parables that may soon be back in print, thanks to Rockness's persistence.

   Some of the biography's most interesting material comes toward the end. In her last decade, Trotter won the respect of a group of Sufi (male) mystics. "The artist in her responded to the artist in the Sufis," notes Rockness. "Yet she never lost her spiritual focus." Confined to bed in the last two years, she wrote THE WAY OF THE SEVENFOLD SECRET, explaining to them seven "I Am" claims of Jesus --- as she managed what had become an extensive mission outreach.

   Trotter's printed word and art can indeed inspire a new generation. But only those who knew her can appreciate "perhaps her most palpable legacy": her love. As an obituary noted, "No wonder that Catholics and Jews and Moslems, as well as Protestants, are mourning her loss, for love, in the end, wins love."

   --- Reviewed by Evelyn Bence




3. There are few things that inspire me more than a true story of a child of God who is faithful in the face of success and apparent failure. I see the reality of this woman's walk with God to be the challenge and encouragement. The accounts of her passion, travels, and encounters challenge my perspective on missions. I don't believe I had a real grasp on missions until I read this book. The quotations of her own journals and other writings bring a special feeling of knowing Lilias by the end of the book. This is a book I highly encourage all believers to read.



4. I am a voracious reader of non-fiction (particularly Christian non-fiction), but out of thousands of books I have read, this biography captivated me like no other. Perhaps because I am a writer and artist, I could identify with Lilias and her passions. Ultimately, however, this is a story of adventure, sacrifice, surrender and uncompromising dedication to Jesus Christ, all set against the exotic backdrop of Algeria. I can't wait to meet Lilias in heaven and tell her how she inspired me. Of course, I also look forward to meeting the authors someday because they brought Lilias to life. The narrative is as lovely as Lilias' art!



5. This book does indeed weave a challenging and interesting tale of a pioneeer missionary, who for the sake of the gospel left a comfortable and gracious victorian life for a life of sacrifice in the northern deserts of Africa, among Muslim tribemen.It is carefully crafted and includes some prints of Lilias' own artwork, which from what can be seen, is lovely.I wish a book could be devoted to more prints and more about Lilias' travels!

5 comments about You Want Fries with That: A White-Collar Burnout Experiences Life at Minimum Wage.

1. It's refreshing to see someone take on the challenge of working from the top down to the bottom. I thoroughly enjoyed hearing the author's comments on the mundane of asking the same questions over and over, his quick distaste for customers, and the frustration of people who don't put numbers on their addresses. The author takes on pizza delivery, ice cream scooping, construction, and even hospital work. At points I definitely laughed and related, having spent years slinging hash in most of the industries he takes on. I would have liked to see the author spend more time in a few, as some jobs felt more fleshed out than others, but the overall point of the book is achieved, with the reader gaining a little better appreciation of the bottom feeder jobs out there. Here's hoping there's a sequel in the works.



2. This is a quick, entertaining read, the author has a good sense of humor, and describes the various jobs he took in an amusing way. This really should be a four star review, but I deducted one star because in the chapter where he works at a burger joint, he continually refers to french fries as "freedom fries". I might have knocked it down to two stars because of that, but the chapter where he works at an ice cream parlor was one of the funniest things I've read in awhile.



3. At the age of 13, I got fired from my first job selling strawberries to tourists. Shortly after that, I moved up to a big job (2 something an hour) at a bowling alley where I became a valued employee.
   
   I've also slung burgers, worked in a trailer factory, a fish cannery, a cow outfit, newspapers and yes, the white-collar world.
   
   The jacket of this book was intriguing. Anarchist, eh? The fact that the author calls himself conservative didn't bother me too much. We seemed to have some things in common. I quit a white collar job after 6 years of being bullied by a psychopath, watching her destroy the careers of others and waiting in vain for the suits on the top floors of our hallowed ivy-covered halls to do something about our little hurricane Sycho. Like the author, I understand that in its own creepy way, the white collar world can be every bit as degrading and inhuman as any "regular guy" job.
   
   And kudos to the guy who's willing to take a risk to live in a way that betters honors this great gift of life that we're given.
   
   No sooner than I was looking forward to a good story, though, I start getting dumb jokes about beer. Not that I mind dumb jokes about beer, really, but I hadn't picked up a Dave Barry book.
   
   He really lost me when he started talking about the horrible lives of primitive people (the author obviously hasn't read any anthropology) and then came up with the really ignorant theory that the problem is we have it too good and our brains haven't adapted. No actual thinking here.
   
   When he decided to sell pizza to learn about the lives of real working class joes, he completely lost me. I am a working class Jo, I know what's it's like to deliver pizza.
   
   Nothing new or interesting here.



4. This was a really funny book that got me in trouble on an early morning flight out of town. I save some things to read when traveling, and this seemed just the sort of book. I cracked it just after take-off and began having a tough time controlling my cackles of laughter; much to the annoyance of my neighbor. Prioleau's insights into the minimum wage workforce and the retail customer rang true for me. I have been in that world for more years than I care to remember and there is lots of humor to be had there! Prioleau found huge gobs of it and feed it to me one pink spoonful at a time, and I could not put the book down. I will be waiting for his next one.



5. Picked up a copy of this book for our beach trip, and couldn't put it down. Alexander's comedic look at America's white / blue collar societies will make you laugh out loud, while giving pause to reflect upon your own lives. Highly recommended.