4 comments about What the Stones Remember: A Life Rediscovered.

1. DEPRESSING BUT HOPEFUL BOOK ABOUT RECOVERY FROM DRUG AND ALCOLHOL ADDICTION AND RETURN TO NORMAL, SOBER LIFE.



2. As a 60 year old male recovering from my own life of addiction, I was somewhat resentful when I first read the reviews for this wonderful book -"how dare someone write my life's story!" was my first thought. Having read the book, however, I am glad that Patrick Lane took the time to write such a moving and poignant story. His skills as a poet echo throughout every chapter of the book. The peace he finds in his garden stands in total contrast to the chaos he put himself through for forty five years. As a member of a 12 Step fellowship who followed almost the exact same path (minus the gardening skills), I have told all the other men in my program that this book will help them find a piece of themselves - and ultimately peace for themselves. Lane's book will be a cornerstone for the foundation I am building in my own recovery.



3. This memoir by one of Canada's best-known poets follows Patrick Lane's first year of recovery from a lifetime of alcoholism, a recovery that unfolds almost entirely in his Vancouver Island garden. The narrative weaves between his present-tense garden and the struggle and brutality that was Lane's past. His poetic voice permeates his storytelling, compelling us to see how the honesty and enchantment of the natural world can save us from our nightmares, our addictions, our terrible losses - if only we will let it.
   
   Originally published a year and a half ago in Canada as There Is a Season: A Memoir in a Garden, the book won the 2005 BC Award for Canadian nonfiction. It is not at all disingenuous for Lane to re-release his memoir under a new title - What the Stones Remember - as there really are two stories folded into the one book. This new title summons the story of Lane's turbulent past as a wayward child, an absentee father, a fledgling poet, a failed husband, a triumphant writer, and ultimately a recovering addict. We follow him deep into his personal history and come to understand, along with him, that it is a miracle he is still alive. This story is rich with personal intrigue, gossip, sentimentality and curiosity. I think it's rare that we look even into our own lives so intimately.
   
   The second story is the simple unfolding of the seasons in his suburban garden, and it mirrors Lane's journey of recovery and self-redemption. His garden is his sanctuary and the midwife of his rebirth as a sane and sober person. He delves into the ecology of his garden with the same studied depth as he digs through his personal history. The carefully documented hours of observation are underscored by a book knowledge of plant and animal classification, behaviour and habitat.
   
   This being said, Lane is first and foremost a poet, and his garden ramblings are never dry or dense. How can they be when he periodically unearths old vodka bottles in the woodpile or under a bush? Or when he stops to watch a hermit thrush dance and mourn beside its dead mate? Or sees his mother, long decades dead, kneeling in the corner under the plum tree?
   
   What the Stones Remember contains equal parts beauty and horror. Patrick Lane describes a past that many people would be inclined to leave buried in the furrows of time. But in bringing forth the dead, the wounded, the lost, this poet carves a path of healing and new life.



4. I can't believe I'm the first reviewer to take a stab at WHAT THE STONES REMEMBER, A LIFE REDISCOVERED. Everyone I know is reading this book! It's especially good for people who are just undergoing recovery, those who will recognize and nod with wonder at the pain Lane describes at just waking up and experiencing the little things, the color of your bedroom walls, the feel of the cotton pillowcase under your cheek, as if for the first time, without the sheltering batting of cocaine or alcohol. He thinks of the American poet Weldon Kees who, fueled by despair and drink jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge in the early 1950s, and of Kees' famous zen riddle, "Whatever it is that a wound remembers/ After the healing ends."
   
   Lane finds the courage to remember the years before he fell into heavy drinking, and what a dreary lot of memories he dredges up! Okay, there were some happy moments too--a sensuous description of lovemaking at age 16 with the girl who would become his first wife--but mostly he grew up in Canada, a misbegotten part of the world with more casual brutality, sexual violence, and abuse against childred than you will find in Ghana or Sierra Leone. For pocket money he sold himself to pedophiles, for a quarter here or a dollar there, allowing them to buy him forbidden ice cream sundaes in depressing town dessert joints. At another time he watches from between parked cars as three white men brutally rape and torture a native Indian woman. For Lane, youth is an unusual place, marked by the absence of his dad during World War II and by the remarkably hard-earned wisdom of a lovely mother, with a caustic wit which, who knows, might have contributed to Lane's own dexterity with words.
   
   I don't like his poetry very much, and it's a shame that he feels he has to quote from it in this book, but as a memoirist he really shines. After getting out of the treatment clinic, he goes to work on his garden, like Candide, but even there memories of different things that happened to him sometimes leap up and assault his senses so that he'd do anything to have just one drink! And sometimes he finds bottles of vodka hidden around the house, and garden too. Malcolm Lowry probably said just as well and earlier to boot everything that Patrick Lane has to say about the sadnesses of Western Canada, the glittering allure of drink, and the repentance of women's arms, but Lowry (author of UNDER THE VOLCANO and one of Lane's literary heroes) has been gone a longtime, the victim of his own alcoholism, and Lane lives on, triumphantly speaking of a new marriage to another of Canada's notable literary figures, a woman who he calls "Lorna" here. Maybe her real name is Lorna too, but in any case you get the idea he's trying to protect the innocent and to lacerate only himself and his people.
   
   I predict a long future for this book if only more people knew about it besides people in recovery.

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.

5 comments about The Reluctant Tuscan: How I Discovered My Inner Italian.

1. I originally bought this book at a retail store to give me something to preoccupy myself while waiting for my husband at the doctor's office. It turned out to be wonderfully entertaining. I couldn't stop laughing at all the antics and descriptions. This book went from originally to be "disposable" to my favorite. Any others as good as this?



2. The book came as promised, in excellent condition and in a timely manner. Would recommend this seller.



3. Pure Hollywood Drivel.
   I kept waiting for the canned laughter, and I kept reading because I couldn't believe someone would give me this book to read.As they say,"You can take the boy out of Hollywood,but you can't take the Hollywood out of the boy".
   If he billed it as a fictional work, well even then not worth a read.
   I wasted 2 hours of my time so you don't have to waste yours.
   LVG



4. "The Reluctant Tuscan" left me - whelmed. The book recounts the period of time when the writer moved to a rural town in Tuscany and undertakes renovating a dilapidated farm house, mostly to appease his wife, who has bought the property without consulting him. Hilarity ensues.
   
   At least, that's what Mr. Doran wants to you think. There were some amusing bits but none that made me laugh out loud. Stereotypes and caricatures of Italians abound and there are multiple references to the Germans and WWII. Maybe it's a generational thing, but I found these annoying. He does sometimes manage to write in a natural voice that is amusing and inviting and those passages are very nice. Unfortunately they were few and far betweeen. He also has a bad habit of throwing in little asides and quips that obviously call for a laugh-track. I found these drew me out of the narrative and only served to reinforce the idea that Mr. Doran is highly invested in his identity as a sitcom writer.
   
   Late in the book, Mr. Doran makes the comment that in Hollywood, one is constantly auditioning. And I realized that's what he was doing throughout the book - auditioning. Auditioning for the reader's approval, for the reader's laughter, anxiously hoping for a reaction of some kind. Which is a shame as I think he may be a good writer, but he seems to not be able to trust his own writing to speak to the reader. Maybe living in Tuscany will help with that.



5. It's very seldom that I laugh out loud while reading, and I would recommend THE RELUCTANT TUSCAN very highly. It was refreshing to read this well written, humorous, and emotional book that turned what could have been just-another-book-about-Tuscany into a totally new insight into living in Italy. I felt like I knew the villagers through his illustrative character descriptions, and experienced his emotions--humiliations and triumphs--with a tear or a giggle. I hope Mr. Duran continues writing about his life.

5 comments about The Meadow.

1. This non-linear piece of prose is elegant in its ability to take us to a place now long-gone. Capturing the life of a meadow on the high plains of the Colorado Wyoming border, Galvin creates a rich and vivid description of life over a 100 year span.
   His main character, Lyle, is a true man of the old farming west and a lover of the land as it was. Galvin's ability to create mental pictures of people, land and life makes the book a enthralling read.
   Don't expect it to move quickly, although the entire book is done in vignettes. Don't expect to remember all the characters, especially if you lay the book down and don't pick it back up for a few days. Even with these reading challenges, the book is a gift of great writing and a glimpse of the past.



2. This book is a keeper, one that is on my shelf for rereading. James Galvin's stories remind me of the old-timers in my life here in Arizona, their quirks yet because they authentic you can't help but adore them. Unfortunately many of these old-timers are gone now and I therefore can appreciate a book like The Meadow where such stories are preserved in time and preserved with beauty and poetry. Such an unusual and unexpected combination - I love this book and would now like to read Mr. Galvin's poetry.



3. One of the most perfect books about the American West I've ever read. Actually, one of the most perfect books I've ever read, period. This is one of the contemporary books that I most admire. And the characters, particularly Lyle, have remained with me vividly. Galvin's novel, Fencing the Sky, is also a great book, more plotted and less lyrical, that people drawn to a more "typical" novel might love. And his poetry? God, don't even let me start. A telling piece of info: I have two copies of both The Meadow and Resurrection Update (his collected poems) so I always have one to give away.



4. Spare, poetic language creates a sense of place and time that envelops the reader. Lyle is one of my favorite characters of all time.



5. This is the story of a meadow on the Colorado/Wyoming border and of the people who lived there. It is beautifully written, and the story rings true. I passed the book on to my husband who comes from a long line of do-it-yourselfers. I think he will enjoy reading about the independent Lyle who could make any tool he needed from scratch.

No comments about The Long Shadow of Coach Paul "Bear" Bryant.

3 comments about Bullets, Bombs, and Fast Talk: Twenty-Five Years of FBI War Stories.

1. AS A RETIRED FBI AGENT WHO HAS KNOWN THE AUTHOR FOR MANY YEARS AND WORKED WITH HIM ON SEVERAL OCCASIONS, I WAS COMPLETELY ENTERTAINED WITH HIS FACTUAL PRESENTATION OF CASES HE WAS INVOLVED WITH. JIM PULLS NO PUNCHES AND TELLS IT LIKE IT HAPPENED. MANY READERS ARE NOW ABLE TO GET AN INSIDE VIEW IN SOME OF THE CASES THEY MAY BE FAMILIAR WITH AND WHAT OCCURRED IN THE SUBSEQUENT SOLUTIONS OF THEM. AN INTERESTING AND HONEST VIEW IN THE LIFE OF AN FBI SPECIAL AGENT SERVING HIS COUNTRY AND MANKIND. ANY READER WHO STARTS READING THE BOOK WILL FIND IT HARD TO PUT IT DOWN. IF YOU LIKE A TRUE CRIME READ, THIS ONE IS FOR YOU.



2. Full disclosure...I was an FBI agent and worked in the L.A. office when Jim Botting was also assigned there. We knew each other but never worked together. He was known as a great agent and I now I know he is a great writer. BULLETS, BOMBS and FAST TALK is a well-written journey through a lifetime of FBI war stories. Jim was on the front lines of some of the biggest investigations in our nation's history. This is an easy read that provides insights into how the Bureau functions...warts and all. Perfect for true-crime junkies...Bob Hamer, author of THE LAST UNDERCOVER



3. Actual crisis situations and investigations as told, in a language that everyone would understand, by a real street agent who took on ancillary duties as a Hostage/Crisis Negotiator and a SWAT team member. These "war stories" depict the good and, at times, the bad about the FBI.
   Thanks to dedicated and street smart agents like the author, most were good and lives were saved.
   In one of the chapters, the author's explanation of "T.U.R.D.S. and S.H.I.T.S" should bring a smile to your face.
   A good read!

No comments about Made from Scratch: Discovering the Pleasures of a Handmade Life.

5 comments about Best Damn Garage in Town: The World According to Smokey.

1. Goddamn! One of the best books I have ever read!
   
   Get it!



2. Simply put this is one of the best books about racing I have ever read. Smokey's stories are entertaining, hilarious, and insightful. His kind will not be by this way again! If you like racing of any kind, this book is a must read. It is well worth both the time and the money.



3. Extremely fortunate to have worked with Smokey during our years at Circle Track Magazine and all his years at PRI (Performance Racing Industry).
   THIS IS INDEED THE BEST DAMN BOOK IN TOWN. You'll love it.



4. Excellent reading. Very informative and it kept me interested the entire time. I would recommend for anyone!



5. Smokey tells it just like he sees it. No political correctness here. If he thinks something stinks, he says so. He has no love lost for Bill France and company, but respects many others.

   His writing style is straight to the point, amusing and raw. But it's the way he sees things...and he repeats that point...that it's just his opinion and urges the reader to make up their own mind.

   I highly recommend this set. And I salute you, Smokey.

5 comments about Driving with Dead People: A Memoir.

1. I really liked how the author took steps to deal with her pain. I can't imagine what it must have been like to go through a childhood like hers.It's hard enough getting through your youth with loving parents. The parents should be your support system not the problem.



2. Good book till halfway through, then the author loses her vehicle, as it were--"Driving With the Dead" jettisons its macabre hook and becomes one more descriptive self-help tome, and that's a shame; the author should have been able to thread her metaphor all the way through--her talent suggests that this book could have used an aggressive editor. Also, I'm forever wary of books with a "Note to Reader" which announces some individuals--and thus some occurrences--are composites. For example, Holloway's pregnancy at the hands of the guy who claims sterility: not saying this isn't exactly how it was, but it's such a cliche as to be transparent, leaving the reader wondering if this is one of those composite characters/occurrences. Memoirs thrive on versimilitude; one false note and much can collapse. It does here. And what profits an author to note that "All incidents are portrayed to the best of my recollection"? Why does Holloway have to say that? Because, in doing so, she loses the reader's confidence in the whole sordid tale before he or she even starts the read.
   
   It IS commendable, IF she's remembering correctly, and IF the characters are true--and not just objective correlatives, that the siblings represented here did not form a pact and murder the most horrid-sounding parents in recent non-fiction (?) memory.



3. that the support system you expected from your family is simply not there:
   
   "Knowing there is no cavalry is much better than hoping for a cavalry that never comes. I am strong because I have to be. I am the cavalry."
   
   This memoir of family dysfunction admirably traverses the path that brings the author to write those words.



4. I loved this book. It is such an incredible story written so incredibly well. It completely blew me away. Amazing. I'd recommend it to anyone.



5. I just finished this book, less than 24 hours after its arrival in my mailbox. The author has a refreshing sense of humor relating to topics such as death, embalming, and driving a hearse as a sixteen-year-old girl. I laughed out loud many times, and had to pick up the book again after my children left for school. As a mother, the lack of parenting in this book is apalling, but also a lesson in how much of a responsibility we as parents have to protect our children from harm not only outside of our nhome, but within it. I applaud the courage of the author to search her soul for unthinkable ugliness and gain strength from the family she made her own, those that truly cared for her. I highly recommend this book, in spite of its less-than-rosy reality.