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.

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 Angel Unaware: A Touching Story of Love and Loss.

1. This book is wonderful. It so beautifully written from the POV of little Robin giving an account to God of her brief life on earth. If there is a disabled child that has touched your life, you need to read this book. Dale Evans Rogers has written a masterpiece which will benefit the lives of many. Thank goodness God sent Robin into their lives!



2. My Aunt gave me this book to read when I was in grade school. I am now 42 years old and I still remember this book as being one of the most profound stories I have ever read. I have recommended this book often, I have never forgotten it.
   Such a touching reminder for all of us that life is divine and should never be taken for granted.



3. Until I real Dale Evans' account of her daughter's life, I didn't realize anyone felt the way I do. We lost our 2 1/2 year old daughter this year. She had "special needs," some similar to those of Robin in the book. We always felt that God gave us our daughter and she was our own angel here on earth. This book is a wonderful story of the love between a family, their God, and their special angel. I highly recommend it to any parent or family who have lost a child with a disability.



4. I read this book when I was in 4th or 5th grade. The story of Robin Rogers has stuck with me for 35 years. While I have forgotten the details, I remember the essential message. All children are gifts from God, especially the ones that aren't everyone's idea of perfect.



5. This little book is a heartwarming love story and a heart wrenching tear jerker all rolled into one. Dale Evans Rogers shares the tale of little Robin, her Down Syndrome daughter who died at a very young age. The story is told from Robin's point of view, as if she is sitting on her heavenly father's knee relating what happened "down there." The heartache of a mother's loss, and the hope of a child's eternity are entwined in an unforgettable tale. I highly recommend this book to any one who has lost a young child, or has had to deal with special needs like Down Syndrome. Be sure to have a tissue box handy.

5 comments about Dough: A Memoir.

1. Right from the first page, Zachter captures the reader with the improbable phone call from his uncle's broker. From then on, the story weaves easily between decades and focus, from Zachter, his uncles and parents, to the Store and the East Village of New York City. It's a sad, poignant, puzzling but warmly told tale of how some things we don't want to change do, whereas other things, which desperately need to change, sadly never do. But the best thing to come out of this was that it gave Zachter a chance to write and to share the story with the rest of us.



2. 
   While I found this book to be relatively enjoyable, it wasn't nearly as interesting as I thought it would be. The descriptions of the neighborhood and the bakery were of interest, as was the modest ways of the uncles who were from the old world and lived accordingly. However, I have known several older individuals in my life with the same tendencies and never thought their stories were worth telling. They simply grew up in a different time and had different ways of dealing with the issue of money. Even my grandmother walked three miles to pay a bill rather than pay for a stamp. Interesting, but not particularly compelling.



3. This slim book was very well-written, and a nice, quick read. I enjoyed the author's descriptions of the New York City neighborhood where he grew up, and of the Jewish bakery that his uncle's ran. I found it amazing how the author's mother's loyalty to her family ran so deep that she gave up a promising teaching career to spend decades working at her brothers' bakery without pay. I don't know that many people in today's world would be willing to make such a deep sacrifice, even for family.



4. Waste not, want not. It's more than a cliché but truly an inbred way of living for immigrant Jewish families who have experienced the emotional desecration that comes with abject poverty. Such was the case with Mort Zachter, a CPA and a lawyer, who found out in 1994 that his two workaholic uncles, both confirmed bachelors, had saved a million dollars each and placed it all in money market accounts. Never to call attention to themselves, they lived their lives as paupers wearing worn suits and taking advantage of free clinics. Zachter's shocking revelation is the starting point of his warm and shrewdly observant memoir about a generation who hoarded what they earned to the point of obsessive compulsion and made sure their children understood the value of a dollar. All the while, the uncles carried forth the tradition of a bakery established by the author's Russian-immigrant, maternal grandparents in 1926 in Manhattan's Lower East Side.
   
   The author brings his Uncles Harry and Joe to vivid life as a study in contrasts. Lacking the business education his older brother had, Uncle Joe astutely sums up their relationship - "He's the boss, and I'm the horse". When both eventually passed away, Zachter went through the inevitable stages upon his monetary discovery - grief, elation, resentment, and finally a stronger appreciation of his family along with a greater sense of personal humility. The resentment is understandable given that he, his wife Nurit, and their two adopted children struggled financially as he earned his degrees and scrimped to make mortgage payments and repay school loans. The author has a painterly style in describing his childhood as he focuses on the details with imaginative fervor and shows how emotionally resonant his family bonds became in living by the Principles of Kahruth. It's a charmingly reflective work that goes well beyond the confines of the family bakery.



5. I may have gone into this book with a bit too much anticipation, in hopes of juicy family secrets, lies, twists and turns, but in the end I was let down. Every time I picked up the book I was expecting an ascend towards a climax, but it never seemed to come. Despite the reference of money in the title, the author seems to use it simply to tell the story of a run-of-the-mill Jewish-American family, money or none.
   But it was the simpleness of the family, the quirkiness of the characters and the peak inside Jewish daily traditions that kept my interest. It was an easy read, but not something I would pass on to a friend.

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 Dear Diary.

1. The concept of this book - seek out the adult versions of the people that you wrote about in your adolescent diary, some of which hurt you, and confront them about the incidence(s) - sounds terribly hilarious. Unfortunately, it wasn't as funny as I had hoped. Nevertheless, it was a solid read for several other reasons, the first of which is that Arfin is a great writer.



2. When I first picked up Dear Diary from a stack of vacation reading, I thought it was going to be a funny read. The idea/gimmick is that the author goes through the diary she kept through her teen years, comments on the entries, and tries to track down the people she knew at the time to get their perspective on things.
   
   Once I got a better look at the book, I realized that it was not just for laughs or nostalgia: the author descended into heroin addiction during her teen years, and she uses the diary entries to track her journey into drug use.
   
   The book was a disappointment. The author tries to juxtapose her adult self with her teen self, but she actually comes off as as self-absorbed adult who thinks she's much more interesting than she is. When she tracks down childhood friends (and enemies), she doesn't get much out of them -- nothing you can't experience firsthand by finding your old classmates online and asking them what they remember about you.
   
   It's hard to form a solid criticism of Dear Diary, because there's not enough substance there to critique. It tries to be funny, deep, even a cautionary tale, but it really doesn't hit the mark on any of these things. I was left feeling glad that Arfin got her drug addiction under control, but not so glad that I'd spent time reading her book.



3. I had high expectations when I bought this book and they weren't met. I was expecting a book that ended in an epiphany or was written a little better, I guess. It's an honest book, however, and I did like how Arfin went back to the people she wrote about during her junior high and high school years to get questions answered which is why I have it more than 1 star. What I didn't like is that it all seemed so superficial. It was like Arfin was trying too hard throughout the book to be obscene--not through the original journal entries, but through the follow up conversations.
   
   I think you might like it if you're in junior high or high school. You might be able to relate to a lot of the journal entries than I could being out of high school and away from the drama for so many years. Towards the end, once Arfin starts spiraling down on her heroin addiction, it becomes more real than reading about her first dry humping experience or first kiss.



4. author is shallow and full of herself...basically, she's the person who just wants to go on and on and on because she likes hearing herself speak.
   
   there is nothing useful or helpful here, the writing is weak, undeveloped, and juvenile; the author seems very proud of herself for what she was involved in--and what info there is of that is very sketchy...even as i was reading this 5-minute story, i found myself wondering why this book was published at all.



5. The writer talks as if you're having a cigarette outside of a mall rather than in a confessional. Comfortable but with a little distance,(for purposes only in protecting herself) she keeps herself vulnerable throughout the story (most of the time) with recalling the past, mini- update-interviews with past acquaintances (which were great) and coming of age revelations.
   
   I enjoyed the book, found myself cracking up at her dry humor and some of the references of growing up in the 90's. Overall I'd recommend the book, just don't take everything literal or too serious. it is her story.

5 comments about Cherry.

1. I am so disappointed with the way in which Karr chose to write this memoir. I was tempted to put it down more than once while I was reading it, but her subject matter kept me interested, and I did finish it. However, her style of writing is just not for me. There is hardly any use of dialog between any of the characters - the majority of the story is told as one long description of the things around her, which I found very dull. I feel that written in another way, this would have been much more interesting to read. Not sure if I will continue on to the Liar's Club, which I didn't realize was the prequel to this one.



2. I enjoyed both books by Ms. Karr. She speaks of happiness hidden in a dysfunctional childhood. I believe more young adults should read her books and realize that happiness comes from within and as adults it is no longer our parents who control our choices/lifestyle. I read exerpts to high school seniors who find they can relate to abuse or poor personal choices like losing their virginity. Ms. Karr is a natural born story weaver.



3. I read Liar's Club when first published & Cherry when it was first published, so, it's been many years since I have read either one. I grew up w/Mary Karr. Leechfield, TX is actually Groves, Port Arthur, TX; Janis Joplin's hometown. She dedicated Cherry to my step-brother's best friend, the one she ran off with to California after graduation from HS. I'm glad that Mary has turned out to be a successful writer & professor. She had a book of poetry published when we were in the 3rd grade. I was always in awe of her. Mary was always beautiful, with those big doe eyes, & long lashes, pretty body. She was in the HS drill team, so, she wasn't as much of an outcast, as she would have many to believe. We all went through the halls stoned on acid, pot, etc. There wasn't a lot to do, except, hang @ the Dairy Queen down the street from PNG HS, or skip school & go surfing @ Crystal Beach. A lot of us hung out in those dangerous, "black" blues bars down by the docks in Beaumont, & drove across the "bridge", just to get drunk in Vinton, LA. Many of the people she hung with in HS, were my friends, as well. I know exactly who she is referring to in Cherry's descriptions. Although Liar's Club is a much better written book, Cherry is still a good read. I was shocked when people related so much to Liar's Club, you know, the WASP girls in the book clubs. Kudis to Mary!!



4. I will 100% agree with the person who says in their review is this the same author of The Liar's Club? I REALLY, REALLY liked that memoir. I don't know what went wrong with this one..but I didn't waste much of my time trying to figure it out.



5. This is my absolute favorite book in the past few years. Karr is outstanding at description. I've never read anything as precise and beautiful and inventive. Her description of an attention-driven suicide attempt is hilarious and profoundly sad. The writing style is deliciously funny and smart, Karr is a keen observer of sexuality, adolescence, and change, and physicality permeates the story.
   
   On another note, I couldn't believe the 1-star reviews here - they criticize Karr's use of "big words." I was cracking up, hahha. And apparently if you write about drugs, your story automatically sucks. What?!
   
   Most people seem to be critiquing the fact that it isn't another Liars' Club. I haven't read that yet, so maybe that's why I was able to read Cherry with no expectations. It's very accessible, and I liked reading it out of order and then again in sequence. It doesn't have a really linear narrative, (maybe that's what people disliked?) but I loved that. I can't wait to read her first memoir.

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