3 comments about Maria W. Stewart: America's First Black Woman Political Writer : Essays and Speeches (Blacks in the Diaspora).

1. The life and writings of Maria W. Stewart are a testament to the power of faith. Against all odds and against all cultural probability, Maria Stewart arose to become the first women, Black or White, to address a mixed gendered crowd on a political topic.
   
   The essays and sketches, introduced and edited by Marilyn Richardson, provide firsthand accounts of Stewart's wisdom and courage. Given the era in which Stewart spoke and wrote, it is remarkable that a young (age 28), black woman could so lucidly and bravely address both Whites and Blacks.
   
   Though addressed to people living under very different conditions, her words still speak courage and confrontation to all readers today. Thus this book is well worth reading both for its historical insights as well as for its modern implications.
   
   Reviewer: Dr. Robert W. Kellemen is the author of "Beyond the Suffering: Embracing the Legacy of African American Soul Care and Spiritual Direction." He has also authored "Soul Physicians" and "Spiritual Friends."



2. Maria Stewart was not as well-remembered as Harriet Tubman or Frederick Douglass, but she is an important person nonetheless. Fortunately, she left behind a lot of written materials of her own life and there also exist other accounts form her contemporaries. There are all well edited by Marilyn Richardson into a concise volume that tells a pretty good story of Maria Stewart and what she was all about. Great job and an inspiring read.



3. This is the first and only study that gives a solid account of the life and work of this important early 19th century African-American writer. Stewart was a radical abolitionist, a feminist activist and a powerful public speaker. She was the first American-born woman of any race to lecture in public on political themes and leave extant copies of her texts. She preceded the better known Grimke sisters by five years. Before Frederick Douglass, before Sojourner Truth, Stewart, who lived in Boston in the 1830s, was arguing for black rights, North, and South. Her collected lectures are published here for the first time in this century, along with fascinating research on the life and career of this extraordinary woman.

5 comments about Lester Leaps In: The Life and Times of Lester "Pres" Young.

1. Lester Young is my musical hero. I think you can learn so much from him, his sound, his approach to jazz. I have spent hours and hours studying his solos, playing along on sax, trying to get into his sound, his mindset, his soul. I was really excited to see a new biography of him.
   
   Unfortunately, Douglas Henry Daniels was more interested in academic pontifications, theories of how racial inequality impacts society, and was only using Lester Young as a leaping off point, if you will, for his own half baked essays, sometimes digressing from his stated topic for 10, 15, 20 pages at a time.
   
   The writing in this Lester Young biography is so dry and academic, that it is an insult to a cunning linguist like Lester, who made up his own esoteric slang, and coined many terms and phrases that have entered the hipster lexicon. If he saw a pretty girl in the audience, he might turn to his bandmate and say: "Startled doe at 2 O'clock." He called all other musicians Lady, not just Billie Holiday, who was dubbed Lady Day. Count Basie was Lady B, and Sonny Stitt was Lady Stitt. Billie Holiday gave him his nickname, Pres, because he was President of the Vipers, slang for the musicians who smoked reefer. Here is a man who used mf practically every other word. But reading about him in Douglas Henry Daniels' pretentious tome, you'd think he was describing a fellow faculty member at a retirement luncheon.
   
   Furthermore, he knows nothing of music, obviously is not a musician himself, and if he had even an ounce of musicality in him, he would have been able to construct at least one sentence that didn't make us wince. A lot of his comments about Lester's music are just wrong.
   
   If you are really interested in Lester Young's life and music, you might want to wade through this, but I have actually seen a comic book that did a better job of presenting Lester Young to the interested reader. Wish I could find that book.



2. I really am sorry that I actually paid money for this book. Lester Young is my favorite sax player and when I saw a new biography out on him I jumped at buying it. Lester Young really is just a pawn here. The author basically uses Lester's experiences with racial discrimination as a launching pad to go on huge rants of "Well, Black people weren't allowed to do this" and "Black people weren't allowed to do that" rather than actually talking about Lester. If Danials is so intent on writing about the mistreatment of Black people then he should have written a book on that instead. I mean, let's be serious. Most of us have been learning about the Civil Rights Movement and how poorly Black people were treated in those times since second grade. This is an adult biography and I think that the vast majority of people out there already know that Black people were not treated fairly in those days. There is no reason to spend 70% of the book bickering about it. I recently read a biography on the Irish patriot Michael Collins that was excellent. The author could have taken the same approach as Danials and spent all his time complaining about how England was responsible for centuries of murder and terror in Ireland, but he didn't. The focus of the book was always on Collins. Don't let this lousy book deter you from other stuff on Lester. Lester is one of the most interesting (if not the MOST interesting) of all jazz musicians. For a much better read on Lester Young check out "You Just Fight For Your Life." It was written WAY better than this book and is probably the best biography on Pres out there. It's out of print so you would probably have to get it through your library.



3. I don't know what the author's intentions were in writing this book, but it certainly seems as though the life of Lester Young was not the main topic. Daniels spends more time on topics like racism and the unfair treatment of black musicians rather than actually talking about Lester Young. While it is important to talk about these topics in some detail to explain how it affected Lester Young, the author did not have to spend over half the book on them. Here's a little advice Mr. Daniels: If you're going to write a book on the racial inequalities of these times, write a book specifically on that, and with a title that suggests that topic. Don't write a book with a title of "The Life and Times of Lester "Pres" Young" and spend nearly the whole time talking about racism and racial inequalities.



4. The author is an African-American militant and he's more worried on pamphletizing his political views than on narrating Prez's life. His views of the Jazz world are extremely naive and he tends to idealize everything related to African-Americans. One's got to be balanced...



5. Unfortunately, this is not the great full, musically, and factually satisfying book I hoped it would be when I bought it. Still if you love Pres, you do need this book.

   Everything the other comments say negative about this book is true. I say this as an academic who has written texts that have been used in Black studies for decades. I do find his comments about racism and reception of Young and his attempt to draw on comment on Young in the Black press to be interesting and to the general point. However, to explain why these forces had one effect on Lester Young, and say another effect on Duke Ellington is the real task of a biographer.

   Daniels sounds like a neo conservative of the Albert Murray Wynton Marsalis variety. He tries to shoehorn Lester Young into his own beliefs in the strength of traditional conservative Black middle class culture and institutions regardless of the facts. To do this, Daniels goes off on long digressions where any practical information about or reference to Lester Young disappears, and instead we suffer under Daniels's blather.
   
   For example, even though Lester quit school in the fourth grade and always said he hated school, Daniels tries to paint Lester's success as a product of his parents stressing the importance of education (LOL). Even though Lester stopped going to church as soon as he was old enough not to get a licking for it, Daniels tries to paint him as a product of his own fairy tale view of the "Black Church."
   
   There little sytematic discussion of Lester's music, his saxophone playing as it relates to the real art of the saxophone, or of Jazz and popular music. There is no commentary on some of the more interesting studies of Lester's music: Günter Schuler's analysis in his Swing book comes to mind. In fact there is almost no discussion of Lester Young's real role in the Count Basie Orchestra on a musical level. This, the central part of Lester's work, is simply brushed aside.

   Aside from the interesting comments about his relations with his family that mainly come from Daniel's hard work locating and interviewing friends and family of Lester Young, Lester Young's personality seems to disappear as the book procedes. What we get instead are excuses for Daniels to launch on 5-10-20 page essays on his views about African American culture, racism in America, the strength of the Black middle class, and other topics.

   Even Daniels does not believe the reader can really understand Lester Young by reading this huge expensive tome. He constantly refers to matters that he expects the reader to already know about fully from somewhere else. He leaves out so many things and he has a number of factual errors. He seems to be ignorant of a lot of things that are available in other texts on the subject that would support his arguments as well as stuff that would not

   One droll example is that in an interview about continuing swing bands in the 1950s, Pres sarcastically answered, "Bob Crosby is still swinging." Daniels is so ignorant of Lester Young and music that he takes this statement for good coin about Pres's appreciation of the Bobcats. Daniels' is ignorant of the obvious sarcasm in the remark. Pres considered Bob Crosby so square that he used "Bob Crosby" his nickname for narks! If he needed to inform a fellow pot lover to lay low because of a narc, Lester would say, "Bob Crosby is here." If the heat was heavy, Pres would say, "Yeah and his brother Bing too!" Isn't there someone who really knows about Lester Young and loves him enough not to make such mistakes able to get a research grant and a book contract to write the book this should have been?

   
   
   What is good about this book is that Daniels has unearthed a lot of material about Lester's family, his growing up, and how relatives and other musicians viewed him personally. The portrait of Lester personally is much more like what people I have met who knew or met him have given than what any other book has given us.
   He does provide some information, though scant, about Lester's marriages and female affiliations,

   Even in this regard facts that are apparent in other texts that would question the picture of Pres as simply a family loving, square representative of Black middle class values that loved family and golf and had a good relationship with his wives all along are neglected. For example Daniels briefly mentions Elaine Swain, the woman who lived with and helped out Pres in every way in the last years of his life when Pres left his wife, home, and kids and moved into the Alvin Hotel in Manhatten. Daniels says nothing about Swain's relationship with Pres. He really doesn't seem to know that other sources indicate that Lester's scene had gotten so far Daniels' picture of Pres's supposed suburban bliss that Swain shoplifted to support Pres during those final days.

   Daniel's tries to defend Pres's post war music against those who claim it deteriorated. I agree about that, and find Lester's Last regular recording, Laughing Just to Keep from Crying a masterpiece: it stayed replaying on my CD player a full day after I got it. However, Daniels just doesn't know enough about music to provide a real description of the place of his later music and its relationship to Pres's art as a whole and the history of Jazz. Daniels has nothing to say about Pres's self-destructive drinking other than to say other musicians and Barrymore were alcoholics. Because he is simply ignorant of Jazz and music, he can't really point out the great albums in Young's post war work like that one and The Jazz Giants, or for that matter the great cuts on his work with basie and Billie before the war either!

   The information on the family and personal life--taken with a grain of salt and only accepted where Daniels is presenting documented information about Lester Young as opposed to his own general ideas--is useful, but only if it is added to other work on Lester.

   Again, isn't there someone else who loves lester young, is really familiar with the literature about Lester Young, knows enough about Jazz music to write intelligently about the music, and who cares enough to write the book this should have been.

No comments about Lee Kuan Yew: The Beliefs Behind the Man.

5 comments about Wink: The Incredible Life and Epic Journey of Jimmy Winkfield.

1. What a breathtaking book for any reader that loves thoroughbred horses! Jimmie Winkfield stands before a great curtain of racism, assassinations, prejudice, and person danger. But through it all it was the horses that he understood and loved. This gifted rider a mere, 4'11" lived his life with great persistance and bravery. If anyone loves stories of thoroughbred racing they will find "Wink" a true revelation. Hotaling not only told the story of a black jockey but he wove the story in and around events in history. If you are looking for this book to be of the same flavor as "Seabiscuit" you will be grossly disappointed. Hotaling is a writer that does not rely on the "Hollywood" view of how to write a book, rather he writes an intellectual adventure of a great person in historical thoroughbred racing.



2. I learned of the book when I heard its author being interviewed on NPR. I have no interest in horse racing, but bought the book on the theory that a life this compelling must result in a book equally so. I was, in large part, correct. The writing style leaves a little to be desired, but this is a fast, and gripping, read. In the end, one is left with a real sense for what Winkfield's life must have been like.



3. You don't even have to like horseracing to love Ed Hotaling's brilliantly researched and engaging histories with a racetrack theme.
   
   As he did in his other two memorable and important books on the subject, Hotaling's WINK unearths the forgotten magic of the past and brings it to life, vivid, and sparkling.
   
   WINK is a major contender to win a National Book Award or Pulitzer for biography. It is just terrific.



4. Like a couple of the other reviewers here already said, this is a great book. I really don't care much for racing but Ed Hotaling really brought the story of Jimmy Winkfield to life for me. What an amazing life and what a fine book.
   
   Still, like the reviewer below noted, Hotaling glosses over the less-than-wonderful aspects of our hero's behavior, particularly towards his family. And given that this is probably the only book we're going to see on him for a while, it is a bit frustrating about all the information he leaves out. He never tells us where Winkfield is buried, nor does he go into any particular detail about what happened with his children or grandchildren. It's a somewhat slim book - 300 pages without the end notes - and I get the feeling that it was violently trimmed down in the editing.
   
   In any event, though, these are just minor gripes. Even if you aren't a big sports fan, this is a gripping read for anyone who loves books.



5. Thank you Mr. Hotaling for sharing Jimmy's story. His biography takes us to an important time in American history and takes us to far off places in the early 20th Century. Jimmy's passion for the sport and his circumstances brought him to Warsaw, controlled by the Russians in 1904. I can't imagine taking this risk, it tells us so much about Jimmy's confidence, his sense of self worth and passion for racing. He watched other jockeys leave America and found a way to participate in racing overseas. His story takes him through difficult times in Europe where he died at the age of 94.
   
   What I liked most about the book is that it is a human interest story that shows Jimmy Winkfield's courage, gives us insight into early 20th century horse racing in America and what circumstances moved American jockeys overseas to ride. The story is told in the context of 20th Century history, which increases our understanding of the times in which Jimmy lived and the career decisions he made.
   
   A must read for those who love horse racing, history and a good human-interest story.

No comments about The Souls of Purgatory: The Spiritual Diary of a Seventeenth-Century Afro-Peruvian Mystic, Ursula de Jesús (Dialogos Series).

5 comments about Soul On Ice.

1. One must remember, this man is a convict, sent to prison for attempted murder. If you understand the mind of the incarcerated then you know it is all a front for parole.
   
   Once Cleaver was released from prison he proceed to get involved with more criminal activity both in the United States and abroad. In France he is suspected of the murder of a man that had an affair with his wife. In Algeria he ran a auto theft ring. Does this sounds like the re-incarnation of Malcolm X. Or does it sound like the a street thug. The fact that he became a crack addicted whore towards the end of his life renouncing the Black Panther attest to the fact that Eldridge Cleaver was a phoney only hustling the system to get out of jail.
   
   I read his book and essentially was bored. I had no desire to experience life behind bars as white critics and so-call academics do.



2. After reading this book I believe trying to articulate in writing "what my opinion" is would be doing it an injustice. The man is brilliant and has influenced me to search for more knowledge and wisdom. Thanks Mr. Cleaver!



3. Mr. Cleaver wrote a semiautobiography about how society sets itself up along racial and gender lines. Raping women is reprehensible and evil and it doesn't help solve the racial/gender problem. It excabates it. Challenging the racist/sexist society by making alliances with people whom he considered to be his enemies will solve most of the problem. He should have shown love for his fellow man/woman. Didn't Jesus tell people to love your enemies, not hating and violating them? Later on in life, his views have changed for the better.



4. The themes exhibited in "Soul On Ice" are race, racism, individuality vs. societal standards and traditions, injustice, humanity, religion/faith, inhumanity and activism. Cleaver spends a great deal of time writing on the injustices Black people face in America, and how even though he is what society wants him to be, it is his fault that he allow society to be right. He pledges to take steps towards change and to become a benefit to society.
   I know that a lot of people think that they know about the civil rights movement and the effects it had on the Black race, but they don't. This story of a man who, at the time, had been locked up for more than half of his life, is the story of all real Black people. I think that sometimes Black people do things and think that it is their nature, which is how stereotypes brew. Cleaver shows us that it is history and hatred that have made us a collective in an usual individual world. We do think for ourselves, yet a racist society continues to force us to travel down a road that we have not set for ourselves, and that he has fell into racist America's trap. He has become the stereotype: (supposedly) uneducated, a prisoner, and a victim of "The Ogre" (the white woman).



5. people consider this to be 'in the world of literature' and serious?
   cleaver's a misogynistic pig, a racist, and a multiple rapist. that's all you need to know.

5 comments about Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom.

1. Ellen and William Craft were a young (mid-20's) slave couple who made a daring escape to freedom. Light-skinned Ellen cut her hair short and dressed in the suit and tophat of a white planter. Since she was illiterate, her husband William made a sling for her arm, so she had an excuse not to sign hotel registers. And since she had a womanly voice, the couple devised a poultice tied around her jaw indicating she had a bad toothache and could not speak. William played the role of his white massa's slave. And the couple traveled by train, steamship, and wagon to their destination in the north. They soon became popular lecturers in the United States and Europe. This is a remarkable story of daring and bravery and should be read by everyone. Anyone who wants to introduce their children to good historical fiction should get them The Journal of Darien Duff, an Emancipated Slave, The Diary of a Slave Girl, Ruby Jo, and The Journal of Leroy Jones, a Fugitive Slave.



2. I read this for a college history survey course before it was mistakenly announced that the book was out of print. The book was dropped from the syllabus, but I am glad I read it anyway.

   The first and shortest part of the book is William Craft's powerful account of how he and his wife Ellen executed a daring escape from servitude in Georgia. Their plan was remarkable in its ingenuity: The almost white Ellen, outfitted with a master's clothes and a poultice on her face to prevent incriminating speech with strangers, and her husband William, disguised as a servant, escaped to freedom in the north. Travelling by rail, the pair exultantly crossed over into Canada and from thence headed for England.

   The second part of the book is a third person summary of the couple's travels after their ambitious escape. It follows them from Georgia through the slave and free states, in which they were well received and protected (especially in Boston), up to Halifax and across the water to England. I found the final two thirds of the book the most enjoyable, as it treated of foreign travel, in which I have a keen interest. Both portions of the book are beautifully written and often gripping. I hope a few of my classmates read this before that announcement. This book is both pleasurable to read and historically vital.




3. This book is a captivating account of the injustices of slavery and a amazing story of two fugitives running for there freedom. This book is a great story that should be taught in schools and should not be ignored in American History classes. It opened my mind to the horrors slavery actually caused. It represents a part of our history that should never be repeated. 5 plus stars.



4. While taking an African American literature course in college I was introduced to this novella written by William Craft. It is a must-read for American and African American history classes. The novella is a quick and easy read, with the capacity for great discussion and in-depth analysis. Humor, suspense, mystery and action is all provided in this wonderful tale of escape and hypocrisey.



5. Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom is a must read for all American history students and should be required reading at least at the high school level. This book gives the reader a first-person view of that "Peculiar Instition" known as slavery and to what lengths one will go to achieve personal freedom. This book will change your view of slavery forever.

No comments about Leaving India: My Family's Journey from Five Villages to Five Continents.

5 comments about The Pimp's Rap.

1. This book is better than it seems on the first read. Squares should like it. Low level pimps and prostitutes may not. In order to find the game in this book one should listen very closely to the words of the author's "teacher."



2. This book was a total joke. I've known a few pimps and many counter-culture members and this guy is neither, least in my experience. The whole book is filled with BS stories, too much cursing and calling people out and no knowledge whatsoever. You cannot be an excellent writer if you have no wisdom to impart. This guy is so boring, so fake sounding and the stories are so impersonal and unreal that I give this the big two thumbs down. I honestly didnt' get more than 1/3 through it before I had to stop with total disgust. I skimmed the rest and realized there was nothing in the latter half either so I left it on the curb for a bum to pick up. That's what it was worth to me. Heck, I'd feel bad if a bum wasted his time reading it. I'm sorry but this was the worst piece of literature I've seen in awhile. Go read Icerberg Slim books or Donald Goines, they both rock. From what I read of this one it seemed that some suburban kid wrote it as a joke just to see how many he could sell. He probably read Iceberg Slim's book and figured he could make up a story about Pimpin and call it a catchy and cheesy name like "Master Pimpin by Master Pimp". LOL.. what a joke. Only one book by him, what a surprise!



3. Let me tell everyone the secret to becoming a Pimp as this book puts it: Have another pimp just Give you a ho. That's it. Nothing about what to do, say, think, act. The rest of this book is filled with accounts of this n that, seems fictional but yet boring. Nothing educational, Pimps up Hoes Down has more knowledge than this waste. Save your money...



4. You don't realize until towards the end of this book how much of a joke it actually is. This kid tries to front like a Master Pimp but in fact he is a FairyTale square. Although he plays it like some sort of story of his life sans the realism ... making it an allegory teaching the ins and outs of the game, you start to realize in sheer horror towards the end of the book that the whole thing is a piece of Narcotics Anonymous propoganda masquerading as a booking on pimpin'.

   What a farcical piece of tripe.

   After reading Grandmaster Slim, K-Flex, or even A.S. Jackson, it's no wonder this dorkwit had to spend his own money to publish and distribute his book. Any real publisher would have told him that his game needs so much work that he needs to go back to the school of hard knocks and STAY THERE FOREVER.




5. This book may have broken every rule of the game baby, but the game is to be sold not to be told. If I'm not mistaking, the book must be purchased to obtain it's information. This book is worth every penny spent, just suprised it was not being sold for more because this book is the truth! From 1st page to the last. Pimp up Smooth! Rain79Gang!

1 comments about ‘Blues Boy’: The Life and Music of B. B. King (American Made Music Series).

1. B. B. King wrote his autobiography, Blues All Around Me in 1996, and if you're interested in the story of B. B. King that's the book to read. Charles Keil's book Urban Blues is also quite good. Mr. Danchin adds no new information to the B. B. King story and includes some misinformation and bad judgements that are misleading.

   It would be difficult to overstate the influence B. B. King had on Blues music in the 1950's. B. B. was impressed by T-Bone Walker's sound. T-Bone recorded blues songs with jazz musicians in his band. The sound was light and swinging and T-Bone's singing was smooth and sophisticated. T-Bone featured his own guitar playing, using single note guitar solos, which blues players hadn't done before.

   Compare T-Bone's approach to B. B. King's approach. B. B.'s band was made up of blues musicians instead of jazz musicians. The beat was heavier than T-Bone's. B. B.'s singing style was more emotionally intense and gospel flavored. His guitar phrases were shorter than T-Bone's.

   Many of the young blues stars of the late 1950's liked B. B. King's sound and used B. B. King as a model for their own styles of singing, bandleading and guitar playing. Think of Freddie King, Otis Rush, Magic Sam and Buddy Guy.

   Danchin is often dismissive of B. B. King's early records like "Three O'Clock Blues" which he calls "pretty unpolished" and "not a new song". Danchin summarizes B. B.'s early appeal as "the climax of his development as an interpreter; rather than the triumph of an originator." But Freddie King, Otis Rush, Magic Sam and Buddy Guy knew something that Danchin missed. Lowell Fulson's version of "Three O'Clock Blues" didn't sound like B. B. King's version. B. B. King had a new exciting sound that made other people want to play like B. B. King. B. B.'s success was absolutely 'the triumph of an originator.'

   Danchin makes an egregious error when he writes "the importance of Jules Bihari in building B. B. King's career has been insufficiently appreciated. It was Jules, rather than King, who usually decided on the arrangements and the musicians, and sometimes it was his ideas that decided the repertoire, as his brother Joe explained in a rare interview: 'On some songs, they had them in their head, but couldn't quite get it together, and there was help. . .You might notice the name of Jules Taub on some songs. That was a pseudonym for Jules Bihari, who worked with the artists."

   In the 1950's it was common practice among independent record label owners to collect songwriting royalties that should have been paid to the artist, by claiming phony songwriting credit. When questioned about this practice later the label owners often gave explanations like the one above. A writer familiar with industry practices of the time should have been suspicious, but Danchin isn't. B. B. King writes in his autobiography that the thing he liked best about recording for the Bihari Brothers was that they left him alone in the recording studio and allowed him to do whatever he wanted! Danchin makes B. B. sound like a puppet of Bihari, which the evidence of King's continued sucess after leaving Bihari's record label doesn't support.

   The good news is that Sebastian Danchin wrote a book about blues guitar player Earl Hooker, which is much better than this book. The Earl Hooker book is well worth reading if you think you might be even slightly interested in the subject.