1 comments about Pictures of Home: A Memoir of Family and City.

1. This is a tender narrative that provides uncommon insight into family life on Chicago's South Side during the second half of the twentieth century.
   
   The author uses a multi-generational trove of his family's photographs--pre-digital age and not all that well reproduced for publication--to kindle his memory. (As the book enters the home stretch, I thought Mr. Bukowski was losing sight of the photographs, to my disappointment).
   
   The author, to his credit, also has done some basic research, primarily in documents such as property deeds and death certificates. In doing so he illuminates forgotten details of his family's history.
   
   This is a book, on one level, about the dynamics and intricacies of family life from the author's birth to his father's death in 2000. The most powerful chapter is entitled "Dying." It should be read by every son and daughter who has lived through the inescapable process of a parent's final illness. Mr. Bukowski composes a narrative that is tender yet unvarnished (including intimate details that reveal his own humanity).
   
   On another level this is a rare book, in the first person, about the day-to-day meaning of homelife. It is about landscapes, the built environment, urbanism, and neighborhoods. Readers attain unaccustomed insight into life within the Bukowski family, both in its joys and its sorrows.
   
   "Pictures of Home" reminds me very much of "Colored People" by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. in the plumbing of detailed autobiographical recollections achieved by the author as he narrated his own story.
   
   This is more than another Chicago book. "Pictures of Home" is a narrative about humanity through the prism of the Bukowski family.

1 comments about Rescued Images : Memories of a Childhood in Hiding.

1. People of my generation or younger, born after the mid nineteen-sixties, are caught in a strange place when it comes to learning about, and relating to, the events in World War II Europe. We come too late for direct experience, yet before the greater distance of the generation following us. In a sense, we will, if we are thinking people, shoulder the task of passing on the facts, impressions, and enormous lessons from this period, but without first-hand knowledge. "Rescued Images" is a remarkable book which should do much to provide us with a tool which is both entertaining (as extraordinary as that may seem) and profoundly moving. Jacobsens gentle, yet strong voice, is made even stronger by her montages, which are simultaneously beautiful as they are emotionally raw. When she is old enough I will sit with my daughter and we will read this book together, in honor of the triumph of the human spirit, and in memory of the worst of human failings. Parents and schools should add this volume to their shelves, it will remain timeless.

5 comments about Before the Knife: Memories of an African Childhood.

1. Captivating, , honest, searing, this is a beautifully rendered story of a painfully difficult childhood. Carolyn Slaughter made me fall in love with the Africa of her childhood while wanting to whisk her away from that very childhood.



2. The saga by Ms. Slaughter is a touching tale of courage, and determination ... a tragedy using the failed British Empire rape of India and Africa as a backdrop to to the personal rape and subsequent journey of this brave Lady. She emerged triumphant... the Empire failed.
   
   Ms. Slaughter. Well Done.



3. This gorgeously, generously written memoir by the novelist, Carolyn Slaughter, is certain to be on my list of Best Books at year's end. These are Slaughter's young years from birth in India to age 14. She moved with her parents from India to England to Africa where she spent most of her childhood, or what should have been her childhood. A brilliant, affecting, important book. Slaughter has been one of my favorite writers since I read her Africa novels (highly recommended!) years ago: Dreams of the Kalahari and The Innocents.



4. So I confess to having not done so (finishing the book.) I am a mere 25 pages from the ending, and I am left feeling not more than a little perplexed. There is the niggling sense that the author is not playing fair. She describes a childhood rife with neglect and pain, but increasingly she is starring in her memories in a sort of grandiose, romantic way. I find myself not trusting the narrator's voice. It has become besot with victimization, so that her memories begin to all sound the same: poor, poor me. Horrid parents. Boarding schools and hand-me-downs, cruel nuns, lost love, nothing going right! Which is sad, don't get me wrong. But other authors can write about such heartache without seeming to "star" themselves in such a superlative way.
   I read on, because the author is a gifted writer, and she can describe the African bush with much eloquence. She refuses to tell the American reader the difference between "African", "Afrikan" and "Afrikaan," along with what the various native foods and phrases might translate for us in the United States. For some reason, this lack of explanation begins to feel like condenscension, and coupled with the author's ascending view of herself and her suffering, so does the whole book. Interesting read. I would like to finish it, if for no other reason than to see if the author revisits the bomb she dropped in the introduction. Will she? Won't she? I don't think she's been entirely fair by dragging it out this long.



5. This is a fabulous book, and one can't help but compare it to Alexandra Fuller's "Don't Let's Go to The Dogs Tonight".

   The difference is that although Fuller's parents were hard-drinking and unconventional, they loved their children enormously. Carolyn Slaughter had such toxic parents that it is amazing she has become an accomplished, funtioning person. Horribly abused by her father, physically as well as the sexual abuse, she was totally abandoned emotionally by her mother. I almost hated her mother more than the father, as she seemed to have no maternal feelings whatsoever.

   My only complaint is that she ended the book when she left Africa as a teenager. She tells us in the epilogue that her parents and one of her sisters have all died, but doesen't say anything about their years back in England and whether she continued to have any relationship with her parents and what finally resulted in her having any self-esteem at all. I hope she is busy writing a follow-up. I highly recommend this book as well as Fuller's book.

1 comments about Germs: A Memoir Of Childhood.

1. This memoir set in pre-World War II England has many very well written passages that nicely evoke a bygone era. It is centered on Professor Wollheim's recollections and introspections on his emotional start to life. With his sexual identity up in the air, being a social zero, and faced with irrational fears at every turn, this was not a blissfully happy childhood. Dr. Freud would have had a field day with this raw material of a life.

5 comments about Through the Jungle of Death: A Boy's Escape From Wartime Burma.

1. This was an enjoyable and quick read. Brookes as a boy escaped with his family from wartime Burma. During the trek north to China, back to Burma, and then ultimately India, Brookes lost his father and saw his family become sick because of malnutrition and malaria. However the boy became a man, and came to understand the struggle of life after seeing death every day. This is a true story of endurance, and why people should never give up.
   There is both a sad and happy end to this true story. Brookes becomes a man and raises a large family. His childhood family is destroyed by the war. After the war, his mother goes back to Burma with one of his brothers. He goes to live in Great Britain. The war basically destroyed the family he loved.
   This is a great read for those that need to understand the tragedy of war.



2. Stephen Brookes has written an engrossing account of his Anglo-Burmese family's flight before the Japanese army in 1942. Plagued by monsoons, starvation, disease and personal tragedy, harassed by the desperate remnants of the Chinese army, and abandoned by the British authorities, it is amazing that anyone survived the long circuitous trek from Burma to India. Scores of thousands did not. Brookes does an excellent job of recounting the horrific journey from the viewpoint of a young boy, but it most definitely is not a children's book. It is a book for anyone who appreciates a fascinating tale of survival in the face of incredible adversity.



3. Expecting a rather grim trek through familiar territory I found instead a remarkable story of loss and endurance told with a surprisingly lyrical and at times humorous touch. A twelve year old Anglo-Burmese boy tells of the flight of the Brookes family from the advancing Japanese army in Burma during the second world war. Fleeing first to China then back through Burma and on to India young Stevie tells of his frustration and anger at being dragged along not knowing what was happening or why.

   There were several attempts at escape,each thwarted by events or the stubborness of one or other parent,eventually leading into the mountains of Upper Burma. Walking knee deep in mud, fighting off ambushes by renegade Chinese soldiers, or just surviving the malarial conditions of the monsoon jungle, the family trekked and starved along with thousands of others on the same journey, Worse was to come as they eventually reached the so-called safety of a British controlled village. There Dr Brookes came up against colonial racism when he was refused help by an acquaintance he had entertained in happier days - a Burmese wife was acceptable when offering hospitality but not apparently when the roles were reversed. Meanwhile the child had a man's responsibility thrust upon him as he struggled to provide food and medication for his ailing family as his father died. A harrowing tale of tragic mismanagement but also telling of the blitheness and strength of a young boy who had to learn the hard lessons survival yet managed to retain a joy and wonderment at the miracles of nature A brilliant read; even if you only buy one book this year make sure it is this one.




4. Expecting a rather grim trek through familiar territory I found instead a remarkable story of loss and endurance told with a surprisingly lyrical and at times humorous touch. A twelve year old Anglo-Burmese boy tells of the flight of the Brookes family from the advancing Japanese army in Burma during the second world war. Fleeing first to China then back through Burma and on to India young Stevie tells of his frustration and anger at being dragged along not knowing what was happening or why.

   There were several attempts at escape,each thwarted by events or the stubborness of one or other parent,eventually leading into the mountains of Upper Burma. Walking knee deep in mud, fighting off ambushes by renegade Chinese soldiers, or just surviving the malarial conditions of the monsoon jungle, the family trekked and starved along with thousands of others on the same journey, Worse was to come as they eventually reached the so-called safety of a British controlled village. There Dr Brookes came up against colonial racism when he was refused help by an acquaintance he had entertained in happier days - a Burmese wife was acceptable when offering hospitality but not apparently when the roles were reversed. Meanwhile the child had a man's responsibility thrust upon him as he struggled to provide food and medication for his ailing family as his father died. A harrowing tale of tragic mismanagement but also telling of the blitheness and strength of a young boy who had to learn the hard lessons survival yet managed to retain a joy and wonderment at the miracles of nature A brilliant read; even if you only buy one book this year make sure it is this one.




5. This book makes clear from the outset that suffering, pain and grief are sure to come. What comes as a pleasant surprise is the ability of the author to convey the process by which the human spirit adjusts to that pain and above all how compassion and love can be found and shine out even when humankind reveals its darkest depths. The mismanagement of the wartime retreat from Burma is one of the greater injustices the British were able to consign to anonymity but Mr Brookes goes a great way to lighting a memorial flame for both his family and the thousands of others who set out on the road to India and safety. His extraordinay journey is punctuated by moments of pure magic - further proof that when approached with an open mind life has many many mysteries still to reveal to us.

   Alongside the misery (and the magic), there is a sense of a vanished way of life, not just that of Empire but also of the lost opportunity for a different reality for so many nations that demanded the integrity of independence at the cost of an increasingly fragmented social order.

   A heartrending story but an inspiration to us all about just how magnificent and strong the human spirit can be - feed your soul and read this book.

3 comments about Paperboy: Confessions of a Future Engineer.

1. This is a great compilation of memories for anyone who grew up in Cambria Heights in the 1950s/1960s. From the stores on Linden Boulevard to the nuns at Sacred Heart School, to the kids in the neighborhood it will bring back memories of a time and place once enjoyed and long forgotten.



2. Not only an interesting recalling the 50's, but full of thought provoking insights. They creep in on the story and all of a sudden you realize you have read something deeper than throwing a paper across a lawn.



3. "Paperboy", by Henry Petroski is another one of his intelligent, friendly, winning books.Petroski, of "The Pencil", and "The Evolution of Useful Things,"wrote about his family's move from the city to the suburbs in the 1950s.However, there's more- how he had difficulty finding a place in a school that would provide him with the challenge and stimulation he needed, the comfort of family, the joy of friendship, and the challenges of the physical world.Petroski is one of the great scientist=writers, like Lewis Thomas, Primo Levi, and Stephen Jay Gould. However, Petroski is a mapper of the world of bridges, buildings, and the one who ddeply notices pencils, paperclips. and how to fold a newspaper.This is a good book, and would be a great book for many men- Father's day, birthdays, high school graduations--And, a great gift for women, too

1 comments about Ghosts Of Kilrush.

1. What a great read, particularly for people that left Ireland during the emmigration wave of the 1940's to the 1960's. There is a supporting website at http://www.ghostsofkilrush.com/newbook.

No comments about Hangchow, My Home: Growing Up in Heaven Below.

No comments about Memoirs of a Lightkeeper's Son.

No comments about Chantemesle: A Normandy Childhood.