5 comments about Looks Like Howard.

1. One of the best and most entertaining reads I've had in quite some time. Sure, it was extra-special reading a memoir that took place in familiar home-territory, with so-familiar-that-it's-scary parallels that happen in many large, Catholic family settings.....but mostly it's just beautiful imagination shining onto paper, weaving a tapestry of humor, wackiness, honesty, awareness and insight to which many readers will instantly relate. The ending was unexpected and delightful (gave me chills, actually). I look forward to more titles by this author in the future!



2. A powerful read -- packed with self-deprecating humor, fantastic turns of phrase,incredible emotion, and insightful revelations arising from mundane everyday life. And best of all,the ending is especially satisfying even though (and maybe because) it's not wrapped up with a perfect bow. This book is enjoyable not only because Kambitsch's writing is fantastic, but also because the story is compelling and vibrant in a very believable way.



3. I really enjoyed this book. Ms. Kambitsch (rhymes with damn bitch! (-:) reveals a fascinating childhood and coming-of-age in this funny, yet poignant memoir. If you ever get to Dayton, OH, she enacts scenes from Shaggy Hair in occasional performance art with Maribeth -- you just have to read the book!



4. ... In the 1960's, this might be the story he would write. Except Patricia Kambitsch makes it clear when this memoir extends into the occasional fictional fantasy. And her brilliance of fantasy reflects a sensitive adult that can inhabit and feel deeply for the little girl experiencing the tragedies of her youth, but not understanding them at the time.
   
   The crux of the story (why you should read this) is that she reates such a vivid sense of how children view their own lives, that you may relive the wonder of your own childhood through new eyes she bestows upon you, the reader. She revives the immediacy of experience and the meaningfulness of everything and anything - a word, a pet, a blanket - as a child sees them at the time of experience. Her adult reflections bring the edge of humor to the story, where all the real-world characters of one's life - big siblings, parent, neighbors - are portrayed with a biting comedy originating from years of storymaking and empathy.
   
   So, if David Sedaris had been born a girl in the 60's, he might be as funny as this, but we would would not have the incredible fantasies recreated here, speaking with the truth of self-told fictions in a real and rich inner life.



5. In this memoir, Kambitsch really nails the smallest moments of family and childhood all under the shadow of her dead father. It sounds like a sad story from the outside. Six children left fatherless, a grieving, lovely widow left to fend for them all.
   
   But it's not what you think.
   
   What makes this book different from the typical early childhood trauma memoir is Kambitsch's irreverent and hilarious narrating voice. She has all the flair of an author like David Sedaris and his underhanded humor, and she is able to capture the conversations, the rules of the childhood games (like "Playing Jesus"), and the portraits of her family that really make the story pop.
   Kambitsch sneaks in some poignant and sad issues and then tears them apart with her sarcastic and straightforward humor. In the end, you will love this family for their imperfections.
   
   It's refreshingly subtle and smart writing.

4 comments about Explication : One Adoptee's Experience.

1. A social statement in social abuse married to a white collar crime; criminal greed and behavior finds ignorance in exploitation by greed ethics and this book reveals the conclusion in real life.
   Adoption or abortion the question of life or death for the unborn in a poverty uneducated circumstance.
   
   A Pregnancy resulting from looking for love by Life's throwaway abused child/girl/woman.(The seed donator was a Texan from the panhandle; a Pisces named Chris Swift, a married liar with three kids)
   
   The unmarried pregnant female with no social or family tools with which to survive wounded unwanted, existing through a life of abuse misuse exploitation and humiliation, a 10th grade education. Contacted a trusted (unknown to her) unethical attorney (exploiting) dating her beautiful damaged sister to arrange for a direct(not private) adoption.
   
   Trust in a professional who only saw this adoption as a way to make money under the table. Trusting is the 1st requirement in exploitation of adoption. The requirements for the future parents (designated from the Ozzie and Harriet TV parents). They both must have college degrees; both religious, a settled 30ish older childless couple whose unmet desire for a child spanned a long time. If the couple could not be found then forget the adoption. The pittance of cash she was able to borrow and live on was to be paid back; medical cost covered.
   The attorney was to insert into the adoption paperwork, medical contact information, if the baby should ever need a body part the girl was available. To tell the parents the child was loved but for her future health and welfare could not be kept.
   (the problem culminanted with the unethical attorney; a thief who sold the baby to the highest bidders; a young couple unable to pass regular adoption channels; the unbornchild/unwedmother were exploited for money).
   
   At 12:30 a.m.on the night of birth the laboring terrified christen girl(baptized 4X before turnig 10 years old) was dropped on the outside steps by a sister going out for another night of drinking instead of staying with her youngest sister at the dark forbidding catholic hospital. Her clicking heels underlined her abandonment, the tall safety haloed lights revealed the mist of baby rain drops tears from God.
   How ironic the rain, alone, the silence.
   
   The nurses/nuns led her to a curtained examining rooms, voicing disapproval of the unwed pregnancy. Led her to the high bed then walked off. Another laboring woman filled the air with screaming and yelling; the screaming singing mix in echoing voices with gleeful shouting of winning from a poker game. Two or three times someone stuck a shadowed head in and a you ok, the girl begged for the bathroom, the head dismissed her with a disrespectful shrug and tone use the bed pan.
   
   The pain was great and one of old familiarity a friend, she refused to scream accomplishing it by biting holes on the inside of her mouth, the salt taste diverted her attention a trick learned from her father's training sessions to retain silence. The pain teacher the lesson circling and riveted around her solo universe.
   
   No one ever told her anything; certainly not about labor, only that look wait until you find out, the huge scare. she could handle this too alone like everything else; by herself with no one to support or share it with except the unamed demanding entrance into the world.
   
   The girl used her hands, arms, and legs to intertwine in the antique bed railing her body hung slung sideway not on the bed at all now the pain eased dangling sideways from the railing the tiredness of clinging to the rail filtered awareness of the throbbing white hot pain enveloping her being.
   
   Dawn of light stabbed from beneath the heavy curtains, shift change, new nurse, new attitude, Aw honey untangling the twisted girl from the rail, explaining it's accepted that a bed was messed in and not a shameful act. Then checked the progress yelling Oh my god! this girl is having a baby after touching the crowning head.
   
   She was perfect in everyway, a full head of hair and delicate soft strong hands with long fingers. A quiet baby with large eyes. BEAUTIFUL. She was going to have a better life than the birthmother that was her two gifts life and a future.
   (unknowning of the transfer of large sums of money; the young non-degree parents using this baby to save a shakey marriage; the future blackmail to the young parents)
   
   The extended painful delivery created by ignorance of the girl accompanied by action judgment to a sinning unwed mother by the religious judgmental uncaring night staff.
   
   The unethical attorney flew from Tucson paid the bill; took the bundle with a nurse to fly to Boston where the two Professors at a university were waiting for their child.
   That was his story to the birthmother.
   
   The baby grew up and wrote this book mad at her birthmother, mad at the parents who paid for her, mad at the world for not having the life she wanted.
   
   Truth is relative. To parties involved.
   Everyone should know their birthright.
   That information was "SUPPOSEDLY" given with the baby's papers at transfer; but since it became a lucrative shaded adoption; a purchased adoption the attorney's closed it and removed any information to the birthmother.
   
   One can only hope writing Explication releases the author from the past. The future is bright and fertile and the past should be used for learning.
   
   Truth is create by ones view and is whatever one makes it.
   
   I think anyone thinking adoption and trusting the professional system should read this book.
   
   Very creative in Jennifer Bryan using her monetary judgement to purchase the internet tools to create her internet company and assist in the creation of an online publishing company to make her an author of this book.
   A podium to damm the people she judges have treated her badly.
   
   As one who never aborted; I always looked for the best solution in unforgiving circumstances as adoption.
   Life instead of death.
   
   My personal experience has changed that fundamental belief.



2. Adolesent ramblings of a disturbed young woman. With help all around the author wallows in self pity, and wants to Know why no one loves her for the ungrateful, shaved head, spiteful, pill popping,alcohol drinking, manipulative, promiscuous, runaway she admits she is. This poor woman needs therapy and I need my head examined for buying this book.



3. Adolescent ramblings of a 30 something woman. I can't imagine this book providing insight to anyone. One thing that is obvious, is that this woman needs to start taking responsibility for herself, and stop blaming her adoptive parents, her birth mother, the school, the Hospital, etc. It will probably take a chunk of therapy. This woman has issues! This in not your typical adoptee.



4. Not your basic Oprah-like happy reunion of adoptee and birth-family, this book details the very rocky and painful teen and young adult years of an adoptee as she searches for her identity and hopes to find it with her birthmother.

   Jen allows us to peek into the mind of a teen suffering genealogical bewilderment, a syndrome experienced by adoptees. In Explication, we share with Jen through her painful teen years, the joy and loss of her first love (a fellow adoptee), and the reunion with her birthmother and birthsisters.

   A compelling read, neither my daughter or I could put the book down. I highly recommend this book, whether you are an adoptee, a birthparent, or just looking for a good read.

No comments about Possum Hollow.

No comments about After 86 Smith Street (Isis Reminiscence Series).

3 comments about Forgive Us Our Senior Moments.

1. Walter A. Atkinson is brilliant. Not only does he compare the simple life of the 30's, 40's and 50's with wit and the comedic wisdom of a Will Rogers, he makes the comparison with today's society and drives a conservative knive into the heart of the misguided liberal agenda. I loved this book! Atkinson had me rolling on the floor with laughter only to make me stop, reflect and realize that, yes by golly, he's right. How in the world DID we get from there to here? How did it happen in such a short period of time? Even if you can't remember what it was like during a time of elderly respect, manners, REAL movie stars, true heroes, and a grand life style even without credit cards and cell phones, you'll be transported back to those days with many a smile and an occasional grumble. There's another reason I cherish these recollections; BECAUSE I'M IN THEM!



2. �In the [19]40s we were raised on B flicks about war, espionage and westerns . . .
   didn�t care about dialogue or structure. . . . A sub-plot . . . was either a German U-boat
   movie, or subsidence at the cemetery. We didn�t know from subtle emotions to
   pie-in-the-face. Every spy movie . . . used . . . the same actors to play the same characters.
   We never got enough of them.� Thus writes Walter A. Atkinson railing against the demise
   of yet another sub-culture from �his good old days of yore.� Forgive Us Our Senior
   Moments is Atkinson�s first book and he has fun with it. It�s one man�s interpretation of
   America--how it used to be and how it is today. The writing is droll and delightfully
   sardonic, with a touch of nostalgic, old-fashioned patriotism thrown in for good measure.
   One can almost feel Atkinson�s perverse glee as he takes his forty year supply of �private
   gripes and wisdom pearls� and just �lets it rip.� Truly a volume on senior reflection and
   opinionated thought, these essays connect practically every social problem in America
   today to a self-proclaimed �cultural revolution� of the mid-1960s.
   Chapters cover ancestors, retirement, sex, music, sports, religion and lots of
   politics. On retirement, and a riveting sense of impending doom, Atkinson states, �. . . if I
   had my druthers, I�d be shouting the line Anita O�Day was singing with Gene Krupa�s
   band in 1941, �. . . just let me off uptown.�� He talks of family and friends, and adventures
   while growing up in a small Pennsylvania community. A whimsical essay on religion looks
   forward to year 3001 and the evolved theology of Presleyanity amid the pomp of a world
   class event celebrating the 1,024th anniversary of Elvis Presley�s death. The religiosity of
   all humanity is literally absorbed there in a ceremony of August 16th and a holy pilgrimage
   to the sacred city of Graceland, diocese of the Most Holy Apostolic Presleyan Heartbreak
   Hotel & Church of America, for the annual observation of Rockabilly Requiem. This
   chapter, alone, is worth the price of the book.
   The writing is an �enlightened� citizen�s wistful return to the Great Depression,
   World War II, and the early Fifties--a journey with roots, so to speak--critiquing now . . .
   today, relative to more traditional times when America as a different place made a
   difference. Atkinson�s message will hit home with thousands of seniors who are living out
   final days balancing sacred moments of joy and sorrow from the author�s aptly described
   blue ribbon years, against his �inane, do as you please, liberal tripe� of the last several
   decades. Most will relate to Atkinson�s throwback passion for family, country and God,
   and his repetitive query, �How did America ever get from there to here?�
   Naturally, as any thesis with a political slant will do, folks of another viewpoint
   will be totally bent out of shape by much of the author�s intended wisdom. Liberals will be
   particularly upset as Atkinson hammers away with gleeful redundancy on foibles at the
   heart of their core beliefs--the first and foremost being: Scare the hell out of old folks, and
   keep doing it year after year, after year, after year, ad nauseam. He takes certain notable,
   liberal politicians to task, citing, where apropos, their public, decadent personal lifestyles,
   as well as their innate inability to fool the people-at-large if ever they should be of a mood
   to posture as statesmen in public. As Atkinson states in his preface, �Where convictions
   differ feel at liberty to consider my view a senior moment.�



3. Atkinson has achieved much with this little book. It's a wonderful collection of essays which harken back to a time when things were different in America. Not for liberals, this book will thrill conservatives of whatever age.

1 comments about Stepdaddy: A Creative Memoir.

1. Bought the book on a Monday. Finished the next day. If you liked the classic "The Grapes of Wrath", then you will enjoy this book.
   I experienced the "tears" and "lump in my throat", as experienced by Billy Joe. Wish all fathers and stepfathers could relate to their sons as did stepdaddy. Enjoyable reading. Going to read others by this author.

1 comments about Summer of Æ66.

1. This is a sweet follow up to Dr. Williams first book, Washed in the Blood. It tells the story of his last summer at the University of Texas before going to grad school and his life with his lovely wife, Janell. He was acquainted with Charles Whitman, the sniper in the UT tower who randomly shot at people in the streets of Austin, before being killed by two very brave Austin police officers.It asks the question, "Why do some people facing certain adverse situations become stronger, while others snap?" If you would like a taste of the feel of 1960's America during its loss of innocence, this is a great place to start.

No comments about Two Escaping the Last Battle.

No comments about Beyond the Yellow Brick Road.

No comments about Memories from Fulham.