5 comments about Kinfolks: Falling Off the Family Tree - The Search for My Melungeon Ancestors.

1. Lisa Alther hasn't lost her sense of humour or her keen insight into human nature. This is a great book and I learned a lot about history of the Southeast of which I knew nothing before reading this. I found it very interesting and I also loved learning more about Lisa's life as she is a favorite author of mine.



2. Lisa (LYE-ZA) Alther's latest, Kinfolks, falling off the family tree, is irresistible!
   
   Kinfolks is the most humorous and entertaining book I have read in years! (And I've probably read 15,000 in my lifetime of 81 years.) It also introduces you to a very interesting woman who is unafraid to reveal her weaknesses and foibles. She is also a marvelous role model of openness and self-effacement for the young as well as a reassurance for all senior citizens.
   
   Do not be fooled this is only about ancestors or genes. The genealogy and DNA searches provide the structure for very wise and unhurtful humor--a very rare quality.
   
   Most Americans no longer live where they grew up. What they gained by living among strangers, what they lost by uprooting, and what they may profit from by accepting ALL their roots, traits, and history are hilariously illustrated.
   
   The Melungeons, interesting as they may be, only provide a vehicle for Alther's search for more self-knowledge by a very gifted writer. The writing draws one on as Alther reminds us of cogent points through artful means: she contrasts northeast Appalachia church message boards' weekly quotes with Vermont bumper stickers to give us insights into two very different responses to extremes of the Appalachians. She teases her family who seem recognizably familiar, and she tantalizes us with the potential of what DNA may one day tell us about ourselves and others.



3. This was a great book. It is styled like an autobiography and tells the tale of the authors childhood through adult years, focusing on family, culture, and the things she learned about her family through the years.



4. Well written, easy reading. But if you are looking for the history of the Melungeons, take this book very lightly. Borders on "Cultural Genocide". As with the works of Brent Kennedy and Elizabeth Hirschman, a very poor attempt at rewritting the history of the Melungeons.



5. I had never heard the word 'Melungeon' before, so I had to go look it up on the web. It appears that no body else really knows what a Melungeon is either. Therefore, what a great thing to go searching for. You can find it if you wish. (662 people claimed to be Melungeon in the 2,000 census).
   
   Ms. Alther's search among her family roots lead her to about as confused a family as, as, as, well most families. The particularly amusing aspect of her family, especially among the older members is the refusal to admit even the slightest possibility that there might be a small percentage of African American blood running through their veins.
   
   Ms. Adler is able to take her investigation into the upper bounds of comedy. She reports a church sign, 'What did Noah do with the woodpeckers.' Upon her father finding out that he might have some Indian blood he tells a fund raiser who calls, 'Sorry, but I'm Cherokee, and I need to give my money to my own people.' I'm going to try to remember that line.

5 comments about Katie: The Real Story.

1. Seemed more interested in telling about what she did to get where she is & who cares???? I still have the book opened with about 1/4 to read & may never even finish it..... when usually I read a book a day, if it's god.



2. Edward Klein, author of "The Truth About Hillary," "The Kennedy Curse," and "Farewell Jackie," has turned his attention to one of America's most important media icons, Katie Couric, in his "Katie: The Real Story." Klein felt that there were many unanswered questions about Couric - What explained her extraordinary success in the world of morning television? Who helped her on the way to the top? - and set about to find the answers.
   
   After two hundred interviews with both her critics and most ardent supporters, he has produced the first unauthorized biography of Couric with the claim that "Katie" was not based on a negative premise. He intended to be scrupulously fair while saying something true and important about this media icon.
   
   The book is a tightly woven story of Couric, "America's Sweetheart," from childhood (Arlington, Virginia) to her role today as anchor for CBS Evening News. Klein's inside sources describe Katie in her early professional years as young and hungry - "one of the most ambitious women I have met."
   
   She has abundant self-confidence, is cheerful, carefree, and fearless but is easily hurt, quick to tears, and susceptible to feelings of embarrassment and humiliation. She projects an image of a strong and independent woman but privately she is extraordinarily needy and dependent on the support of men.
   
   Couric's father is a soft-spoken man with conservative values. He was a reporter then publicist for the National Association of Broadcasters. Katie showed her father's fascination with journalism, particularly TV journalism. He always said that the number one job was Walter Cronkite's, as anchor for CBS Evening News.
   
   "Katie" provides plenty of background, not only on Couric's rise to the top, but also a behind the scenes look at CNN, NBC, and CBS. Klein provides little known tidbits on how Katie barely escaped from being fired by CNN, her years at CNN Headquarters, and the help she received from the CNN executive, Guy Pepper, with whom she had a long-standing affair.
   
   Some of the juiciest tidbits of the book center on the NBC's Today Show and Couric's rise to America's Sweetheart including departure of Jane Pauley, the rise and the fall of Deborah Norville, the difficult Bryant Gumbel and his eventual dismissal, a growing rivalry with Diane Sawyer, her marital strife with husband Monahan, and her efforts to become more glamorous. Through it all, Couric transforms into a diva with all of the perceived negatives.
   
   The book contains sixteen pages of pictures detailing Couric's life. While this is a fast read, it took some time to get through it as my wife kept taking my copy to read for herself. That is about as good a recommendation anyone can give for this book!



3. This book is the height of Katie bashing. I'm an admitted fan but not so myopic as to think she is without faults and never did a single thing on her rise to the top that some might find objectionable. The author had little, if anything, good to say about Katie and that's an unbalanced view that causes me, like an earlier reviewer, to regret having bought this book. I'll now do something I seldom do - toss it out rather than pass it on. The least I can do is spare others.



4. Edward Klein's Katie: The Real Story is a probing portrait of the multiple personas of Katie Couric -- the strong independent woman and the needy wife and lover, the grieving widow famed for her kindness to others and the fiercely competitive diva, the consummate television interviewer and the stumbling network anchor. Many critical of this book consider it to be a hatchet job and/or a whitewash. In my opinion it is neither. I view it to be a truthful, no-holds-barred portayal of a woman who used every wile she could to claw her to the top of her profession. While this can be said about many successful men as well, it doesn't make it any less true about Katie Couric. Couric never seemed to mind using her femininity to help her reap the rewards she so desparately desired. However, she was the first to cry "sexist" or "jealousy" to anyone who pointed this out in regards to CBS paying her $75+ million to be the first solo anchorwoman on a network nightly news program. Further, she never seemed to hesitate using these defensive mechanisms to counter claims about being less successful than anyone at CBS ever expected her to be. To me, and apparently to many viewers and industry experts, Couric's rapid decline from queen of morning television to the falling star of evening news is that, at heart, Couric is not an anchor person -- sober, authoritative and wise. Rather her failure to-date as a solo anchorwoman is due to those qualities that helped her meteoric rise on The Today Show -- her cuteness, funniness and girlish charm. These do not seem to be the qualities many people want when watching a "hard news" program. Klein succeeds in delivering an unflinching book about a woman who is fast to blame anyone else but herself for her lack of success in making her monumental career move. In short, Katie: The Real Story is basically a book about a woman who could not reconcile her ambition with her personality.



5. Here we go again....Katie Couric is the devil. There are axes to grind all over network news these days, and why not aim some of it at the most successful of the bunch who just happens to be female? When I see someone write a book about Tom Brokaw or Brian Williams, and how they clawed their way to the top, and whether or not their marriages and relationships are good and bad, contemplating whether salaries were deserved or not, then I might be inclined to believe that the media (as well as the writer of this book) were interested in a fair accounting of network news. This is just a hatchet job to someone's character, written by someone who obviously had plenty of jealous folks who were willing to whisper in his ear.

5 comments about Prisoners: A Story of Friendship and Terror (Vintage).

1. This is a must for anyone Jew, Muslim gentile (like me) who despairs at the Israeli/Palestinian problem to be confirmed in the view that there are people of good will on both sides where common humanity exists but unfortunately frustrated by those in power who believe that force is the only way forward



2. This is a very well written book that grips you from the start and makes you want to keep reading to find out "what happened next" in the manner of successful fiction. The events outlined display a considerable amount of courage on the part of Goldberg, who stayed a few weeks in a Pakistani Madrasa, and repeatedly entered the Gaza strip and was alone among what were, officially, his enemies.
   
   While the author's need to see signs of hope as to the future of the Israeli-Palestinian situation via his friendship with his former Palestinian prisoner "Rafik" is constant throughout the book, many of the questions Goldberg raises throughout his journeys are destined to dead-ends because they are based on a perspective that has been subject to a considerable amount of editing. And, as the nature of any quest goes, if you don't ask the right questions, you don't get the right answers.
   
   Whereas the author's pursuit of these signs of hope, even in hostile territory, is admirable, his premise is not as impassive as the synopsis of the book wants us to believe; It tells us that, as a prison guard, Goldberg "realized that his prisoners were the future leaders of Palestine", hence "this was a unique opportunity to learn from them about themselves", but, when you get to that part of the book, Goldberg tells you that one of his tasks in prison (as a member of the military police) was to confiscate any and all signs of Palestinian national aspirations (flags, rocks in the shape of Israel, national songs). These were the pre-Oslo days, when a "Palestinian state" was unacceptable to Israel. And while Goldberg was genuinely curious about understanding his prisoners, he did not think they'd be "future leaders" of any state, as confiscating any signs of such aspirations testifies. It is very interesting to note how taking such liberties in shuffling around elements of the time-line for the sake of a stronger pitch in the synopsis mirrors what happened with the larger picture of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
   
   One of the questions the reader is inevitably lead to upon reading Goldberg's accounts of such confiscations in prison is:
   
   What drives one people to try and confiscate all signs of the identity of another people? Or, more accurately:
   
   How can a people base the security of their identity upon the elimination of that of another?
   
   In Goldberg's latest account of the conflict covering the last few years, he presents it more as one that has its origins in religious intolerance and Muslim extremism. It is ironic that Goldberg quotes Israeli writer "Amos Oz" at some point in his narrative, because it was precisely Oz that repeated that this was not a religious conflict, but a real estate one. While the rise of militant fanaticism in the Muslim world is an undeniable fact of considerable threat to many countries, recasting the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as being caused by religious pathos is, again, a reshuffling of the story for the sake of a stronger pitch.
   
   Anyone who is interested in knowing more about what is going on in that unfortunate part of the world could benefit from the account of "Susan Nathan", a British Jewess who lived in an Arab village in Israel, in her book, "The Other Side of Israel", or "Emma Williams", a British doctor who lived and worked in Jerusalem, in her book "It's easier to reach Heaven than the end of the street, a Jerusalem memoir". Both provide some parts of the picture that were edited out of Goldberg's story, courageous as he may be.
   
   Some questions open doors to other questions that may well be very different from the ones the author intended, but which are the only ones that could bring the reader closer to an understanding of the real story.



3. When this book originally came out in 2006, its title was: Prisoners-A Muslim and a Jew across the Middle East Divide. When I received the book to review it had a new title: Prisoners-A Story of Friendship and Terror. I found this very interesting because the new title seemed more hopeful, a strong message woven throughout this book.
   
   Jeffrey Goldberg is the Washington correspondent of The New Yorker. Until recently, he served as the magazine's Middle East correspondent. Before joining The New Yorker in 2000, Goldberg covered the Middle East and Africa for The New York Times Magazine. He is also a veteran of the Israel Defense Forces.
   
   Prisoners is a memoir of his time in the Israeli Army. In 1990, during the first Palestinian uprising, Goldberg served as a prison guard in the largest prison in Israel. He decided early in his service that he would talk to the Palestinian prisoners, mostly out of curiosity but also because he thought it was possible to be friends with them. Rafiq, the prisoner and Fatah activist that he spent the most time with, was as he describes, "a bookish kind of guy who had some ironic distance from the essential absurdities of prison life." Despite their extreme differences, they began a dialogue in the prison that grew into an astonishing friendship--and now a remarkable book.
   
   Goldberg brings real faces to the war on both sides of the conflict, something we don't always get when reading about this topic. He believes this book is meant for anyone who is mystified by the issues in the Middle East. He hopes that, through this memoir he will explain to all sorts of readers why the Middle East is such a puzzling and troubling place.
   
   The message of his book is that it is not impossible--it is terribly difficult, but not impossible--to build a friendship with your enemy. Rafiq said it best: "If a million people in the Middle East could have the sort of friendship we have created--a tenuous, fraught friendship, but a friendship nonetheless--than the Middle East might become a better place." We can only hope.
   
   Armchair Interviews says: A thought-provoking story.



4. Brilliant...Prisoners is a stunningly personal, humorous and poignant memoir that is rare in its scope and reach. In the book, Goldberg deftly presents both his own breathtakingly honest and bittersweet life history as well as the story of his close friendship and kinship with Rafiq - a Palestinian prisoner he was once charged with guarding while in the Israeli army. This account of their conversation through the years explores the possibility of peace in an area of the world fraught with strife throughout the millennia.
   
   Goldberg is a seasoned journalist who masterfully presents the extremely complex situation between the Israelis and the Palestinians in a way that facilitates understanding and renders it accessible to everyone - from novices of the region to experts in geo-politics. Of note, he is fair-minded and even handed in his approach describing the tense conflict between the two sides. Goldberg's deep knowledge of and experience in the Middle East coupled with his evocative writing style produces an exciting and immensely satisfying read. Overall, Prisoners is at times hilarious and others heart-wrenching but ultimately it is a story of hope measured with an experienced and realistic perspective.



5. I read it in 2 nights. It is truly brilliantly perceptive and indescribably sad - he, like so many, see no solution, not really, despite his theme of coexistence. By now there's so much hatred on both sides, so much misunderstanding, so much blood shed unnecessarily, that any happy end is virtually impossible.
   Ruth Weiss, Author, Germany

5 comments about Right Turns: From Liberal Activist to Conservative Champion in 35 Unconventional Lessons.

1. Right Turns: From Liberal Activist to Conservative Champion in 35 Unconventional Lessons
   
   What an amazing life story. What I found so profound, was my own life experiences, in going from a jewish democrat to jewish conservative republican.
   
   I found his life story quite compelling, and inspiring, to help me find my own jewish identity.
   
   Sadly, being a republican is highly discouraged as a jew. It's rather sad, there are no local places in Minnesota, where you can pray, and not have to worry about being silent, rather than being a part of a good community.
   
   Thank you, Michael Medved, for such an inspiring and heart-warming autobiography.



2. Michael's book is an example of what happens when adolescents mature. When one starts working and has a family to support they cannot remain liberal unless they are insane. Liberalism is a mental disorder but it can be healed with the right amount of encouragement and soul searching by the sick one.



3. Heard Michael Medved read his autobiography, RIGHT TURNS:
   FROM LIBERAL ACTIVIST TO CONERVATIVE CHAMPION
   IN 35 UNCONVENTIONAL LESSONS and must say I was
   impressed--though I don't agree with all his political beliefs.
   
   Yet that's what makes the book so interesting; i.e., that
   Medved gets you to think . . . he has always done that
   for me, even since I started to watch him back when he reviewed
   movies on PBS . . . his opinions were often funny, but they
   were also much more honest than those of his colleague
   Jeffrey Lyons (who could find something admirable in almost any
   film). . . I also got a kick out of his "Golden Turkey Awards,"
   presented to the very worst efforts in filmmaking.
   
   When he described his early liberal leanings, I could
   relate to much of what he said--particularly when he talked
   about Allard Lowenstein, one of my political heroes . . . how
   he transformed to become conservative kept my attention,
   as did his becoming increasingly aligned with Orthodox
   Judaism . . . and when he followed-up an unsuccessful
   first marriage with a loving second one, I found myself
   feeling glad for Medved.
   
   Parts of RIGHT TURNS are funny; much of it is thought-provoking.



4. I'm a little puzzled by some of the negative comments from reviewers regarding the book and, broadly speaking, the character of the author. I've just about finished the book and have found little in the way of blanket invectives that some accuse him of casting on "Liberals". Yes, he relentlessly attacks those who he finds to be disingenuous, self-servers (Vietnam war protesters - driven by fear of the draft more than the geopolitical consequences of the US military engagement), angry and intolerant radical secularists, and smug self-righteous Hollywood sycophants. But Medved goes out of his way to point out the decency and good-nature of a young Hillary Clinton; the sincerity and seriousness of Barbra Streisand as a mother seeking spiritual enrichment for her teenage son; and the fact that a high-level Clinton associate, Lanny Davis, is still one of his most valued friends.
   
   He is, no doubt, a passionate advocate for the values he's cultivated and informed in a very interesting lifetime of enthusiastic immersion in anything he seemed to stumble into. He can sometimes seem a little overbearing in his confidence and grand assertions - but I think any fair reading of this values-focused autobiography will find his intellectual and emotional honesty compelling whether or not ultimately convincing.
   
   Relax a little. Don't get caught up in eye-rolling even while he occasionally waxes eloquent on some credulity-straining events in his apparently charmed life and you'll be rewarded with a series of amusing stories, thought-provoking observations and an overall engaging read.



5. I have been reading Michael Medved since "The Golden Turkey Awards," the book that started my lasting love for grade-Z movies. Since that time I have avidly read his other more serious and relevant books and have enjoyed them all immensely. While this isn't my favorite of his books ("Hollywood vs. America" and "The Golden Turkey Awards" vie for my favorite depending on how serious my mood is), it is still a captivating work that stands on its own merits.
   
   While Medved is now known as a staunch conservative, it wasn't always so. Medved came from a traditionally liberal Jewish family with well-established leftist tendencies. The most interesting part of the book for me was reading about his transformation from liberal to conservative, and the lessons that helped that metamorphosis. Medved is amazingly accomplished, and knows (or has known) an amazing assortment of people. I was especially interested in his accounts of his friendship with fellow Yale law school student Hillary Clinton, and his interactions with other Yale students he crossed paths with, including John Kerry, George W. Bush, Joe Lieberman, and Howard Dean. His views of Bill Clinton, who he knew from both his relationship with Hillary and activism in an early political campaign, also show keen insights which have stood the test of time.
   
   This book is more of a personal memoir than his previous efforts, and while I find him an intriguing person, some of the recollections of familial conflict, while important to the shaping of his character, tended to be a tad lengthy. For that I would like to subtract a half star from my score, but since reviewing rules don't allow for that, I give "Right Turns" four stars overall. The book is excellent in its own right, but is not as consistently compelling as some of his other (even more excellent) works. I greatly enjoyed his observations on media and film, particularly his recollections of co-hosting "Sneak Previews." Longtime Medved fans will also learn the answer to a longstanding question about "Muki the Wonder Hound" and the fabled movie "Dog of Norway."
   
   For insight into world politics and issues, nobody stands above Michael Medved, the original "Cultural Crusader" and proud American. I highly recommend this book without reservation.

5 comments about A Good Life: Newspapering and Other Adventures.

1. Ben Bradlee and wife Tony lived on the same side of the same Washington, D.C. block as Senator John Kennedy, which is how they became friends with him and Jackie. After JFK's election to the Presidency, their friendship continued. He invited the Bradlees to Camp David, the family compound at Hyannis and for private dinners. At one glamorous White House function, Kennedy sat between Tony Bradlee and her sister Mary, who was also his friend. How close the two were was revealed much later.
   
   Some time after Kennedy's death, Mary was walking along a D.C. canal when she was grabbed from behind. Her assailant stuck a gun under her chin and pulled the trigger; she died instantly. Shortly after the funeral, Mary's best friend phoned Tony Bradlee, inquiring after Mary's personal diary, which she said had been promised to her. When the Bradlees went to Mary's home to locate the book, they encountered inside it the friend's husband, a CIA operative known as "The Locksmith." He said his wife had sent him to retrieve the diary.
   
   They eventually found it elsewhere. Ben and Tony were appalled to discover details in the diary of sister Mary's affair with JFK, one that lasted from early 1962 until his Nov. '63 death. They innocently handed the book over to their CIA friend, who promised to destroy it, and never at the time considered the implications of the two violent deaths and an interested CIA.
   
   This is just one of many remarkable stories in Ben Bradlee's A GOOD LIFE. From his teenaged recovery from polio, Harvard graduation, service on a WWII destroyer in the hazardous South Seas off Guadalcanal, City Editorship of a New Hampshire paper, a brief stint at the Washington Post then as a Paris-based foreign correspondent who traveled all over Europe and the Middle East, to a job as assistant to the American ambassador in Paris, to Newsweek and again the Washington Post, Ben Bradlee's "good life" was a full and eventful one, as well. A most fascinating and well-written autobiography. Highest recommendation!
   
   
   ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN, by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, details their investigation as Washington Post reporters under Ben Bradlee of the biggest Presidential scandal in American history, that of Watergate, which led to the resignation in disgrace of Richard Nixon.



2. Here's the magic mathematical formula for writing your very own version of "A Good Life." Even better, you don't have to set foot in a newsroom:
   
   ("I banged famous chick")x 51 + ("I met famous person") x 2,453, divided by the number of times you tell your boss how things should be done ("0"), and - viola (an allusion to your time in France) - you've got your own self-serving autobiography! And it doesn't come larded with any of Bradlee's prose, something which should be apparent from the formula.
   
   Good luck with your work!



3. Ben Bradlee's book, "A Good Life: Newspapering and Other Adventures", is a warm, candid and entertaining look back over a remarkable career and personal life. His writing is honest, revealing and to the point. He indeed has had an interesting life. The Watergate and the Pentagon Papers experiences are covered in detail. I became interested in reading this book after reading the book "All the President's Men" and watching the movie of the same title. I would highly recommend this book! Ben comes across as an smart, honest and decent man who worked very hard to earn his achievements.



4. As Executive Editor of The Washington Post from 1968 to 1991, Ben Bradlee not only printed history, he also made it. Momentous events were covered, careers fashioned, reputations ruined and social movements spotlighted. Bradlee was at the center of all this, directing his reporters, dictating policy and discharging journalistic shells whose recoils are still felt even today. Yet Bradlee was not above or beyond the common man. I remember, as a young bodybuilder uncertain of my future, applying for a position on the Post. Unfortunately, my qualifications were insufficient to meet the standards expected of journalists. However, I still have Mr Bradlee's courteous rejection letter which is worth citing:
   
   'Dear Schwarz
   
   My name is Ben and I'm an alcoholi... hang on... wrong place... let me start again.
   
   Dear Schwarz
   
   Having read your application, in which you admitted to an addiction to Teetotalism, I have no choice but to reject it. The tradition of Common Journalistic Insobriety has taken decanters... let's get that right... decades to establish and your flagrant? flagon?... no, I was right the first time... flagrant disregard for such tradition proves that you aren't fit for either a by-line at the Post or a bar stool in the Journalists' Club. In short, a pen and pad are not compatible with Perrier Water.
   
   I hope you will receive this letter in the spirit in which it is soaked.
   
   Yours sincerely
   
   Ernest Hemmingwa... no, that's not it... where did I put that bottle... Johnnie Walker... no... it's... Richard Nixo... hey Woodward, make mine a double!...'
   
   'A Good Life' is also a very entertaining read.



5. Easily the country's best known newspaper editor (thanks to Watergate, the movie: "All The President's Men"), Ben Bradlee retired in 1991 at age 70, having fulfilled his life's ambition - the transformation of The Washington Post from something of a mess to a paper of stature and influence to rival The New York Times.

   In this memoir, Bradlee emerges unapologetically as a cheerful white male born into the power elite, not particularly reflective but aware of his abilities, particularly his aptitude for recognizing talent in others and his willingness to make decisions. Work and ambition were central to his life, even costing him two marriages - although neither marriage ended until the next wife was waiting in the wings.

   Bradlee is a reporter rather than a storyteller and the first third of his memoir is guaranteed to irritate those for whom Harvard was not a given and who can't conceive of "scrounging" up $10,000 (in 1946!) to invest in a start-up for a first job in newspapering, in Manchester, N.H.

   Given his family and contacts and, yes, hard work, Bradlee's jobs were all interesting but the meat and excitement of the book begin with his friendship with John F. Kennedy. The Bradlees and the Kennedys became Washington neighbors while Kennedy was a senator, Bradlee was beginning to break "out of the herd" at Newsweek magazine and Jackie and Tony Bradlee were pregnant.

   As the "foursome" spent many social hours together, the line between friendship, politics, and the big scoop, blurred. Bradlee relates a number of amusing anecdotes, best among them an exclusive on the swap of U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers, "sourced from the President of the United States, [dictated] from a telephone just off a White House dance floor." Heady moments indeed.

   Then came the assassination. Friendship and profession crashed head-on. And a few months later Bradlee's sister-in-law, Mary Meyer, was murdered. The CIA came looking for her diary. When Bradlee and his wife found it they were shocked to learn Meyer had been conducting a two-year love affair with Kennedy. Interestingly, Bradlee does not speculate on conspiracy theories, with regard to JFK or Mary Meyer.

   But Bradlee is sparing with personal detail - incidents aplenty but not a lot of insight. His portrait of Jackie is most poignant for being so sketchy. Her deeply private nature baffled Bradlee and made him nervous. Their friendship faded after the assassination and Jackie never spoke to Bradlee again after he published Conversations With Kennedy in 1975. To this reader it seems obvious that Jackie was deeply offended by Bradlee's exploitation of their private moments but this never seems to occur to him.

   However, this nonreflective quality can be valuable in a newspaperman. When the Vietnam war was raging, when his own wife was marching in protest, Bradlee's concern was good stories. "I concentrated on trying to discover what was going on in Vietnam, on trying to determine who was telling the truth about Vietnam, before it occurred to me to find out where I stood myself." New at the helm of the Post, Bradlee wanted "a new Hemingway ...who could explain the drama...in terms of the young soldiers." He found Ward Just.

   In addition to assembling a maverick team of "new" journalists in the mid-60s, Bradlee was tireless in improving the production end of the newspaper. And he knew when to sink his teeth into a story and hang on. Watergate is the high point. It came at just the right time for the Post. Bradlee's position was consolidated, his ground work on talent and organization completed.

   Bradlee captures the adrenaline-filled days of relentless reporters and the dogged quality the Post encouraged in them. For almost a year the paper was virtually alone in its pursuit of the story, until James McCord's damning admissions vindicated the Post. Gleefully, Bradlee includes scathing personal attacks on him and the Post by Bob Dole, Chuck Colson and prominent republicans everywhere. When a new piece of the puzzle fell into place, "Just the recollection of that discovery makes my heart beat faster, two decades later." And, of course, "People in the know, people in power, were already speaking of The New York Times and The Washington Post in the same breath...."

   If this was the high, Janet Cooke's Pulitzer Prize winning story of an 8-year-old heroin adict that turned out to be fiction (1981) was the low. Bradlee explores this debacle as openly as he does the happier lessons of Watergate. Race certainly played its part.

   Bradlee, running a major newspaper in a city with a 70 percent black population, had never known a black person, save a Haitian Frenchman in Paris. And he was surrounded by a similarly insulated group of connected white males. "Female Phi Beta Kappa graduates of Seven Sisters colleges who can write the King's English with style don't grown on trees...."

   No kidding. But actually Cooke had never graduated from Vassar, much less with honors. The Brahmin background that propelled Bradlee's career from prep school on served him poorly when it came time to include some of the hoi poloi in the editorial mix.

   Whatever his faults, Bradlee comes across as scrupulously honest. He doesn't give away any big secrets - you won't discover the identity of Deep Throat, for instance, but "The Good Life," chock full of our time's headiest moments, will fascinate anyone interested in the insider's view of current events and prominent people.

5 comments about Forever Young: My Friendship with John F. Kennedy, Jr..

1. After reading this book it is apparent the William ( Billy ) Noonan is not the friend of John's that he claims to be. He was insanely jealous of John and Carolyn spending those last few months with his (John's) cousin Anthony Radizwill while he was dying of cancer. He talks down about John Barlow for "being the first one to always speak to the media"
   even though he had nothing but kind things to say about John no matter what the subject. Here comes Billy Noonan saying he is going to "set the record straight" trashes John and Carolyn's relationship (which he knows nothing about) makes caddy remarks about Anthony's cancer being deadly, as if Anthony and Carole (his wife), had and control over his disease (Anthony died less than three weeks after Jonh and Carolyn). He seems to be the kind of person that cannot allow his relationships' space for what is going on in their lives and therefore feels the need to write his own book and hurt alot of people by his own hurt feelings and personal jabs. I think he is just a big fake and I feel sorry for his wife.



2. Bill Noonan (as his friend I call him Billy) has plenty o'soul! This book is a commemoration to his friend who happens to be John Kennedy, Jr. I suppose the title HAS sold more books. But I believe this is more a function of the publisher's need to sell rather than the writer's need to advertise his high fallutin relationship with John. I am bold enough to say that Billy left MANY-A-STORY out of this book that could have REALLY ruffled some feathers. But that was not his objective. His objective was to put into words a very natural friendship with someone that was quite special to him. In a way, to battle some of the bitter views this book has received, I wish that Billy would write a sequel with ALL THE DIRT! Maybe he could title it "If You're Blaming Me: You Might as Well Get the WHOLE Story" Billy has never been anything but respectful of John, and his family, from what I have seen. He probably would never publish all of the secrets he shared with John. BTW: I loved the book. It felt like I was sitting down with Billy having a chat. I could hear him laugh, cry, angry, sad, and everything in between. Write a sequel!



3. I bought this book with some trepidation since Billy clearly sold his soul to write it. But, I could not resist. I was always a great admirer of JFK, Jr. - he was such a classy guy - and such an immense force to try to harness for friendship. The book lays out in vivid detail their amazing friendship and the many happy and horrifying times they shared. This book basically makes you a "fly on the wall" witnessing one of the most profound and beautiful friendships ever put to print. I could not put it down - JFK, Jr. and I are exactly the same age and passed through some of life's milestones at the same time. I found myself comparing where I was in my life as the book unfolded. I am writing this review having just now finished the book and feel an overwhelming sense of sadness - I cried so many times - the great highs and thrills always seemed to be overshadowed by the immense burden of sadness, tradgedy, disease and death that surrounds The Kennedys and those close to them. I can only hope that during my life I will share such a stong, loving, and enduring friendship with another person. Maybe John is looking down on us now laughing at all this debate - I find myself missing him during this season of politics. The world should still have John in it - he lived well, richly and fully - never squandering what he had been given. Make sure you are in the right frame of mind to read this - it may impact you more deeply than you can know.



4. I have been a lifelong Kennedy fan. I loved John Jr. I think this book is meanspirited. He has hurt so many by this book. I wonder whatever prompted him to write it....so long after John left us? We did not need much of the information, he so willingly sold.
   
   As mentioned by others, what he did to his Mom on Caroline's wedding day was disgusting. How dare he order his own Mom off the bus? His Mom was just fine when he had cancer and needed her. Over and over in the book..he comes off as a very self-centerd individual.
   
   I remember the quote.."What does it profit a man who gains the whole world but suffer the loss of his soul?" I would think old Billy Noonan could answer that one.
   
   I hope he is kicked to the curb by all the Kennedys, Shrivers and all the others that seemed to mean more to him...than his own famiy.



5. Even though I liked Billy Noonan's book, at times he came across as very arrogant "I was John's confident, I was John's best friend, etc. as if he was John's hero and savior. The reader also gets the impression that the Kennedy's feelings and his loyalty were more important to him than his own family, especially when it came to his mother. Almost as if he was embarrassed to have his mother meet Jackie or go to Caroline's wedding reception which he refused to let her go to. Maybe he did not want to share the limelight with his family. Given that John had alot of respect for Jackie as his mother, that is not something that I would have put in the book or brag about. Other friends have wrote about John also saying they were his best friend too. I'm sure it was a privilige to be a friend of John's and he probably had alot of them since he had that charisma and charm that made him so likeable and "real". On a lighter note, I did enjoy the book and the writer made you feel as if you were right there watching everything unfold. One other thing in this book, everyone seemed to call him Billy Noonan in the book, not just "Billy" I found that odd!

5 comments about George Orwell: As I Please, 1943-1945 : The Collected Essays, Journalism & Letters (Collected Essays Journalism and Letters of George Orwell) (Collected Essays Journalism and Letters of George Orwell).

1. Sorry for the prank in the headline, it is not a comment on Orwell but a quote from the book, from the essay 'The English People', written in 44, but published later. Orwell tries to characterize the English. I would never have dared to write that myself.
   This is volume 3 of 4, and the first that I give 5 stars. It is less uneven, less self-contradictory, probably more honest than the previous 2. GO had grown up, I assume. The bulk of the book are his leaders under the name that the collection carries: As I please. He comments on events of the time, and does it with lasting interest.
   I don't want to repeat my friend Jim Egolf's summary of the book, nor his assessment of its historical value. All true.
   But Jim left out an important subject that Orwell also included, and that I want to bring to your attention. The fact is that GO was an impossible romantic about England. He honestly thought that there was merit in English cooking! One essay is called: In Defence of English Cooking.
   He lists a few items that we are supposed to accept as proof of his odd point of view. Believe it or not, one of the items which supposedly prove the high standard of English cooking are English apples. I rest my case.
   'It is not a law of nature that every restaurant in England is either foreign or bad.' Written 1945. My regular visits in recent years, all in basically friendly intention, make me conclude: if anything changed, then for the worse, because now even many of the foreign restaurants are bad.
   Dui bu qi.



2. George Orwell' (1903-1950)anthology titled AS I PLEASE is an interesting collection of his careful literary criticism and political insights which were much more often right than wrong. Readers can learn so much about not only the situation and conditions in Great Britian between 1943 and 1945, they can learn much about the international situtation and Orwell's complete disillusionment with the "Left" both in Great Britain and in Europe.
   
   This reviewer thinks that Orwell's literary criticism of Arthur Koestler is the best article of literary criticism. Orwell focused on Koester's DARKNESS AT NOON which Orwell thought was Koestler's best work. Orwell argued that Koestler was a supporter of the "Left" during the Spanish Civil War and was arrested and faced the prospect of being shot. Koeslter escaped but had to know how the Stalinists betrayed the Spanish Left during the Spanish Civil War. Koestler was a member of the Hungarian Communist Party, knew of the Stalinist purges of Lenin's Bolsheviks, and saw a repeat of all this in Spain.
   
   Orwell also had intelligent commentary of literature and humor. Orwell stated that good humor had all but disappeared in Great Britian because of political and religious sensitivity. Orwell stated that the best comedy was that which attacked hypocrisy and pretensioness. Orwell cited Aristophanes, Rabelais, Shakespear,Voltaire, etc. who did not hestitate to mock and write comedy of the self righteous and "high and mighty." Orwell was bothered by the fact that such humor almost disappeared from English litature during his life time. An interesting aside is that Orwell complimented Hillaire Belloc and G.K. Chesterton for their humor. Orwell was critical of both in some of the other essays in this anthology.
   
   Orwell not only wrote good literary criticism, he wrote solid political commentary. Readers can see the beginnings of his best known novels-ANIMAL FARM and 1984. Orwell's comments on ill feeling between British and American troops. Orwell stated that since American troops were paid at least five times as much as British troops, social divisions and hard feelings were almost inevitable. Orwell also commented that many American troops refused to admit that British casualties were larger than American casualties which indeed they were.
   
   Orwell's best political commentary dealt with such concepts as Fascism, Pacifism, the Trotskyites, the Stalinists, etc. Orwell's major criticism of the "Leftists" was that because they were anti-Fascist, they would not become anti-totalitarian because of refusal to oppose the Stalinists and Big Communism and its obvious record of mass murder and concentration camp brutality. Orwell makes hash out of the accusation that the Internatianl Jews heavilty subsidized Britian's Trotskyites. Orwell commented if that were true, one had to ask why Trotsky's supporters were always so poor. Orwell accused much of the "Left" of refusing to accept facts and assessments of World War II. For example, many of the British and American leftists commented that the Soviet Union was an example of the biblical inscription that the meek shall inherit the earth. Orwell noted that those who made this remark obviously had not read Soviet anti-German propaganda which was full of hatred and violent vengence. Orwell also noted that the Left expected British military failure while extolling Soviet victories during World War II.
   
   Orwell also expressed serious concern over the distortions and falsification of history. For example, both the "Allies" and "Axis" claimed victory when their was defeat. Casualty figures were distorted as were events. What was worse was the description of non-events or events that never occured. Orwell commented that the Leftists never wrote a word about the SovietGerman "Non-Aggression Pact" which was negotiated in 1939 with the secret protocol of the Soviets and Germans to invade Poland.
   
   Orwell made comments that his novel titled ANIMAL FARM was censored or kept from publication because of British concerns of offending their Soviet "allies." Little did Orwell know that this novel would be a best seller after he died. Orwell can also see the outlines of his 1984 in this collection of essays.
   
   One development that concerned Orwell toward the end of World War II was the emerging anti-Semitism in Great Britain and to a lesser degree in the United States. Orwell was clear that accusations and slurs agains Jewish people were patently false. Yet, Orwell was clear that facts and reason were of no avail to many because they were immune to knowledge and reasoned thinking. Orwell attributed much to a weakened Great Britain at the end of World War II, and the British Empire would soon be dismantled. Orwell argued that nationalism and the fear of the loss of Empire incited anti-Semitism among people who would otherwise not fall for such nonsense.
   
   While Orwell was wrong in some of his earlier predictions, he was honest enough to admit this and explained why which something most "intellectuals" are loathe to do. If Orwell had lived another 50 years, he would know that his important predictions came true. This reviewer was pleased to see Orwell admit he was wrong as this showed a degree of honesty that is sadly lacking.
   
   This reviewer did not like the format of the book. As this reviewer stated elsewhere, the book should have been arranged by topic rather than by chronology. However, this is a matter of taste. This reviewer strongly recommends this anthology which is part of a four volume set of Orwell's thought. This is yet another excellent collection of Orwell's great writing.



3. The last review that I did on George Orwell's work was Homage to Catalonia, his compelling story of his involvement in a Party of Marxist Unification (POUM) left-wing militia regiment in the Spanish Civil War. I noted there that this is the Orwell that today's militant leftists need to read. The current compilation of articles that he did during World War II and shortly thereafter are not in that same category although they are, as always with Orwell, well worth reading. No matter the subject matter of the articles they conform to the points that he made in Politics and the English Language about using precise, clear and rational political language. Unfortunately, at the time of the Tribune writings Orwell had already made his peace, even if critically, with British imperialism. This is obvious from the subject matter of some of the articles, particularly those in defense of holding on to the old empire or at least its prerogatives. The articles themselves vary from the topical and mundane under war time conditions to the speculative but as always written in a bit of a tongue and cheek manner. That said, although Orwell by this time was an anti-Stalinist socialist of some sort he preferred to outsource the fight against Stalinism to world imperialism. Apparently, as the recent furor over his naming names of British communists to British intelligence indicates, he had no such qualms about doing so. Certainly this was not his finest hour. He left that in Spain.



4. It is a pleasure to read Orwell. I think that there are two major reasons for this. Stylistically he an exceptionally clear writer. His work has a quiet elegance. Secondly, he is a writer who says meaningful things. Whatever subject he writes about he writes about not only with knowledge but with real ' sense'.
   In this third volume of his collected essays, jouralisms, and letters there are a number of outstanding longer pieces, including those on 'The English People' 'Notes on Nationalism' and 'Anti- Semitism'
   He is an excellent letter writer and I especially enjoyed his insights into literature. His remarks on Conrad and Koestler and European as opposed to British Literature are sensible and insightful.
   All through this work there are scattered gems of humane perception.



5. I don't know if George Orwell is the best writer this century has produced, but he is among the most decent human beings who was also an extremely talented writer. And that decency, that honesty and sense of fair play come through loud and clear through this wonderful mix of editorial pieces and personal letters. It does not matter whether he is writing about the Socialist movement, the Monarchy, the manner in which Americans were treated in England during WWII, the English language, writing, colonialism, nationalism, anti-Semitism, or how to make a proper cup of tea, his honesty is ever-present. For he wrote these essays (I think) because although "emotional urges which are inescapable, and are perhaps even necessary to political action, [they] should be able to exist side-by-side with reality. But this requires a moral effort." If you are prepared to make such a moral effort-or simply want to spend a few nights with a truly wonderful human being and gifted writer, I highly recommend this book.

5 comments about North Toward Home.

1. I earned a bachelor's degree from the UT Dallas with hopes of one day going on to UT Law in Austin. Instead, after a diversion of 4 years into the US army, I went to UT to begin and complete an undergrad degree in nursing. For me, the best part of the book was Morris' impression of Texas politics back in the 60s when we had only one party to speak of: the Democratic party. At the state level the Republican party would eventually emerge to dominate the legislature and all statewide elected offices. Most folks who had been the old style conservative Democrats of the type Morris writes about quietly and without fanfare "moved their letter" to the GOP in the early days of Ronald Reagan. Its fair to say that most of the legislature's conservatives back in the day when Morris toiled away at the Texas Observer were earlier incarnations of Tom DeLay or Warren Chisum. And when I attended a Gubernatorial inaugural ball for George W Bush, tellingly one of the old "conservative Democrat" governors was there ensconced in a wheel chair to celebrate W's ascendancy to the largely ceremonial Texas Governor's job.
   
   
   
   I particularly enjoyed Morris' writings about his early days as a student at UT. It is a vast campus today and I'm sure it was equally intimidating to a young man from Yazoo City Mississippi. Morris' references to various dorm bldgs and campus activities held special significance since I had either been in any of them or walked by them regularly. Unlike in Morris' day, today the campus dominant political viewpoint is Democratic, although a strong libertarian movemt continues to attract all who've grown disenchanted with the superstate
   
   
   
   Aside from the period piece on UT and the politics of the mid50s, early 60s what I most found valuable was the agonizing dilemma Morris and so many other Southern writers faced: they loved their home states and all the quaint slow ways they'd known growing up there, but they were rightly repulsed by the segregation and race-hate which surfaced with the beginnings of the civil rights movement. Tellingly, when a black female (they called them Negroes in them days) confronted Morris' description of life in the delta she told him rather bluntly "Your delta wasnt mine" and perhaps at that and other moments Morris realized he hadnt been as observant of the world around him as he thought he had been. Like Germans in the decades just after World War II, Morris and other southern men of letters were almost reflexively apologetic for being from the South.
   
   I cant help but wonder how the nation and Mississippi would view Morris had he and other southern writers been willing to lend their name and fame to an organization akin to "They Dont Speak for Me" wherein the so-called liberated Southern writers could openly distance themselves from Lester Maddox, Orval Faubus, George Wallace and other race-baiting demogogues. Instead, when Morris and other southern literary men were on the radio and could have easily taken such a "they dont speak for me" line, they chose to divert the interviewer away from integration or other issues to more trivial things.



2. "North Toward Home", by Willie Morris, Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1967.
   This is the autobiography of a small town boy who went to the big city and became editor-in-chief of Harper's, once the oldest magazine in America. The book, 438 pages in the 1967 edition is broken up into three sections:
   (1) Mississippi: 146 pages.
   (2) Texas: 163 pages
   (3) New York: 125 pages.
   
   It is in his description of his young life in the small town of Yazoo City, Mississippi, that Mr. Morris really achieves his most memorable scenes and the most interesting writing in the book. His family is "old" and he explains that on his mother's side he is related to the Harpers who founded Harpers Ferry, Virginia.
   The section on university studies emphasizes his time at the University of Texas, where he over-committed himself by trying to become involved in just about everything. In this university section, the writing of Mr. Morris degrades towards the usual descriptions of fraternities, football and fornication, common enough for the colleges of the later fifties and early sixties.
   
   Finally, in the third section, dealing with New York City, his writing becomes even more mundane as he recounts his experiences, which could be entitled "Only In New York". this kind of thing is so common that late night TV talk shows use it as a fill-in staple. The redeeming quality of his writing is his ability to being the point of view of a Southerner to his New York City anecdotes. He calls NYC the "Big Cave".
   
   But, it is Morris, himself, who makes it clear why he is working in New York City, and not Mississippi. Morris recounts an anecdote concerning Robert Frost that sums up the intellectual achievement of his book and the South:
   
   "Once I had escorted Robert Frost in a taxicab to Rhodes house for a talk.
   `Where are you from, boy?' he had asked.
   `Mississippi', I replied.
   `Hell, that's the worst sate in the Union', he said.
   But, I argued, it had produced a lot of good writers.
   He said, `Can't anybody down there read them'". (Page 196).



3. Willie Morris opens his personal novel, North Toward Home, with the expected picture of the white South: Magnolia and pecan trees line the country roads, the farm kids ride the bus line from end to end for entertainment, and Miss Mississippi lives next door. He throws in some anecdotes about Civil War monuments, an ostracized pacifist, daddy's pick up truck, mama's cookin', the sweet smell of talcum powder, and the Almighty's will and pretty much covers every Southern stereotype within the first several pages. Morris' warm hometown descriptions made me feel nostalgic about a place and time that are not even my own. And while he specifies that his town was "pleasant" for a white boy, he certainly understates his point-remember, this is the same Yazoo, Mississippi that Ida B. Welles specifically cites in her condemnation of Klu Klux Klan violence.
   In many ways, his book invokes nostalgia simply because it describes experiences common to all childhoods: nature's beauty, summer nights, and baseball games-but his tales are accented with a strictly Southern twang-like terrifying his aunts by yelling that `the Yankees are coming!' His home is a place where politicians and preachers stand arm in arm to spread prayer and propaganda, and a gathering of any size and purpose is preceded by a country barbeque. His narratives are full of characters that seem too flamboyant and stereotypical to be real-no satirist could create a better parody. He recalls adventures and pranks in the vein of Huck Finn.But it is clear that in his early childhood Morris saw blacks as harmless, benevolent simpletons, one-dimensional, dim-witted creatures that were easily impressed and in fact easily manipulated into a variety of emotions. He, along with the rest of the white population, viewed blacks only in terms of how they served the white community-their purpose was to perform menial chores, win football games, and share their musical talents.
   AS morris ages, class and race issues must be addressed.He highlights racial conflict inherent in southern culture...
   Morris' observations of and interactions with various politicians remind me of Gore Vidal's historical fictions (particularly Burr). He dryly recounts these incredible stories about colorful and notorious characters that we love to hate...
   Morris wittingly and poignantly chronicals his shift to liberalism



4. Like a lot of other readers, I first became aware of Willie Morris when I read "My Dog Skip." I followed that up with the lesser known, but equally enjoyable, "My Cat Spit McGee" (in which Morris, an avowed dog lover and cat hater, comes to love a cat).

   But for me, his most brilliant work has got to be "North Toward Home," which I did not discover until after he died in 1999. What is it about southern writers, particularly those from Mississippi (a state that continues to have one of the highest illiteracy rates in the world), that leads them to be such masterful story tellers?

   This book was first published in 1967, but it still resonates beautifully today. Here Morris recounts his childhood in Mississippi, his time at the University of Texas, his days as a writer covering the wild Texas political scene, and his life as a transplanted Southerner adapting to life in New York (where at age 32 he became the editor of "Harper's)."

   Morris brilliantly captures the changing environment in the United States as he traces his life in the forties, fifties, and sixties. Its too bad Morris died relatively young at 65, because I would have loved to see what else he had to write had he lived into his eighties or nineties.

   This is about as good as an autobiography can get, as Morris examines not only his only personal growth over a thirty some-odd year period, but also reveals much about the changing political and social environment of those times.




5. These days, people are probably more likely to know of Willie Morris as the boy in the movie, "My Dog Skip." So if anything, they know he grew up in a small town in 1940's Mississippi. They mostly wouldn't know that years later, after an education at the University of Texas, he was a Rhodes Scholar in Oxford, a controversial newspaper editor in Texas, and the youngest editor of America's oldest continuously published magazine, Harper's.

   Throughout his adult life he was a writer. His memoir "North Toward Home" is a recollection of a boyhood in pre-integration Mississippi, the rough and tumble of state politics which he covered for the Texas Observer, and coming to terms as a Southerner with New York City, which he liked to call "the Cave."

   As a writer, Morris saw both the humor and sadness in the circumstances of daily life. He was fascinated by people and politics, and deeply committed to social justice. Growing up in the rural South, he also had a strong sense of how people are shaped by their history, traditions, and the terrain of the land they call home.

   His many books include an account of school integration in his hometown in 1970, a tribute to his friend James Jones, author of "From Here to Eternity," and an account of the making of "Ghosts of Mississippi," Rob Reiner's film based on the murder trial and conviction of the man who shot Medgar Evers. One of the best introductions to Morris' style and favorite subjects is a collection of essays and exerpts from longer works, "Terrains of the Heart and Other Essays on Home," which was published in his later years and is currently in print.

   A great companion volume for "North Towards Home" is "From the Mississippi Delta: A Memoir," by African-American writer Endesha Ida Mae Holland. Her book is a compelling account of growing up poor and black in small-town Mississippi and coming of age during the civil rights struggles of the 1960s. Together, these two books provide a fascinating look at both sides of the racial divide in the Deep South of the mid-20th century.

5 comments about French Toast: An American in Paris Celebrates the Maddening Mysteries of the French.

1. I am also an American woman living in Paris. Before I picked up this book I thought it was going to be a typical, steroetype reinforcing, superficial romp down the Champs-Elysees. Not at all! Its really funny, and works as much as a memoir as an introduction to the culture. My experiences in France are not identical to that of the author because my circumstances (marriage, neighborhood, age) are not the same. However, everything she says rings true. Ah, France! I am hoping there will be a sequel!



2. I am neither American nor French. As an Asian woman, I lived in the United States for more than a decade, and I have been living in France for exactly one decade. I had been married to an American and now to a European. With my former training in cross-cultural psychotherapy, and having lived and worked with people of various racial backgrounds, I have a great interest in inter-cultural relationships.
   
   I had read French Toast the first time in 1999, shortly after moving to France, and I was quite amused at the author's descriptions of the French. I read the book again very recently and her account has confirmed my own observations of both the Americans and the French. She said that she had only a "bird eye's view" of the French during those past twenty years. To me, her bird eye's view was remarkable. What had struck me the most when I first arrived in the United States more than thirty years ago was the "individual" versus the "family'. The author has lived through and felt that experience. As an American woman living in France and being married to a Frenchman, she talked about the cultural gap getting bigger and not smaller, and how deeply cultural differences run below the surface. I myself can certainly identify with those dilemmas.
   
   The author has a fabulous sense of humor. Very few books addressing cultural conflicts can be written with such tolerance. What I really admire in her book is her ability to laugh at herself and at her own mistakes. Very few of us can do that.
   
   I highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in understanding French behavior, whether they are tourists or planning to be long-term residents in this country. Reading this book is both entertaining and enlightening. I also think the book cover design is quite charming.



3. French Toast by Harriet Welty Rochefort
   
   This book has three virtues. Setting out to explain `the maddening mysteries of the French' to people from other cultures- and especially to their diametric opposites the Americans - it rests on decades of immersion. The author, who emerged into French life after growing up in small-town Iowa, has a French husband, passport, children, and household. She also works there. This depth of familiarity is an advance on that gained by most anthropologists engaged with similar cultural puzzles. Secondly, she has a sense of humour, an absolute requirement for such a brave venture, where the natives are not always friendly, and maps not always clear. Thirdly, she has a most engaging style of writing. This rests on knowing what needs to be explained, and bringing the topics alive with vivid anecdotes - almost all of which - although related with humour and tolerance, are nevertheless underpinned by a profound coming to terms with difference, and a search for the harmonies and things to celebrate. French Toast is an elegant couterbalance to the simple-mindedness of freedom fries.



4. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is either interested in France or who will be living there and wants to become assimilated. In a delightful way Ms. Rochefort shows how she learned to deal with the unexpected cultural differences she encountered during her marriage to a Parisian. She laughs at her naivite and unpreparedness for French customs and shows how she struggled to master French cooking, to understand French manners, and to enjoy hectic city living without giving up her love of her own country.
   
   Ms. Rochefort shows that while it's one thing to be enchanted the city of lights, it's a differnt thing to know how to live there, as a Parisian. Her lighthearted style is misleading, since it is clear that the adaptation to her new life was not always as easy as she makes it seem.



5. A friend recently gave me FRENCH TOAST. Instead of picking and choosing between the tempting chapter titles - a toss up between The French and Money and The French and Sex - I read the book straight through.
   The book demystifies the French in a very humorous but real way. The reality check comes from the author's French husband who is interviewed throughout the book - thus giving a French twist and insight into an American's impressions.
   You'll learn things like how to make a real French beef and carrot stew. You'll marvel with the author at a French woman's ease making a 5-course meal in a skirt, high heels, sans apron! And you'll gleefully chuckle reading about to-wash or not-to-wash pre-sex.
   A toast to someone who treats cultural differences with lightness and humor!

5 comments about Good Old Boy: A Delta Boyhood.

1. Anyone who grew up in a small town in the 40's and 50's will enjoy this book, especially if that small town was in the South. Willie Morris was a brilliant wordsmith. I have read several of his books and this one may be my favorite.



2. I am from Yazoo City so this book has always been one of my favorites. I saw Willie Morris at a car wash in Jackson, MS not long before his death. I was shy and didn't want to bother him, so I didn't introduce myself and have a chat. I would have loved to have spoken with him. Now I regret my shyness - should've taken the chance. Yazoo City has an enduring quality and charm that shows in all his books and stories. No matter where I live, it will always be home. There is a great feeling of safety and warmth whenever I drive into the city limits. It is a feeling of home. Not many people have that sense of home these days. I feel blessed to have grown up there.



3. I was born 2 years after Mr. Morris. My childhood was not at all like Mr. Morris'. I recognized some of the events of the times, but the adventures he told of going through came across to me as gross exaggerations; just think of the 8 foot+ tall Indians he mentions. And the story about the race - very, very unlikely. His tales remind me somewhat of the character in the movie "Bigfish". Even thinking about Tom Sawyer, the incidents in there were not as outlandish as those in "Good Old Boy". To me this book was entertaining and well-written, but not really enlightening regarding growing up in the 40's. I watched baseball in those days, I went into a haunted house, I had my run-ins with a teacher's pet, etc. but I enjoyed Salinger's writing about this stuff much more.



4. This was a great memoir about a "typical" southern boy's childhood. I wish Willie Morris had not died so young because I found his work so enjoyable, and it would have been wonderful to read even more of his writing.

   I would not put Mr. Morris up on the same level as Mark Twain (and he probably would not want it either), but this book reminds me in a lot of ways of Tom Sawyer--a young boy's life on the Mississippi Delta. Everyone should experience these memories, whether in real time or vicariously.

   He tells of his childhood in Yazoo City, Mississippi, with all his childhood friends, including Spit McGee (the forty's Huckleberry Finn). He recalls their baseball games, football games, hunting on the Delta with his father, practical jokes played on anyone and everyone. He recounts the story of the Witch of Yazoo and the broken chain. One of the best and most humorous of his stories is the tale of the haunted house and what the boys found in it one dark and stormy night.

   I best remember in this book the chapters of a typical day in the life of a boy his age in Yazoo City--a day in the summer and a day in the fall. These are great vignettes and very poignant pulling in the reader to want to recall his or her own childhood memories.

   This is a great memoir and can be enjoyed by all.




5. This is one of the best books that I have ever read.Mr. Morrishas a beautiful writing style, and captures the beauty of the southperfectly.