2 comments about The Year of Magical Thinking: The Play.

1. The Year of Magical Thinking possesses hauntingly concise prose. It is a one-woman show that reads like having a conversation with Didion. The telling is intimate enough to make it feel as if it is an older and wiser sister telling you what you may likely confront in your lifetime. It is detailed enough to make tangible for theatergoers in New York City and Los Angeles face what one wishes was unimaginable. It is phenomenal enough to show why Didion is one of the best writers of our times and that there is seemingly nothing that she fails to find the words for.
   
   That there will be a moment in time when you feel unquestionably safe--and the moment following, one of the most important people in your life may pass on. She tells the reader about how she handled the passing of her husband as a journey--from being the cool, methodical thinker, as his passage from this life was confirmed, to being unable to give away his shoes because he would need them when he came back, to being able to come to terms with his absence.
   
   Her daughter fell ill before her husband passed. While her daughter is in the hospital in California, Joan Didion faces more than treading on doctors' toes and doing everything possible to pull her daughter through the illness. She also faces streets full of memories ready to take her away into magical thinking. In order to keep away from the memories, she takes well-planned routes from her hotel room to her daughter's hospital room. Didion tells the story of seeing her daughter come out of illness, and then being unable to protect her from falling ill again, and her passage from this life.
   
   The play is not filled with an overwhelming sense of hope, but hope still finds a home in the play. While reading it I couldn't help but think of those I know who have passed on and how I would handle it if my own husband and daughter were to pass out of this life before me. I imagined the unbearable grief as I read. By the end of the play I could feel how to make it through, to survive something that one would rather not.
   
   Armchair Interviews says: It is that quiet, affirming hope that Didion's play possesses.



2. The Year of Magical Thinking a Play by Joan Didion is based on her memoir. This play gives you a voyeuristic journey inside a woman's grief. Ms. Didion, a noted author and playwright lost her husband in 2003. Within a short period of time, less than two years later, she would also lose her daughter. That kind of loss is unimaginable to most people. We all have experiences with losing loved-ones, but rarely two in such a short span of time. Ms. Didion's prose is written quite sparely and almost from a distance but it is no less wrenching. She appears to view her pain from a distance while feeling the full impact of it.
   
   The play starts out with this passage; This happened on December 30, 2003. That may seem a while ago but it won't when it happens to you. And it will happen to you. The details will be different, but it will happen to you. That's what I am here to tell you. I felt those words down in my very being. Though the words were simple, they were poignant, heartfelt and oh so true. Anyone who has ever lost a loved one will feel the impact of her prose.
   
   After her husband John Dunne passes, Joan appears to be in a state of suspended expectation. The most difficult thing for her to accept is that he is not coming home. In fact for many weeks she expects him to return. It's sad to read how hard it is to accept her lost.
   
   Shortly thereafter when her daughter becomes ill, she has something else to be concerned with. She immerses herself in research about her daughter's illness to try to fill the void in her life. It is wrenching yet dispassionate in so many ways reading about her daughter's illness and ultimate demise. Ms. Didion has exposed her love and pain in an amazing way.
   
   In sixty-two pages this play takes us through a roller coaster of feelings. What impacted me so was how the words were never overwrought, but so strongly felt. I loved the way she evaluated the relationship she had with both her husband and her daughter. The simple what-if-onlys. The Year of Magical Thinking allowed me to realize there is no set way to grieve and that we all react differently. I recommend this play and the aforementioned memoir to Joan Didion fans and to anyone who has experienced the loss of a loved one.
   Angelia Menchan
   [...]

5 comments about American Chica: Two Worlds, One Childhood.

1. What a generous offering from a talented writer with a keen eye for the nuances of family life! Yes, she writes her own story, but she also writes her mother's and father's stories. And her siblings, though more sparingly drawn, also command her careful observation.
   
   She and her immediate family are described as they came up against the cultural norms, first in Peru in the 1950s, where the family spent 12 years, and then in the United States in the 1960s. Arana is a descendant of Peru's upper class, and while the story is one of growing up with economic 'privilege', we also see how that same class privilege imposes social restraints.
   
   One of my favorite passages describes Arana's observation that it is mothers who lovingly mold their sons into "machos", the archetype of the Latin male.



2. This is a heartfelt book; I can't think of another book that spells out the bicultural life so clearly. Arana has cut a new path here. This is not so much about being Hispanic American as being a new and different kind of American: split, with differing loyalties, and with all kinds of doubts along the way.
   I've just read the galleys of her new book, "Cellophane," which make me think that she's building something something new in her opus. This is a strong American writer with a great deal to say about what it means to be a person of the hemisphere. There is much inclusiveness here. I am struck by the largeness of her world.



3. As a native Spanish speaker and ESL/bilingual education
   teacher I was surprised to find so many
   Spanish mistakes in "American Chica." Given Ms.
   Arana's claims of bilingualism, I don't understand how
   this could have happened. A Spanish speaker, for
   example, knows that the word for an indigenous person,
   regardless of gender, is always indígena. Also, no
   fluent Spanish speaker would omit 'te' from "Te tengo
   a ti..." Nor write "proprio," "creatura," or
   "estranjera." And the problems with written accents
   throughout the book are serious! This is not
   nit-picking. As students and speakers of Spanish
   know, an accent's presence or absence can completely
   change the meaning of a word.
   
   While these mistakes were probably corrected in the
   paperback edition, I find it somewhat disrespectful
   that Ms. Arana took such a cavalier attitude with
   Spanish, particularly in a memoir about biculturalism.
   This sloppiness, as well as the author's rigid,
   outdated observations about Latin America vs. North
   America and all that made-for-gringos exoticism was
   very irritating to this particular American chica.



4. My wife grew up in Ecuador and moved to the United States 8 years ago, at age 31. I am always interested in better understanding her cross-cultural transition and that's why I picked up "American Chica". But actually this book is more of a family memoir, describing the difficult marriage of Arana's parents. The majority of the book is about her early childhood years growing up in Peru with her father's aristocratic family. The last couple of chapters do recount her family's move to New Jersey. But, while her father was miserable living the "gringo" lifestyle, Marie and her siblings appeared to make the transition quite easily - as children often do - despite facing racism as the only latino kids in their school system.
   
   I prefer my non-fiction to be straightforward, with clear and concise writing. But Arana tends toward artsy pretentiousness, with descriptions and details that I found to be flowery and overly wordy. Obviously, many folks like her style of writing, as demonstrated by the numerous positive reviews. But, for me, it just didn't work.



5. I looked forward every night to reading Arana's way with words. Not only was the subject matter a great story -- duality on many levels, and she explored all the layers -- but she told her story with excellent prose.
   
   Having studied Latin America for years I've always been envious of my follow classmates & friends who have multiple identities...this book opened my eyes to the deeper challenges of multicultural identity, beyond the obvious racism/segregation to the more internal challenges; Arana's description of how she developed not just her gringa identity, or her Peruvian identity but her "faking it" identity fascinated me.
   
   I hope to see more of her work.

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 An Alphabetical Life: Living It Up in the World of Books.

1. I'd never heard of Wendy Werris, but this woman writes like someone who's been doing it all her life. It must be all those books she's read, a kind of osmosis. Her life-long love affair with books is so obvious that I immediately recognized a kindred spirit. But this is not JUST about books; it is a finely nuanced and moving memoir of the first order. Werris's descriptions of her unorthodox Jewish home life, her father's show business connections and success - followed by a long slide into oblivion - are all so perfectly rendered you can feel the joys and sorrows. And she doesn't shrink from the more painful times either - her personal battles with drugs and alcohol, her brutal rape by a stranger, the long slow declines and deaths of her parents, and the sad dehumanizing changes in the book business which she bears witness to over more than thirty years. In her on-line blog, Ms. Werris notes she's currently working on a bio of her dad, Snag Werris, once a chief writer for Jackie Gleason. Write on, Wendy. I'll read it. - Tim Bazzett, author of the ReedCityBoy trilogy.



2. Anyone who has worked in a bookstore or in publishing will find much that resonates in this book, especially the sales reps. Her stories of initiation by fire struck a chord with this former rep; I'm glad I'm not the only one to once show up without a pen (makes it hard to write orders, it does). Werris couples this inside scoop on how books are sold with her tales of her father's show biz connections and the horrendous ordeal of her rape. It took Werris a long time to grow up but she seems on the right track now.



3. I was attracted to this title after spending many years as a book lover to the nth degree as well as being a writer and a former publisher's rep. It seemed like a Reader/Writer match made in heaven, especially given the geography Werris and I share.
   
   Werris was a trailblazer, a professional female publisher's rep before this was common. She learned her stuff in the trenches while participating in all the expected revelrie of the 60's and beyond.
   
   The characters that accompanied her life journey were as colorful as the books they peddled, expertly and lovingly. The book brought laughter and tears, bittersweet moments as we saw the book industry change as we turned page after page after page.
   
   My only criticism was the boxy chronology. It was almost written as separate books - here is Wendy Book Rep, here is Wendy in the rest of her life. The parts that engaged me the most were her parents' deaths, her survival after a rape, little bits and pieces about her spirituality and then looping back around to the reunion of most of the original Pickwick staffers.
   
   I would have preferred to have more personal life stuff interwoven throughout, but that is simply my taste.
   
   Great quotes include:
   
   "We never know what may happen when we pick up a book to read. The turning of a page might actually change the course of our existence. There is something very miraculous about this. Truth strikes at the very heart of books and the readers who turn themselves over with great trust to finding the essence of them selves."
   
   "Life has revealed itself in a language known only to me, comprised of my own private alphabet. You, too, have such a language. The discovery of it is found in the sum total of every experience we have known - all the loves, losses, agonizing pain and ecstatic joys."
   
   And then there is the quote in the very front of the book, not from Wendy Werris but from Charles Bukowski:
   
   "Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must live."
   
   I shared this with Emma and we both laughed and nodded. How wondrous that a nine-year-old gets this!



4. A contender for "Best Read of 2007" and it's only March!
   Her anecdotes are funny where they should be, and serious where that's important. This one and Buzbee's "Yellow-Lighted Bookshop" complement each other perfectly for anyone who loves books.



5. This book was in excellent condition and was delivered promptly and in good condition.

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 From This Day Forward.

1. I work with Habitat for Humanity and we use a ot of Hardie Bd. siding. The Gecko set makes installation much easier and accurate. Buying it through Amazon was also fast and easy. Thanks



2. It takes a narcissist of tremendous proportions to foist this scrapbook off on an unsuspecting public. On the plus side, Cokie Roberts does more than her usual cut and paste from the work of others in From This Day Forward. When not pulling from the work of others, Cokie (and the compliant Steve) offer up tidbits that are supposed to inform the reader how s/he too can have a great marriage.
   Apparently the basic rule for a successful marriage is to live in your own little world the way kooky Cokie does. I doubt she realizes how racist she comes off in parts of the book. (Yes, Cokie, condescension is a form of racism.) Or how laughable most will find her book. Reading of the great "trauma" of her life, you realize this is someone who hasn't experienced many character building moments in her life. The great "trauma"? Learning that her new employer wouldn't provide a limo and that Cokie would have to take taxis around NYC. Oh, the horror! Oh, the shame! How did Cokie ever survive?
   (Had she been told to take the subway, one gets the impression Roberts would have called it quits right then.)
   A vapid celebration of what appears to be a vapid marriage isn't necessarily shocking -- what's shocking is that Cokie (and husband Steve) put their names to it. Had a child offered this slight volume as a souvenir to a wedding anniversary, we all would have "oooh"ed and "aaaawe"d over it. But for grownups to write such a book about themselves is the height of narcissism.
   The book works best as anthropological study of When Gigantic Egos Mate.



3. I always loved Cokie Roberts on TV and when I saw this book, I figured it would be fun to read about her marriage to Steve Roberts. I recommend this book highly to everyone thinking of marriage especially.

   From the beginning I was drawn into this couple's world and liked the way they each expressed themselves in separate chapters. I found the entire book exciting, informative, inspiring, and so thankful that they took time to write about their unique marriage and how they make it work.

   This is a refreshing book. A rare book about how a marriage can work. I've been married for fifty years and I know this couple will celebrate gold as well. Lots of love and best wishes to Cokie and Steve and thanks for sharing your busy happy loving life with us.

   You'll be glad you read this book too.




4. I picked up this book for $5 at Borders, mainly because I enjoy listening to Cokie Roberts on NPR. I was curious to get to know her a little better.

   I thoroughly enjoyed the book. She and Steve take turns writing, as if they're dialoguing back and forth. I appreciated their commitment to their marriage in a day when it's not all that popular to stay married to the same person.

   I also enjoyed the glimpses into slave marriages and Old West marriages. I'm glad I picked up this book. It was a pleasant read for sure.




5. A boring book filled with narratives, possibly copied from an encyclopedia, about historical figures. Apparently, stories from their own lives could only fill a few chapters of this book.

5 comments about The Storyteller's Daughter: One Woman's Return to Her Lost Homeland.

1. The Storyteller's Daughter is a tale of high adventure--a tough-minded, fearless and obviously incredibly fit woman travels with the mujahaddin in Afghanistan as they fight the Soviet army. What is even more compelling about this book is the insight we get into the growth of radical Islam and the woeful lack of understanding by western participants/observers as this struggle was going on--with enormous consequences for today, of course.



2. An absolutely delicious story! Afghanistan's lore and legend come to life in the author's own accounts of her bold adventures as a woman on the fronts of danger in Afghanistan. It being true made it all the more fun. I really could not put this book down; it is a fascinating tale that includes intrigue, suspense, and a uniquely satire sense of humor sprinkled throughout. Saira Shah transports the reader to a foreign land, a foreign way of life, a foreign way of thought. Yet, the tales echo familiar as she gives a spectacular presentation of the clash between mystical historical lore, modern day realities, and the blend of these two realms on humanity's culture, mind, and heart.



3. I am currently in Kabul, and have read almost every English-language book on Afghanistan that is popularly available. I have also lived in Kabul and traveled to Feyzbad, Kandahar,Mazar-e-Sharif, Jalalabad, Kunduz and along the Uzbek Border. I speak mediocre Dari. Among the books that I enjoyed were those by Saira Shah's grandmother (try "My Khyber Life") and her father, Idris Shah. The same cannot be said for Saira Shah's. Shah' work, however. Part of my complaint was that the book isn't about anything much - its just a list of what she claims were her experiences in and near Afghanistan. I would compare them to a series of interesting letters detailing what I did on my afghan vacation. What they don't provide is insight into what was happening in Afghanistan or Peshawar, why, or what is going on now, or much cultural or historical information.
   
   My other, more serious complaint, is that I think most of the book is not true, and that Ms. Shah either made it up entirely, seriously exaggerated or "borrowed" the story from someone else's experience. The issue is not that the book was not entertaining, because it was, but that I strongly suspect that it is entertaining only because she changed (or created) the facts to make it so.
   
   Too much of what she claims were her experiences in Afghanistan are general stories one hears here (such as the time she met a Mullah who spoke Arabic while claiming to be an Arab man. She says that he started faking speaking Arabic, and she pretended to understand him, so he declared them Arabs to keep his lie of Arabic proficiency and prestige that went with it. This story of two language frauds is heard in many incarnations. I even heard one in a German-language book I read 10 years ago in Austria. Also, some mountain mullahs do speak some Arabic. They may not be fluent, but they know a little bit and would spot someone who didn't, the same way you would if the only Spanish you knew was "what is your name?" and when you asked someone who claimed to be a Spaniard they didn't understand. She might have also been expected to talk to her companions and pray in Arabic - it would seem strange if she did neither, and if there is any Arabic people know here, its prayers).
   
   Another example of an improbable event is when she tells of a Buzgashi game during which the players rode their horses into the tent holding "the Great and the Good" and collapsed the tent on them. I'm guessing all of the spectators weren't the "Great and the Good," but it makes a better story if they were. Also, although Buzgashi is compared to polo, but it is really a lot more violent. All of the horses are stallions, and taught to kick and bite each other. The only rule for the players is no eye gouging. The game set-up is sort of like a race, as the player holding the goat as to ride around certain points before he can make a goal, and the others ride alongside trying to stop him. I play horse polo and have watched Buzgashi, and although a horse might run away, the whole group of players could avoid running into a spectator's tent (I've also never seen a tent for spectators, but maybe they really had that in Pakistan). If they were out of control, horses by instinct would head for open space or for home, not into an unknown tent full of people. If by some fluke a horse or horses did run into the tent, it would not have been funny. People would have been hurt, and probably killed - the same goes for the horses. If the horses just took out the tent supports, they still would have tripped, fallen and seriously injured themselves and their riders.
   
   
   Other stories just don't make sense - Dari is an older version of Farsi, it's true, but it''s not so ancient that people say "entomb thyself' instead of "take cover" as Ms Shah claims Afghans do. If Ms Shah met an Afghan who wanted her to take cover he would say "Hide!" "Get Down!" or "Cover!" He would only tell her to entomb herself if he wanted to her bury herself. It makes a quaint story about ancient languages and confusions cased by language, but it isn't true (I asked one of guards who work her at my office in Kabul, and who was previously a soldier for15 years and he agreed). By Ms. Shah's own admission her Dari wasn't so great, which makes me question if she would have understood an archaic command such as "entomb thyself," even if someone had spoken it. I also doubt that Ms.Shah spent so much time in men's clothes without anyone noticing - if she didn't have a beard, or stubble, or know how to pray with the men, they would eventually notice. From a distance I'm sure she blended in, and it would work short-term, but if she kept up for too long her secret would be out. I'm sure she did travel in men's gear, but I'm also sure it wasn't for as long as she implied, or as successfully. I used to "cross dress" in Saudi and it took abut 20 minutes before the strangers around me in the junk souk were certain I wasn't a man. There are may other such instances I doubt Ms. Shah truthfulness and stories that are too good to be true. (I was so angry when I was reading the book that I kept a list), but in the interest of a somewhat shorter review I'll stop at those examples. More generally, I find it unlikely that Ms. Shah's experience always fit so neatly into a "story,"or that her stock character friends (the rebellious Afghan girl who wants to be free, the prescient professor who sees the dangers ahead but is ignored by leaders etc.) always had the "inside scoop" and told it to her in short sound bites capturing the entire situation, or that she so frequently found herself in a situation so perfectly primed for maximum effect.
   
   
   The only part of the book that is not like this is near the end, when Ms. Shah brings a television crew to film two girls (she included them in an earlier news piece after their mother was raped and killed in front of them, and the resulting interest in their fate from paying news agencies promoted a return trip to try and help them and tape said efforts for a TV channel), by providing schooling for them, only to find them afraid to leave home and their father reluctant to let them go. This was messy, morally compromising and a without a real resolution, which makes me think it is the most true section of the book. The rest is neat, pat, a little funny sometimes tragic, and, in my opinion, almost always "enhanced," if not completely fabricated.
   
   In short read one of the many, many good books out there by the many, many truthful writer based in fact. They might not be quite so perfect and their writers not quite so in the middle of thing, but they are also more likely to be true, and you will therefore get more out of them.



4. Part memoir, part reportage, this beautifully written book is also an inquiry into the nature of myth, identity, and the limits of human endurance. Born in England and raised on the memories of her Afghan father's homeland, the author journeys as a young journalist to Afghanistan during the Soviet Occupation in the 1980s, traveling with the mujahidin rebels, who with massive infusions of weapons from the CIA eventually drive out the Russians and then quickly succumb again to an equally destructive civil war and the inevitable tyranny of the Taliban. A witness to these struggles and the widespread human misery they caused, Shah is present again in 2002 as the Americans retaliate in response to the 9/11 attacks.
   
   Through it all, she ponders her deep identification with the people of this war-torn land, fired by the cultural myths that have sustained them through millenia of invasions, occupations, and civil strife, where fierce tribal allegiances and a fatalistic fearlessness make death, brutality, and suffering a common experience. Over a period of 15 years, her belief in the myths is tested, and she begins to fully comprehend not only the immensity of the human cost of the war but the extreme difficulty of making a difference for those of its casualties most in need of help.
   
   Writing with a skilled reporter's powers of acute observation and an ability to convey images of people, places, and events in vivid and compelling prose, Shah interweaves stories, Afghan poems and sayings, and even humor, with accounts of her work as a journalist behind the lines. Readers unfamiliar with the last 50 years of Afghan history may be disoriented as Shah tells her own story, skipping as it does from one point in time to another. But read along with books like Christina Lamb's "The Sewing Circles of Herat" and Jason Eliot's "An Unexpected Light," she provides insights into her subject that are revealing, moving, and often riveting. Definitely recommended.



5. This book is one of the best books I have read. It was touching and made me realise what an amazing life Saira Shah has led. After I closed the book, I could not pick up annother book for a couple of days - I did not want to spoil the feeling it had left me with. This book will move you, make you think and touch you.
   I loved it!

5 comments about Hef's Little Black Book.

1. this was out in so many stores, glad i found it! it made a great gift!



2. I bought this book because I thoroughly enjoyed the author's previous book "The Way You Wear Your Hat - Sinatra and the Lost Art of Livin'". This book was much shorter, even though it could be argued that its subject is deserving of perhaps even greater coverage. The most fascinating thing I learned while reading this book is that Sinatra and Hefner did not really bond...Frank was kinda upset that Hef had all the girls. The Mansion was the one place to which Sinatra could go and NOT find it to be all about Sinatra.
   
   I knew very little about Hef until I read this book. I still don't know as much as I would have liked. This book is much more akin to what we would find out if Hef had written a dating profile on match.com (favorite movies, favorite food, favorite drink, etc). We learn very little about his formative years, other than that Hef's first great love did not love him back (but visits him at the mansion from time to time, even to this day). The author assumes that we know that Hef is wealthy, but we never get an idea of the degree of his wealth. I know that there is a magazine and a cable network....but younger readers may not know that there was also a television show, nightclubs, and a whole history extending back into the 1950's. These are only glanced over. It would have been nice to see more homage paid to the influence of Playboy on the shifting cultural attitudes during the 1960's.
   
   I look forward to the author's upcoming Johnny Carson book and hope that it takes on the same flavor as these other two. Then the "holy trinity of cool" will be complete.



3. Hef's Little Black Book isn't some story of Playboy the magazine or the empire, a biog of Hef or anything more than really a kind of puff-piece valentine from Hef to himself. I say from Hef because he's listed as the author, though "and Bill Zehme" presumably did most of the writing, organizing, interviewing, and editing.
   
   However, given its parameters, the book works surprisingly well. Zehme did a similar book - a better one, though - on Sinatra a few years back, and its organization by subject/theme, its adoring fifties-style prose and please-pass-on-your-wisdom-o-master tone which strangely enough worked very well on the Sinatra piece is used again here. It's sort of effective. The book is a mixture of Zehme's narrative in the above voice, quotes from Hefner mixed in, and dozens of excellent photos of all types.
   
   Hef passes on pearls of wisdom regarding women, romance, enjoying life and games, business, sex and the like. The Bed is covered in detail, with blueprints and everything. Much of it is not especially deep or new or earthshattering. I don't know that it really touches on what makes Hef such a fascinating figure or so important a man in 20th century life. But it's not uninteresting to Hefner aficionados.
   
   What is in fact the goods on Hef is that he managed to first define the upscale male fantasy life, and then proceeded to insert himself into the picture and live it, for fifty nonstop years of uncompromising hedonism. In doing so he became a living symbol of the sexual revolution, and in the magazine's Playboy Philosophy he defended and explained his thinking brilliantly. It could not have worked without tremendous charm, business acumen (including the knowledge of when to step down from day-to-day operating control and let more capable managers take over), and self-control exercised over himself, and he surely kept very good people watching his back.
   
   This book doesn't tell that story. If interested, there are many out there that do; I particularily like Russell Miller's Bunny, from back in the troublesome 80s. But this book does have fantastic and rarely seen photos from the 50s, 60s and 70s which make up for a lot, and one does get a faint glimpse of an unusual man.



4. You have to hand it to Hef. Well into his twilight years he manages to surround himself with beautiful, nubile young women who cater to his every whim.
   
   In "Hef's Little Black Book" little glimpses of Hef's life are shared. We learn that Millie (his first wife) cheated on him, thus opening the door for his dalliances. We discover that the gorgeous Barbie Benton broke up with him when she discovered he was double dipping with another. That movie night is a big time in Hef's life. That black silk pj's make for good outerwear etc.
   
   If you are a diehard Hef fan you may enjoy this book. On the other hand if you want to learn more about the playmates with shocking insights into Hef such as the awful reality that he does NOT use protection read Jill Ann Spaulding's book, "Upstairs".
   
   Overall "Hef's Little Black Book" is indeed all about Hef, and only for those who want nitty gritty details shared by Mr. Hefner about himself.



5. From business acumen to bunny love, there is much more to know about Hefner than is seen at first glance. Part mogul, part romantic, Hefner is deftly painted in the broad strokes he deserves. The result is a deeper look at the man behind the magazine empire and a legendary icon who maintains a certain charm and innocence about what it all really means. Just the kind of insight we have come to expect from author Bill Zehme.

5 comments about Messages From My Father: A Memoir.

1. This is a lovely endearingly funny book. I read it in just an evening but I'm sure it's a book I'll go back to in the future.



2. Such is Calvin Trillin's caliber of work you don't realize how good he is, and he is really good. This book touched me deeply; Mr. Trillinsky was not an emotional man and given to the touchy feely sort of stuff so espoused these days, but he gave his son everything he would need to have a fulfilling life, one of the main components being a deep, abiding and unconditional love; how lucky Mr. Trillin was.
   
   My father was an evil and stupid man who never learned from his mistakes and is now reaping the whirlwind; I believe Mr. Trillinsky would have I.D.'d him in five minutes flat, and would have had mercy on him, much more than I can manage now. If you are raising a child, or trying to figure out what in God's green earth happened to you during your childhood, read this book. Mr. Trillin's artistry is a delicious extra.
   
   I have read "Remembering Denny" and it has seared a place in my mind since. It explained so much to me. This is another book that is going to go on my mental bookshelf, probably till the end of me.



3. This book was a disappointment to me. Although it is only a slight volume I found it to be heavy going and very uninteresting. Avoid.



4. I don't know anyone in the Trillin family personnally, but I recognize them very well. I learned something I didn't know--that Jews landed some place other than Ellis Island. As a father myself, I appreciate what Abe did for his son. So did Calvin.



5. Humorist, journalist, food maven, the author of numerous books and a writer for The New Yorker, Trillin brings his blend of self-deprecating humor and thoughtful observation to this affectionate memoir of his father.

   Abram Trilinsky emigrated to St. Joseph, Missouri, from Russia at the age of two. When his wife hinted at a trip to Europe, his terse response was, "I've been." He was resolutely a mid-western American, a man who changed his name to Abe Trillin, and at the end of his life exhibitted the only prejudice his son ever observed - an impatience with "refugees," by which he meant people who clung to the language and customs of their country of origin.

   He was a stubborn man, like most of his family, described by his wife as "Mules!" "I sometimes imagined my father as swearing off things just to keep in practice," his son observes.

   He never swore although he collected colorful curses - "May you have an injury that's not covered by workman's compensation." His honesty was absolute - when a child turned 12 he paid full price at the movies even if he looked 9.

   He was unassuming. When Calvin was in high school, his father opened a restaurant and took to wearing yellow ties. "He said something about how most people don't stand out from the crowd, and how it helped to have a sort of signature." This seemed embarrasing to his adolescent son. "What was so great about having someone say, 'Oh, yes, Abe Trillin - the guy with the yellow ties'?" But years later at Abe's funeral, he's touched by how many friends asked for a yellow tie as a remembrance.

   His father was not a talker. One of his favorite jokes concerned a Jewish actor who finally gets a real part playing a Jewish father. The actor asks his father why he seems disappointed. " 'Of course I'm proud of you son,' " the father says, " 'But we were hoping you'd get a speaking part.' "

   Calvin writes, "What strikes me as odd now is how much my father managed to get across without those heart-to-hearts that I've read about fathers and sons having." Without it being talked about, Calvin knew his father was ambitious for him. "It was a given in our family that my father was a grocer so that I wouldn't have to be."

   One of their biggest arguments concerned Calvin's joining the Boy Scouts. He hated Boy Scouts but Abe regarded it as essential to American boyhood, a necessary step on the way to Yale, Trillin senior's university of choice, an idea he'd gotten from a novel read as a boy - Stover At Yale.
   
   Calvin went to Yale. Yale launched him out of Kansas City, never to return (also as Abe expected). The grocer's son would never be a grocer.

   In one (somewhat unrealistically) ingenuous chapter Trillin goes to a dinner of prominent writers and realizes that they all went to Ivy League schools as he did. Was there a connection? (Puleeeeze). "For the first time, I realized that my father's vision of how all of this was supposed to work out might not have been as simplistic as I had always assumed."

   This slim volume is deeply captivating and affecting. His father emerges as a man of indomitable will, will so strong he imposed it simply by being. He was a man who could afford to be easy going and funny, all the while adhering to a plan of grand ambition which embraced cross country automobile trips to broaden the horizons of his children and simple pronouncements: "You might as well be a mensch." Much of the book's power lies in the author's recognition of himself as his father's ambition fulfilled - a successful American who does his best to "be a mensch," a real human being.

5 comments about The Corpse Had a Familiar Face: Covering Miami, America's Hottest Beat.

1. Edna Buchanan has written a multi-faceted book about many of the crimes in Miami and the nearby area from her career as a crime reporter for local newspapers.
   
   She wrote about her childhood and the journey that led her to journalism.
   
   The author related how publicity usually aids in solving cases and apprehending the guilty,but not always. The "Pillowcase Rapist" was used as an example where that tactic failed.
   
   Victims are not always located. Like in the case of Christopher Wilder where two of his victims' bodies were never discovered.
   The disappearance of a 17 year old girl was an unsolved mystery. The poignant story of her mother's courageous search in dangerous locales and her timeless determination was another side to that story.
   
   Edna Buchanan documented the carnage of the race riots that resulted after the McDuffie police brutality-murder case.
   
   There are a number of true life,colorful characters in "The Face had a Familiar Face" that make this book entertaining and hard to put down.



2. I WOULD GIVE THIS BOOK 4 1/2 STARS BECAUSE I WISH IT WOULD HAVE HAD SOME PICTURES. THE STORIES WERE REALLY DIFFERENT AND NOT SURE I WOULD LIKE TO LIVE IN MIAMI, FLORIDA.



3. Edna is a great (and very funny) speaker. Her writing is just as good. If you want to learn exactly what a crime reporter does and learn it in a truly very amusing book, this is for you. I read this book before I heard her speak. I expected that the talk would be boring (i.e., couldn't be as good as the book), and was I wrong! She kept all of us laughing for about 45 minutes. If you ever get a chance to hear her speak, don't hesitate! If hearing her appears to be extremely unlikely, you are in luck because you can read her book! Seldom do I laugh out loud while reading a book, but I did while reading this one. If I ever hear the song "I shot the Sheriff" I know I will start laughing out loud again. This is light reading and you won't regret the time you spend!



4. I finished this book in 2 days. I found it different from most true crime books I read, but very interesting.



5. First book. Mesmerizing. Tough, critical, witty, a read-to-the-end book (forget sleeping for about two days). A tough lady who won the respect of law enforcement and fellow novelist. Humorous, sad, caring,
   historical and factual with no sugar coating. Just the facts, Ma'am! Street smart. If you don't have a member of law enforcement in your family, you need to read this book to garner some idea of their lives.