5 comments about George Orwell: An Age Like This 1920-1940: The Collected Essays, Journalism & Letters (Collected Essays Journalism and Letters of George Orwell).

1. Vol.1 In an Age Like This 1920-1940.
   
   This book is the first part of a four volume series which includes letters, essays, book reviews and journals. This series is a good overview of Orwell's thought life and should be read before any systematic review of his works. They were edited by Orwell's last wife Sonia(reputed to be a gold digger by some)and include a good chronological appendix. The book is better edited than many essay collections of Orwell's works in that it has a detailed appendix giving some historical context to this collection of journals, book reviews, essays and letters.
   
   Prefaced sections would have made the collection more readable to those not familar with the historical context of the writings. Orwell's letters show the compassion he often did not expressed in his writings. They always show concern and restraint in his professional and personal dealings.There are alot of letters to his early mentor Eleanor Jaques.
   
   One letter in particular to his first publisher with whom he had serious legal problems shows no hint of resentment only kindness. Is is possible that we can know more about a man's personal life from his daily habits and expressions than from any professed ideology?
   
   The collection of essays in this volume show us the forgotten legacy of Orwell as a descriptive writer that should have surpassed his mediocre novels. The Orwell of Depression era England seems more relevant today than the Cold War era Orwell of "1984" and "Animal Farm". The essays provide rich background material for those who wish to analyze Orwell's books. Source material for "Homage to Catalona" can be found in the essay "Spilling the Spanish Beans". An essay on common lodging houses tells us about the squalor of working class life in the coal districts...source material for "The Road to Wigan Pier". An essay about hanging tells us about the brutality of colonialism, later written about in Orwell's novel about Burma, "Burmese Days."
   
   Some essays on societal issues show a disturbing lack of insight that I have noticed in some of Orwell's writings. "My Country Right or Left" written in August 1940, talks about a future revolutionary England that seemingly can not ever come into being. Orwell tells us it was an everyday reality to feel patriotism towards Chamberlain and for the future society that is to emerge. Shortly later, Orwell tells us about the red militas " billeted at the Ritz" and London gutters filled with blood. Orwell in the same paragraph tells us that... Only revolution can save England...but now that the revolution has started, and it may proceed quite quickly if only we can keep Hitler out. Was Orwell's "revolution" the election of Winston Churchill? In another essay, not in this book, Orwell talks about an emerging technocracy that would replace the peerage class system with a post war technical elite springing from the old working class...young Bomber Command pilots who will form a new elite and vote in the welfare state. This second revolution is not the first type nor is it in line with orthodox Communist thought nor is it even logical to posit two things as being true at once. Orwell described himself as a democratic socialist "as far as I understand what that means," yet did his rejection of dialectical materialism include a rejection of intellectual depth?
   
   The reader will find the books reviews interesting as source material for future reading as well as an interesting time capsule into long forgotten controversies and popular culture. One review on a book written by the Dutchess of Atholl "Searchlight on Spain" reminds us of the odd radicalism of the english ruling class during the Depression. The duchess was pro-Soviet. Interestingly, the Mitford family produced the pro-Nazi Unity, who died during the Depression, and the pro-Red Jessica who haunted Cold War society. The reviews on Henry Miller selections seem to show an adversion to surreal and abstract subject matter. Orwell's essay on Dali, in another book, dismisses Dali as a crank and seems to avoid any detailed discussion of surrealism- a popular subject in the 1930's. A book review on Sarte in another collection avoids a discussion of existentialism. Orwell claimed simply that he did not understand Sarte. Was Orwell revealing a tendency towards mental sloth?
   
   A journal Orwell kept of his Road to Wigan Pier experiences should be read before reading the book as an interesting travel journal on hop picking during the Depression. The hop picking journal appears in "The Clergyman's Daughter". This collection reveals much about a man who influenced the century he lived in, and a time that had a profound impact on ours.
   
   Is it posible to know more about somebody from his small personal habits and viewpoints than any professed ideology? The material in these four collections contain many of the source material for Orwell's novels and reveal his lost genius as a gifted journalist and essayist. The Orwell of "1984" and "Animal Farm" fame seems strangely dated by the end of the Cold War; the Orwell in this collection strangely relevant by the current economic crisis. More historical footnotes would have been welcome in this collection.
   
   Readers will find the hop picking episode in "A Clergyman's Daughter" outlined in journal format. The Spike...part of a system of temporary soup kitchens that dotted England. The Clink...a Depression era drunk tank which was featured in "Keep The Aspridistra Flying" as was the essay Bookshop Memories. The journal describing the grim details of coal miners lives and the economic benefit of coal mining was later incorporated into "The Road to Wigan Pier." In "Spilling the Spanish Beans" a brief essay on the crazy quilt of spanish politics almost midway into the Spanish Civil War gives insight into "Homage to Catalonia". Orwell on occassion in his writings reveals a dark sense of humor. I remember his refering to a Spike inmate as "a typical YMCA coco drunkard."
   
   These richly detailed essays made otherwise weak novels interesting to read and journalism books like "Homage to Catalonia" masterpieces.
   
   Orwell was always willing to live with his causes. Orwell's empathy with the outcasts of civilization belied a deep compassion which he could never communicate in his writings, but which his life bore stark testimony. Near the end...his body wracked by TB...he adopted a small boy, Richard, whom he never gave up. Sonia never took any interest in Richard's life after Orwell's death. The letters in this book show the deep concern and consideration Orwell showed for others.
   
   The book reviews in this volume are rich time capsules of life and controversy in Depression era England. Orwell's review of "Searchlight on Spain" by the Dutchess of Atholl reminds me of the strange radicalism of the ruling class in England which Jessica Mitford later showed as an ardent Communist,and her sister Unity showed as a Nazi.
   
   Some book reviews show a disturbing superficiality which marks Orwell's tackling of abstract subjects. An Authur Miller book "Black Spring" seems to be dismissed because it represents surrealism as did an essay in another book on Dali. Sarte was also dismissed quickly in a latter collection because Orwell confessed little understanding about existentialism. Was Orwell being a little too honest about himself?
   
   An essay " My Country Right or Left" seems to expouse a Socialism without any dialetic or reason to come into being:
   
   Only revolution can save England, that has been obvious for years, but now that revolution has started, it may proceed quite quickly if only if we can keep Hitler out.
   
   That was written in August 1940. What revolution was Orwell talking about? The election of Churchill? Orwell quickly expoused loyalty to Chamberlain and loyalty to future revolutionary England as an "everyday phenomenon." This radical new type of reactionary revolution required more systematic thought than Orwell ever gave to it. Orwell's rejection of dialectic materialism in favor of democratic socialism "as far as I understand what that means" deserved more explaination to avoid a credibility gap which Orwell never overcame.
   
   Orwell may have been refering to a class upheaval created by the technological demands of war, but many passages are not clear on this point. One example cited was young Bomber Command pilots becoming part of a post war technocracy that would alter the old peerage class system, but this is not the revolution of "red militas billeted at the Ritz" or the bloody London gutters Orwell sometimes refers to. Was Orwell's rift with Communism a function of his own lack of understanding as much as a principled stand?
   
   This collection gives us much to ponder about a time that shaped the later part of the century Orwell lived in and one he helped define.
   
   Vol.2 My Country Right or Left 1940-1943.
   
   The war time diaries dating from May 1940 to November 1942 are my most treasured readings in this series. They are difficult to put down. The massacre at Lidice was actually announced to the english by german wireless! The general public in England seemed fairly non-involved as to the daily progress of the War.
   
   Orwell's review of Mein Kampf was interesting in that it shows a subdued admiration of Hilter an his appeal to the german people to suffer rather than the hedonism that Capitalism and Socialism offered the english. Interesting perspective.
   
   "The Lion and the Unicorn" had the same weakness that "My Country Right or Left" had above. The essays Orwell wrote on sociological issues suffer from a strange myopia. The revolution he predicted for England seems to exist inside a theorectical vacuum. Orwell's essays on language have an endearing giant quality to them typlified in "Literature and Totalitarianism"...the begining of 1984 newspeak...perhaps.
   
   The letter to the editor of Time and Tide shows Orwell the Home Guard leader giving detailed military advice on the defense of England. Perhaps he was reverting to the old police days in Burma?
   
   Vol.3 As I Please 1943-1945.
   
   This volume speaks volumes for Orwell.
   
   One letter to Gelb Stuve in this book stands out. Mr. Stuve had given Orwell a large set of russian books. Orwell confessed almost no knowlege of russian literature, but thanked him for a copy of "We.""We" is about a future dystopian state and became the model for "1984."
   
   Orwell often reviewed obscure works which is a blessing to those who are looking for hard to find authors. A review of the macabre poetry of W.H. Davies is interesting simply because I have never heard of him until reading Orwell.
   
   The greatest collection in this book is by far the old Op-Ed page written in the Tribune "As I Please." The page was broken into two to three parts each covering a seperate subject. This edition excluded some of these sections without any notations as to what was excluded...too bad. The selections include debates with pacifists, comments on the introduction of the first V2 rockets to London..." my house is still rocking", romance ads in english newspapers. These articles were enjoyed by readers every morning over a nice cup of tea. Buying roses at Woolworth's...the pictures never matched the color that bloomed...techniques of beer pouring in pubs. A treasure of english wartime pop culture.
   
   The essays are, likewise, precious the popular art of tea making in a clay pot with leaves...never use bags. The disappearence of genuine english food...thus the humor associated with english cooking. The characteristics of an ideal pub...it does not exist anywhere.
   
   One essay "The English People" suffers the simplicity problem that characterizes his sociological essays, but it is still good reading.
   
   I am reading this book for enjoyment along with a strong cup of tea. Why don't you do the same?
   I used a tea bag.
   
   Vol.4 In Front of Your Nose 1945-1950.
   
   The last book in this four part series. Perhaps the saddest. Orwell was nearing the end of his days as a victim of TB. Orwell had adopted a small boy Richard and refused to give him back for adoption depite the rigors of TB. The selection shows the Cold War Orwell of "Animal Farm" and "1984" in essays, book reviews and letters.
   
   One essay on James Burnham is interesting because of Burnham's geopolitical views which were seen to be totaliarian and yet transfered him into the mainstream conservative movement in america as an assistant editor of The National Review. Orwell continued his dogged resistence to the Soviet Union against many on the Left who continued to see Communism as a progressive force because it was anti-capitalist.
   
   There are entertaining essays and letters here with no shortage of chatty "As I Please" Op-Ed pages. An entertaining essay on the toad population in Orwell's garden was a repite from some of the ideological stuff that gets a bit thick. "The Cost of Paper" gives us insights into the dislocations caused by the War as late as 1946.
   
   Orwell's review of Churchill's book "Their Finest Hour" is his last review and corresponds very closely with the war diaries he wrote(mentioned above). The review ends with 1940 and establishes Orwell in the odd position of a leftist who was a Churchill apologist or at least considered him a loveable figurehead made necessary by war.
   
   The letters to Cecia Kirwan are particulary interesting because it was revealed years later that she was an intelligence operative who collected data on media figures thought to be Soviet agents. Orwell's letters indicate persistent atempts to invite her to Jura after she sent him a bottle of brandy. Recently released files show that Orwell gave the government information on friends who had possible links to the Soviet Union. Did Ms. Kirwan romance Orwell for informationn despite the large age diffrence between them?
   
   The last entries are quite sad and come from a journal kept on his death bed. The last entry dated 17 April 1949 states " At 50, everyone has the face he deserves."
   
   Well worth the time to read. I hope I don't sound trite.



2. Dive into his life and be amazed at the quality and quantity of his output. Superb



3. In a way, Orwell's reports on English poverty in the 1930s are an update on F.Engels's solid and shocking study on the situation of England's working class nearly a hundred years before. (Engels was not only Marx's financier, he contributed major works himself. His place among communist icons is of a different quality from later politicians like Lenin, Stalin etc. His book on the working class was straightforward sociology and it wrote history.) However Orwell was not a scientist, his texts remain journalism and he devoted less time to it in total, though his personal commitment while it lasted was breathtaking. He lived it. He lived with them, his subjects. I am of split mind about that.
   I am not sure that I think all that highly of Orwell as a reporter. There is something missing. He remains strangely aloof, there seems to be little passion, little empathy, little sympathy, but a certain condescension and impatience with the victims of circumstances.
   His reports and analyses on the situation in Spain are of a different caliber. They are a passionate attempt to explain the conflicts inside the Republican, anti-Franco camp to whoever wanted to listen. As we know from history, it was useless.
   The book is a guide through parts of European history, written by a contemporary observer. Letters help understand the personal situation of the writer. Reviews add to our understanding of the man more than of the reviewed books.
   Some of his reviews would be smash hits here in Amazon, e.g. the one on Mumford's Melville bio. Less popular might be his aside that Conrad's genius is proven by the fact that women don't like his books. He had a hard time figuring out Henry Miller, who was something new, but if he was something good was not so easy to decide. (He does shed some more light on himself here by mentioning that birth and copulation are disgusting subjects. Odd, isn't it? But maybe the usual for the time.)
   And there is an excellent long essay on Dickens, the greatness and the shortcomings of the great novelist. This text motivates me to go on with the volumes 3 and 4 of the set. The man had a lot to say, even if I don't like all of what he says.



4. I'm not going to review all four volumes of this collection separately; what I say below applies to them all.

   There are lots of reasons to read Orwell's letter, essays and journalism:

   1. He's a great writer. It's a pleasure to read him, just for entertainment value. There's a little piece of doggerel from Orwell's school days that he quotes several times that is now stuck in my head:

   The rain it raineth every day
   Upon the just and the unjust fella
   But more upon the just because
   The unjust has the just's umbrella

   I don't know why that sticks with me, but it's a great illustration of Orwell's use of solid, colloquial and even humorous English.

   Moreover, in addition to providing wonderful model prose he occasionally writes essays about writing and language (the use of "Basic English", oratorical versus conversational English, what drives a writer, the totalitarian perversion of word meanings, etc.), which are insightful and interesting.

   2. If you're interested in the Second World War (or for that matter, the Spanish Civil War), Orwell's writings amount to a sort of diary, a primary document. Even his book reviews almost inevitably contain some reference to the political and historical scene.

   3. Orwell loved socialism (yes, the man who write _1984_ was a democratic socialist), but he loved freedom more. His simultaneous battle for socialism and against totalitarianism (i.e., the Soviet Union) is engaging, even -- or maybe particularly -- where he drops the ball.

   ...

   I think Orwell's heart was in the right place -- he had seen close up (and written a good deal about) the suffering of the poor. Like many people who have their hearts in the right place, he jumped immediately to the idea that redistribution of private property and collective ownership of the means of production were the only way forward.

   On the other hand, he was a writer and a man of ideas, a person who greatly prized personal freedom. His essays give an intriguing glimpse into the battle raging inside him between collectivism and individual liberty.




5. I read this set many years ago, and it's great. There were better novelists, but Orwell was the best 20th Century essayist, at least in English, that I know of. Together with "Down and Out in Paris and London," "Homage to Catalonia," and "The Road to Wigan Pier," these four large volumes comprise the best of Orwell's nonfiction. As an essayist, Orwell was consistently clearminded, idealistic, honest and to the point. He is a pleasure to read, and he is one of my intellectual heroes.

   I don't have a copy in front of me as I write this, but I'm pretty sure this first volume contains Orwell's unforgettable essays on the inner life of colonialism, "Shooting an Elephant" and "A Hanging". I highly recommend this set to anyone who is the least bit interested in Orwell.

No comments about On the Front Lines of the Cold War: An American Correspondent’s Journal from the Chinese Civil War to the Cuban Missile Crisis and Vietnam (From Our Own Correspondent).

5 comments about A.L.T.: A Memoir.

1. I fell in love with the book after the first review I read about it. I'd, probably, would have never picked it myself, though very much follow the fashion and did know who A.L.T. was. If you think the book is about fashion...Wrong-Wrong-Wring. It's about the beauty of living a decent life and the luxury of experiencing human love; the luxury of lacking something in your life and as a result, treasuring everything you are blessed with. It's such a memoir jewel, at times I felt like I was reading about my own childhood. Don't even question - grab it and enjoy.



2. André Leon Talley's memoir exhorts one to journey with him to both his inner world and outer world. The former, is wondrously defined by the warm, cultured and ennobled-through-character kin that surround him during his formative years in the American south. The unconditional love and support of his tightly-woven family foster his ability to achieve grand accomplishments. The latter world, the outer world of ultra high fashion, where the bon vivant and gadabout crowd reign supreme, is one where his artistic talents and creative aptitude are encouraged and appreciated; this oft-pretentious, sometimes imperious world of glamour, glitz and visual luster, is one where he thrives while still holding true to his spirituality, family and humanity.
   
   Mssr. Talley's life is indelibly and immeasurably shaped by the presence of his generous, compassionate, selfless and benevolent grandmother, Madam Bennie Francis Davis. Though a woman of modest material means, her inbred sense of style and priceless integrity, virtue and honor are courtly and regal in every sense. Madam Davis' parentage, along with that of Mssr. Talley's father and support from extended family, enable A.L.T. to leave the warm bosom of the south and further his education at Brown University where he earns a graduate degree in French studies.
   
   Eventually moving to New York, Mssr. Talley meets and apprentices with Mrs. Diana Vreeland, the ne plus ultra of his burgeoning career at the time. With professional and moral support and encouragement from this unique and impressive woman, it is not long before he lands a job with the crème de la crème of fashion publications, Vogue magazine. His bi-continental career ensues, he meets and befriends intriguing, impressive, multitudinously-diverse individuals and, in sum, moves from fashion glory to glory.
   
   The crux of this memoir and most enriching insights, boldly reveal to the reader the importance of authenticity, of staying loyal to one's heritage, and of never sacrificing one's core values in the midst of the fashion world's artifice. In this case (and very fittingly), the person Mssr. Talley is revealed to be on the inside is superbly reflected on the outside--the best and the brightest of high society and high fashion are drawn to him and he counts many till today as loyal, genuine friends, admirers and compatriots in work and in life. How best to describe Talley? Cultured. Authentic. Passionate about his work. Unabashedly spiritual. Unquestionably creative and talented. Generous. Worthy of the success and respect he has earned. For someone whose interest in fashion is at most an afterthought, I learned a great deal from this piece. Buy this book for your library.



3. i couldnt wait to read mr. talleys autobio. though i expect lots of 'inside the world of fashion', i was pleasantly surprised to see so much written about friends, family, growing up in north carolina, and fashion. i am a great fan of diana vreeland and the tidbits he throws in about her apartment, her clothes and her style are wonderful. a very enjoyable read.



4. This is wonderful book, warmly written and lovingly detailed. That said, I think the tome is mistitled. Rather than a personal memoir, this is more of an ode to two beautiful women--Talley's grandmother and Diana Vreeland. This book is the story of how these two women influenced and shaped Talley's life, but there is little about his personal life outside of this subject. I hope that Talley will write more, another book about his personal experiences about race, relationships and culture. A.L.T. was such a wonderfully written book I would like to read more--please Andre, indulge us!



5. I didn't know much of Andre Leon Talley aside from mentions in the Andy Warhol diaries and his occassional TV appearances providing commentary on celebrity fashions. A stereotypical shallow and superficial TV fashion personality, I thought.

   Well this book set me straight. I was expecting a bitchy expose about Talley's career in the fashion world but it turns out there many more layers to the flamboyant Talley than he lets the public see. Lovingly recounting his childhood with his grandmother in North Carolina, Talley salutes the foundations which shaped the core of his personality. One can visualize his grandmother's sheets, feel themselves in Talley's home church and taste the after church dinners just by turning the pages.

   After receiving degrees from North Carolina Central State and Brown University, Talley sets off to pursue his destiny in New York. His life and career are forever altered when he meets fashion legend Diana Vreeland. Talley remembers his grandmother and Vreeland with a great deal of love. His writing reveals a real fondness for women which doesn't always seem to be the case with males in the fashion business. So while I didn't get the expose I was expecting particularly about his Warhol days, I did learn that Talley is a man of spiritual and intellectual substance.

   I would have liked to read more about his experiences as a Black male in the predominantly White fashion industry but that's only a minor quibble. I highly recommend this book.

5 comments about Remembering Mr. Shawn's New Yorker: The Invisible Art of Editing (Mehta, Ved, Continents of Exile.).

1. Ved Mehta's eighth volume in his autobiographical series "Continents of Exile" is about his time at The New Yorker magazine during the William Shawn period. It's often described as a biography of Shawn, which may account for much of the criticism that the book has attracted. But it is not primarily about Shawn, and this must be remembered: the book is first and foremost concerned with the world of Ved Mehta and how William Shawn fit into it.
   
   It begins with Mehta's first meeting with Shawn in the old New Yorker offices on West Forty-third Street and passes through Shawn's editorship of Mehta's first submissions to his time as a staff writer to the fatal day in 1987 when Shawn was fired. Mehta's prose is engaging and his view of chameleon-like Shawn no more right or wrong than anyone else's.
   
   I recommend this book for both the subject matter and the writing. It was an unexpected treat.



2. I'm surprised three of the prior four reviewers found this title deserving of just four stars. I found this book to be an illuminating work, exposing the intriguing convergence of factors that made The New Yorker great in its formative years. It wasn't Mr. Shawn alone, but the culture he created. He created it by example, and his example drove the magazine's writers to a level of excellence rarely seen since.
   
   The author's success in capturing the tone Shawn set is powerful testimony to Ved Metha's skill as a writer. But beyond that, his book brings into focus a management style sorely lacking in today's enterprises, be they magazines, professional offices, retail stores -- whatever. That style is one which prizes pleasing the customer over profits, because it recognizes that happy customers are the KEY to long-term profitability.
   
   Should we be surprised that our publications have become cursory instruments which place a greater emphasis on flashy advertising than on editorial substance when the vast majority of "publishers" have climbed the accounting side of their particular corporation's ladder, rather than the editorial side?
   
   Editors of Mr. Shawn's caliber no longer exist because what used to be their primary job -- ensuring the accuracy and quality of editorial content -- no longer exists. Gone are the fact checkers and the grammarians, not to mention intelligent writers, able to produce 5,000 incisive words on the economy as easily as 7,000 on border disputes in the Middle East. And those writers are gone because their publications' ownerships lack the business sense necessary to build a following (or the attention span to appreciate any article which does not end on the same page upon which it begins).
   
   And as sure as these bean-counting bottom liners have no business being publishers, any editor who hasn't read this book shouldn't be editing anything.



3. I urge everyone to collect these wonderful books. Ved Mehta writes with care, and from an unusual point of view. I have enjoyed this book in particular. His attention to detail is nothing less than amazing. He is a well-educated man, very scholarly, and it does come through in his books. As good as Churchill, Camus, and Ignatieff, if not better.



4. Intriguing and informative look at a title (and by extension, an industry) in transition. Clearly illustrates both the reasons for and effects of corporate acquisition of magazines. Mehta's tone of hero worship for Shawn is occasionally grating. In fairness, this may be earned, as the Mr. Shawn in this book has many qualities you'd expect from a quiet hero. Fascinating stuff.



5. Ved Mehta is my favorite writer. I've bought nearly all his books, even old ones out of print that I've found through Amazon. Ved Mehta's endearing personality and superb writing style make an irresistable combination. Having said that, I must also say that Remembering Mr. Shawn's New Yorker is the Mehta book I like least. It is the latest volume in Ved Mehta's autobiography, but it reveals too little about Mr. Mehta and redundantly much about Mr. Shawn. It tells more about the New Yorker than I really care to know, although I have been a New Yorker fan for years. Perhaps this book simply lacks the editorial guidance Mr. Shawn gave to Mehta's previous books. On the other hand, an unexpected gift I found in Remembering Mr. Shawn's New Yorker is an explanation of the background behind other Mehta books written while Mehta was on the New Yorker staff. I do recommend that all Mehta and New Yorker fans read this book, but don't set your expectations too high.

4 comments about My Fathers' Daughter: A Story of Family and Belonging.

1. I loved this book! I'm not sure what I was expecting...maybe I had low expectations?...but it was an engaging, entertaining and informative read. We are in the process of adopting a daughter from Ethiopia. I felt like I could have been reading my daughter's journal 30 years from now. I highly recommend it!



2. I am a "birth" mother who has been affected by adoption and reunite. I married the father two years after relinquishing my rights to my first born son and then later had two more kids together. I loved how real Hannah Pool was in retelling her story. She explanned in such great detail the emotions and feelings that come over you when you are reunited with your lost one through adoption. These feeling ARE real, feelings that I too didn't know exist until going through them myself. We can't change what has happened...Thank you Hannah for sharing your story. Hearing the adoptees feelings so candid, validated to me how much my first born son DOES truly love me.
   Keri Stone



3. though I think the telling has merit. If you are the kind of person who enjoys knowing every little thought and action that goes with the story this book will really appeal to you. And, perhaps, if the reader has a similiar experience it may actually be a compelling read.



4. Great read! Very insightful information about an african adult adoptee growing up in a predominantly white family and area. Very interesting to hear her inner thoughts and feelings as she returned to the country she was born in, and to meet with people who are her blood relatives. I highly recommend this book.

5 comments about Riding Outside the Lines: International Incidents and Other Misadventures With the Metal Cowboy.

1. Joe Kurmaskie brings you along in his panniers when he writes of his adventures; self-effacing, he does what so many of us only wish to do. He gives you a taste of it, and makes you smile at the experience.



2. If you love biking adventures you will hate this book. I just rambles about with very little concerning biking of any kind. My trips as a preteen were were more interesting. Also, the author tries to hard to be witty.



3. I was laughing so hard reading this that my husband came in to check on me because he thought I was crying.
   Having read all 3 of Joe's books, I was inspired to check out his website and find out what he is up to now (he is running Camp Creative to rescue America from the couch).
   Cycling will save America, and these books are what will bring the rest of my family (somewhat taken aback by my recent cycling obsession) over to Our Side.
   I'd recommend this one for the single cyclist, Metal Cowboy for anyone, and Momentum is Your Friend for the cylist with family.



4. [...]
   
   A while back I reviewed Metal Cowboy by Joe Kurmaskie which I thoroughly enjoyed. Joe is an amazing writer with a flair for getting to the best of a situation or person and he always has a way of making me laugh out loud while reading his tales. After finishing Metal Cowboy I immediately went out and picked up the follow-up called Riding Outside the Lines.
   
   In Riding Outside the Lines Joe tends to focus more on his international adventures which made for a nice change of pace coming off of the mostly U.S. centric Metal Cowboy. One line in and I knew I was hooked again. I wouldn't be able to put this book down until I finished it off.
   
   The cast of characters this time around was impressive. I always wonder how he meets such interesting people time and time again. My favorite stories in Riding Outside the Lines took place in Ireland because I had spent a decent amount of time there and backpacked across the country with Laura (I hope to someday ride across Ireland but that's a whole other story).
   
   Joe is a masterful storyteller and this book showcases that talent. His descriptions truly bring the people to life in your mind and you begin to feel like you are there with him every revolution of the pedals. In fact, I call Joe by his first name now as if I we were lifetime friends. It's pretty crazy!
   
   From his run-in with the local lifeguard trainees in New Zealand to the the brush with death in Ireland that lead him to the best impromptu B&B in the country to the mountain biking trip that ends the journey in Mexico Joe shows us what it means to be alive and that people, while they have their problems, are generally good and kind. The book is a great read for cyclists and non-cyclists alike and I guarantee you'll become engrossed in Joe's stories within a page or two.
   
   Needless to say I have since purchased Joe's most recent and third book called Momentum is Your Friend and am eager to read it. In Momentum Joe takes along his two young sons on the journey which should yield some interesting stories.
   
   Why am I not jumping into that book right away you ask? Well, I picked up Miles from Nowhere by Barbara Savage which I am going to read first. I actually got the name of the book from the chapter in Riding Outside the Lines where Joe nominates people for cycling sainthood. Barbara is one of the nominees and in the paragraph about her Joe calls Miles from Nowhere the cyclists bible. After that kind of recommendation how could I not read it?
   
   Please go check out Metal Cowboy and Riding Outside the Lines when you have a chance. They are top notch reads and will really get you thinking about what you want out of life. Ride on!



5. Joes adventures are fantastic. The story telling is good and I like particular the mix between meeting people, funny situations, and the bicycling itself. That makes the book a great travel book, a great cyclo touring book and, just as important, a real funny book. Highly recommended!

5 comments about February House: The Story of W. H. Auden, Carson McCullers, Jane and Paul Bowles, Benjamin Britten, and Gypsy Rose Lee, Under One Roof in Brooklyn.

1. Dianne Hunter's Review
   This absorbing social history of a year-long experiment in group living, written in 2005, details the creative life organized by George Davis and W.H. Auden at 7 Middagh St., Brooklyn, NY. The house (torn down in 1945 to make way room for the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway) was called February House because several of its residents had birthdays in that month. This house provided living, working, and partying space for, among others, Carson McCullers, Benjamin Britten, Paul and Jane Bowles, Richard Wright, Oliver Smith, and Gypsy Rose Lee, who composed THE G-STRING MURDERS with help from George Davis. Members and friends of the household welcomed Europeans who were fleeing Fascism. Auden wrote several of his most successful works and once considered murdering Chester Kallman in this house. Tippins's well-researched and well-written book provides an account of a louche social scene, musical, visual, and literary compositions, and the NY publishing world in the period that ended 7 December, 1941.



2. For me this was an amazing discovery. I read a review of it in a literary magazine in the waiting room of my optician and when I got home I immediately ordered it from Amazon.
   What caught my eye in the review were the names of the inhabitants of the February House - Auden, Britten,McCullers... in that amazing year. I knew of their work individually but to read of them living under the same roof was a revelation.What a cauldron of creativity! All against the background of the war in Europe and the period leading up to Pearl Harbour.As I read the book I felt as though I were there. I hope that someone will make a documentary about it or better still a dramatised reconstruction. The two Truman Capote films have blazed the trail.



3. A friend just recommended this book to me and it's fabulous!!! I live in an artist bldg and it's nothing compared to the energy of Middagh Street. The book is a great read and the research is most impressive. I cannot wait to read the one she's writing about the Chelsea Hotel!



4. Thomas Wolf once famously said "only the dead know Brooklyn." There might be some truth in that, but some of us know Brooklyn, N.Y.,U.S.A., pretty well,and are still very much alive. Quite a few people are aware of Brooklyn's brownstone belt, that swath of historic houses stretching from the East River to Prospect Park and beyond. Many of these people would declare Brooklyn Heights the ultimate Brooklyn brownstone neighborhood. It's beautiful, and gets scenic views of Manhattan. It's got history galore--an important Revolutionary War battle was fought here;and it's been, and still is,home to a lot of well-known important people.
   
   One little-known fact is that a number of celebrated people shared a house on Middagh Street, in 1940-41, right in the middle of the Second World War. That house, which came to be known as February House-- a number of its residents had February birthdays-- has long since been torn down to make room for the Promenade that provides storied views of Manhattan. But among occupants of February House were poet W.H.Auden, writer Carson McCullers, writers Jane and Paul Bowles,composer Benjamin Britten, and stripper Gypsy Rose Lee.
   
   Writer Sherill Tippens has produced an interesting, pleasantly gossipy book about the house's residents and their accomplishments. Jane Bowles began "Two Serious Ladies," her only completed novel here. The young lesbian Carson McCullers had just tasted, at the age of 23, great success with her novel "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter." She began two other great successes, "The Member of the Wedding," and "The Ballad of the Sad Cafe," between drinking bouts, right here on Middagh Street.
   
   Auden and Britten, both homosexual, but not involved with each other, were being raked over the coals at the time by the British press for choosing to sit out World War II in the U.S. But they were working: they collaborated on the opera "Paul Bunyan,"not critically well-received. Auden who continued to live in the Heights, on his own, to pursue his lifelong, unrequited love for the young American Chester Kallman, was working hard in the interstices of his personal soap opera: He produced "The Double Man" in February House. Britten produced "Peter Grimes;"considered one of the great masterpieces of 20th century opera. Meanwhile, he pursued his own personal soap opera: many critics believe this opera echoes developments with his partner, tenor Peter Pears, at the time.
   
   The most unexpected resident of February House would have to be Gypsy Rose Lee, burlesque artiste. She was talked into joining the fun by George Davis, homosexual himself, fiction editor of "Harpers Bazaar" magazine, whose idea February House was, and who worked hard to keep it alive. Davis had published some of his own writing, but he was best known for the talented writers he kept on discovering.
   
   In Gypsy Lee's case, she brought some money, a lot of common sense,and a cook to Middagh Street. The house's residents needed all the above. Her reward for her support: George Davis, great editor, midwifed her book, "The G-String Murders," a publishing sensation for many years.
   
   George Davis continued to live at 7 Middaagh Street after its time as an artistic commune had passed. After Kurt Weill's death, Davis married his widow, Lotte Lenya, and devoted his life to introducing America to Weill's great works,such as "Three Penny Opera,"from which we get "Mack the Knife."
   
   There are some informative photographs, extensive notes and acknowledgements in February House. Tippins evidently did a lot of primary research, but she managed to organize the voluminous results in a very readable style. February House well rewards the reader.



5. Sherill Tippins has done an amazing job of finding the significant narrative threads in the chaotic convergence of creative lives that occurred in the months before Pearl Harbor when Harper's Bazaar editor George Davis and British expatriate poet W.H. Auden rented a brownstone on 7 Middagh Street in Brooklyn Heights and actively recruited other creative artists to live with them. Among the co-renters were Carson McCullers who had recently published her highly acclaimed first novel, "The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter," soon-to-be famous British composer Benjamin Britten and his parnter, singer Peter Pears, unpublished novelists Paul and Jane Bowles, Broadway set designer Oliver Smith, writer Richard Wright and his wife, and burlesque sensation Gypsy Rose Lee, who it turns out was the most reliable in the rent-paying department and joined the little "creative commune" on the condition that she could bring her own cook and maid. Her fiscal reliability and drive along with Auden's willingness to take on the unpleasant role of house disciplinarian (collecting rent and other "dues" and establishing and enforcing many house rules) are probably sufficient explanation for why this menage managed to last the two or three years it did.
   
   Tippins wisely focuses her attention on the leading figures (without neglecting to name the many others who partied but did not reside at 7 Middagh--Salvador and Gala Dali, Lincoln Kirstein, George Balanchine, Erika Mann and her brothers Klaus and Golo, to name a few). One passer-through, Anais Nin, christened the dwelling "February House" because so many of the residents had February birthdays. Tippins has a good knowledge of the works of these creative people and is able to see how one of the artists intentionally or inadvertantly influenced a subsequent work of one of his or her co-residents. For example, McCullers was struggling with the novel that would later become "The Member of the Wedding" when she was able to appropriate an experience from Chester Kallman's childhood to explain her heroine's profound sense of alienation and abandonment (Kallman was Auden's lover).
   
   Tippins other great achievement here was her ability to slice through history and palpably recreate the political atmosphere in pre-war New York and to do so in a way that reflects on both British and US perspectives. She takes a good hard look at the criticism expatriates like Auden, Christopher Isherwood, Britten, and Pears faced from the British press and fellow artists who chose to remain in Great Britian during the war. She is similarly insightful in her analysis of the role the Mann family had in trying to get an apathetic America to respond to the European crisis. A lesser writer might not have bothered with these issues and chosen to report only the salacious and saleable anecdotes about the goings-on of the February House residents.
   
   I highly recommend this book to anyone even passingly interested in one of the artists who lived at 7 Middagh Street (you're sure to learn something new), to anyone who ever wondered how great works of art come about, or to anyone interested in knowing how history and art intersect. I'm sure I'm going to use Tippins's Selecte Bibliography as a basis for future Amazon.com purchases.

2 comments about Conversations with Hunter S. Thompson (Literary Conversations Series).

1. If you are looking for the gonzo journalist that the majority of his books contain, you won't find it but this book is one that's even better in my opinion...
   
   
   While I LOVE his journalism I always wanted to find out what Hunter S. Thompson was as the man...
   
   He always talked about always having a burden on his shoulders, as everyone thought he was the stereotype of an outlaw that lives by his standards and not society's. This resulted in that whenever he made a public speech or met fans in the streets, they expected the 'crazy' Hunter when in reality he wasn't. He wasn't putting on a front, but he exaggerated it because he knew it would give him an advantage, one that could (and did) significantly help his career, especially considering all the competition in the journalist field at the time.
   
   I always wondered how that effects him, how it effects his writing, and most importantly, WHO IS HUNTER S. THOMPSON the man???
   
   
   If you are curious about anything I just listed, this book is for you.
   
   It will show you who Hunter was underneath the skin and away from the cameras.... just and ordinary person with problems like all of us....



2. Torrey and Simonson have given us insight into Thompson's mind and methods not found in any other book. "Conversations with Hunter S. Thompson" is more than mere echos of the man and rememberences of others rehashed over and over again. It is the voice of Thompson himself speaking clearly and understandably to the reader with intimacy and frankness.
   
   This book has value beyond it's collectable worth (thought it certainly belongs in everyone's collection). It is a reference, a reflection and a revelation.

5 comments about My Country Right or Left 1940-1943: The Collected Essays Journalism & Letters of George Orwell (Collected Essays Journalism and Letters of George Orwell).

1. My earlier review on the first volume of this series may be of interest to the reader and help him understand the content of this volume.
   
   Like the first volume, this volume is composed of letters, essays, book reviews and journals dating (generally) to the early war period when the fate of the world seemed bleakest. At the risk of seeming lazy, I will highlight what seems most interesting to me and look at selections I believe are unique to this collection. I can never be sure, however.
   
   The Letter to The Editor of Time and Tide...conveys the panic caused by the unfounded belief in an impending invasion of England by Nazi Germany. Orwell displayed an amazing detail of knowlege about such things as the use of dynamite against entrenched street fighters taken from his days in Spain. Orwell later tried to persuade the Home Guard (I believe) or LDV to train volunteers in insurgent warfare, but later reflected that the ruling class would have other issues with that idea.
   
   Phamplet Literature...The essay on phamplets reflects Orwell's giant collection of Depression era phamplets housed in the London Museum. This is essay is a literary time capsule since phamplets are often included in real time capsules. Phamplets give future generations a glipse into the nut culture of a particular period of history. The interesting question posed by this subject is whether the internet itself is a kind of populist electronic phamplet...blogspots drowning out legitimate literature and journalism. How would Orwell have reacted to this new electronic, immmense phamplet?
   
   Literature and Totalitarianism...Do you remember in "1984" how the State altered its dogma to the changing political circumstances it created? East Asia then Oceania then Eurasia...endless shifting alliances and slogans. Hitler quickly changed Communism to a useful socialist brother when the pact was signed with Molotov. Hitler's Communist victims in Dachau, the KPD, were soon forgotten by the soviets as well. Truth is elastic for totalitarians.
   
   New Words...an essay I haven't seen elsewhere, deals also with language and mind and probably had an influence on newspeak in "1984." It is interesting to note that Gordon Comstock compromises his idealistic poverty to become a middle class advertising copy writer in "Keep The Aspidistra Flying" after sneering at idotic ads for Bovril. Comstock's new life consists of composing idiotic ad slogans that seem almost totalitarian.
   
   Mein Kampf...Orwell reviewed the writings of fanatics as well. The edition Orwell rviewed cast Hitler in a slightly favorable light in 1939 casting Hitler as an errant Conservative. The edition was quickly reissued with the royalties going to the Red Cross. Even Orwell professed a grudging acceptance of Hitler as convincing theatric figure capable of producing pathos and destiny in his presentation.
   
   War-time diary...These diaries lasted from May 1940 to November 1942. They convey the pop culture of wartime England and the odd detachment many felt from major war events. Orwell recounted how his first wife and himself went to pubs at night only to find the patrons playing darts while major battles were raging; they would be the first to ask for the news radio to be turned on. These diaries are by far the best selections in the book and are hard to put down.
   
   Another masterpiece from this prolific writer. The writer who embodied an everyman struggling for human dignity and freedom in an ominous age.



2. Does anyone else have a copy that's missing pages? Mine jumps from page 326 to page 339, and from 350 to 363



3. This is my first volume of essays, articles and letters by Blair/Orwell, which I read thanks to Jim Egolf's recent review here. The man contradicts himself quite a bit, but I do not regret the time spent. Who wants to get bored by people that one always agrees with?
   The main theme of the book, due to the time of the sample, is England in war with totalitarianism/fascism/nazism. Though Orwell was in his heart a leftist, he had enough insight from own experience to understand the nature of totalitarianism, he was a dedicated anti-Stalinist, and he staid away from party politics.
   And yet: his long essay 'The Lion and the Unicorn', one of the core texts of this book, gives a political vision, that puzzles me. He displays a surprising naivete about the strength of economic planning in socialism. Of course, we have the benefit of hindsight, we know that a central planning bureaucracy can be the right approach for a short term effort, like for a war, but will be hopelessly lost in inefficiencies in 'normal' times. Orwell was deeply convinced that state capitalism or socialism was the future, there would be no return after the war.
   I have decided to ignore his political recipes, but to enjoy his social analyses: England is a rich man's paradise, but the ruling class is too stupid to run the country.
   One of his main contributions to our understanding of the confict of the time: his juxtaposition of the ideology of hedonism (which nearly led the West into the abyss) against the ideology of social sacrifice, which helped the Nazis to succeed, luckily only temporarily.
   I wonder if he fully understood the real antagonism of Hitler to the West or if he got deceived by the temporary diversion of the pact with Stalin. (I notice when I browse the reviews and comments in this neighborhood that there is a certain willingness to say, the West should have gone with Hitler against the Soviets. Oh my, what a misunderstanding.) Probably he did. In a nice remark after the German attack on Russia he says, had this happened before the Hitler-Stalin pact, there was a chance of serious political disturbance in Britain, because the ruling class might have wanted to join the attack on Germany's side.
   My favorite text in the collection is the essay on H.G.Wells' inability to understand Hitler. Wells was the man who envisaged scientific progress against reactionary societies earlier in the century. He was unable to understand that Hitler's essentially irrational and superstitious ideology was capable of an efficient alliance with the other side of science.



4. This book is an anthology of Orwell's essays, literary criticism, letters to friends,and political criticism. Those who read this book can read some interesting letters that Orwell wrote to the editors of THE PARTISAN REVIEW on the fortunes of W.W. II involving the British. The book concludes with Orwell's diary of the war. While George Orwell (1903-1950)was a self admitted "leftist," he was not an ideologue. Orwell showed that he was a well read individual and knew very well that political labels conceal the desire for political power regardless of political titles and party affilations.
   
   Orwell was a master of literary criticism. Two examples are his review and comments on Hitler's MEIN KAMPF and Tolstoy's denounciation of Shakespear. Orwell commented that an English review of Mein Kampf favaored the German dictator. Orwell correctly predicted such praise would soon evaporate which it did. Orwell informed readers that praise for Hitler was not unusal. One must note that Churchill complimented Hitler in Churchill's book titled GREAT CONTEMPORARIES. Churchill also complimented Hitler in a speech to Parliament in November, 1938. Here Orwell shows not only his ability as a literary critic, but he informs younger readers that the political disapproval word,fascism, had a different connotation. Many Europeans including the British middle and upper classes had serious concerns of Big Communism with its record of mass murder and concentration camp brutality.
   
   Orwell showed himself again as a literary critic when Orwell critisized Tolstoy for the latter's condemnation of William Shakespear. Orwell correctly refuted Tolstoy on a couple of issues. First, Tolstoy read Shakespear in translation which may have tainted his understanding of Shakespear. Also Tolstoy tried to condemn Shakespear in lieu of Tolstoy's social philosophy. Orwell stated such criticism was useless because such criticism would have been incomprehensible to Shakespear and his English contemporaries in the 16th and early 17th centuries. Orwell also chided Tolstoy for his assumed superiority. Tolstoy could not understand why Shakespear literary work was so appealing and wrote that everyone should know that Shakespear was some sort of scoundral. Yet, Orwell wryly comments that Shakespear's literay work was available throughout the world while Orwell could not find Tolstoy's essay until he found it in a museum.
   
   The best part of this Orwell anthology are his political essays. Orwell noted that there was suppose to be a bitter political divide betwen Fascism and Big Communism. When the German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact in 1939 unhinged this concept and angered Communists and their fellow travellers. When asked about this unexpected turn of diplomatic events, Molotov (I believe it was Molotov) who said that the difference between Socialism (Bib Communism) and Fascism was a matter of taste. Approximately two years later when the Germans invaded the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, this view sure changed. Orwell stated that Stalin and his supporters would have called themselves Fascists if they thought such a label would enhance their power. Hitler and his supporters would have done the same. Orwell clearly indicated that men who have concentrated power will use whatever political labels to keep or enhance their complete hold on power.
   
   Orwell used the political chaos both inside the Soviet Union and in Europe to sound a serious warning that literature could be lost because of the rapid changes in political loyalties. The sudden changes in internal enemis in the Soviet Union serves as a classic example. The heros of the Workers' Paradise were concentration camp victims the next day because they could not stay current with ruling party's changing enemy's list. The Non-Aggtression Pact mentioned above is another good example. Orwell reflected that in previous centuries, literary men (an women)had "a frame of reference." Their political and religious loyalties were stable from cradle to grave. However, given the rapidly changing of enemies, literary figures had no such stability and writing could be dangerous especially in the Soveit Union where writers were either sent to concentration camps or committed suicide. Had Orwell lived longer, he would have been pleased to see such Soviet writers as Boris Pasternak (DR. ZHIVAGO) and Alexander Solzhenitsyn who surived the Soviet purges and yet were awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. In fact, Solzhenitsyn sent ten years in a Soviet concentration camp from which he emerged as a literary giant. Orwell did suggest that totalitarian thought control could not survive the spirit and soul of thoughtful men.
   
   Among Orwell's many talents was his ability to expose political hypocrisy. Many of the British leaders were demanding that Mussolini be charged for "war crimes." Orwell scoffed at this nonsense. Orwell cearly indicated to his readers that those British leaders who demanded such "war crimes" trials against Mussolini were exactly the same British leaders who ten years previously praised Mussoini for the acts they now wanted to charge as war crimes. Orwell had a solid memory, and when Mussolini moved against the Communists and aided Franco in the Spanish Civil War, many of the same British leaders who wanted to try Mussolini for "war crimes," praised him for his actions which they awkardly tried to define as war crimes ten years later. Among those who praised Mussolini in the 1920s-1930s included Churchill.
   
   In parts of the book Orwell showed himself as a military expert. When there were threats of a possible German invasion, Orwell had practical suggestions of arming the British citizen with the most practicle weapons. Orwell fought in the Spanish Civil War and volunteered for W.W. II, but illness kept out of that conflict. Orwell also took pride in his position in the Home Guard.
   
   This reviewer has one criticism. Orwell's letters to the PARTISAN REVIEW, political essays, literary criticism, etc. should have been arranged by topic rather than by time sequence. This would enable readers to easily read the book. However, this reviewer could not have done nearly as good a job. Orwell simply enhanced his position as a great novelist, literary critic, political thinker, and excellent prose writer. Readers would to well to read this book to have a better understanding of the war years (W.W II) than is presented in badly written textbooks and popular accounts. This reviewer highly recommends this book.



5. For years, I have been impressed by the quality of the essays in Dickens, Dali, and Others, Shooting an Elephant, and Such, Such Were the Joys. I was looking forward to reading more of Orwell's essays. I soon discovered, however, that Orwell's essays not published in book form shared all the faults of those that I had read, but few of the virtues.
   
   Many cite Orwell's honesty as his primary virtue, but these essays reveal a man who is, if not dishonest, then at least quite blind to his own experiences. He states, without any supporting evidence, that "only Socialist nations can fight effectively" (p. 67, from The Lion and the Unicorn), despite the fact that he served in an army organized along socialist lines (as narrated on p. 255), if not the army of a socialist nation, five years prior to the publication of this statement; the army was defeated decisively by Generalissimo Franco's decidedly non-socialist forces.
   
   Orwell also frequently resorts to name-calling. Those who disagree with him politically are almost invariably "reactionaries", "Fascists", or "pro-Fascist". Jack London is "not . . . a fully civilised man."; rather, he possesses a "streak of savagery". Any thought, expression, or even word of which Orwell disapproves is "vulgar", from the cartoon postcards of Donald McGill to Kipling's statement that "He travels the fastest who travels alone" to Yeats's use of the word (!) "loveliness" (Orwell also claims that "Yeats's tendency is Fascist." on p. 273).
   
   It is clear to me after reading this volume that the editors who selected pieces for the three volumes of essays published during Orwell's lifetime made the right choices; they show him at his best. The rest of the material here is hardly worth reading except as a window into the soul of a man who was incapable of viewing the world except through the distorting lens of a commitment to socialism.

4 comments about The Last of His Mind: A Year in the Shadow of Alzheimer's.

1. The Last of His Mind: A Year in the Shadow of Alzheimer's comes from a managing editor of Life who at age 92 in the space of six months stopped reading, writing or carrying on detailed conversations. His one wish was to remain in his home - and his son John left his own home and moved in to help care for him in the face of Alzheimer's. His son's final year with his father offers a candid survey of the disease's progression and makes for a survey perfect for any general lending library.



2. 
   The Last of His Mind is Thorndike's account of caring for his father during his final year before dying of Alzheimer's. It is much more than a book about dementia, though there is plenty of information about it. It is an examination of his father's life -- he was an author and the editor of Life magazine in its glory years; his parents' inner lives and his own upbringing. When I saw it, I was not inclined to read it, thinking that a book about about Alzheimer's would be depressing and slow going. I picked it up and was immediately drawn into it. I read it in the next day -- a real page turner. The lives described -- Thorndike's and his parents' are interesting and moving. It is as good a memoir as I have recently read.



3. It is a noble truth that we all die and that the moment of our death is unknown. John Thorndike explores this essential inevitability with searing honesty, fierce grace, deep compassion, and a journalist's curiosity. By guiding his father on the 92-year-old's final journey, the author confronts nagging and unresolved questions about his own childhood while simultaneously entering a powerful realignment with the constellation of his entire family--and the trajectory of his own life. Thorndike displays a novelist's love of language, a storyteller's eye for detail, a detective's instinct for sleuthing, and a son's enduring love for the man who molded him in ways that have John alternately smiling and fuming. If you've ever lost a parent to dementia, as I have, you will identify at once with the harrowing experiences the author describes in this elegant and compelling book. More importantly, you will recognize and appreciate the cascade of profound challenges, both physical and mental, that unavoidably befall the caregiver as well as the patient. It is from this rich and freshly disturbed psychic soil that John Thorndike, a life-long farmer in addition to being a talented writer, grows in ways that he is brave enough to share. We are wiser for it. And Joe would be proud.



4. I live in Athens Ohio, the same town as the author. When I saw a copy in the local bookstore window, the word Alzheimer's caught my eye, along with the very cool retro cover. My father is in a nursing home, suffering from this disease along with the after affects of two major strokes. I've read half a dozen texts on the medical attributes of the disease but this book presented a different viewpoint.
   
   I quickly found myself lost in the incredible story of how caring intimately for ones parent can lead you to discover so much about your own self. Or, at least it leads John Thorndike to have this slowly revealed to him through the long days of care giving. I was also impressed at how engrossed I was in a subject that should have left me depressed but instead I felt uplifted by the experiences the author relayed. The book is a touching journey about going home and finding your place in a family. Although John emotionally sided many years with his mother, in caring for his father the truth of his character is revealed, not through conversation, but through everyday acts, which illustrate the gracious qualities his dad possessed.
   
   The story of Mr. Thorndike's childhood and family in and of itself is very interesting, from his father's brilliant career in magazine publishing to his mother's secretive and devastating sex life, I found the tale of his past to never be far from the situation present. I'm thrilled to see he has an earlier memoir, Another Way Home, in which I can read more about his turn at fatherhood.
   
   Would highly recommend The Last of His Mind to anyone interested in family dynamics, exploring your own personality by examining your past, caring for an elderly parent, an in-depth look at Alzheimer's and anyone who likes to curl up with a good story.