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 Age and Guile Beat Youth, Innocence, and a Bad Haircut (O'Rourke, P. J.).

1. This is an excellent anthology of O'Rourke's writings from his commie journalist days in Baltimore in the early 1970s, through his years at NATIONAL LAMPOON, up to the mid-90s when he was writing articles about politics, current events and foreign affairs for ROLLING STONE and the conservative AMERICAN SPECTATOR. Included are articles about cars the he wrote for CAR & DRIVER, articles about fishing and hunting originally published in MEN'S JOURNAL, and a speech he gave at a CATO Institute function.
   
   The essays vary greatly not just with regards to topics, but also with respect to the degree of humour, and some border on the serious. But all are interesting, as any P.J. O'Rourke fan would expect.
   
   As O'Rourke states in the Introduction: "It is, I guess, interesting to watch the leftist grub weaving itself into the pupa of satire and then emerging a resplendent conservative blowfly."



2. I first got into PJ O'Rourke when I started reading his book "Republican Party Reptile" and realized that I could laugh heartily at his wit, as opposed to the often divisive rhetoric of Rush Limbaugh and Fox News Channel. O'Rourke is equally scathing in his approach to "born-again" nutjobs as he is to "pinko" enviromentalists, and his is a style of writing I wouldn't mind trying to emulate in my own belated (and as yet unpublished) career as a writer.

   "Age and Guile" caught my fancy because I had heard it was a collection of his pieces from over the years, and I tried to find it at the local library and various bookstores, but was unlucky in my pursuit. I ended up checking out a Books-on-Tape version of the book, read by Norman Deitz, and I was quite pleased.

   The early material is amatuerish, to be fair, but there are nuggets of wit to be found amongst the "juvinelia". The Truth About The Sixties was actually one of my favorite parts of the book, I found it very involving and fascinating to hear. The rest of the book tickled my funny bone. I just don't have enough good things to say about this book.

   So, I ordered it on Amazon, and I've recieved it, and it's joined my collection of P.J. O'Rourke books. A liberal at heart myself, I agree with a previous reviewer that O'Rourke celebrates individual freedom and doesn't care for those who try and take it away. I only hope I can be as good at conveying that in my own writing, he's certainly one hell of a teacher.




3. PJ O'Rourke has always been one of my favorite cultural and political commentators. An unrepentant Libertarian Republican who used to be an unrepentant Marxist radical, O'Rourke is a conservative who writes with all the wit and verve that, supposedly, only liberals are capable of. P.J. O'Rourke is the Al Franken of the American Right, if Al Franken were actually funny. Age and Guile Beat Youth, Innocence, and a Bad Haircut is made up of O'Rourke's previously uncollected writings over the past three decades. As such, the book begins with a few choice pieces from his angry days as a Marxist journalist in the early '70s (where, it must be said, O'Rourke still writes with a wit that proves that funny is funny not matter what the ideology) moves on to cover his brief period as an adherent to Concrete Poetry (an art form that he admits still having no idea what to make of) and finally closes with a few of his recent essays as Rolling Stone's Foreign Affairs Editor. Best of all, O'Rourke includes a few short stories that he wrote and published while editor of National Lampoon. The stories, all dealing with his past as a '60s radical, are a perfect mixture of radical nostalgia and modern day clear headedness and, along with an unexpected pathos for his lost characters wandering through the political wilderness of protest, they also rank amongst the most hilarious of O'Rourke's writings, perfectly displaying his trademark style of detached irony and self-depreciating wit (one can always sense O'Rourke saying, "Can you believe they actually pay me to write this stuff?"). Perhaps most nicely, the pieces in this collection are arranged by chronological order so that the reader literally goes through O'Rourke's political and literary evolution with him over the course of the book. As such, we're provided with a nice view of the political odyssey of both O'Rourke and America over the past 30-odd years. If one thing remains the same it is that O'Rourke, whether conservative or liberal, consistently refuses to accept anything at face value. He remains, always, the eternal skeptic. And we, as readers, are all the better off for it.



4. First and foremost: it is worth noting (and it pains an saddens me that this is the case) that the phrase "Youth, Innocence, and a Bad Haircut" is the first time I have seen a three-item list with correct grammar in a book printed in America after World War II.

   Second, and not quite so foremost: P. J. O'Rourke is a very, very funny guy. He is completely politically incorrect, in most cases, and is therefore more than happy to pull out the jokes, puns, and other humorous concepts his more liberal colleagues have left to the dust.

   Third, and not really far up there on the scale, but still worth mentioning: in most ways, P. J. O'Rourke is a tremendous boon to the right-wing American. He's not afraid to take pot-shots at just about anything, including fellow members of the right (Pat Buchanan is roasted almost as often as Bill Clinton), and he's not afraid to admit his mistakes, such as endorsing Clinton in 1992.

   Combine those, and for most of this book you have a tremendously funny read, an almost literary roasting of such things as book tours, drinking, stupid sports, Whitewater, various makes and models of automobile, and the like. Unfortunately, it's the part that falls outside the realm of "most" that keeps this from being one of the finest political collections of the past decade. There are times when O'Rourke, who seems to be sitting right on the Libertarian partyline, veers far off to the left, and if he is to be trusted he was stuck out there in at least one case by the head of the Cato Institute (making me wonder how Libertarian they truly are), and he also has many of the strange and illogical hang-ups that keep me from ever wanting to vote Republican. He also, and he is well aware of it, asks a lot of our indulgence in the book's second section, a collection of short stories published (well, most of them) in the National Lampoon during his tenure as editor in chief there. Anyone who still wonders why I abhor the very idea of self-publishing need only read the section "The Truth About the Sixties and Other Fictions" in this book. It's shameless, awful, contorted, constipated prose, and O'Rourke is fully aware of this, and even says so in a few places.

   But if you skip that section, and immediately stop reading any time you find one of those places where conservatives suddenly dismiss anything relating to logic (I have often theorized it's remnants of too many drugs during the sixties), this is most definitely a worthwhile book. Both the automobile and sports sections brought forth guffaws. And if you've ever heard me guffaw, you'll know that's soemthing to stay away from.




5. If you or someone you know and love is looking for great material for a speach competition, try the stories "Dynamite" and "Another Tale of Uncle Mike." I used them to get to the state competition. The book is all-around hillarious with great little tips such as how to out-drink an Irish wedding party when they have a few hours head-start. It also has some great lines such as "none of us were seriously hurt, except for Terry, who had part of a hash pipe blown up his nose, something they had a hard time understanding at the emergency room." Buy it and laugh.

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.

5 comments about Confederacy of Silence : A True Tale of the New Old South.

1. A Mississippi relative sent me a copy. She, a native-resident of a Hill Country town near Greenwood, enjoyed it and figured I would, too. I did, especially Rubin's discovery of such non-stereotypical things as Mississippi's Jewish history. I did find it peculiar that he wasn't honest about his choices. Why, for instance, did he go on to grad school in Alabama and then to Memphis to freelance before returning to NYC? In the book he only indicates that he needs to get out of the South. He had a chance to skewer more stereotypes, but chose not to.
   
   Still, it's definitely not the usual Yankee-takes-harsh-look-at-the-South. It isn't even especially a harsh look. He found the good people and shows them to advantage. The confederacy of the title--the willingness to go along with despicable folks in order to get along in a community--can be found anywhere and Rubin doesn't pretend otherwise. His curious behavior at the end, when he deliberately lies to his oldest MS friend, is confusing. It might be a sign of his rejection of the silence. Or something.
   
   The writing flows along well and the portrayal of small-town politics and journalism is familiar and sometimes amusing. A jury's tragic unwillingness to revenge the murder of a black homosexual unfortunately could happen anywhere. Rubin does seem to push himself too hard (or his editor did) at times to make up for his ambivalence: Scoring Ole Miss, for instance, for not having a starting black quarterback. Texas did not have one, either, until James Brown in the late 90s. The more accomplished Vince Young came later. Both Brown and Young, however, were known for their good attitudes, the lack of which seems to have worked against Rubin's protagonist Handy Campbell more than his race.
   
   Despite the flaws, it's a good and thoughtful book. Especially for Southerners wanting an update on the poorer parts of the region. Northerners might have a harder time with Rubin's ambivalence. But his honesty is refreshing.



2. This is an intriguing book, but not for the reasons the author intended. It is a report of his experiences in Mississippi during the late 80's and mid-90's. As one would expect, he sees firsthand the racism present in Mississippi and is shocked. If that is all it was, I would write it off as a superbly written but clichéd account of black-white relationships in Mississippi.
   But I do have other experiences with the South. I grew up on the Mason-Dixon among migrants from the coal-country of West Virginia, have lived in the South, married into a family from East Texas, and have had several close friends who grew up black and poor in Mississippi. The latter weren't the kind of friends have over for dinner, they were the kind of friend who make you the godparent of their children and the beneficiary of their life insurance. I'm not bothered by the accuracy of Mr. Rubin's observations - most of the incidents that he termed racist probably were racist although there was probably more gray than he sees - it's just that I would read a more serious treatment of the subject if I wanted to read about racism in the New South.
   The aspect of the book I found interesting is that my experience was almost the inverse of his. In the late 80's I had had too much experience with racism (including an attempt by coworkers to hang me from a construction crane by my feet for being too friendly with the blacks on the job), but was utterly naïve about the east coast. In 1986 this "naïve" Midwesterner moved to Philadelphia and joined the research faculty of the University of Pennsylvania, where Richard Rubin was finishing up his undergraduate degree. I worked in a group that was almost entirely Jewish. Within a week I was informed that I was indelibly stained by racism because of where I was born. Then things started to happen. There was a party given by the staff members. Everyone was invited but the black secretary. I joined the town-watch and began patrolling the neighborhood with a black partner. At least once an evening someone would shout a racial slur or make a threatening comment. One morning one of the black secretaries ran over and hugged me. It seems that I had been seated next to another black secretary's husband at a wedding and successfully held a normal conversation with him. That was apparently unexpected. Overall my experience was that racism in Philadelphia was subtle, pervasive, and intense.
   
   When I read this book, I constantly wondered how someone from this environment could be so utterly blind to the racism at his own roots while condemning Mississippi. This book is an excellent example of a clueless, arrogant Ivy League product pointing his finger at the faults of others while ignoring those in his backyard. This is a must read if you are interested in an example of the source of the ongoing pervasiveness of racial discord in this country. I am glad that I borrowed it rather than bought it.



3. And the sad story of Handy Campbell was well done even with Rubin getting a little melodramatic with his personal feelings at times.
   
   Rubin claims Handy was discriminated against by the coaches because he was black but the more you read about Handy the more you come to see just how dumb (across the board) he was.
   
   No Epilogue. No Pictures. I can't even find any pics on the internet. Except for possibly Lanardo Myrick at www.klmenter.com/page2.html
   
   It's about the south, race, football, murder, and two lost souls. Recommended.



4. 
   This was a quick and interesting read. Rubin has a very comfortable writing style, entertaining and smooth.
   
   The first half of the book specifically is a great "coming of age" story with the collision of two worlds -- the traditional conservative Southern lifestyle as seen by a Liberal New Yorker. It is clear that the author learned and grew from his experiences, and had a great deal of his innocence lost, on so many levels during his year in Mississippi. Many of us experienced similar changes in the first few years out of college; for me, the story evoked memories of choices made and opportunities lost. I'm sure that we can all empathize with his hope that the first boss did not regret hiring him every day he came into work.
   
   The second half is a well-written, if a bit dense, who-done-it. Some of the conclusions were a bit obvious, but again, it was interesting watching the loss of innocence yet again in Rubin's life.
   
   All in all, the book is worth the time.



5. For one who is not from the South, but lived here only a short time, Rubin's characterization of Mississippi culture is spot-on. He nailed it. Anyone who can do that is very talented as a writer and researcher.
   
   I've lived in Mississippi for 16 years, and since I'm a newspaper reporter, I know many of the people in Rubin's Confederacy of Silence. Take for example David Bradberry, Handy Campbell's football coach at Greenwood. Bradberry is a stand-up individual and perhaps one of the best football coaches I've ever met. He's a good coach because he cares about his players -- not just about winning on the field.
   
   If Bradberry talked to Rubin for this book, then whatever he says in it must be true.
   
   As for Jack Henderson, I can see why he's miffed, but then again Jack, you brought it on yourself. Maybe if you weren't such a rabid racist, you would then have a legitimate gripe. But since you are the way you are, you can't fault Rubin for his accurate depiction.
   
   Having covered athletics in Mississippi for over 10 years, football does rule all in the state and it fosters racial harmony while limiting it at the same time. Rubin did a good job of portraying this in his book, discussing the Private School vs. Public School dichotomy, and the reasons why Handy Campbell went to State, but then transferred to Ole Miss and why Ole Miss never played him.
   
   Oh, if you believe football recruiting is all rose petals and singing Kumbaya, then I've got some ocean-front property in Kansas for you.
   
   Other reviewers mention Chris Osgood as Ole Miss' first black quarterback. That is true. He started four or five games during the 1985 season as a redshirt freshman. He was injured during the LSU game in Jackson that year and never played another down.
   
   Rubin did get that wrong. Campbell would not have been the first black QB at Ole Miss had he ever had the opportunity to play. I think he never got the opportunity to play because of the Osgood brouhaha in 1985. Ole Miss fans were so distraught over Brewer's choice at QB that it made Brewer ever more apprehensive of starting another black quarterback. It would be four, five years after Brewer's firing that Ole Miss's Romaro Miller would take snaps. And Miller took a lot of heat for his failures, and even then, in 1999, Ole Miss fans were distraught that a black man was taking snaps and directing the offense.
   
   This book is dead-on in Rubin's characterization of the Emmerichs -- the family of newspaper moguls in the state. They are cheap and have little commitment to real journalism, which Rubin accurately portrays.
   
   I also enjoyed his portrayal of the murder trail. It is indeed true that in Mississippi if a black person murders another black person, well it's no big deal. The prosecution will just go through the motions, with very little fanfare.
   
   Face it Misssissippi, we're still racists and I think it's only gotten worse since the Fordice Administration. I think the 1980s was the last gasp of progress in Mississippi. We're headed directly for 1850 all over again.

5 comments about The One that Got Away: A Memoir (Lisa Drew Books).

1. Even though I was not going to write a review about this book, the many critiques posted by other reviewers made me pause and then decide to add my thoughts. For the fisherman who has done any amount of fishing, you find that sooner or later, you discuss just about everything on your mind with your fishing buddies.
   
   This book does meander over quite a bit of territory, both, literally and figuratively. Howell travels the world to engage in his beloved flyfishing hobby and catch the elusive fish of wherever he lands. He also muses on his career, life, and personal values.
   
   The forward and backward in time writing technique seems a little forced sometimes and towards the end it does seem that there has been a little repetition, but, overall this is an interesting book written by a man who has seemingly made peace with himself and life.
   
   To any potential readers, if you are a neo-conservative that can't stand a sentence or two of criticism of Fox News and the Bushies, then maybe you should pass. However, if your skin is not so thin, you wonder about what a smart man thinks when in his 50/60's, and you enjoy a fish tale or two, then read this book.
   
   The reader is engaging and the story is pretty good.



2. Author is a major liberal, and there is way too much politics and way too little fishing. Not a bad book, but certainly not a good book...



3. If you're looking for a journalism memoir, you've come to the wrong place, really. You'll have to wade through much tedium about fishing, through which Raines tries to come to epiphanies about life and loss. I found myself flipping through about 85 percent of the book to get to what I thought were the good parts: his recollections of how Jayson Blair wrecked his NYT career. Raines paints himself as a saviour of what he thought was a hidebound newspaper. There may always be a debate about what he really achieved. He should have stuck to either fishing or journalism to make this book work. One wonders if something this muddled could ever make it past the gatekeepers at the evolving Times of today.



4. Howell Raines' memoir, The One That Got Away, is a sequel to his best selling Fly Fishing Through the Midlife Crisis, and is an account of the latest years of his life including his remarriage and his career as executive editor of The New York Times.
   
   It is also a book about fishing. If you're looking for a lot of details about the plagiarism scandal that ended his 25 years at The Times, you will be disappointed. On the other hand, if you love fishing, especially fly fishing, you will be in heaven.
   
   In The One That Got Away, Mr. Raines takes you around the world to a series of well-known (and little-known) fishing spots, where he describes his equipment and explains his techniques for catching the elusive salmon or bonefish or trout. You'll discover his love for this catch-an-release sport, especially in the tale of his epic battle with a marlin that he hooked in the South Pacific and fought for over seven hours.
   
   You also might find yourself speculating about the absolute veracity of these fish tales as well as the other events he describes in his book. After all, aren't "fish stories" synonymous with "lies" in the English language?
   
   His credos on journalism ("to see events wholly and coldly and try to write about them for the informational benefit of the Republic"), and The Times newspaper (to deliver high quality fact-based information and analysis about news that is found out, rather than imagined") were sorely tested when that "small, amiable, brown-skinned young man known as Jayson Blair" was exposed for publishing lies in The Times.
   
   Howell Raines says he had "no way of knowing and no cause to be consulted" about Jayson's rapid promotion from trainee to reporter, his lack of professionalism, or his frequent errors. But, as the guy "at the end of the chain of command," he took personal responsibility and demanded a complete disclosure. When the dust settled the "Gray Lady's" reputation was saved, but the editor found himself without a job.
   
   The One That Got Away is a book about confronting loss, be it fish or career. Howell Raines learned that in relinquishing his former identity as a newspaperman, he actually got what he wanted. As much as he loved journalism, the dream of escape was always there.
   
   As far as his relinquishing that marlin...what do you think?



5. Raines uses the metaphor of hooking and losing a large fish to describe his career; the surprise of getting a job that was beyond his expectations (hooking the fish), the long tedious years of work (fighting the fish), and his unexpected firing (losing the fish). Raines' first fishing book outlined his political agenda. In his second book, he explains his management oversight that resulted in his dismissal. I prefer fishing literature that makes an environmental point, an ethical fishing point, or is just an entertaining story. I am finished buying Raines' books because I do not care to spend my entertainment money to listen to his personal agenda. Raines' books are editoral pages thinly wrapped in fish.

3 comments about The Spy Who Loved Us: The Vietnam War and Pham Xuan An's Dangerous Game.

1. This relatively short book is easy to read in a day's time. This is not because it lacks substance--indeed, the author does a good job of presenting his subject, a man who was a long-time agent of the Vietnamese struggle against American subversion and aggression against their country. What is most striking about this is the common humanity of the man whose life and personality are presented to us: on multiple occasions, he went out of his way--even at cost and danger to himself--to save people from imprisonment or death. Contrast this, if you will, with the smirking sadists who too often occupied our government then and now, for whom out-of-hand killing is simply business as usual. This spy for Vietnam provided intelligence that helped win battles, but he never celebrated the deaths of anyone. Indeed, he saw no way out of the dilemma he faced: that he loved and wanted to defend his country and its people, while at the same time being genuinely fond of the Amercians he befriended.
   
   The complexity and the contradictions that he embodied are part of the value of a book of this type. It shows life as more than the good-vs.-bad cartoon that we typically get from politicians and our kept press. Mr. An lived a life of hard choices, and it is to his credit that, though he chose to serve his country first, he did not simultaneously discard his responsibility to do what he could to save from harm those threatened by the surrounding conflict.



2. Americans can be, it seems, simplistic saps in both love and war. This is the message of THE SPY WHO LOVED US, a new book by Thomas Bass, which describes the amazing career of Pham Xuan An, a man who served as both a senior reporter for Time Magazine in Saigon, and one of North Vietnam's top spies.
   
   An's saga is a cautionary tale, however, that raises serious questions about the American press during the Vietnam War. More on that later, but this review should note from the beginning that this book describes the life of an incredible man who successfully bridged the gap between Vietnam and America during one of our most contentious wars.
   
   An was a man of conflicting loyalties. He was, most of all, a Vietnamese nationalist. But he was also a communist whose mission was to love America - in order to destroy its military adventure in South Vietnam. Because he became immersed in the American way of life (on orders from Hanoi, An spent two years at a California college in the late 1950's), he was able to provide valuable guidance to the North Vietnamese hierarchy in Hanoi (and elsewhere) as they fought to defeat America in Vietnam.
   
   The author, Thomas Bass, a journalist and college professor, gives An full credit for the American defeat in Vietnam. An not only gave Ho Chi Minh valuable insights into the American psyche, the North Vietnamese agent also provided tactical and strategic planning for the battle of Ap Bac in 1963 (where the Viet Cong first defeated the South Vietnamese army that were equipped for the first time with U.S. helicopters) and the 1968 Tet offensive (An actually played a key role in identifying the targets in the communist attacks). In addition, An's analysis of American bargaining strategy at the Paris peace talks laid the basis for the eventual North Vietnam takeover of South Vietnam. That he did this while working full time for Time Magazine only enhances the legend that An, who died in 2006, left behind. Certainly Time Magazine founder Henry Luce must be spinning in his grave. One also has to wonder about Henry Kissinger's opinion of An's role in the war.
   
   An got away with his secret role because he established himself as a savvy, bon vivant reporter working for foreign news organizations in the war-time Saigon. He had high-level contacts within both the South Vietnam and American communities (including a close relationship with American counter insurgency expert Edward Lansdale). He held court daily at such hangouts as the Continental Palace shelf bar and the Givral Café where key players from the government, diplomatic and press communities hung out to exchange gossip. And, of course, he provided valuable reporting of the war and Saigon politics for Time Magazine (An worked for Reuters before moving to Time).
   
   But that was his daytime job. At night, An wrote lengthy reports (in invisible ink) analyzing events in Saigon for the Hanoi leadership who eagerly looked forward to his voluminous reports. A courier, and sometimes An himself delivered the reports to the Viet underground base at Cu Chi, which neighbored the massive U.S. airbase at Long Bien, 25 miles outside Saigon. An was extremely disciplined and smart enough to realize that he could not compromise himself by fiddling with the truth - in either of his jobs as a reporter or a spy. He constantly worried about getting trapped by a misstep, in either his reports or his activities.
   
   One decisive intelligence report that originated at a Saigon dinner party alerted the North Vietnamese to the overthrow of Cambodian Prince Norodom Sihanouk and the invasion of Cambodia by South Vietnamese forces. The North Vietnamese evacuated their strongholds inside Cambodia so that the SVN invasion went for naught.
   
   So how was it that Pham Xuan An was able to establish his dual role of a Time Magazine correspondent and his spying for North Vietnam? In the aftermath of the North Vietnamese victory, many have said that the American press in Saigon was both naïve and gullible, or both, to allow one of the highest ranking North Vietnamese agents to establish himself among their ranks.
   
   If truth be known, however, An was an excellent reporter, for both Time Magazine and Hanoi, and his success in both journalism and espionage was due to the fact that he reported the truth. One has to wonder about the moral implications of deceiving the Americans in such a role, given that tens of thousands of Vietnamese and Americans were killed due to his undercover work. But one also has to remember that An was a dedicated Vietnamese nationalist who believed that communism offered the best avenue towards independence, even if it was dominated by the North Vietnamese.
   
   Bass reports that some American reporters were suspicious of An (Ray Herndon of UPI, for one); others were disappointed, once they discovered the truth. Peter Arnett told Bass, "Even though I understand him as a Vietnamese patriot, I still feel journalistically betrayed. There were accusations all throughout the war that we had been infiltrated by the Communists. What he did allowed the right-wingers to come up and slug us in the eye. For a year or so, I took it personally. Then I decided it was his business.'
   
   But there were several prominent Americans journalists who counted An as among their most important Vietnamese contacts. Bob Shaplen of the New Yorker was one of the most influential correspondents covering Vietnam who spent inordinate amounts of time with An when Shaplen was in Saigon. David Halberstam of the New York Times was another who was close to An, as was Neil Sheehan of UPI. These journalists were the most prominent critics of the American conduct of the war in Vietnam. Did An turn them against the war effort as part of his Hanoi portfolio? That's a subjective question, and we'll probably never know the true extent of his influence on the American journalists.
   
   But the real failure by the Americans was not inside the media. One has to ask what happened to the American CIA that played a dominant role in the Vietnam War? How is it that the best and the brightest American spies failed to undercover a top agent who was operating right under their noses? Indeed Bass quotes American CIA agent Frank Snepp as saying that the U.S. intelligence service used An to feed information to American journalists. As such, An was the beneficiary of invaluable intelligence from the CIA itself -- which he, of course, passed onto Hanoi.
   
   In his introduction to the book, trying to explain the man he has chosen to write about, Bass makes the following analysis that pretty well sums up An's role in the war:
   
   "During the twenty years it fought the Vietnamese, the United States never understood the people or the culture of Vietnam...America's disregard for its enemy cost it dearly. It lost the war with fifty-eight thousand soldiers killed and hundreds of thousands wounded, and it lost its naiveté about its invincible military might. America's enemy did not make the same mistakes. The Vietnamese studied their adversary. They cultivated an agent who could think like an American, who could get inside the American mind to learn the country's values and believes...They needed a strategic spy, a poetic spy, a spy who loved Americans and was loved by them in return."
   
   Bass's new book is not the only study of An's role in the Vietnam War. In 2007, Larry Berman wrote THE PERFECT SPY: THE INDREDIBLE DOUBLE LIFE OF PHAM XUAN AN, which gives perhaps a more strategic view of An's career as a double agent. Both Berman and Bass had direct access to An in the 1990's and early 2000's, so there are plenty of valuable insights in both books from the man himself.



3. He passed information about American troop movements and strategy which he gathered while posing as a journalist for Time and other US media to the VC and NVA, enabling them to win several major engagements and kill thousands of US troops. The American journalists he worked with think there was nothing wrong with this and started a scholarship fund to benefit his son and enable him to study in America. This book inadvertently tells you an awful lot about the bias of the media in Vietnam which was a major contributing cause to the abandonment of South Vietnam and the ensuing misery suffered by millions of Cambodians. Laotians and Vietnamese which followed 1975. Don't forget them or the troops killed by Pham Xuan An's treachery when you read this book, as it is very one-sided. Ask yourself as you read through it what the author would have said about an ethnic German working for the US press in 1939-45 who passed valuable military intelligence on to Hitler.

5 comments about So Many Books, So Little Time: A Year of Passionate Reading.

1. Sara Nelson's delightful memoir on the sheer joy of books is at once a very personal commentary and a salute to inveterate book fiends at large. Lifelong reading addicts will feel an immediate affinity to Nelson's insatiable lust for the written word. We can also well relate to her frustration that there are many, many more books out there than we will ever have time to read in a lifetime!
   
   Written with humor, wit, and candor, "So Many Books, So Little Time" is a delight for all book lovers. If nothing else, it's comforing to know we're not the only ones who willingly find ways to prop our eyes open until late into the night, oblivious to the impending alarm clock, in order to finish "just one more chapter" of a book we've absolutely fallen in love with.
   
   Sarah Bruce Kelly
   Author of THE RED PRIEST'S ANNINA



2. I had high hopes for this book, and as I read it I began making a list of books she cited that I might want to read. It's not a very long list. While I can tell Nelson is an avid book person, her writing style comes across like the latest in what even she calls "chick lit." My wife is not as much a book person as I am, but I think she might like this even more than I do, simply because it is so relentlessly written from a chick's eye view. I did find one book she mentions that I've put into my Amazon basket - David Gilmour's HOW BOYS SEE GIRLS. It looks very intriguing, and I have recently read Gilmour's pseudo-memoir, THE FILM CLUB, which I enjoyed, so ... I did finish Nelson's book - it's a pretty quick read - but, like I said, I was a bit disappointed, particularly in view of the fact that its title has long been my own personal mantra. It's not that I didn't like SO MANY BOOKS...; maybe it was just a bit too irreverent and flip - and yes, female - in its overall attitude. I am sure that most women readers would like this book very much. - Tim Bazzett, author of PINHEAD: A LOVE STORY



3. Watch Video Here: http://www.amazon.com/review/R2X945F8JOXSX6



4. When I first heard about this book, I was intrigued by its premise, as I never go anywhere without at least one or two books in my bag and am a confirmed book lover and avid reader. If I go on vacation, I pack a bag just for the dozen or so books that I simply must take along with me. I am most comfortable when I am surrounded by books. In fact, I look forward to retirement, so that I will have more time to read. I simply love to read! I cannot imagine a world without books and, quite frankly, I have never understood people who say that they do not care to read.
   
   So, this book seemed to be right up my alley. Well, the author does not disappoint, as she takes the reader along with her on her very personal journey. Her goal, not an overly ambitious one, is a book a week for fifty-two weeks. She does not necessarily stick to her list of books, and she meanders along, changing course in mid-stream sometimes, as many of us so often do. Yet, she always keeps up an entertaining discourse on the book that she is reading or has read, remarking upon its place in her world. She interweaves snippets of her personal life with her thoughts on those books that she reads. She talks about authors and the impact that some of their work has had on her, as well as her reading likes and dislikes.
   
   The author writes in a light and breezy conversational tone, so that, at times, it almost seems as if one old friend were talking to another about some books she had enjoyed. I was delighted to discover that we liked many of the same books for many of the same reasons. Within the pages of this book, I also happily discovered some new titles that piqued my interest. Moreover, the author, knowing how insatiable some book lovers are, even appends three lists at the end of her book, which lists consist of books she had planned to read during that year of reading, books she actually did read but did not discuss in her book, and books in her must read pile. What book lover is not familiar with that ubiquitous must read pile of books! Anyway, I did enjoy perusing through her lists, looking for books of interest.
   
   This book is a light-hearted sojourn into the world of reading and books that is meant to be a sharing of a wonderful passion. It is a funny and charming work of non-fiction. I thank the author for sharing her thoughts and insights, as I very much enjoyed reading them. It is, as always, a pleasure to come across such an enthusiastic fellow book lover.



5. Sara Nelson, So Many Books, So Little Time: A Year of Passionate Reading (Putnam, 2003)
   
   I had this book on my goal list for three years before getting to it. Then I finally started reading it on January 31... and did not finish it until March 20. To say that I understand the book's title (and recognize the irony in my own approach to it) would be, perhaps, understating the case.
   
   I'm not one for memoirs, but it was impossible for me not to pick up a memoir about a woman whose goal is to read one book a week for an entire year and keep a journal about it. I mean, that's just perfect fodder for a bibliophile, right? And it helps that Nelson's narrative voice is keen and witty. This book is a collection of conversations I'd hope to have with someone I was tandem-reading books with; there's a lot about the books, of course, but Nelson also ties the books into her life (usually during musings on why a particular book jumped out at her at the particular time she read it), current and historical events, and all sorts of other ephemera. Well, ephemera to the book lover, anyway; who needs life when you have a bushel of cherry shelves crammed with books whose spines are calling out to you every minute of the day? Oh, yeah, I grok where Sara Nelson is coming from, I surely do.
   
   I will warn voracious readers that, like Nancy Pearl's Book Lust, So Many Books, So Little Time is the kind of book that will add any number of titles to your to-be-read stack. Even books that don't sound interesting in the least are written up by Nelson so well that I felt the need to add them to the list, just because she makes them sound so enchantingly bad. So while ultimately this book might lead you to a much thinner wallet, I wholeheartedly recommend it. ****

5 comments about When All the World Was Young: A Memoir.

1. Nostalgically deep yet painfully honest account of a young girl who never quite fit in set in the halcion days of America's golden age.



2. WHEN ALL THE WORLD WAS YOUNG is an immensely readable book. Barbara Holland's story kept me interested from start to finish. She left me wanting to know more about her writing career, her marriages and mostly her children. The story had added interest to me because, like Barbara, I also grew up in the Washington, D.C. area.
   
   I could also identify with the distress that she experienced during her school years. So many children are happy until they start school. I guess it's a major awakening when the world intrudes into our lives for the first time. We're on our own with opinionated teachers and other children who may not like us for reasons that we don't understand.
   
   This is a memoir and so not everything is answered, but the true measure of any good story is not wanting it to end.



3. "Growing up is the process of learning how many things you can't do and how many people you can't be. When you've winnowed them out, what's left is you." - Barbara Holland
   
   I've said before of author/essayist Barbara Holland that she has a remarkable talent for perceiving the small details of life and living. Or rather, a talent for remembering what she perceives and subsequently bringing it to the attention of the lumpish rest of us.
   
   In mid-2006, Holland wrote a piece for the magazine AARP, "Being 70: The View from Up Here." So, published in 2005, WHEN ALL THE WORLD WAS YOUNG can perhaps be taken as Barbara's final word on the subject of her formative years. Somehow, I don't expect a sequel.
   
   This volume is Holland's episodic narrative of her life from shortly before the beginning of World War II, at which time she was about six, to her first job in the display department of the Hecht Company in her (apparently) very early twenties. Measured against the comparatively happy memoirs of other female writers - Laura Shaine Cunningham (Sleeping Arrangements) and Doris Kearns Goodwin (Wait Till Next Year: A Memoir) come to mind - WHEN ALL THE WORLD WAS YOUNG is surprisingly bittersweet. The author is not reticent about her sternly authoritative stepfather, a self-absorbed mother disengaged from maternalism, her shoplifting phase, her high school abortion, and her wretched first marriage.
   
   As in all of Holland's books that I've read to date, her wry, iconoclastic humor is a joy. She relates how, in the fourth grade, she was given the assignment of reading a passage from the Bible to the class every morning.
   
   "I read my classmates a psalm a day, looking for the most rousing ones to hold my audience. ('Thou hast also given me the necks of mine enemies, that I might destroy them that hate me. They cried, but there was none to save them: even unto the Lord, but he answered them not. Then did I beat them small as dust before the wind. I did cast them out as dirt in the streets.' Psalm 18, perfect for the playground.)"
   
   Because of her talent for perception, she comes across with unorthodox snippets of insight, such as: "Peculiar relatives make good stories in later life, but to a child they're a wobbly rudder." Or this: "Down below the grownup eye level, even the best-kept suburb seethed with action."
   
   I wished WHEN ALL THE WORLD WAS YOUNG was two, three, four times as long. As a child, Barbara was an awkward loner who found companionship with only one or two really close friends, and who otherwise found escape in books. I soon realized that she and I, when growing up, were much alike. And my affection for her has grown accordingly.



4. I wish it hadn't ended -- but it ends, just the way it begins, with the perfect sentence. OH my gosh, where to begin. I can only say that I adore Barbara Holland's phrases and analogies. This is memorable stuff, turning me right into an annoying cheerleader along the lines of "You HAVE to read this book!" I feel it's my duty, as a friend and relative, to recommend it to others, especially my three sisters. We were born in Washington, D.C. (post-war), raised in the Virginia suburbs, and frequently visited our aunts in Maryland, in what's now a neighborhood more dangerous than Fallujah, so "When All the World Was Young" has the added allure of familiar nostalgia. But mainly, it's just a perfect memoir: rich, comic, dark, fearlessly honest, revealing, highly comforting. With two children in public high school in the much-touted Fairfax County School System, I feel great heaps of despair over the whole shebang (for lack of ability to better describe our personal education woes and utter lack of "school spirit"). Just reading Ms. Holland's reminiscences about school has bucked me up enormously, really more than anything else ever has. For this alone, I owe her much gratitude, but I'm also thankful for laughing my head off over subjects like the 1950 government's instructions on dealing with nuclear attack. I don't want to give anything else away; incidentally, be forewarned about reading Lynn Harnett's review because she basically gives the whole book away - yikes! For me, "When All The World Was Young" is right up there with Betty MacDonald's memoirs and Cornelia Otis Skinner's "Our Hearts Were Young and Gay", and that's high praise. Highly recommended; thank you, Barbara Holland! (Please keep writing)



5. Unlike many autobiographies, this one avoided two frequent mistakes. First, it did not read like a boring recitation of events which plaques so much nonfiction. Barbara Holland is a gifted and interesting writer. But more importantly, she does not make excuses for, sugercoat, or gloss over her sometimes none too stellar behavior. She avoids the mistake of portraying herself as a heroine, always right, at the mercy of the mistakes of others. Her hobby of shop lifting as a young child is described and explained forthright, not excused. Even at the end of the book as life whirls out of control, she never whines. She always accepts responsibility for her behavior. Although she explains why she was misunderstood or why she was just plain acting badly, she never (like so many autobiograhers) blames anyone and everyone else for her troubles. This is an insightful look into the disturbed life of a sometimes happy, but mostly unhappy childhood, and a brilliant portrayal of the times. Growing up in the late fourties and fifties myself, this book jogged my memory over and over. It truly was a time like no other, an atmophere in American that our children and grandchildren, unfortunately, can never experience. Kids went out to play without supervision and had free rein of the neighborhood. We did not wear bike helmets and knee pads and globs of suntan lotion, and we certainly didn't carry music and cellphones. An innocent (and, as one reviewer says) a not so innocent time, when the world was neither more glorious nor less evil, but truly simpler, quieter, and incredibly, gloriously different.

5 comments about Waiting for an Ordinary Day: The Unraveling of Life in Iraq.

1. Title: Waiting for an Ordinary Day: The Unraveling of Life in Iraq
   Author: Farnaz Fassihi
   Rating: ****1/2
   Tags: iraq, war, insurgency, daily life
   
   I wish every American would read this book. It is about the daily life of Iraqis from the time the U.S. invaded into 2006. The author is Farnaz Fassihi, an Iranian American journalist.who covered Iraq for the Wall Street Journal. She traveled around Iraq and told the stories of everyday Iraqis.
   
   If it an't broke, don't fix it. Iraq was broken, but it wasn't our responsibility nor in our power to fix it. Instead we brought death, sectarian violence, poverty, forced migration, loss of basics such as electricity, adequate hospitals and schools... and so on. One particularly effective chapter imagines what New York would be like if it had gone through what Baghdad has.
   
   Fassihi shows the complexities of the situation. There were Iraqis who welcomed the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. For the Sunnis, though, Saddam's overthrow meant a loss of power and prestige. After the invasion, Iraqis knew that the U.S. Army protected only the oil ministries, and it led them to conclude the war was for oil. As their lives descended into chaos and terror, hatred for Americans grew.
   
   Here's Fassahi's summary of her time in Iraq:
   
   "I've borne witness as people's lives have unraveled around me. I recall a poignant quote from Martha Gellhorn, a pioneer female war reporter, from her book The Face of War: "War happens to people, one by one." War doesn't just happen to the military, whose soldiers are fighting, or to the government, who wages it. It happens to people, one by one, house by house, and family by family. I have not met a single Iraq whose life hasn't been touched by tthe war or altered because of everyday violence. I have heard this sentence from Iraqis, over and over, "until now, we are waiting". What are they waiting for, I wonder. Perhaps for just an ordinary day." (p. 272-3).
   
   Too much war coverage in Iraq has focused on America, and seems to not consider Iraqis as important. They are. They are human beings who have suffered at our hands. We need to be reminded of that, whenever we thing we know what is best for the world, and whenever we think we have unlimited power to change the world.
   
   Publication PublicAffairs (2008), Edition: illustrated edition, Hardcover, 304 pages
   Publication date 2008
   ISBN 1586484753 / 9781586484750



2. 
   The daily life in Iraq as described by Farnaz Fassihi shouldn't surprise those who are disposed to reading this book. I think it would be a surprise to those who only experience the Iraq War through cable TV news.
   
   The overwhelming TV reporting on Iraq has been sound bites on the US troops, individual heroic efforts, sports, smiling people with purple fingers and the effectiveness of "the surge". If there are stories about the total loss suffered by people Amal al-Khudeiry or how people like Fatin cope after a twin sister has been "gunned down" they are drowned out by the frequency of the "experts" who talk about winning, tactics, strategies and politics. We've read about high profile kidnappings but has there been a story about a middle class family who sold everything only to have a dead body returned to them? Has there been a personal follow up story on a released Abu Ghraib inmate? I read in this book and elsewhere that there have been two million refugees, but do not recall one TV media story on any refugee in these past 5 or so years.
   
   The Wall Street Journal has Farnaz Fassihi who faced enormous risks and Daniel Pearl who did not return. They did their part and Fassihi praises her company. On p. 208 another picture emerges. Her editors ask how can she call Iraq a "disaster" with the US election at hand. They tell her she would "validate" the "critics". This is Orwellian logic. A 5 car auto wreck can be called a "disaster", but the destruction of total neighborhoods cannot because there is an election at hand. The news should be cleansed or withheld so criticism will not seem valid. This, for me crystallized the state of our media. It has great technology, courageous reporters and access to support (security, translation, etc.) but its self censorship distorts its accuracy. As long as accurate reporting is considered "validating" "critics" the public will never get a straight story.



3. Farnaz Fassihi is a great reporter with an eye for all the details that transform an ordinary narrative into something superb. She tells the story of a "cursed ambulance", whose driver laments that since the American invasion, people die in his vehicle regularly. It only takes her a few carefully chosen words to describe how Iraqi shoulders seem more relaxed in the immediate aftermath of the invasion, or how the exhiliration of one of her Iraqi co-workers at voting in Iraq's first "free" elections fades and he wraps his purple-stained finger (the sign that he has voted) in a bandaid so that Sunnis in his neighborhood won't kill him for collaborating. She also deftly draws attention to the more familiar issues -- reported everywhere from her own contributions to the Wall Street Journal to the New Yorker -- such as the different definitions of "security" and "democracy" held by American administrators and the Iraqis themselves.
   For all those reasons -- and many more, including Fassihi's ability to chronicle not just what she sees around her but also be a memoirist, writing about her own life and its gradual deterioration (from restaurant outings and parties to life under siege in a hotel suite ultimately destroyed in a bombing) -- this should have been an extraordinary book. The author has the reporting skills, the insight and the courage to step outside the boundaries imposed by North American journalism -- the rule of objectivity at all costs -- to call it as she sees it, a trait first noticed publicly when an e-mail decrying the real state of affairs in Iraq to friends and family became public in the fall of 2004. Perhaps it is unrealistic in view of her youth and relative inexperience compared to this veteran, but I had hoped I would find something as powerfully moving as Robert Fisk's recent opus, The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East. I didn't.
   Fassihi has been badly let down by her editors at Public Affairs on a number of fronts. At the most basic level, very obvious and jarring errors in spelling and grammar have crept into the narrative repeatedly. Husayn and his "aids" (rather than aides) are slaughtered by Sunnis, people have an opinon "on" Saddam (rather than of), she "diffuses" a compliment. Even more frequent are awkward phrases that jar or sometimes simply don't make sense, from "electronic-mailing websites" to her description of the words "jihad" and "resistance" as being, simultaneously wobbly ideas and profound words. (It's hard to imagine those descriptions coexisting.) She gives a "smiley explanation", while "palm groves swish". (Well, the fronds of palm trees may do that, but swishing groves eludes my imagination.) These aren't occasional; they are omnipresent.
   I don't lay these problems at Fassihi's door -- many great reporters are less-than-great editors. (And while Fassihi learned English while a child, her first language is Farsi.) Which is why the Wall Street Journal has at least three editors and one copy editor read, if not thoroughly review, every bylined story by any staff reporter that is published in the paper. That level of care wasn't taken here, with the result that anyone who is conscious of these spelling, style and grammatical issues will find their level of irritation growing.
   Another problem is the structure. Fassihi doesn't get into her stride until about a third of the way into the book, after the American invasion. A good editor would have caught that and found a way to incorporate the earlier material -- which serves as a great contrast to the crumbling lives of ordinary Iraqis -- within the rest of the narrative, rather than adhere to a strictly chronological approach. It's a tried and tested strategy for just this kind of writing problem in narrative non-fiction.
   Finally, there is the vignette approach. While we get to know some characters throughout the book (mostly Fassihi, her staff and her partner, although also one Iraqi Christian family), each chapter reads like dressed-up material from her reporter's notebook. One literary agent I know would describe this as being too "episodic", meaning that while each of the chapters individually is compelling, they don't contribute as much as each needs to to the overall narrative arc.
   I feel like Scrooge or the Grinch mentioning these issues in this review. But they felt all the more jarring because of the overall merit of this book and Fassihi's reporting skills. This could have been a great book -- should have been a great book. It's not. That does not mean that you shouldn't read it, however, because the experiences she recounts will drive home to you as few others have managed, what it is like to live, day by day, in a war zone as a civilian -- those who, in modern warfare, tend to suffer disproportionately with little or no control over the horrifying events with which they must cope.
   Fassihi concludes by wondering, as so many others who have experienced war have done, what can possibly be accomplished by so much carnage? For anyone interested in delving further into that perennial question, I strongly recommend a book that appeared immediately prior to the invasion of Iraq by another war correspondent, Chris Hedges. War Is a Force that Gives Us Meaning



4. In her book, Waiting for an Ordinary Day: The Unraveling of Life in Iraq, Farnaz Fassihi presents a heart-wrenching portrait of the Iraqi people as they come to terms with the overthrow of Saddam Hussein and the rebuilding of their war-torn country. Drawing on her experiences as a Wall Street Journal senior correspondent living in Iraq, Fassihi portrays a compelling story of the struggles of the regular citizens and their families. At first they cheer the Americans for tumbling a brutal dictator, but then weep in despair as the free life they dreamed about becomes a nightmare.
   
   This book is not a discourse on military tactics and political blunders, but readers need to know that many of the Iraqi people interviewed relate disturbing stories with heavy overtones of anti-Americanism and criticism of the President, and at times, Fassihi finds herself voicing her agreement. Descriptions and conversations, framed by the author's own pain and compassion, focus on the lives of people she has befriended. Many are affected by the overthrow, occupation and subsequent collapse of an Iraqi society that blames not only the two major ruling religious sects (Sunni and Shi'ite), but also the foreign occupiers. In Fassihi's words, "Sometimes I find myself wanting to cry while I'm interviewing people and other times I feel detached, like a machine recording misery and death."
   
   During all this turmoil, Fassihi finds love with a fellow correspondent in this war-torn land. When they are on separate assignments, she is tormented by fears of separation. Her family begs her to come home and give up her position as head of the Baghdad bureau of the Wall Street Journal, but she is drawn in by the plight of the Iraqi people and was even accused of being addicted to the job's constant threats of bombings, shootings and bloodshed. She is persecuted as a woman, shunned for being American, but loved because of her compassion for the people. Under threats of kidnapping, murder, torture, Farnaz attempts to take care of her workers and friends while dodging bullets and car bombs.
   
   The Iraqi people dedicate their lives to regaining their dignity, preserving their art and culture, sustaining their religious beliefs and most of all hoping that some day they will indeed see an ordinary day. Their homes are bombed and searched while loved ones are forcefully detained and spirited away at the slightest rumor. Those detained often don't return, leaving families desparate to know their fate. If they do return, months later, the tales of torture, persecution and deprivations are horrendous. Fassihi's employee, Munaf, sums up their daily lives with the comment, "We are like animals in the wild. We eat, sleep and try not to get killed each day."
   
   This powerful account of life in Iraq helps us understand why stability has been so elusive to the people of a beleaguered country. The details are rich, the story well written, and throughout the book, the true voices of the Iraqi people are heard because of the an empathetic, insightful woman who is not afraid to put herself into the middle of the story.
   
   by Rhonda Esakov
   for Story Circle Book Reviews
   reviewing books by, for, and about women



5. Farnaz's account of events are heart breaking. I have been following the incredible sad story of Iraq before the war started. No news of the war over the years have brought the sadness and misery of the war home so clearly. Farnaze's understanding of the culture, traditions and religion particularly makes her account of the events easier to understand. The fundamental factors which the war architects have so badly overlooked and foolishly underestimated and as foolishly they continue the rhetoric's for an even worst war with Iran.

5 comments about H.L. Mencken on Religion.

1. Even a cursory reading of this collection reveals interesting nuances to Mencken's views on religion that both fans and foes may have missed. It is soon evident that Mencken was more of a religious skeptic or agnostic than the atheist he was frequently taken to be. He certainly did not believe in a personal god, and believed that positive evidence for the existance of a god is unlikely to appear. Nontheless, he was willing to grant the bare possibility of a god. It would seem that like Sartre's grandmother, Mencken's scepticism kept him from being a thoroughgoing atheist.
   
   What really stirred Mencken's bile was the behavior of much of God's fan club here on Earth, many of whom he experenced as being at least intellectually dishonest (if not worse) and dishonorable. Mixed with this was a kind of bemused wonderment at the gullibility of the bulk of his fellow Americans, who seemed ever eager "to believe that Jonah swallowed the whale, or vice-versa." His early career as a Baltimore newspaper reporter observing the Christian nuisances pestering the skid-row bums (see his "Christmas Story"), 'working girls', saloon habitues, and all-around plain folk seems to have ground his rapier to a permanent sharp edge. Was he fair? I don't think he ever pretended he was. His mission, as he saw it, was to apply the lash of verifiable truth to the backs of pious frauds and their dupes. They were perfectly free to reply (and they did) using whatever sort of arguments or language they pleased.
   
   Still, he was not an "anthopophagous atheist of the sort who goes around scaring old ladies", as he once put it. In tones that curiously echo Santayana, he expresses fulsome admiration for the Catholic Church, finding the 'poetry' of the Mass to be enchantingly beautiful; and Church insistance that doctrine was for Rome to decide to be shrewd policy. More interestingly, for a man reputed to be a sour misanthrope, he formed real and lasting friendships with clergy such as Bishop James Cannon of the United Methodist Church--an ardent Prohibitionist! (Normally Mencken consigned Prohibitionists to the lowest circle of his Inferno.)
   
   If Mencken was neither terribly original nor especially profound on the subject of religion; still he--like Mark Twain--put the case for doubt in a frequently hilarious and unforgettable fashion that still serves to kick open otherwise seemingly-closed arguments and minds. This is probably a greater service to civilization than any number of tomes written by philosophers that fell dead-born from the press.



2. If we spoke of blacks and Jews like the other commentators speak of Christians, they would no doubt be blacklisted and widely renounced. As it is, Mencken offers nothing to the intellectual study of religion and philosophy except for an eloquent way to say he "doesn't like it." None the less, it would appear from the reviews of others that if you agree with Mencken's athiest world-view, you will indeed enjoy having him fuel you fire. For me, I like a little more philosophy and a little less rhetoric.



3. Considering most of the articles were written in the 1920s, one is shocked by how timely, fitting and appropriate many of his comments are. The rise of fundie thinking at the turn of last century lasted until the Scopes trial - which is brilliantly covered in this book. (Mencken attended the trial, and covered it with scathing wit) Then, it collapsed. it took the fundies until the late '80s, the 1980s that is, to return to their destructive power that they again hold in our society.
   
   This collection is entertaining, amusing and to some extent, it makes one angry. Why? because we are having to battle with half-wits, nit-wits, baptists, and other witless religions as they try to force their ideas onto others, just as they tried and failed before. Mencken provides an interesting slice of history, as well as a wonderful view of faith healing, the inability of the fundies to hold a rational thought and the dangers of religious leaders impacting political and social policy.
   
   I would strongly recommend this book for anyone thinking about home schooling or considering sending their poor offspring to a religious school. This book will help make up your mind.



4. An excellent read if you are looking for confirmation of the fact that all religious extremists are insane. This would, of course, include Muslim as well as Bible Belt loonies. Mr. Mencken was a long ways ahead of his time in recognising this and savages ALL religious dingbats, home grown or imported.



5. I've read numerous Mencken anthologies, and I think this one is the best. His commentaries on fundamentalist attacks on both evolution and the wall between church and state are as relevant now as they were when he wrote them in the 1920s and 1930s. Moreover, as anyone who's ever read Mencken can attest, the man was a brilliant stylist and frequently hysterically funny. Oh, how the man could write! In contrast to the intellectually lazy media hacks of today, Mencken is sound and fury signifying something.