No comments about Deadline: A Memoir.

5 comments about Baby Plays Around: A Love Affair, with Music.

1. I am always on the lookout for authentic books that deal with the music scene -- and I'm not talking about the countless fan books, nor the ones that are simply out to attack one genre or another. Stapinski's entertaining book is written with insight, passion, and unassuming honesty. On the surface it's just another band getting into playing music, being creative, and trying to make it one way or another. It is refreshing that it's not about a famous band, but a chronicle of one of the millions of groups that form and dissolve almost daily. It's easy to forget that each band is made up of musicians -- i.e., people struggling with their individual destinies and myriad relationships (the essence of all good fiction or non fiction). Having played in many bands myself, I could relate to many of the archetypal scenes described. But more than that it took a critical look at the phenomenon of rock, as well as being informative -- especially in regard to the club scene of New York City. A true delight! -- and the last page came all too soon.



2. "Baby Plays Around --A Love Affair with Music" really is the perfect title for this book. The author plays around town in a rock band; her husband just plain plays around. His isn't the only affair here though.
   
   At first glance you might think that this book is meant for a pretty select audience, being about a little band struggling to make it in the New York club scene, but Helene Stapinski is really writing about relationships. As a band member, she must deal with the interpersonal dynamics occuring amongst a group of people trying to be creative and successful, and to add to the complexity of the situation, the band (at least for a time) also includes her husband. Jealousy, competition, ambition, anger and fear all come into play, but each are in a way quelled by the experience of music --an experience that seems to be an awful lot like love.
   
   Though I'm a pretty slow reader, I finished Baby Plays Around in just a couple of days. It held me in both its details and the arc of the character's emotional growth --which I think should be the measure of any great story.



3. One of the richest, and perhaps one of the most honest nonfiction books I've read, Helene Stapinksi mines her obsessions, both music and love, to create a riveting masterpiece. This story of a freelance writer who falls through the rabbit hole to end up living a childhood fantasy -- as a drummer in a band -- speaks to any of us who hold a dream in our hearts about 'what could have been' were we to follow our wilder creative spirits. But it comes with a price, with significant and painful fallout in many of her relationships, particularly with her husband, and Stapinski doesn't spare any of the uncomfortable, awkward, and many times hilarious experiences she encounters, taking the reader on a wild ride through the smoky downtown clubs in Alphabet City. The writing is so inviting and personal you feel as though you're helping her lug her cymbals as she chases the chimera of musical fame, and discovers the true meaning of unconditional love: a love that persists through our fleeting, nonsensical adventures.



4. What is it about journalists that they think their lives are so interesting? I'm tired of reading books and articles like this. Stapinski is one of the worst of the lot; she seems to believe that the world is dying to hear everything about her life, her family, her career. Please, spare us.



5. Really die-hard music aficionados can probably fill you in on the dynamics in the Beatles or Rolling Stones -- and Helene Stapinski shows that it's not just the big groups that are like that. Her musical memoir, "Baby Plays Around: A Love Affair, with Music" takes on the internal workings of a rising little band.

   Freelance writer Helene Stapinski wanted the play the drums since she was a little girl, so she jumped at the chance to join I Hate Jane with two other women (and briefly roped her new husband into helping out). The band becomes unbalanced when Elizabeth leaves in a huff, and a pair of men join the group. But then things smooth out, and things appear to be going well.

   Professionally, that is. One day Helene's husband comes to her and admits that "baby's been playing around" with some little tart at his newsroom. Unsurprisingly, Helene is enraged, and the searing fights and all-out brawls seem to show that their marriage is doomed. So Helene buries herself in Stephonic ("I Hate Jane"'s new name) and plays the drums like never before...

   Not everybody can say they have relationship advice from Elvis Costello. And that weirdly intimate chapter where Elvis saves Stapinski's foundering marriage is one of the best in the entire book. Overall, she does an excellent job of bringing the band life to the readers -- the good (musical highs), the bad (internal tension), and the ugly (Stapinski being fired for no good reason).

   Stapinski's writing is pleasant and descriptive, like a novel. A very you-are-there feel. And her humor is likably self-deprecating: when thinking about how she has no cool indie music in her CD collection, she thinks "Bless me Elizabeth, for I have sinned I just purchased the new Sting album." That is, until she remembers the wonderful band Yo La Tengo.

   That isn't to say that Stapinski's writing is all fun. Her relevelations about her disintegrating marriage are heartbreaking. And there's some understandable bitterness toward the vaguely stalker-like newsroom tart, and a lesser amount toward band frontwoman/singer Julie, who apparently considered herself queen of all she surveyed onstage.

   Helene Stapinski draws readers into a crazy quilt of glittering clubs, Inuit towns and the heart of New York City. "Baby Plays Around," and a what a tune she plays in here.

5 comments about Malcolm Muggeridge: A Biography.

1. Gregory Wolfe is a buoyant and dexterous writer who obviously loved Malcolm Muggeridge. This biography is a very thorough, fair, even warts-and-all account of the life of the great British writer and television host. Unfortunately, it is also more than that. Wolfe spares little effort in gratuitously reaffirming what he believes Muggeridge's political and religious agenda to have been, and spoils what should have been a straightforward biography with frequent little plugs for American conservative political prejudices. The result is that Muggeridge -- a lifelong critic of institutional fundamentalism in all its guises -- emerges from Wolfe's embrace as a kind of born-again neo-con. Muggeridge was not the only 20th century young socialist sympathizer to have had his utopianism later crash on the rocks of Stalin's crimes, but his own accounts of his journey from material idealist to spiritually minded skeptic are certainly the most entertaining to date in the English language.
   
   Wolfe, however, gives us few insights into Muggeridge's literary achievement, because he is too busy trying to position Muggeridge as some kind of raging bull against liberalism -- which, Wolfe editorializes, "opened the way for moral and social anarchy." Not only that, liberals also dismantled "the moral and cultural traditions of the West," Wolfe claims, and ushered in a "coarsening of attitude towards life," which featured (he says Muggeridge believed) terrible things like rising auto accident fatalities and factory farms for livestock. Leaving aside the fact that the beef industry or traffic laws have not been major targets of British or American conservatives, Wolfe's little jeremiads against liberalism fit uneasily into a biography of a man whose ethos was at odds with ossified, rigid belief systems of almost any kind. Muggeridge skirmished cheerfully with bombast wherever he found it, especially when it came from the pulpit or from politicians. He gave us, brilliantly, what all societies need: a skepticism administered with laughter. He always celebrated the simplest, least self-righteous of Christians, as well as the idea of Christendom, which surely to him meant a civilization of grace and acceptance, not polarization and intolerance -- which are often the hallmarks of how contemporary American conservatism is practiced. If Mr. Wolfe had written a book less intolerant of those whose political views he rejects, it would have more easily reflected the spirit of the man he celebrates.



2. A very strongly recommended addition to academic and community library collections, Malcolm Muggeridge: A Biography is a straightforward study of the life and impact of Malcolm Muggeridge (1903-1990), a British writer and social critic at the center of controversy for his generation. In his creation of an absorbing portrait of a man did not shy from speaking out, biographer Gregory Wolfe has created an informed and definitive presentation on one of the most influential minds of the 20th Century.



3. Malcolm Muggeridge is a literary icon of sorts, a man who called Orwell, Greene and Powell friends, whose image was displayed in Madame Tussaud's Waxworks Museum in London, who was a celebrity editor and tv personality in Britain for much of his life. Yet, it is the final journey of his life, toward spiritual growth and faith, that makes him a lasting figure on the literary scene, and one of the most celebrated Christian writers of the century. Gregory Wolfe's able biography takes us through his literary and spiritual journey, from the dark days of his infidelities and his contemplation of suicide to his saintly days as promoter of Mother Teresea and debater of Bill Buckley. Wolfe introduces us to a wonderful thinker and pundit, and does so without pulling punches, but I would also recommend Muggeridge's own Chronciles of Wasted Time. A shame he never completed the final part of this memoir, for it is a classic in the confessional genre.



4. What an incredible mind! Muggeridge's depth of vision is laid before us, his words powerfully used. It would be accurate to say that he "licked the earth" for most of his life and we are given convictingly honest insight into how this part of his life played out. The Lord had something else in mind and it was a long, slow process for Muggeridge to finally come to Christian faith. Bogged down a bit in the middle for my taste, but such a satisfactory read; couldn't put it down for long.



5. Malcom Muggeridge (1903-1990), British writer and social critic, was one of the most brilliant controversialists and media personalities of his generation. This new biography draws on unpublished diaries, correspondence, interviews, and Muggeridge's prolific writings to chronicle the long and turbulent life of this legendary figure.

   "Wolfe's book is bound to become the definitive biography of Muggeridge." Publisher's Weekly

   "Wolfe has entered his subject's life in the most unobtrusive and salutary way, by adopting the attitude of a servant, so that the reader rides at the turbulent center of one of the most quixotic, troubled, and fascinating figures of twentieth-century Christendom. This biography is both an inspiration and a call to repentance to any who think they can exist as 'carnal' Christians. There's hardly anything Muggeridge didn't try until the Lord laid him low. Wolfe's work will be the standard for Muggeridge studies for years to come." Larry Wiowode, author of Poppa John

2 comments about Vanilla Slim: An Improbable Pimp in the Empire of Lust.

1. The author describes running a small contemporary escort service in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco, as well as producing erotic camcorder flicks, featuring the most beautiful of his contractors, and her answering trivia questions related to world history. This entertaining book is short (but succinct) on the voyeuristic side. It gives a compassionate view of the seedy part of the city, the action and follies of its inhabitants, sex-seeking visitors, those catering to them, and of the cities legislators and cops. Streets, buildings, and shops come to life, as does some of its recent history and art, the drug scene, and the authors days in prison. The "language" is mixed: direct and often beautifully poetic. This book parallels in a way John Steinbecks Cannery Row; I found it at least as much fun to read.



2. Elmore Leonard rules the Florida Coast; Bob Armstrong nails San Francisco!

3 comments about First Loves.

1. Ted Solotaroff loved deeply, otherwise he wouldn't have spent so many years married to the madwoman Lynn, whose portrait is etched at the heart of this unsentimental memoir of a decent man, married to a terrible, neurotic woman. She had some literary pretensios herself, but did little but kvetch at him while he labored hard to help create--not only create but define--what was in the 1950s a totally new literary field--important American writing was for the first time predominantly Jewish. His great friend, Philip Roth, continues to write great novels, while some of the other fellows of the period have been forgotten save in memoirs by their friends, like this one.
   
   But, it was a trenchant time in American writing, and one which will not soon be forgotten, even if some of the magic names seem to dwindle away even as he writes about them, all over, anew. Meanwhile Lynn goes from bad to worse, even as Solotaroff gives her at least the virtue of being extremely sexy and alluring. At times we can see why he stuck it out with her. His father, on the other hand, was a pig. There should be more books like this one, books in which we can see a literary movement being born 9and the machinery required to make one happen).



2. If you know the South Side, Hyde Park and the University of Chicago, and yearn for the days of the high 1950s - beatniks, bongo drums, struggling writers, waitresses, starving grad students - this book will sate your appetite. It beautifully recreates a lost world - so lost that it has almost been forgotten. Alternately tough, lyrical, and mother-ridden, Solotaroff is a wonderful writer.



3. If you worked as a waiter in the Catskills you are going to love
   this book. Even if you haven't you're still going to be intrigued
   by Ted Solotaroff's journey towards what I might call "certified
   smarts". How many of us come out of the big cities, public libraries and dysfunctional families? Somewhere there is a life of the mind that will pay the bills. Meanwhile we're stuck in a dining room wearing a funny outfit and serving food to the paying customers.
   Mr. Solotaroff tells us what his journey has been like, honestly, forthrightlightly and sometimes too graphically but
   always entertainingly.

2 comments about Courage Beyond Words.

1. This new edition of Michel Thomas's biography contains a new final chapter, which describes Thomas's battle in the final years of his life to counter the false and misleading implications of a 2001 profile in the LA Times by its former humor columnist Roy Rivenburg.
   
   Rivenburg ignored a raft of evidence Thomas showed him, as well as extensive documentation in the book, and portrayed Thomas as a fraud who fabricated or exaggerated his WWII experiences.
   
   By cherry-picking minor contradictions, while ignoring overwhelming evidence that undercut his `angle', Rivenburg implied that Thomas did not serve as a CIC Agent, was not a Dachau liberator, played no role in the discovery of the Nazi Party's worldwide membership card files in May 1945, and lied about his encounter with Klaus Barbie.
   
   All of these implications are false.
   
   The investigation undertaken for Thomas's defamation suit against Rivenburg and the LA Times resulted in Thomas's WWII comrades coming forward, unanimously supporting his "claims" and providing documentation to the US Army which led to Thomas receiving the Silver Star for his bravery fighting with US troops in France in 1944. Senators Bob Dole and John Warner pinned the medal on Thomas at the new WWII Memorial in Washington during the week of its dedication in 2004. The Ambassador of France also attended, and saluted Thomas for his bravery fighting with the French Resistance.
   
   Here are some of the facts Rivenburg ignored, and continues to ignore more than six years after his profile was published:
   
   Michel Thomas served as a CIC Agent from 1945-47, as attested to by every surviving member of his CIC unit, all of whom gave sworn declarations in his defamation case against the LA Times. Agent Walter Wimer, for example, stated that Thomas "was sent out on missions by our commanding officers in the same capacity and with the same duties and powers as the other Agents of our unit." Agent Theodore "Ted" Kraus stated, "I worked closely with Thomas within the CIC for approximately 15 months from 1945 to 1947. Thomas operated as a full-fledged CIC Special Agent, not as a civilian employee, translator or investigator. " Kraus was interviewed by Rivenburg in 2001, but was never mentioned in the profile.
   
   Michel Thomas was at the liberation of Dachau on April 29, 1945. He took photos there - and kept the negatives -- that were verified by the curator of the Dachau Memorial museum. Thomas's presence at the liberation was later verified by the very sources Rivenburg quoted in his article to discredit Thomas. After reviewing this evidence and interviewing Thomas, the US Holocaust Memorial Museum honored Thomas before a large crowd at their "Salute to Liberators" event in May 2004.
   
   Thomas's role in the discovery of the Nazi Party's membership card files was confirmed by the leading expert on captured German war documents from the US National Archives, Robert Wolfe. In 2003, Wolfe wrote a monograph detailing this evidence and concluding that, just as he "claimed", Thomas discovered the files at a paper mill outside Munich in the final week of WWII. This was further bolstered by a 2006 article by a veteran prosecutor from the Justice Department's Office of Special Investigations (OSI) in the US Attorney's Bulletin.
   
   Thomas's 1983 criticism of then-OSI chief Allan Ryan's report regarding Barbie was later proven correct when additional documents were found that showed CIC knew of Barbie's past well before 1949 and CIC officials covered this up. The current head of the OSI, Eli Rosenbaum, attended the Silver Star ceremony at the WWII Memorial in 2004.
   
   Rivenburg tried to portray Barbie's prosecutor Pierre Truche as calling Thomas as a liar by quoting an inaccurate translation of a 1987 article in Parisian newspaper Le Monde. Rivenburg left out that Truche met with Thomas in his office after the trial and said he excluded his testimony not because he thought Thomas was lying, but because "The truth can sometimes not be likely" and he did not want to have to explain Thomas's complex testimony to the jury.
   
   As for the "Thomas told journalists he was born in France for 38 years" allegation, Rivenburg provides no evidence for this. It is likely is based on a twisted interpretation of multiple news articles. Thomas left Poland at age 7 after he and his family experienced vicious incidents of anti-Semitism there, and never identified himself as Polish as an adult. He spent his formative years in France, spoke fluent French, and fought in the French Resistance during WWII, as is well-documented by the French Bureau des Anciens Combattants. It is likely that when he was interviewed over the years and was identified as French by various journalists, Thomas did not object to this. Rivenburg has now twisted this to state that Thomas "told journalists he was born in France." As with his other insinuations about Mr. Thomas, this one must also be taken with more than just a grain of salt.



2. This book makes claims about the World War II feats of Michel Thomas that are completely at odds with military records, newspaper articles from that era and other reliable sources.
   
   Some examples:
   
   1. Author Christopher Robbins claims Thomas was an officer in the U.S. Army. In fact, Thomas was a civilian employee, and the L.A. Times, which debunked much of this book, has National Archives military documents from 1946 bearing Thomas' signature alongside the words "civilian assistant."
   
   2. In the book, Thomas said he was born in Poland. However, for 38 years, he told journalists he was born in France -- and different parts of France at that.
   
   3. Robbins claims Thomas was with the first battalion of U.S. troops as it entered the Dachau concentration camp in April 1945. After the L.A. Times proved otherwise, Thomas later tried to backtrack, claiming he never said he was with the battalion, only that he arrived at Dachau sometime the first day. Unfortunately for Thomas, he had repeated the story from the book in a sworn court affidavit.
   
   4. The book says Thomas single-handedly discovered and rescued millions of Nazi Party ID cards from destruction at a paper mill near Munich in May 1945. But this version of events is flatly contradicted by October 1945 articles in the New York Times and London Express.
   
   5. Robbins also claims Thomas escaped Gestapo butcher Klaus Barbie. But in 1983, the U.S. Justice Department's chief Nazi hunter called a press conference to denounce Thomas' Klaus Barbie stories. And when Thomas testified at Barbie's 1987 trial, the prosecutor asked the jury to disregard Thomas' testimony, saying it wasn't made in good faith.

No comments about In My Mind's Eye.

1 comments about The Universe: From Flat Earth to Black Holes and Beyond.

1. Asimov is amazing. I liked all I read of his science books. His "universe" is clear and interesting. His other books on science are also outsatanding.

   I highly recommend him.

5 comments about Lake Effect.

1. Rich Cohen's 'Lake Effect' is great literature for me for a number of reasons:
   
   . It unassumingly transported me to Glencoe Illinois, the town in which i grew up and the town in which I came of age - at the same ages Cohen covers in the story.
   
   . The story focuses on Cohen's friends, and yet conveys the author's deepest feelings and concerns without his wearing them on his sleeve.
   
   . I couldn't put the book down! It was a great read! And at the end of the book I came away with a feeling that I'd been carried on a ride through Cohen's most intimate teen-aged years, years that, for me, had been critical towards forming my own self-definition.
   
   . He conveyed a clear picture of the folks on whom he focused in the book's text.
   
   
   I highly recommend this beautiful book to all, and envy them the journey on which they'll be setting out. It won't be a lengthy one - I finished the book within three days, partially because, as noted above, I just couldn't put it down. But I assure potential readers that the trip along the author's route will be a memorable and pleasant one.



2. Rich Cohen is a very-very good writer. This book is a bitter-sweet memoir of him growing up. I was surpized to find out what kind of kid he was. As usual, Rich is superb at making his characters so alive that they seem a part of your past also. Here is proof that one doesn't have to be from the Midwest or from the 70s to enjoy the book! It reminded me of Catcher in the Rye, except it's good to know that the kid turned out all-right in real life. Reading this book was a pure delight, although it is sad at times.



3. The book recounts the author's years growing up in the 1980s in Glencoe, a Chicago suburb, and subsequently his student years in New Orleans, but really centres on his best friend Jamie. It is evocative of the period and full of memorable imagery. Jamie is an extraordinary and delightful character, and the remarkable platonic friendship he and the author Rich enjoy is beautifully recounted. This is a book which repays careful reading, not one to be hurried. It reveals much insight, and while the end is far from negative, I experienced a feeling of great sadness and yet tremendous warmth as the book drew towards its conclusion. A thoroughly rewarding book, highly recommended.



4. As a graduate of New Trier High School, I feel that this book did a wonderful job illustrating some of the feelings I had during High School. I thought Cohen's writing was captivating and entertaining, and I am very interested to read his other books. "Lake Effect" is a must read!



5. Very interesting, perceptive, and often funny writing style. Cohen can write "thumbnail sketches" of people and sitations as well as anyone I've read lately. (His short riff on a summer of bad jobs is a good example, wherein he sums up his bad bosses in a sentence or two, and you still "get" what kind of people they are.) In short, highly recommended.

No comments about Am I Dead Yet?.