4 comments about Girls Only.

1. and what I thought would be a fun a collection of nonfiction essays--not much substance to the essays..fell short of my expectations.



2. I just finished this book, three weeks after losing my lovely mother to old age. The interplay of adult and child-like qualities that we all balance precariously with our birth family has never been more accurately (nor more humorously) depicted as in this book. I wept for my loss, but rejoiced in the remaining relationships I have with my sisters, however complicated they are by birth order, age differences, and our individual devotion to our dear mother. I plan to track down a copy of this book for each of my sisters, to remind us to move on in our relationships, now that we have journeyed beyond the last page of Ms. Witchel's insightful story. I recommend this book to sisters and daughters everywhere, particularly those who can still share it with their mothers. May her memory be eternal.



3. Witchel has captured the fun between two sisters and a mother with exact sharpness. This story, although a light read, vocalizes feelings I thought I only felt about my mother and sister. Judging by the amount of reviews this isn't a popular read, what a shame. This would be a great gift for any mother, daughter or sister. I think I'll go make a tuna fish sandwich and call my mom.



4. American feminism has encouraged women to explore their own lives and listen to their own voices. You need not be a woman, a New Yorker, or a Jew to learn from this extraordinarily well-crafted memoir. Self-deprecating humor is laced throughout this incredibly initmate examination of a journalist's life as daughter and sister. Alex Witchel is as unsparing of her own shortcomings as she is loving and forgiving of both her mother's srtrengths and foibles. An independent, interdependent, and dependent woman, Alex encourages us to examine our own lives though the context of her own. I am completely convinced that "Girls Only" will become a staple of book clubs and soon will become a referent for both male and female feminists.

1 comments about Sixty-Four Years as a Writer.

1. For more than six decades, Bill Gulick successfully pursued a career as a writer and author. He has written twenty-seven novels, eight books of non-fiction, as well as several plays. A regular contributor to 'The Saturday Evening Post' and other national magazines, many of his published stories became major motion pictures starring such Hollywood luminaries as Burt Lancaster and Jimmy Stewart. His friends and associates in literary circles and the publishing industry are legion and range from A. B. Guthrie, to Elmer Kelton, to William McCleod Raine. Gulick has also made a name for himself as a leading authority on Pacific Northwest History."Sixty-Four Years As A Writer" is a remarkable, memorable, personal history of his life and career from his days in Oklahoma during the Great Depression to his current status as one of America's premier Western authors. Very highly recommended reading (especially for anyone contemplating a professional writing career for themselves), this is an intrinsically fascinating memoir laced with anecdotes and told in a superbly articulate and engaging narrative style for which he is so well known.

2 comments about Echoes of Violence: Letters from a War Reporter (Human Rights and Crimes against Humanity).

1. From time to time Echoes of Violence is a very interesting book, and when it's at its best the reader will have an extremely difficult time trying not to keep on reading forever and ever.
   
   But alas, this only happens on a few occasions. And that's too bad, because there is no reason whatsoever to think that Carolin Emcke comes even close to being a bad writer. A German journalist with a thorough experience in doing war journalism, Emcke has spent much of her professional career in different war zones all around the world, and she writes in a style that's actually both emotional and clear-sighted at the same time. Not only that, she also offers such detailed background analyses that it never becomes necessary for the reader to have any deeper knowledge about the area she's in or the events leading up the particular conflict (though it's obviously not a disadvantage if the reader indeed does have this knowledge).
   
   Most important of all, though, is the simple fact that she never loses touch with the human aspects of her story.
   
   And that's not much of a surprise, really. After all, it's this humaneness that permeates the entire book and prompted her to start putting the stories into words, since the book is based on letters she began writing to some of her closest friends after visiting Kosovo in 1999 and becoming a witness to the horrendous suffering caused by all the sickening ethnic cleansing. In order to come to terms with what she's seen she decided to put it all into words, and Echoes of Violence is the end result.
   
   However, just because it happens to be quite a touching testimony detailing the stupidity of mankind doesn't mean it's a brilliant book. Simple because it contains too few highly detailed descriptions of war, misery, suffering and revolting battle scenes. Perhaps this criticism sounds creepy, but the thing is, without such gory descriptions it's impossible to get some sort of understanding of all the awful scenarios that Emcke finds herself in. Some of the chapters are in fact quite boring.
   
   Still, this doesn't mean it's not worth taking a closer look at. After all, when it's good it's REALLY good.



2. Although Carolin Emcke's compelling new book is subtitled "Letters from a War Reporter," she fits none of the stereotypes that the rubric of war reporter suggests. Nowhere in her writing does the reader find the cynical, hard-bitten media professional who -- writing on short deadlines for a largely uninformed audience -- has little interest in exploring complexity or challenging the conventional wisdom.
   
   Emcke's letters, written first for her friends and later compiled for publication, give the back story that is left out of most international news reporting. Reading them, one sees a thoughtful but utterly human person at work -- not an omniscient narrator, but someone with emotions, opinions, subjectivity, and humor. Emcke describes herself as a witness, and some of the most compelling passages in the book reveal her grappling with the difficulty of being a faithful witness to situations that are in some sense indescribable.
   
   Emcke has an eye for the telling detail. Describing a hotel in Prishtina, Kosovo, for example, she notes on a visit in 2000 that "the porn magazine in the desk drawer offers 'phone sex with mature women' in a country with no functioning telephone lines." (A few years later human rights observers documented the role of NATO troops and UN police in encouraging the rapid growth of sex-trafficking and forced prostitution in Kosovo.)
   
   Unlike reporters who cover local or national beats -- who can assume that their readership shares a history and culture with the people described, or is at least familiar with that history and culture -- journalists covering foreign crises have to do more than report the facts: they have to translate between worlds. Emcke's moving book shows that this role of translator requires sensitivity, empathy, and understanding, qualities she has in abundance.

1 comments about Deadline.

1. A fresh and inside look at the newspaper business from an unique vantage point of a young, unspoiled writer. Great read and great insights!

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