5 comments about Vive tu vida al rojo vivo (Make Your Life Prime Time; Spanish Edition): Secretos para triunfar en todo.

1. Me encanto la manera en la cual esta escrita el libro. Maria Celeste nos lleva a recorrer con ella su mundo tanto personal como profesional combinando ambos de una manera muy amena y mnotivadora.
   Felicidades Mi Mary!Con fe: Cmo transformar tu vida y empezar de nuevo (Spanish Edition)



2. It will keep your eyes open from the first page to the end. I think is a book from Maria Celeste's heart to the world.
   
   Es un libro que mantendra tu atencion desde el principio hasta el final. Yo pienso que sale del corazon de Maria Celeste, para el mundo.



3. "Vive Tu Vida Al Rojo Vivo" llego en un momento muy importante de mi vida. He crecido emocionalmente con el. Aunque todo el libro es una guia de ayuda para renovarse y poder seguir como dices Maria Celeste; navegando por el turbulento mar de la vida, los capitulos que mas me han impactado son: Se siempre el mejor o el peor, nunca mediocre, Prestale atencion a tu sexto sentido y El amor te espera donde menos lo esperas. Por lo intenso de mi trabajo me sentia cansada y quemada y en el proceso de evaluar si queria continuar en mi trabajo. Cuando lei estos capitulos renove mi compromiso y pasion por mi trabajo con los niños que necesitan un hogar y con familias como la de Maria Celeste que tienen el amor, pasion y compromiso para ayudar a los niños. Habia visto la noticia cuando sucedio lo de su hijo y me rompio el corazon. Pero el fue bendecido con unos padres que lo aman y lo protegen por siempre. Otro capitulo que me llego hondo fue; Para ser perdonados debemos asumir todo el daño que hemos hecho. Mil gracias por la leccion.
   Lo recomiendo 100%.
   Iris D.



4. This book made me cry already in the first 2 pages of the prologue. Maria Celeste, has described a candid and honest story of what I believe every working mother fears, and the urgency of letting her kids know her life story and the lessons learned. Maria Celeste has made this book a very interesting read in telling what has been an amazing journey thru her life and balancing her love life, her children and her amazing career. An inspiring story of a woman that has overcome career and personal obstacles that many people will relate to.



5. I think Maria Celeste wrote a wonderful book. I couldn't put the book down. It took me 3 days to read the whole book. I recommend women to read this book because is very inspirational and helpful. Congratulations to Maria Celeste Arraras on a job well done.

5 comments about How to Lose Friends and Alienate People [movie tie-in]: A Memoir.

1. Reading Toby Young is not a smooth ride, you come up against some overdone phrasing that is tiresome to wade through. But those moments do pass quickly and if you persevere through those blips, you will be rewarded with wonderful anecdotes and amusing characterization of the fashion and society print media, at times hilarious in their criticism and snobbishness toward the rest of humanity especially as they are some of the most unattractive and socially inept people in New York City (which many of their readers never realize until they encounter them at some party or children's function or other at which time the reader wonders, how they ever got to where they did). I've been enjoying this book as I do a box of chocolates - in small doses - each moment very satisfying.



2. I see Jeff Bridges is in the movie version. As the title of my review indicates, I was reminded of "The Big Lebowski" by this book.
   
   I thought the book was hilarious from start to finish.
   
   Those reviewers who bashed him for being politically incorrect are missing the point, I feel. Yes, he's often shallow and crude, etc.; but these qualities, together with his endless good-natured, back-firing hi-jinks, make for a wonderfully funny read.
   
   I picked up the book quite by accident; and the New York scene, Vanity Faire and the New Yorker, etc. are totally strange worlds to me; but his description of them is facinating and funny.
   
   So many laugh-out loud scenes, quotes, etc. His suck-up friend Alex, for instance, succeeds not only in making people feel he is interested in them, but that they are "Oscar Wilde on cocaine."



3. "Laugh and you're safe," wrote Henry Adams. "Laugh and you win," proves Young. His five-star honesty, humor and insight got a two-star demotion for careless writing.



4. The writing is very good. It's articulate, well-paced, precise, and flows smoothly. So I found the book very engaging for a while... until I got tired of the author-and-narrator. There's an amusing and ghoulish fascination to Young's first few dozen anecdotes about his obnoxious behavior; but the amusement wears thin after a while. By the end of the book, the obnoxiousness is what mostly makes an impression, and the book feels too long--too much time spent with a narrator making the exact same sort of missteps over and over and over. I found the tales of life inside Vanity Fair interesting (though the author seems so clueless and so full of personal agenda that I'm not convinced his profiles of various individuals are reliable), but I was irritated by Young's long and repeated complaints that there are no bold, iconoclastic journalists in, er, the Conde Nast empire. Where in the world did he get the idea that the glossy magazines devoted to fashion, celebrity profiles, and photo spreads are the stomping ground of bold, iconoclastic journalists?



5. But it's pretty bad.
   
   Toby Young comes to America for a job at Vanity Fair and succeeds in American Cafe Society about as well as the Duchess of Windsor did with the Royals after her husband's abdication. Imagine the Conde Nast headquarters as a combination of high fashion and low life and make the author the lowest of th e low lifes and you have a pretty good clue where this memoir goes.
   
   There is a movie deal, but my bet is that it will be greatly fictionalized because failure just isn't that funny.

5 comments about From This Day Forward.

1. i am very pleased with all of cokie roberts writings, she is insightful and down to earth in all her books ,she makes history come alive. this book is about marriage and she has a lot of fascinating things to say about it, from the standpoint of her own as well as some historical marriages.



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



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



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

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

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

   You'll be glad you read this book too.




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

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

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

5 comments about Daughter of the Queen of Sheba: A Memoir.

1. I was attracted to this book after seeing the author on Oprah Winfrey. My reason for this attraction was deeply personal. I, too, have dealt with the challenges of living with a bipolar disorder. It is no walk in the park!
   
   This is a beautiful and sensitively written story about a daughter's journey with her mother who suffers from manic depression. Despite the horrifying aspects of the illness with its inherent and dramatic unpredictability, the author manages to embrace her mother with love and look at the humorous side of a sad situation.
   
   Yes, it is dark. That goes with the territory. Yet it will open doors of understanding to those who have no comprehension of what is a prevalent though highly treatable form of mental illness. It will especially mean a lot to people who have borne the trauma of the disease within themselves or among those they love.
   
   Davis Aujourd'hui, author of "The Misadventures of Sister Mary Olga Fortitude"



2. the book if fantastic, very well written. However the experience of getting the book was horrific. Be sure to note the company that is sending you the book because it is not always amazon. It took 5 weeks to get a book that I needed to complete an assigment in a 10 week course.



3. National Public Radio announcer, Jackie Lydon, has written a memoir of life with her colorful family and manic depressive mother.
   
   While in the throes of mania, Delores, Jackie's mother, is brilliant, delusional, dangerous and colorful. Jackie is torn between her mother as the manic 'Queen of Sheba' vs. the regular Delores. The demands places on Jackie and her family by her mother's illness, and the fine line between respect and protection of self and others is explored. Lithium finally brings the manic depression in check but there is also a loss of that part of Delores that is especially creative and unpredictable.
   
   Lydon captures the manic frenzy and metaphorical race of inner life in a marvelously lyrical way. She charts the inner mind much as she'd learn the workings of a new culture while doing a story for NPR. This is a very fine book. I recommend it for anyone with an interest in manic depression or living what it's like to live with a family member who is mentally ill.



4. This book was written by someone from my hometown, thus I know the characters. She changed the names and the places, yet I still knew what she was referring to. She left out any reference to her two younger brothers so were my age. This book was written in a very choppy fashion...hard to tell her current experiences from her past experiences in her writing.



5. I basically just skimmed the last half of the book as she lost me early on. Too bad. A fascinating subject, just extremely badly written.

5 comments about Whittaker Chambers: A Biography (Modern Library Paperbacks).

1. I can still remember my father transfixed on our small, circular screen black and white TV as he watched the House on Un-American Activities Committee drill witnesses in the early 1950s. "Are you, or have you ever been, a member of the Communist Party?" McCarthy barked out. The witnesses would usually take the fifth.
   
   I must admit, when I saw that Tanenhaus was an editor with the NYT, I expected a very liberal spin to the biography of Chambers. Instead, I discovered a scrupulously objective, carefully researched book (over eighty pages of citations). While I don't doubt the accuracy of his work, I am even more impressed by his writing style and his ability to capture the mood of the times (all the more remarkable since the author was not born until late 1955). This was a time when "everyone" smoked. Women wore long white gloves to restaurants. Air travel had not yet eclipsed trains, and polio rivaled the Soviet Union as America's greatest fear.
   
   Tanenhaus takes us back to that era with a riveting account that reads like a novel. His style is as comfortable as a pair of old blue jeans. While the book is hardly short, I read it in three sittings (the second of which took me into the wee hours of the morning). Sam Tanenhaus is an exceptional writer, and I heartily recommend this book.



2. Having just finished Chambers's "Witness," I was pleased (mostly) that Tanenhaus tells much of the same story breezily, though still in more than 500 pages. He is at his best during the hearings and trials, tautly rattling off questions and responses, cutting through the fog of Chambers's too-close account, making the more arcane controversies intelligible.
   
   In Chambers's early life, Tanenhaus sticks to the evidence and refrains from speculating about Chambers's motives for joining the Communist Party, for example. I was somewhat disappointed that he didn't provide more in the way of interpretation, but by the time of Witness's publication, Tanenhaus begins to satisfy this craving for critique.
   
   Most important, Tanenhaus succeeds in making his subject sympathetic in all his flawed humanity. His story has become central (in an odd way) to America's story of the first half of the 20th century--and beyond. But he continues to fascinate because he was so unlikelyy, an American original.



3. Chambers's life is characterized by a constant effort to combine some kind of religious faith with social messianism. His trouble came from not being able to achieve what is not possible. He took in as much from Spengler's The Decline of the West as from Tolstoy's The Kingdom of God is Within You, and he made a mess of them. He did not heed Jesus' words in Matthew 16:24 recommending to deny oneself first, then to pick up each one's cross and follow Him. Chambers ignored the first part. Neither did he understand what it meant by giving God what is God's and Caesar's what is Caesar's. He mingled all, he messed it all. The man had a terrible and frustrated life: full of unbridled passions, carnal as much as intellectual while a communist; and after his defection he led a resigned (to what, the author doesn't say) life, a sort of Christian mediocritas, in peace with himself, seemingly, and looking for understanding amid the new conserative movement he had inspired.
   
   I found much more interesting the first 100 pages or so that deal with his personal and family life. A more sad and frustrated life is hard to find. He found in communism that valve to let out his anger and resentment against social and personal misery. His view on life is similar to his suicidal brother, only he took it on promiscuous sex and politics. His brother took it on alcohol and finally suicide. Instead of looking at the evil around, in their family and society, a look at themselves might have induced them to start working from within.
   
   The rest of the 400+ pages is a total brick. I had to scan through the pages and so practise my fast-read technique. It is so full of irrelevant minute detail, information that the general reader cannot care for. The author does not offer a summary of a life here; he pours all his data collected as a lawyer would. Browsable but not enjoyable.



4. Read this for graduate American history course. There are a few rare instances in American history when a court case grips the passions of its citizens and serves to define people's political or social beliefs based on which side they believed was in the right. The Sacco and Vanzetti case of the 1920's, the Rosenberg espionage trials of the 1950's, and the O. J. Simpson case of the 1990's were to some extent examples of this phenomena. However, the Hiss perjury trials of 1949-50 were the epitome of this phenomenon, and helped to create a divide between liberals and conservatives in American politics that is still evident to this day. During the Cold War era, one could easily identify the political persuasion of a person simply by asking them whether Hiss or Chambers had told the truth. Simply put, the innocence of Alger Hiss was embraced by liberals. If Hiss, a well respected New Deal advocate and important Roosevelt administration member, had actually been an American Communist spying for the Soviets since the 1930's, then a whole mass of conservative accusations would gain legitimacy, and all of FDR's New Deal programs and his foreign policy decisions at the Yalta Conference would become suspect. In addition, Hiss' guilt would call into question security breaches in the Truman administration, which was already being besieged by questions of "Who lost China." It is against this historical backdrop, that Sam Tanenhaus wrote Whittaker Chambers: A Biography; whose purpose was to make the first serious examination of the life and motivations of one of America's most contentious figures in the last half of the twentieth-century, Whittaker Chambers.
   
   Tanenhaus' description of Chambers' early life is an excellent insight into his psychological profile. Born Vivian Jay Chambers on April 1, 1901, (April Fools Day), he came from a middle-class family of meager means. Add to the mix a father who was bisexual and spent much time away from home, a mother who was paranoid, a grandmother who was insane, and his brother Richard who committed suicide, it is no wonder that you have the formula for a man who developed into a tormented soul and was generally estranged from the world and the people around him. In fact, throughout the book, Tanenhaus illuminates his theme, which is to examine Chamber's tormented life at key junctures; such as, when he joined and left the Communist party, when he became a reluctant informer against Alger Hiss and when he distanced himself from the political right near the end of his life. Chambers, who attended Long Island's South Side High School, showed himself to be academically brilliant and an exceptional writer. His parents had big dreams for their son's future. Chambers had dreams too but they did not involve college. Being too young to fight in World War Two, he decided to run away with a friend to see the world. They bummed around and worked their way to New Orleans--a city he fell in love with. "Chambers had discovered life as Hugo described it, a kind of prison, harsh and cruel, but lit from within by tender sentiment and from without by sudden shafts of illumination" (18). After a few months of life on the seedy side and running out of money, he returned home and changed his name to Charles Whittaker but went by Whittaker, and within six months entered Columbia University.
   
   A new world was opened to Chambers at Columbia with which he became enamored. He took English composition with Mark Van Doren, who later in life became a Pulitzer Prize winning poet. Van Doren quickly saw in Chambers a very talented writer and later remarked that he was the best writer among his undergraduate students in the 1920's. Chambers especially enjoyed the friendship of fellow students, mostly Jewish, whom he found brilliant such as Lionel Trilling, Meyer Schapiro, and Mortimer J. Adler to name a few. "It was the ernste Menschen" (serious men) "who shaped Chamber's idea, never altered, of the intellectual life" (22). However, academic bliss was not to be for Chambers. He ran afoul of the school administration for a play that he wrote which was deemed profane, and thus became despondent and quit going to class--eventually dropping out and never finishing his university education. He tried to travel to the Soviet Union to help build a new nation on the advice of Van Doren, but he only made it to Germany before returning home. He took a job at the New York Public Library which fed his autodidactic nature, and he started to consort with many women. It is at this stage in Chambers' life in 1925, that he joined the 16,000 member Communist Party of the United States, (CPUSA). "So much the better. He was used to being outnumbered. He had at last found his church" (46).
   
   Tanenhaus paints a portrait of a man who dove into his new life as a Communist with a religious fervor. Chambers became a much-respected writer for several party newspapers, which brought him to the attention of party apparatchiks in 1932. Chambers also met Esther Shemitz a Socialist, and they married in 1931. It was after his marriage that he accepted an assignment to go underground and actively spy for the Party. He was made the courier of the "Ware cell" in Washington D.C., whose mission was to pass sensitive information from Communist party members who had infiltrated various departments of the U. S. government to Boris Bykov, a Soviet intelligence agent. One of the best-placed spies in the "Ware cell" who provided information to Chambers, then using the alias George Crosley, was Alger Hiss. However, Chambers became so disillusioned by Stalin's purges and his nonaggression pact with Hitler, that in 1938, he quit the party. Fearing for his life and his family's safety, Chambers turned informer and confessed all of his activities to Assistant Secretary of State Adolf Berle, Jr., who forwarded his notes of the meeting to the FBI, which did not follow up on the case until several years later. In addition, an old friend recommended Chambers for a job at Time magazine, which he was elated to have since he was broke. Tanenhaus once again shows that Chambers' literary acumen and zeal for any new project he took on, propelled him to become one of Time's top editors in the 1940's. The magazine's owner Henry Luce said, "Chambers was the best writer Time ever employed" (165). While a writer and editor at Time, Chambers became a most vociferous anti-Communist.
   
   Soon after Stalin reneged on his Yalta Conference promises, a conference that Alger Hiss played a key role in for the State Department, the U. S. government finally moved to ferret out Communist infiltrators in the government. The FBI finally conducted extensive interviews with Chambers. This led to Chambers becoming a government informant in one of America's most dramatic congressional hearings and court cases of the twentieth-century. Tanenhaus' research shows Chambers' denouncement of Alger Hiss was a stinging indictment of the Roosevelt and Truman administrations, since it cast doubt on American liberals' willingness to conduct espionage investigations during the war years. The contrast between Hiss and Chambers could not be starker. Hiss was a Harvard graduate with impeccable looks and a sterling reputation as a government servant. He clerked for Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. His character references included Justice Felix Frankfurter, and John Foster Dulles, who was to become Secretary of State in the Eisenhower administration. Chambers was an overweight plain looking man who did not dress well, a self-confessed Communist and government informant. Tanenhaus did not write about the relationship between Hiss and Chambers until he wrote about the Hiss perjury case, near the end of the book, which made the book a bit awkward to read. However, Tanenhaus does a good job of retelling the facts of the perjury case and Chambers' testimony to the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), as well as his extensive cooperation and long and friendly relationship with Richard Nixon. One finds that Chambers was much more revealing of his own motivations in his critically acclaimed autobiography Witness, which was written in 1952 after the Hiss perjury trial. It was also disappointing that Tanenhaus did not cover more of Chambers' writings and views about Stalinism and his very prescient views of the Soviet-American confrontation that led to the Cold War. Tanenhaus' research does agree with other historians work. John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr, in their book Early Cold War Spies: The Espionage Trials That Shaped American Politics, written some ten years after this book, proved that their was a preponderance of evidence showing that Hiss was a Communist and did commit espionage against the U. S. government. Hiss was not charged with espionage because the statute of limitations protected him. The first Hiss perjury case ended in a hung jury. The second ended on January 20, 1950 with his conviction on two counts of perjury and a sentence to serve five years in jail--he only served forty-four months. Hiss went to his grave denying the charges against him. Haynes and Klehr wrote that he gained much sympathy with the political left again in the wake of the Watergate scandal claiming, "that a government conspiracy had forged evidence and coerced false testimony against him."
   
   Although Chambers was vindicated by Hiss's conviction, Tanenhaus showed that Chambers entered into a self-imposed exile on his farm in Maryland. However, for the rest of his life Chambers was visited by a small coterie of friends with whom he enjoyed lengthy discussions about world affairs. "Still convinced he had left the winning side for the losing one, Chambers foretold a global Communist victory. Gloomy as his predictions sounded, he was not devoid of hope" (450). He believed that the primary way the West could defeat Communism was with morality and religion and not militarily. Needing to earn money, Chambers went back to what he did best. He wrote his autobiography Witness, which occupied the top of the New York Times best seller list for several months in 1952, and gave him the financial security he desired. More importantly, Witness was an anti-Communist manifesto that for Chambers described, "a struggle between the force of two irreconcilable faiths--Communism and Christianity." Witness was a powerful exposé of Communist activity in America and changed the life of one future president, Ronald Reagan. Reagan remarked that Witness was his favorite book and pointed to, "Witness as the book that would shape his political outlook." In 1984, President Reagan posthumously awarded Chambers the Presidential Medal of Freedom. The other person of note that Witness made a huge impression on was William F. Buckley, Jr., who befriended Chambers and offered him the position of senior editor of his fledgling conservative magazine National Review. Both men maintained a very friendly relationship up to Chamber's death in 1961. Though Chambers would write articles for the National Review, he turned Buckley's offer down due to his poor health and his growing reluctance of the tactics that the political right was using--especially those of Senator Joseph McCarthy. Near the end of his life, Chambers became friendly with another former Communist and imminent writer, Arthur Koestler. Koestler wrote of Chambers upon receiving news of his death: "I always felt that Whittaker was the most misunderstood person of our time. When he testified he knowingly committed moral suicide to atone for the guilt of our generation. The witness is gone, the testimony will stand."
   
   In all, Sam Tanenhaus did an excellent job using primary and secondary sources, trial transcripts, and personal interviews to write an engaging biography of Whittaker Chambers. In his book, he provides informative notes and a thorough index; all of which helped to provide readers with a better understanding of the political mood in the country at the time of the Hiss-- Chambers case. The book would have been better organized had Tanenhaus placed the Chambers Hiss relationship information in its proper chronology and not moved it from the 1930's into the Hiss trial period of the 1950's. That small criticism aside, Tanenhaus' biography of Chambers is an important scholarly work for anyone wishing to gain a better understanding of CPUSA activities in U. S., the work of HUAC, and especially its star member, Richard Nixon, and the political left/right divide that was at the center of the Cold War era.
   
   As a graduate student in philosophy and history, I recommended this book for anyone interested in American history, foreign policy, Cold War history.



5. I cannot recommend this book highly enough for understanding the state of American politics, past, present and future. The inner turmoil of Whittaker Chambers is revealed to the world, leaving the reader without a shadow of a doubt as to his courage and greatness. His bitter childhood, his years as a Communist spy, his homosexual inclination, and ultimately his redemptive love for his wife and family, all lead to the climax of Chambers' courageous stance against Communism, which he wins despite all odds. This book fills in the gaps of Chambers' remarkable autobiography, "Witness," which I also recommend as essential political and moral reading.

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

1. My review is actually based on seeing the play recently here in DC. I found it interesting that one can receive either the play or the book with such dramatically divergent reactions. I would say my theater-going experience was quite in line with several of the negative comments about the book--
   
   Sorry, but all I could think after seeing it was that every event in our lives isn't necessarily worthy of being turned into a play. There was no substantial message here and little entertainment value. The two plot lines - her husband's death and daughter's illness left you feeling that not enough time was devoted to either- just making the play seem flat or empty.
   
   I'm sorry for her loss, but watching her go on and on about it was painful. It was more of a recitative of the agonizing details of the death and the days that followed. There was no breakthrough moment, no ups and downs to her monologue- just the same thing- did she ever get over it? At times it didn't seem as if she even really liked her husband. She expressed typical motherly sentiments about the daughter, but you weren't really convinced. It was as if there was more to their relationship than she was telling you, and that, whatever it was, it wasn't pleasant. My mother died in February, and I thought this play might have been in some way meaningful to me. It just wasn't...



2. I have read most of Didion's books and so bought this at a used bookstore without knowing what it was about. Like many of the reviewers before me, the first few chapters describing her husband's death kept me reading, but by the middle of the book I found it a chore to pick up. The content became very repetitive and, as I moved through the pages, utterly hopeless in its tone. Having experienced grief myself and knowing the grasping for some truth that would tell me 'hold on, you will get through this,' I found no such message here and would not recommend this book to anyone grieving the loss of a loved one.
   
   The other issue Didion dealt with at the same time as John's death was their daughter's mysterious illness. Unfortunately this issue gets lost in Didion's grief and there is no real outcome provided in the book. We know that Quintana got out of the hospital but nothing beyond that. The topic is simply dropped with no real emotion expressed by the author.
   
   I feel that for a piece to be worthy of public consumption there ought to be something of value that readers can walk away with. Perhaps as a study of grief, Didion's book could rightfully find its way onto a handful of bookshelves, but as a general reader it is sorely lacking the author's trademark writing charm and expertise. In fact, it is poorly written. There is nothing magical here, except that someone gave the book a wonderful title that belies the meaning the author intended, that she suffered through a year of denial and as of the last page had not recovered from it. Now, almost 4 years after her husband's death, I hope Ms. Didion has found some of the peace she was obviously lacking when she wrote this book.



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



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

5 comments about Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard).

1. I heard about Tokyo Vice from the Daily Show and another friend who read the book. I finally started reading it and couldn't put it down. Jake Adelstein is great story teller and his experiences in Japan were incredible. I didn't know anything about the yakuza before reading the book, I'm interested in finding out more now. I highly recommend this book!



2. Tokyo Vice is one of my favorite novels of all time. Not just because of the content within the confines of the hardcover, but because of the support the author has put behind it. This story covers such a wide spectrum of Jake Adelstein's life that writing it seems to have become his lifestyle. Which makes this book never ending. Once you finish the novel it points you towards a website: <[...]>. I read about this website with great doubt, the only reason I went to it was to see the one post I would expect on a personal website attached to a recent novel: "Sorry I can't update that often, very busy doing a book tour, etc., etc." Instead I found multiple posts as long as chapters in the book describing recent events that have happened since the novel finished. Not only are the posts well written like the novel, but he comments back in full to each comment left on his posts! Or in my particular situation I left him my e-mail and he sent a personal e-mail to me providing contact information since I was curious about going to Japan in the near future.
   
   I can not believe the support behind this novel and I may pick up an extra copy to have in pristine condition (I have a tendency to rough up my novels when I read them the first time.) This is a novel for a new age where people are always connected to the internet, Jake's Twitter also provides access to any book tours that he may be on or whether he is going to have a reading here in America or back in Tokyo.



3. When I started reading this book I had a very different expectation as to its content based on my perception of Japanese culture. This book opened a fascinating window on darker aspects of that culture I was only peripherally aware of. It is also an interesting tale of slow self corruption where the fall is not from on high. Rather a fall from a place of moral ambiguity at best to a place that is way dark and twisted. One wonders if there is any true recovery from such a place but hopes that there is.
   
   I highly recommend this book as a fantastic (if dark) read and a real page turner.



4. Having lived and worked in Tokyo in the 80's and 90's, I found Jake Adelstein's detailed narrative about Japan's criminal underworld fascinating. Most of his book is written with wry humor and the no-holds barred approach of a young, street-wise, foreign reporter fluent in the local language, who can explain the nuances and details of Japanese culture. Ultimately it is a horrifying tale of criminal exploitation, human cruelty, horrific violence and human misery -- very unsettling. Japan and Japanese culture have so many positive and admirable aspects, but this well-written book paints a horrifying look at the underside.



5. This is how great Twitter can be: when I was just 20 pages into Tokyo Vice, I posted this update:
   "Jake Adelstein's TOKYO VICE makes me want to be yakuza"
   
   He responded the next day with:
   "@calebjross It's supposed to have the opposite effect. :)"
   
   Considering that this exchange was completely unanticipated, I was quite surprised by the direct line of contact with the author. I anticipated the exchange ending there. But, then I finished the book, and I realized how insulting my first comment could have appeared. Tokyo Vice is such an amazing story, one that, though filed under "true crime" touches on memoir. Adelstein's position as a reporter with the unique opportunity to out certain immoral (to say the least) yakuza behavior, bleeds into his personal life in deeply affecting ways. As soon as I finished the book, I posted again on Twitter:
   "@jakeadelstein I must apologize for my earlier statement of wanting to be yakuza. I just finished TOKYO VICE. Incredible story, sir."
   
   And he came back with:
   "@calebjross Apology accepted. :)"
   
   Such a gentleman. Tokyo Vice goes highly recommended.

5 comments about Ernie Pyle's War: America's Eyewitness to World War II.

1. This book is not exactly what my husband wanted, but I am enjoying it. He likes to read true stories about the war and we didn't know this is more about Ernie's life than it is about the war. It is a very interesting book to me and I am glad we bought it.



2. This is the story of an unpretentious, self effacing, little newspaper man, who once described himself as a "slightly used second hand man;" a man who through dedication, common sense, and a love for his fellow man and "the God-damned infantry," as they liked to call themselves, went on to become the pre-eminent war correspondent of World War II and likely of any other war -- past, present, or future. But, Ernie Pyle was much more than that. As the war wore on, Ernie, through his thoughtful and heart-felt reports from the European war zone became America's "everyman," a little fellow, who could be your next door neighbor, caught up in the events of war. Many of his readers came to see him more as a friend than as a reporter and, as America's situation improved, became more concerned about Ernie than they were about how the war itself was going.
   
   Once known for his somewhat mundane traveling adventures, a column which he wrote for seven years prior to the war for the Scripps-Howard Newspaper chain, Pyle's reports from North Africa, Sicily, Italy, and eventually broader Europe took on a life of their own. His column spread to other papers and to a much broader readership. But this new found fame, and the prospect of fortune, never went to Ernie's head. He said that he was too old, he was in his forties, had been a reporter too long, twenty years, and had seen too much of the war to be impressed with such things. It seemed funny to him that he should be considering a deal worth $150,000 while soldiers were dying all around him on the battlefields of Europe for only $50 a month. Ernie didn't expect to live to see war's end anyway.
   
   There was only one Ernie Pyle and it is unlikely that there will ever be another, for in his writings he caught the essence of the young men who were fighting and dying in war. His readers got to see what they saw, feel what they felt, and know what they hoped and dreamed of. And it was through his reports that the American people caught a glimpse of World War II and what their sons were going through.
   
   This is a remarkably good book about a remarkable man; well researched and well told. In it, you will get meet the real Ernie Pyle and read some of the writings which won him praise and eventually the Pulitzer Prize. Among them are four of his finest: A Forward Airdrome in French North Africa (pg. 71); In the shadow of the low stone wall (pg. 133); Now to the infantry (pg. 262); and A Pure Miracle (pg. 271).



3. This is a fascinating book, and this from a reader more into fiction than historical biography - but the best fiction writer would be hard pressed to come up with a character like Ernie Pyle.
   
   A page turning look into World War II from someone who could have been your neighbor but was far more than what you would have expected.
   
   I have no idea why a modern rendition of this story has not hit the big screen - it seems a natural, captivating story that would educate as well as entertain.



4. this must be THE book to read on war - what it's really like in all of its aspects - his description of the beach, after D-Day was gripping and haunting and it has stayed with me many years later -
   
   and how he relates the everyday and ordinary in war -
   
   and how, in any group or organization, it's often a small percentage of the people who are carrying the load - that's just one example of the many insights and truths in this book that relate to all of life, not just life in a war zone -
   
   and it is a great book for anyone to read - a stunning life achievement for ernie pyle -



5. James Toban has written a stunning book in "Ernie Pyle's War: America's Eyewitness to World War II". Toban has succeeded in giving readers the rare opportunity to see the human frailties concealed within one of America's greatest and most valuable World War II correspondents.
   
   James Toban present a picture of the complex Ernie Pyle; a man that entered the World War II carrying only a broken Remington typewriter and a deep desire to describe the life and hardships of the horrific world of the infantrymen to the American public. The reader will learn of the contradictory Ernie Pyle. The Ernie Pyle who despised war, but who could not stay away from the physical and emotional anguish of battle. The Ernie Pyle who loved his wife, but who continually left her behind to travel to the front lines. Ernie Pyle, the seemingly frail and terrified journalist who demonstrated his bravery by traveling to the front lines to be with and write about "his boys". Ernie Pyle, a genius for writing about the common soldier, but who needed constant reminding that he was the best at what he did. His articles became legendary and the hope and news link for Americans with loved ones in the front lines.
   
   James Toban's "Ernie Pyle's War: America's Eyewitness to World War II " is a must read for World War II readers and all readers who wish to know about the human spirit and about a plain old fashion brave American.

5 comments about Coming of Age: Growing Up in the Twentieth Century.

1. This is the first Studs Terkel book I have read. Easy to read interviews with Americans over 70 that gives us some of the wisdom of the older generation. A very good book!
   
   WBG



2. As I have done on other occasion when I am reviewing more than one work by an author I am using some of the same comments here, where they are pertinent, as I did in earlier reviews. In this series the first Studs Terkel book reviewed was that of his "The Good War": an Oral History of World War II.
   
   Strangely, as I found out about the recent death of long time pro-working class journalist and general truth-teller "Studs" Terkel I was just beginning to read his "The Good War", about the lives and experiences of, mainly, ordinary people during World War II in America and elsewhere, for review in this space. As with other authors once I get started I tend to like to review several works that are relevant to see where their work goes. In the present case the review of "Coming Of Age" serves a dual purpose- to reflect on the working lives of working people (mainly) after they have made their mark and moved out of the work force and as a reflection of one of Studs' preoccupations- the fate of his generation- the so-called "greatest generation".
   
   Probably Terkel's most famous oral history is his "Working" which chronicles the thoughts of working people and others, circa 1980, about their lives their aspirations and their inspirations. That book was weighted a bit toward the experiences of those who came of age in the Great Depression of the 1930's , fought World War II and gained a measure of security in the dizziness of the post World War II Cold War. His "The Good War", of necessity, takes dead aim at that population. Here we have those same recollections (in some case literally as previous interviewees get to have their say once again), circa 1995, from the perspective of "retirement". Some of the material is interesting but, frankly, as I know from personal experience running through a litany of life's physical, mental and social ailments gets a little thin on the ground after a while.
   
   Moreover, while I found "Working" to be very interesting as a sociological study and as a means of giving voice to the preoccupations of "working stiffs" this present volume "does not speak to me". As a member of the generation after the above-mentioned one, "the Generation of '68", my preoccupations are not the same and so those experiences expressed here of retirement and the "great awakening" do not feel right. In short, this book turns solely as a last homage by Studs to the so-called "greatest generation", his generation. While I am painfully aware of the shortcomings of my own "Generation of '68" as a catalyst for social change I have long argued that the World War II generation, my parents' generation, sold its heritage out for a mess of pottage. So that feeling has to be factored in here, as well.
   
   Studs personal fate as a victim of the "red scare" in the 1950's is only the most vivid example at hand for my belief that his generation sold out for a security blanket- and not a very good one. The virtual "civil war" between the generations during most of the Vietnam period of the 1960's and beyond (remember those Reagan Democrats of the 1980's were, for the most part, those self-same `greatest generation' types) graphically speaks to that difference in values. Nevertheless read Studs' take on his generation's swansong here and read all of Studs' oral histories, good, bad or indifference to get a snapshot of what America, and Americans liked, disliked or didn't know a thing about in the 20th century. Kudos, Brother Terkel.



3. The Celts have a term for people like Studs Terkel. Mr. Terkel is one of our cultural Shanahee. In the world of the ancient Celts, the story around the fire was the way in which cultural values, community and family history was transmuted to future generations. The role of the Shanahee was to keep the family tales and pass them on to future generations. That is exactly what Mr. Terkel does with this book. Wisdom and the values of the past are not something that younger generations today value so I fear that Mr. Terkel's book, although very interesting and informative may not be read by many nor the great pearls of wisdom discovered and carried forward.
   Over sixty elders were interviewed by Studs Terkel. After reading about their lives, their adventures, their hopes and dreams for the future, and their indomitable spirits, there are some that I would really like to have had the opportunity to meet and other that I did not find as interesting.
   Since this book is a collection or oral history interviews, it is not a typical book that a gerontologist would use for research yet the book is helpful to those desiring to know more about the life experiences of older persons. As I read the book and entered the life experiences of those interviewed, I was moved and challenged and delighted as I read about people whose lives impacted and created the world I live in today.
   After reading Terkel's book, and this was the first book that I read written by Terkel, I think that oral history is an under utilize in teaching history and makes a contribution to understanding the lives of people, common people, who were part of making the history we learn about in text books. In many ways oral histories make history come to life.
   I don't believe that Studs Terkel set out to write this book as a means of making a contribution to any one particular academic field. I think his motivation was two fold. The first purpose was to give the reader insight into the common person's impact into the events that formed the 20th Century. The second purpose was to allow those who he interviewed to tell their story and in recording their story, allow that person to leave their legacy to the world. Coming of Age contributes to gerontology as a field because it elevates the art of oral history, it highlights the importance of oral history in understanding the life experiences of older adults, and it allows a means of informally testing formal theories of aging by comparing and contrasting those formal theories with the actual life experiences of real people.



4. Pulitzer Prize winner Studs Terkel, widely known for his oral histories on World War II, work, race and the Great Depression, here offers an oral history of the twentieth century. The 70 people on record range in age from 70 to 99 and represent a wide variety of endeavors from labor organizers to CEOs, cops, lawyers, philanthropists, doctors, environmental crusaders, artists, clergy, farmers and more.

   In addition to a zest for life, which they all share (few, despite physical infirmities, consider themselves "retired"), a few common themes emerge in these recollections. Whatever their background, almost all were affected by the Depression and World War II and a surprising number felt the blight of McCarthyism.

   Yet most view the young today as facing a tougher road than they did. And while they all claim to find younger people invigorating, most deplore the modern lack of community feeling, the emphasis on self, the ignorance of history and unwillingness to learn from the struggles of the past.

   The Catholic priest who was a gung-ho soldier in World War II, learned about race in a poor southern parish and went on to join the Berrigans in protesting the Vietnam War, says that what's "lacking today is a national cause in which all can join." You could say he spoke too soon or those were the days.

   Jazz musician Milt Hinton's grandmother was a slave of Jefferson Davis. He recalls the apprenticeship of his youth, sitting in with the greats. When prompted he cites the more absurd of racial indignities faced touring the south but prefers to dwell on the good times, voicing regret that those opportunities don't exist for today's young black musicians.

   All of these oldsters have strong convictions about what's wrong with the world, although surprisingly few sound cranky about it. "I'm deeply accustomed to giving advice that is not heard," says economist John Kenneth Galbraith, a long time critic of "private affluence and public squalor."

   Many of them find a new freedom in old age. "Young people don't have this liberty," says environmental activist David Brower. "They can't alienate themselves too much from the system."

   Some seem to live almost wholly in the present. A Nisei school teacher who spent World War II in an internment camp spends her entire interview enthusing about the young children she teaches and the future before them.

   An admiral who directs the Center for Defense Information, a whistle-blowing group, was a model naval officer. "My fervor and dissent has increased....as you get older, you realize that whether it be a justice of the Supreme Court or the president of the United States, he's just a human being subject to human foibles."

   Terkel, a feisty fighter himself, has naturally picked a large proportion of social and political activists - people who see the world as imperfect then and imperfect now - but always worth fighting for. This is an invigorating and thoughtful collection and a fine perspective on the last century.




5. A host of compelling stories marks COMING OF AGE as one of the top efforts from oral historian Studs Terkel. We hear from dozens of outstanding senior citizens, each one giving their personal remembrance of American life in the 20th Century. The mostly liberal interviewees range from ordinary citizens to baseball activist Marvin Miller, Congressmen Henry Gonzalez and (the late) Charles Hayes, and Chicago medical director Quentin Young. Readers get a strong personal sense of major events like the Depression, World War II, McCarthyism and Civil Rights - something one seldom gets from dry academic texts. The book also lends credence to tales many of us once heard from older and often now-departed relatives.

   I gave COMING OF AGE just four starts because Terkel's increasing rigidity in sticking with liberal interviewees deprives readers of an honest cross-section of views. Despite this flaw, COMING OF AGE remains a moving effort.

5 comments about Madame Dread: A Tale of Love, Vodou and Civil Strife in Haiti.

1. Readable but overly self-congratulatory. Not much meat on historical events and anti-American bent is irritating. Light and readable but not of lasting value.



2. While written with sincerity, the book is a starry-eyed cliche. A rich white woman falls in love with a poor black man. She glorifies him and his country, while never tackling anything of substance. She makes excuse after excuse for his lack of initiative in his own life, and credits it all to racism. Haiti and its people deserve a more indepth treatment than this frivilous little tale. If you have ever been to Haiti, you will not learn anything here.



3. Haven't had a chance to read yet but have interest in anything about Haiti and Vodou.



4. After reading many of her articles which used poor fact checking and overt reliance on elites - I felt this book was boring even though it was not as overtly bias in its politics as her newspaper writing.



5. I read this book hoping to better understand the constant strife in Haiti. I didn't get the understanding I was looking for. The litany of changing leaders is given, but no real examination of why each one fails is provided. For example, Aristide wins the election and then does not follow up by doing anything to improve conditions. He eventually is driven from power, but no details about his lack of action are provided in this book. A good read, but not what I was hoping for.