No comments about So Short a Time; A Biography of John Reed and Louise Bryant..

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.

No comments about Great Songs of the Yiddish Theatre (Theater): Arranged for Voice, Piano and Guitar (Lyrics in Yiddish using Latin Alphabet).

5 comments about She's Gone Country: Dispatches from a Lost Soul in the Heart of Dixie.

1. I knew this family when Kyle Spencer was a child, 7 to 10 years old. I used to work with her stepmother, "Shelby" (not her real name) and she and I also became friends. I know that "Shelby" had high hopes for her marriage to Kyle's father, and for her new found family, and had put a lot of energy into making it work. She and Kyle had also been very close when Kyle was a child. I finished up this book feeling very sad for my friend, because of the way things had turned out. The writing style itself will hold your attention, although I did see two writing errors which the proofreader should have caught and corrected before the book went to press.



2. Kyle Spencer, an aspiring newspaper reporter, leaves New York City to work at the Raleigh (North Carolina) News & Observer.
   
   I think Spencer couldn't make up her mind what book she wanted to write, "A New York Journalist Goes South", "My Dysfunctional Family", or "How to Find a Man". So she tried to put all three together, and doesn't quite pull it off, resulting in an uneven quality to the book.
   
   Despite the "Dysfunctional Family Tree" at the start of the book, which was amusing, those parts of the book were the least interesting, and seemed almost tacked on. I would very much have liked to have had more about her experiences at the News & Observer, and the exploits of the Ten Thousand Angels Committee (four women looking for men for themselves and each other) were pretty funny.
   
   She's a good writer, but she needed someone to force her to choose among three good themes.



3. The premise of this book is ridiculous -- since when is Raleigh, North Carolina, the "heart of Dixie"? But even more ridiculous: the notion of a memoir in which the author "made stuff up." Why did she have to do that? Because the truth wasn't interesting enough? In truth, even this exaggerated memoir isn't interesting enough, in large part because Kyle Spencer is too young to be writing a memoir and because she takes herself way too seriously and thinks way too highly of herself. Her delusions of grandeur are embarrassing to read. ("I pictured myself leaping onto some carpeted auditorium stage, preparing to accept the third consecutive Pulitzer of my young career.") And her writing is just plain bad. ("I thanked Susan B. Anthony for getting the women's lib ball rolling.") Her attempts at self-depracation ring false. Get over yourself, Kyle!



4. I was interested in reading what a Northerner had to say about Raleigh. I wasn't too offended by her representations of Raleigh, but was very offended by her needless and painful descriptions of her family and of her own behavior. I don't think I'd want to speak to her if I were one of the family members she chose to excoriate.

   In the end, though slightly amused occasionally, I couldn't figure out what her point was in writing this book. Also, I was very interested to read in another review of this book that she graduated from the journalism school at Chapel Hill. Not exactly culture shock to move to Raleigh.




5. Didn't like the ethics it portrayed. It was breezily written, however.

No comments about Home Town News: William Allen White and the Emporia Gazette.

No comments about Ida B. Wells-Barnett: Powerhouse With a Pen (Trailblazer Biographies).

No comments about The Pleasure of Their Company: A Reminiscence.

4 comments about In These Hills.

1. I received this book yesterday, sat down to leaf through it, and scarcely budged from my chair except for meals until I had read the last word. The text simply grabbed me and wouldn't let me go. Yesterday was a day well invested.
   
   The text is very accessible and yet some paragraphs reach the level of great literature.



2. This man is a wonderful author and gives an authentic depiction of life as it was in that time era and under those conditions. We were neighbors with the Beers when I was growing up and truly,life was hard but good at the same time. The sense of neighborliness has gone by the way of subdivisions but I believe the author managed to capture the dying spirit of what was good and wholesome about the life that was led from the original homestead on. I would recommend this book to anyone.



3. I got this book from a friend a while back and just never really picked it up, but boy am I glad I finally did. Ralph Beers' prose is beautiful, and his descriptions of a way of life that's passing away are fit to bring tears to my eyes.
   
   If you have any interest in the West, especially the contemporary Western way of life, I recommend In These Hills very highly.



4. Ralph Beer is one of my favorite Montana writers. In both fiction and nonfiction, he's hard to beat. This collection of short essays describes his life as a rancher outside Helena, Montana. Many of them are humorous and rich with Western wit; some have a melancholy undertone; all are very finely crafted.

   Working a ranch that has been in his family for four generations, Beer slowly comes to terms with the futility of maintaining a lifestyle that can no longer be justified as a way to make a living. As cattle prices fail to meet the rising costs of running a ranch, it is finally only humor, sentiment, self-respect and the well-worn romance of the rural West that keep him going. Beer's wonderful essays chart the gradual decline of ranching, even as he puts in new fences and throws himself into the yearly rounds of upkeep and improvements.

   Meanwhile, many of Beer's essays use humor to deromanticize the Western mystique. A trip into town becomes an occasion to reveal himself as a fish out of water. The descriptions of ranch work often reveal him struggling with uncooperative equipment and stock, often in brutal weather. A tongue-in-cheek discourse on pickups explores the special kind of love affair between men and their trucks.

   Other essays are rich with boyhood memories of his father and grandfather and the friendships of men who have been long-time neighbors and mentors. Some essays are celebrations of skills and craftsmanship no longer appreciated, the building of a log barn by his great-grandfather, the work of a hayfield irrigator, his own reconstruction of an old snowplow, the way a natural horseman rides a horse. In these, the essays become a balancing between a sense of people and times slipping into the irretrievable past and an embrace of what is still there to be cherished in moments of grace and pride.

   Many thanks to the University of Nebraska Press for keeping this wonderful book in print. May it find the many readers it deserves. For a sample of Beer's excellent fiction, get a copy of his novel "The Blind Corral," which tells a story very similar to his own, about a Vietnam veteran inheriting a family ranch.

2 comments about Stillmeadow Sampler.

1. I am so glad that I've discovered Gladys and that this is only one of many more books she wrote. What a delight! She is a gentle, old fashioned, nostalgic, nature loving, homemaking writer full of wisdom and thoughtful moments mixed with humor and charming description. She's in the same camp with L.M. Montgomery, Louisa May Alcott, and Louise Andrews Kent. All good hearty, heartwarming writers who are full of vim. Read her...you won't regret it and you'll always want to go to Connecticut.



2. Gladys Taber writes of her home, Stillmeadow, in the Connecticut Hills, her parntership with college roommate, Jill, as they raise their children together, both widowed. Anything Gladys wrote is guaranteed to drop the blood pressure, calm the mind, center the heart and touch the spirit. The day I discovered Gladys was Christmas Morning in my soul!

5 comments about Parallel Time: Growing Up in Black and White.

1. New York Times editorial writer Brent Staples tells the incredible stories of living life as a young black man in America in his memoir, Parallel Time. Staples uses incredible detail of both physical surroundings and human emotion as he paints a clear and relatable image of his youth. His honest description of his own naiveté and foolishness leads the reader to trust and care for his character as he struggles with the issues of family, romance, and independence.
   Growing up with a drunken father, several moves from house to house, grocery store debt, and a drug dealing brother, Staples has no shortage of material to write about. He chooses his scenes carefully, developing each major change in life through a series of smaller events that make his feelings more apparent. Instead of simply discussing the feelings of shame he had from leaving store after store with a mountain of debt from products purchased on credit, he tells a story of his most shameful moment to provide a more interesting and real emotion to his character. After accidentally entering the wrong store, Staples was forced to make small talk with shop owner. As he was leaving the shop owner asked him to return and pay his debts, Staples recalls, "My face was hot with shame" (109). Having an alcoholic father left Staples with a yearning for a father figure. He transformed men in his life into heroes, and recalls how foolish he was to mimic them. Staples often described his older cousins as perfect individuals, whose "coolness" he would imitate. It is this type of honesty that helps develop the readers' trust.



2. "Parallel Time" was an interesting book. It told a story about Brent's life and his struggle to be a writer. The message I got out of this book was that you are your own person and that you have total control over your life. I was able to read and visualize how Brent grew up as a black child, and how hard it was. By reading this story I have a better picture of how difficult being black in America was.



3. "Parallel Time" was an interesting book. It told a story about Brent's life and his struggle to be a writer. The message I got out of this book was that you are your own person and that you have total control over your life. If you want to be someone important in your life, you must never give up on your dream. Also, I was able to read and visualize how Brent grew up as black child, and how hard it was. By reading this story I have a better picture of how difficult being black in America was.



4. Parallel Time was a very interesting book. I learned a lot about what he went through growing up. He had to deal with his father being an abusive alcoholic, and the obsitcals of growing up black and white. He went into good detail when he talked about each event that happend when he was young. he also talks about his brother being a drug dealer. He gives support of why his brother was already dead to him in his mind. He list all the things that were important to him. He was responsible in taking the role of his father. I feel that this is a good book to read if you are interested in seeing what it was like to grow up black in the 1960's.



5. Parallel Time is a intresting book about blacks and whites. This book is about a black kid growing up in a black and white community. Brent Staples is good at expressing his feelings and thoughts. An example of this is he talks about his brother and also takes the role of his father. He also has a good way of showing the reader what is exactly going on. He shows detail in every chapter. This would be a great book to read if you are intrested in racism.