2 comments about Commie Girl in the O.C..

1. I bought this book because I liked the title and I wasn't disappointed! It's a diary of real life in the community of idle rich airheads and knee-jerk rightwingers made famous by the TV shows. Commie Girl just happened to end up in the thick of it and she's spitting mad! It's a brilliantly funny book, full of great stories and characters, and if you've got fed up with all the bragging and posturing amongst the presidentential hopefuls, this will put a smile back on your face for sure.



2. Nobody dishes like Commie Girl! She's the most, and that ain't the least! Roast Republickin, anyone?

2 comments about The End of Romance: A Memoir of Love, Sex, and the Mystery of the Violin.

1. If we start to eliminate all the great writers who had less than perfect morals, we'd have precious little to read. If we rejected all the literary practitioners who committed adultery, we'd enjoy the company of very few.
   
   Since writers are by nature and practice, cannibals, feeding on their observations and regurgitating them transformed by imagination, why of all people should we turn to them when searching for moral paragons?
   
   So, yes, when a reviewer complains of being sickened by the writer's immorality in sleeping around while married, pardon me but this is perhaps the wrong book for such a refined sensibility. "Love" and "Sex" are mentioned in the title, so we have been warned. The faint of heart should retreat immediately to the safety of Kate Douglas Wiggin's "Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm."
   
   However, Norma Barzman's "The Red and the Blacklist" makes much better reading than "The End of Romance," so read that one first.



2. Hummmm...I was so excited when I rec'd this book, but it was short lived. This book reads like a really bad memoire filled with conversations that go on and on and on about nothing but the relationship between the author and her cousin (which happened to be 25yrs her senior, and whom raped her at the young age of 14), along with 2 other females which played no important role in the story at all. The plot deals with finding the origin of the Guanari family, but there are way too many distractions along the way. The author's cousin is a sniveling complainer which drags the whole book down. And, personally, I was sickened at the lack of the author's morals. Along with her cousin, she has sex with several strangers despite being married. I did, however, learn a few facts about violins and the detailed process of how one is created. Learning always deserves something, so I gave it 3 stars.

1 comments about Dorothy Fuldheim: First First Lady of Television News.

1. Mote succeeds in weaving together elements from all areas of Fuldheim's life, her own books, her commentaries and her many television interviews as well as her many conversations with society's elite. Fuldheim's life represents a footnote in the history of broadcasting and it is in this area that Mote's book excels. Anyone looking for a good overview of television during its formative stages can find it by reading about how Fuldheim managed to get hired in an industry where experience was non-existent.

   ...I commend Patricia Mote for the manner in which she captured Dorothy Fuldheim.

   From a review in Ohio Writer by Ted Henry, news anchor at WEWS-TV Cleveland.

1 comments about Caught in the Crossfire: 2.

1. this is quite simply the best book on the war in afghanistan- and i have read all of them. does anyone out there know the e-mail of the author--jan goodwin-- so that i may contact her?

   to anyone who has not read this book and is interested in afghanistan- please do so. it is excellent.

1 comments about Combat Reporter: Don Whitehead's World War II Diary And Memoirs.

1. Edited by University of Tennessee-Knoxville teacher John B. Romeiser, Combat Reporter: Don Whitehead's World War II Diary and Memoirs is the true story of two-time Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Don Whitehead, who served the Associated Press in 1942 by covering the Allied drive against Erwin Rommel's tanks in North Africa, in Whitehead's own words. Collecting and organizing Whitehead's personal journal and unfinished memoir with the rare editor's note in brackets for clarity, Combat Reporter covers events that Whitehead witnessed from 1942-1943 in Cairo, Libya, Tunisia, and Sicily. Combat Reporter offers an evenhanded, front-lines view of the European Theater and an unforgettable self-portrait of a one-of-a-kind reporter. A foreword by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Rick Atkinson and an afterword by Whitehead's colleague Command Sergeant Major Benjamin Franklin (U.S. Army, Ret.) round out this highly recommended memoir.

No comments about Theodore Dreiser: An American Journey.

No comments about Memoirs of M. de Blowitz.

2 comments about Refugees in Our Own Land : Chronicles from a Palestinian Refugee Camp in Bethlehem.

1. I'd love to find a book by a book by a Palestinian that truly seeks peace. This is not such a volume.
   
   Beginning from the preface, which in hysterical tones accuses Israel of committing genocide, to the last pages, this is a book loaded with code-words calling for Israel's destruction. It's full of "humiliation," "murder," "genocide," and the like.
   
   Had those things actually been perpetrated by Israel, I would be first in line to condemn them. But even the United Nations has concluded that Israel has not committed genocide, in Jenin, or anywhere else. As for murder, it seems that the only murder is taking place by Palestinians against Israeli civilians, and that whosoever amongst Palestinians has been killed has died either in battle, in the line of fire, or by accident, for which Israel has apologized. When, on the other hand, was the last time a Palestinian leader actually sought an end to suicide bombings, because they are evil, not because they are inexpedient.
   
   My biggest problem with this book is that for most of the events that Hamzeh reports, she relies on hearsay. There has been no scientific or objective attempt to verify the information, much less the veracity of the sources. Even that might be all right, had the reporter not assumed an hysterical tone. But Hamzeh is so willing to believe everything nasty she hears about Israel or Israelis, or Jews for that matter, that nothing escapes unscathed.
   
   I want peace, but books like this one--filled with blame and outright hatred--do nothing to promote it.
   
   --Alyssa A. Lappen



2. Few are the works that have given the personal touch to what it means to be living under the ugliest forms of occupation of modern times: The Israeli Occupation of West Bank and Gaza. Ms. Hamzeh's work is one of such works. Her diaries give a face to the people who are suffering on a daily basis faced with what an Apartheid-like situation - those people are the Palestinians who are being dispossessed and forced to live as refugees in their own land. Ms. Hamzeh's diaries and the additional essays give the personal touch and the political situation in the form of Oslo agreement that is shown to be nothing more than a mask that was intended all along to squeeze the Palestinians out of their land.
   This book should be recommended reading to students of Politics who risk losing sight of what it means to live under Occupation while reading Academic oriented works, and this book should be displayed as a testimony by all peace loving people against Violence and Racism and pure Murder that is being applied against Palestinians on a daily basis.

1 comments about Huddle: Fathers, Sons and Football.

1. I really loved how the father in this story got behind his son, even when he picked a sport that the dad had little or no understanding of. I got that impression that, to the dad, it was not what sport his son was playing that was important, but instead it was the fact that it was his son playing that mattered.
   
   I am a high school football coach. My son is 6 months old. If he picks (heaven forbid) to not play football, I want to be able to see that the value is in whatever he does and that it should be important to me because it is important to him.
   This is a great book for all fathers to read-- especially if you think your son is going to be the best at (fill-in whatever sport or activity you want) instead of thinking that you are going to let him know that he is the best son you could have ever asked for, no matter what.
   
   This book helps to remind me of my most important job-- to be a supportive father.

4 comments about Inside of Time: My Journey from Alaska to Israel.

1. Gruber, as in most of her books writes whatever she wants, regardless of fact or acurracy. She writes what she wants. Gruber has had a free reign with her horrible slander, never thinking the American media would be free again, as it has been so, especially lately. Proof that freedom of press and speech are returning to America are The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid and Palestine Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation.
   
   Grubers diatribes would be OK if she labeled her books as NOVELS, as they should be. A ruthless truth-stretcher with no regard to those she hurts or unjustly insults. A very guilded deliverer of one-sided crapola. Necessary Illusions: Thought Control in Democratic Societies
   
   Telling it like it is. Wake up America! Gruber's hate stems from imbedded teachings from her religion Jewish History, Jewish Religion New Edition: The Weight of Three Thousand Years (Get Political)
   
   The media is hopefully balancing its way back and writers like Gruber will be called for their sloppy one-sided writings Manufacturing Consent - Noam Chomsky and the Media
   
   Also read about the groups that sponsor and fund writers like Gruber The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering, New Edition 2nd Edition and Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History
   
   
   These books, amongst others, put people like Gruber in their deserved racist context.



2. this book takes one to alaska -to the people who work hard and take pride of their state. we meet the people who are proud of their state.
   ruth gruber went to israel as a correspondent during a difficult time in their history.we learn a lot of the country and the places that she lived in and visited.



3. A role model because of her age, sex, and faith. I didn't find out much about Alaska but was captured by her involvement in her world. It was a different time. Could her experiences be repeated today?



4. What an amazing woman. Ruther Gruber is interviewed on BookTV.org. Don't miss the book or the interview!