No comments about The Octopus Conspiracy: And Other Vignettes of the Counterculture-From Hippies to <I>High Times</I> to Hip-Hop & Beyond . . ..

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No comments about A Farewell to Heroes (Writing Baseball).

5 comments about You Have to Stand for Something, or You'll Fall for Anything.

1. I read this book before Star was popular I don't recall The View even being on the air or at least I wasn't watching it. But as an aspiring attorney I was compelled to read this book. I enjoyed it greatly; I understand why she was such a successful lawyer. In a day and age where "anything goes." The title of this book is excellent. It's a good read and gives you great insight into her life, before the glitz and glam. Great read and inspiration to someone that wants to "be somebody."



2. The first two chapters were extremely boring. She talks about a white lady who wants her black friend buried in the white cemetery. The lady stands for something, Star says. She also talks about her mom, who got pregnant with Star, then dumped her off on a crew of some very obliging relatives in North Carolina while she finished college at Rutgers University. Once graduated, and having obtained a "good" job she reclaims 6 year old Star and they live in the projects along with Star's new baby sister (who had not been dumped off on relatives). While living in the projects, little kids run back and forth across the street to the store, unsupervised. When Star is eight years old, she sees a little boy hit by a truck and killed. She's proud when her mom is arrested at a sit-in on the street to protest the lack of a light signal. Later, her mom marries and Star says that at first, her mom and her husband both have "low-paying" jobs. What happened to the "good" job? And if it's such a good job, why are they living in the projects?
   
   The rest is basically a brag-fest. Her whole family has done nothing but praise her to the skies her entire life, so that's why she's brimming with supreme self-confidence. So why is she writing this book? Well, to tell you that you too can be a diva. Star gives fashion lessons (but for full-figured women only - and she hates that term but adores her 42DD's) - wear a chiffon duster over your clothes, and never ride in a white limo because they are tacky, a black Mercedes limo is the best, but if you have to, a Cadillac will do. A red SUV will also display you to the best advantage. Star's role model is Erica Kane from the soap opera All My Children, which says something about her priorities.
   
   I do have one question. Star says she is disappointed one Christmas because her dad (who lives in NC) promised her a stereo. Her mom, seeing that no stereo is about to materialize, runs out in the middle of the night to purchase one for her with money that they don't really have. This would be about 1974 - before 24 hour Walmarts and KMarts. So where did she find this stereo in the middle of the night?
   
   But most of the book is about how great and wonderful Star is, and if you ever do anything to hurt her or make her mad, she'll never forget it. And she doesn't care who doesn't like her because her step-daddy told her she is fine!
   
   I think Star is leaving out a lot she doesn't want us to know.



3. It is unclear what and why the author writes. She obviously has nothing of importance or substance to impart, and her personality is uninteresting by all standards. Most people overcome stronger adversities in life and they do it with infinite more grace. Why the author feels her life is more remarkable than others is really mind-boggling. Reading this book is a waste of time and buying it is a waste of money. There is really no message in this book and the author, despite her much self-praised legal training, fails to build any minimal argument on any of her potluck of topics.
   Simplistic, at best; merely stupid.



4. Star Jones is an inspiration. Her bravery and courage, I'll call it "bravage," is the standard to which every American should hold themselves (and possibly some Canadians). In this book she chronicles her struggles with IBS, HPV, lycanthropy, fear of elves, crossing guard's elbow and having been born without humility. For the first time really, we see that Star's not just fabulous in fur, she's fabulous in print. If I could get my arms around her, I'd hug her. Star's spirit cannot be held down by her lack of any discernable talent! Bravo!



5. This woman can not write, her book has no substance, there is basically nothing to review. What is interesting is how much weight she has lost from then to now. Star claims she has not had a gastric bypass......... could have fooled me. My friend tommy met her, he said she is rude and smelly. She is the most annoying person on the view. who did she screw to get on the view?

No comments about Whose Little Boy Are You?: A Memoir of the Broun Family.

No comments about Studs Terkel: A Life in Words.

4 comments about Missing Pages: Black Journalists of Modern America: An Oral History.

1. 
   
   
   
   
   Reading, "Missing Pages" by Wallace Terry started with my dad asking me two questions. His first question was. "Son, you want to be an athlete, how many black athletes can you name?" I named a bunch. "Ok. You also want to be a writer. How many black journalists can you name?" I was puzzled and embarrassed, because I'm a freshman in high school and I couldn't name one. My dad suggested I read "Missing Pages"
   
   The book is divided by chapters, with each chapter being a short story on a black journalist. While the book profiles several journalists including: Carl Rowan, Joel Dreyfus, Ben Holman, Tom Johnson, Karen Dewit, James Hicks, William Raspberry, Henry M. "Hank" Brown, Leon Dash, Barbara Reynolds, C. Sumner "Chuck" Stone, Bernard Shaw, Austin Scott, Earl Caldwell, Carole Simpson, Ed Bradley, and Wallace Terry. I chose three to talk about. Those three are Ethel Payne, John Q. Jordan, and Max Robinson. I have chosen these three because they share a certain interest to me.
   
   Ethel Payne, one of the first two black women to cover the White House, worked for the Chicago Defender and later became a columnist there. She was known as the First Lady of the Black Press. She also became the first black commentator for a national TV network when she was hired by NBC in 1972. Her main problem in her journalism career was not her talent, but her skin color. Often, her only support was her confidence in herself. Working in the White House press corps, she was never afraid to ask tough questions. Even with many of her colleagues questioning why she was allowed to work White House, she never wavered in her duties as a reporter. She tells many fascinating stories of her time in Washington, Africa, Vietnam, and behind the news desk at NBC, in her more than 40 years in journalism.
   
   John Jordan, of the Norfolk (VA) Journal and Guide, was a correspondent in World War 2 who covered black troops in Italy for. John Jordan had actually been drafted into the Marines when his editor decided he wanted Mr. Jordan to replace his current war correspondent in Italy. The newspaper had to pull some strings with the War Department to allow Mr. Jordan to be released from the Marines and join the 5th Army on the front lines in Italy as a reporter. Mr. Jordan tells not only first hand stories of life and death on the front lines, but also of the conditions and racism that black soldiers faced during the war.
   
   Max Robinson was the first black evening network anchorman in America. Mr. Robinson set up his first television audition by answering a "White male only" want ad in a Virginia newspaper. He later became an anchor on ABC's World News Tonight. He also was a founder of the National Association of Black Journalists. Mr. Robinson tells of career leading up to him being hired by ABC to do the evening news. He also tells many stories of covering major news stories including the Iran Hostage Crisis in which 63 Diplomats were held captive for more than a year inside the U.S. Embassy in Tehran.
   
   This is a fascinating anthology of profiles for anyone. And a must read for those interested in journalism.



2. Missing Pages
   
   The author's voice of Missing Pages has an energy powered by truth which resonates beyond race. Missing Pages enhances the legacy of Wallace Terry, the author of the best selling Bloods (circa 1985) who distinguished himself as a journalist with Time magazine, the Washington Post and Parade magazine. Missing Pages was skillfully completed by Janice Terry, the author's widow and Zalin Grant, his fellow combat journalist that he served with in Vietnam.
   
   Missing Pages rips the mask off of the Fourth Estate which historically abandoned its duty to the people by printing with a discernable bias. As it were, black journalist were either denied positions with the mainstream press or relegated to black on black assignments. During and subsequent to the heyday of the Civil Rights movement things began to change, but on a very small scale.
   
   While attempts were made to restrict assignments of black journalists, their courage, perseverance and genius trumped racism and indifference.
   
   Missing Pages is long overdue. It provides a unique insight into America from those who, to cite the biblical injunction of Isaiah 48:10 were "Not molded in silver but in the furnace of affliction."
   
   The challenge of writing about race requires courage, candor, competence, civility and compassion. One has to deal with injustice, humiliation and other wrongs which often lurk in the subconscious of the objectified. Wallace Terry sets the standard for excellence in his interviews with names familiar to many, Carl Rowan, Max Robinson, Bernard Shaw, Carole Simpson, Chuck Stone, Ed Bradley and others.
   
   Those interviewed such as Chuck Stone, who said the reason there were not more black columnists with white newspapers, is because white America feared black authority. Missing pages also contains the experience of good Samaritans, such as Walter Cronkite, who stopped to help somebody.
   
   Missing Pages is inspirational because is reveals how individuals asserted themselves through persistence, courage, dedication and professional excellence.
   
   Carlos Cardozo Campbell
   Reston, VA



3. The beauty of "Missing Pages" is the 20 civil rights-era African American journalists just talk to interviewer Wallace Terry and capsulize their career stories in a powerful anecdote or two.
   
   I realized that these journalist-heroes were courageous and bold, but gosh, I appreciated them much more when I got more details from them about their challenges.
   
   Like Earl Caldwell pointing out that his landmark reporter-source confidentiality case should not have been merged with two related cases. What distinguished Caldwell's case was he was not involved in illegal activities.
   
   Max Robinson's guts were apparent when the Richmond, Va. native tried out in 1959 for an anchor job along with 30 white men. The competition laughed -- this was the "massive resistance" period in Va. -- yet Robinson won a spot because of his undeniable talent.
   
   I knew about Ethel Payne upsetting President Eisenhower for having the nerve to challenge the commander-in-chief about signing a desegregation order, but I did not know depths of sexism she had to endure within the D.C. press corps.
   
   All of the profiles challenge me to be a better journalist, educator and citizen. I hope "Missing Pages" inspires many more readers.



4. The late Wallace Terry, author of Bloods, the outstanding oral history of black soldiers during the Vietnam War, was working at the time of his death on this equally outstanding oral history of heroic black journalists during some of the most tumultuous times in American history. The stories are truly eye-opening, reminding us of the courage it takes to speak truth to power and of how far America has come because individual blacks had that kind of courage. But the book is about more than journalism, it's about recent history and the struggle to bring this country face to face with its failure to live up to its ideals of justice and freedom. Included, for example, is James Hicks' account of covering the Emmett Till trial in Mississippi, where the sheriff greeted Hicks and his fellow black reporters with a cheerful "how are you nigger doing?" Or Leon Dash's swashbuckling through Angola with Jonas Savimbi's guerrillas. Missing Pages is a must read for anyone with an interest in journalism, public affairs and history.

2 comments about Remembering Jackie: A Life in Pictures.

1. Remembering Jackie is one of Jackie Kennedy's best book.
   The biography is complete, you never get bored.
   There are a lot of pictures too!
   I suggest it to all Kennedy 's fans or for people who want to know about Jackie's life.



2. This book really shows the details of Jacqueline's life: pictures, quotes, not-well-known facts, everithing!

No comments about Campaigns of Curiosity: Journalistic Adventures of an American Girl in Late Victorian London (Wisconsin Studies in Autobiography).

2 comments about Wandering Ghost: The Odyssey of Lafcadio Hearn.

1. I had expected Wandering Ghost to be a standard biography, but the number of long passages taken from Hearn's writings made me wonder what the author's intent was. At least half (or more) of the book is comprised of these lengthy passages from Hearn's newspaper work and other writings.
   
   At times these quotes serve to move the book forward, but more often than not they bog it down, as in the inclusion of an entire newspaper story about a sensational murder -- some 13 pages that, while they served as a good illustration of Hearn's more florid prose style, served very little purpose biographically. The quoted passages are so numerous and at times so extraneous that it is frustrating to read this book as a biography. It's especially irksome when a five- or six-page lengthy quote is used when a one- or two-paragraph one would have easily sufficed.
   
   Perhaps the problem is that I didn't pay sufficient attention to the publisher's description of Wandering Ghost as containing "generous selections" from Hearn's work, but even that did not prepare me for the amount of quoted material. Given the richness of the subject and wealth of material that Hearn left behind, it seems a shame that a more lucid biographical account of his life was not attempted.



2. I wasn't prepared for what an excellent book this was. I have long been a fan of Lafcadio Hearn's Japan-themed books, and was interested in learning more about him and about what brought him to the country so long ago. But I figured the rest of his story would hold little interest for me.
   
   Jonathon Cott has proven me wrong. "Wandering Ghost: The Odyssey of Lafcadio Hearn" shows a truly fascinating character, one who was eternally searching for somewhere to belong, one who's tastes and fashions were completely out of synch with the time he lived in, one who was chasing a dream so distant that he could only find it in the most remarkable of places, only to hold it for awhile and watch it slowly slip away.
   
   Born of a Greek mother and an Irish father, Hearn was never accepted as a child. A half-breed, he was shunted from relative to relative until finally shipped off to the US to make his own way. There, his unique racial status allowed him access to both the white cities and the black ghettos, and his skills as a writer got him a job translating the forbidden culture for the newspapers. An acclaimed journalist, he accrued some degree of success until his then-illegal marriage to a black woman saw him fired, disgraced, and exiled to New Orleans. His mania for writing, his passion for "exotic" women, and his desire to go to the hidden corners of society to record and experience native folklore and traditions soon made him a pariah, and he was exiled again. After trying several tropical islands, hidden paradises and various adventures, an opportunity opened up for him to journey to the mysterious and unknown Japan. There he found acceptance, family, and his own peace at last.
   
   What is truly remarkable about "Wandering Ghost" is that it is an auto-biography as much as a biography. It is filled with Hearn's writings; newspaper articles, personal letters, sketches on interesting characters and places, thoughts and reflections, a glimpse inside his head. Cott originally began with the idea of publishing some of Hearn's non-Japan related writing, but was overcome by the sheer bulk of it all and decided to sift through them and shape them into Hearn's story. Seeing all of this, I gained much more respect for Hearn as a writer as opposed to a mere chance observer of the fading Japanese culture.