5 comments about Lake Effect.

1. Rich Cohen's 'Lake Effect' is great literature for me for a number of reasons:
   
   . It unassumingly transported me to Glencoe Illinois, the town in which i grew up and the town in which I came of age - at the same ages Cohen covers in the story.
   
   . The story focuses on Cohen's friends, and yet conveys the author's deepest feelings and concerns without his wearing them on his sleeve.
   
   . I couldn't put the book down! It was a great read! And at the end of the book I came away with a feeling that I'd been carried on a ride through Cohen's most intimate teen-aged years, years that, for me, had been critical towards forming my own self-definition.
   
   . He conveyed a clear picture of the folks on whom he focused in the book's text.
   
   
   I highly recommend this beautiful book to all, and envy them the journey on which they'll be setting out. It won't be a lengthy one - I finished the book within three days, partially because, as noted above, I just couldn't put it down. But I assure potential readers that the trip along the author's route will be a memorable and pleasant one.



2. Rich Cohen is a very-very good writer. This book is a bitter-sweet memoir of him growing up. I was surpized to find out what kind of kid he was. As usual, Rich is superb at making his characters so alive that they seem a part of your past also. Here is proof that one doesn't have to be from the Midwest or from the 70s to enjoy the book! It reminded me of Catcher in the Rye, except it's good to know that the kid turned out all-right in real life. Reading this book was a pure delight, although it is sad at times.



3. The book recounts the author's years growing up in the 1980s in Glencoe, a Chicago suburb, and subsequently his student years in New Orleans, but really centres on his best friend Jamie. It is evocative of the period and full of memorable imagery. Jamie is an extraordinary and delightful character, and the remarkable platonic friendship he and the author Rich enjoy is beautifully recounted. This is a book which repays careful reading, not one to be hurried. It reveals much insight, and while the end is far from negative, I experienced a feeling of great sadness and yet tremendous warmth as the book drew towards its conclusion. A thoroughly rewarding book, highly recommended.



4. As a graduate of New Trier High School, I feel that this book did a wonderful job illustrating some of the feelings I had during High School. I thought Cohen's writing was captivating and entertaining, and I am very interested to read his other books. "Lake Effect" is a must read!



5. Very interesting, perceptive, and often funny writing style. Cohen can write "thumbnail sketches" of people and sitations as well as anyone I've read lately. (His short riff on a summer of bad jobs is a good example, wherein he sums up his bad bosses in a sentence or two, and you still "get" what kind of people they are.) In short, highly recommended.

No comments about Dateline Soweto: Travels with Black South African Reporters.

2 comments about Kay Fanning's Alaska Story: Memoir of a Pulitzer Prize-Winning Newspaper Publisher on America's Northern Frontier.

1. This is a story of how courage, faith and a motive to see justice and equality prevail is played out in Alaska. Kay came from an elite background and yet was very practical and down to earth in her dealings with everyone she met. She lived her religion and it saw her through trials that would challenge even the strongest individual. It is a good story of how ethics and morals win out when the motive is pure and the faith stong enough. Anyone should be enchanted by this story. It is too bad Kay did not get to finish it herself, but the last half written by those who knew her well demonstrates what a very special lady she was and how we can all learn from her strenth and devotion. I recommend it to anyone but especially those interested in the newspaper industry or those who want a great story about a women beating the odds when nobody thought she could do it.



2. Expected this to be much more interesting. If you want to know about the newspaper business this is the book for you, otherwise it's not of any interest other than from a business point of view.

5 comments about Izzy: A Biography of I.F. Stone.

1. Anyone who has read Stone's account of the Korean War (as I did a few decades ago) cannot be surprised at what is implied--strongly implied--by the Venona transcripts, and that is that Stone was a mouthpiece for Comintern in the US. Everything he wrote in Hidden History is not just wrong, but despicable lies...and Soviet records confirm this. If Stone had been an independently-minded journalist with a different slant, there is no way he could have been so far off on the origins of the Korean War. The only explanation for his take on it was...surprise!...it was the view being promulgated by the Soviets/Chinese/North Koreans.
   
   To call this guy an independent journalist is like calling Rush Limbaugh a socialist. He was, if not a spy, an agent of communism. And if you missed the launches of NK missiles and their nuke test lately, you missed the fruits of Mr. Stone's labor.



2. Iggy Stone was a terrific jounalist,holding the powers that be feet to the fire,as it were.Howevere, his undying Stalinist sympathies and loyalities suggest a blind eye,which discolrs much of what he wrote, for me anyway. Whether or not he was a paid soviet agent[professor Cottrell dismisses this] or not,would we be as tolerant of his leanings if he were a Fascist? Think of Ezra Pound, his vitriolic and poisonous braodcasts,and hgow he has been tarnished.Or Lindbergh.To be preached to on moral responsibility from soemone who ignored the atrocities that were day to day life in the Soviet Union is bizzare,if not wilfully ignorant.We have a responsibility to satnd up for all victims, as Albert Camus said,not to be on the side of the exucutioners. Stone was not, despite all his acumen and style...



3. The review you have unstarred was delivered by me to offer a sampling of positive analyses about Izzy. I gave my own book 5 stars, not 0, as you have indicated.



4. The Venona decrypts of Soviet cable prove beyond any doubt that I.F. Stone was a paid Communist spy. If you don't believe me, read the decrypts yourself (do a search here on "Venona"). He worked to spread propaganda in America for a brutal Soviet regime that killed tens of millions, and he was paid to do it. When he died, his family burned all his private papers to conceal the truth, but ultimately he was exposed by Venona in 1994.

   I read this book with morbid fascination at how the liberal media touted this guy as "a Gibraltar of journalistic integrity" and "The most honest reporter in America" even as he worked to destroy our country. It's sad that even today few people are aware of the truth about this evil man who hated our American democratic, free-market values but embraced the monstrous totalitarianism of the Soviets.




5. Professor Robert Cottrell's biography of I.F. Stone offers startling insights into the complex world of one of the 20th century's most captivating journalists. This book, obviously the result of years of dedicated research, says as much about I.F. Stone as it does about the author Cottrell. Not only does the book depict Stone as a central character in the radical left, but also it places Cottrell as one of our most significant biographers of left-wing intellectuals (also see Cottrell's other biographies about Roger Nash Baldwin, the founder of the ACLU, and Nicholas Comfort). A biography should be assiduously researched and fair-minded, coveying its subject's contributions and conflicts. Cottrell accomplishes this, but the biography goes beyond a factual depiction, in that it also conveys both its author's and its subject's passion for left-leaning ideals. This is a brave work about a brave man.

3 comments about True Stories.

1. This book is yet another wonderful, though terribly sad collection of vignettes about the author and his life in the Gulag. His writing is beautiful, even poetic and forgiving at times, then angry and frustrated in other parts. His is an honest, straightforward memoir about an awful period in Russian's cold and cruel history. You will never forget the people you meet in this book, and Lev Razgon will amaze and inspire you.



2. Lev Razgon has not written just another account of train rides, hunger, and interrogations. Rather, in a series of vignettes, he explores the political culture both of the Soviet gulag and of the Stalinist era as a whole. While some of these can be precious, and all require a reasonable knowledge of Soviet history (better annotation would have been useful), Razgon provides one of the last first-hand accounts of the prison culture--on both sides of the wire--in the Soviet Union.



3. Lev Razgon has not written just another account of train rides, hunger, and interrogations. Rather, in a series of vignettes, he explores the political culture both of the Soviet gulag and of the Stalinist era as a whole. While some of these can be precious, and all require a reasonable knowledge of Soviet history (better annotation would have been useful), Razgon provides one of the last first-hand accounts of the prison culture--on both sides of the wire--in the Soviet Union.

No comments about Ida Tarbell: Pioneer Investigative Reporter (World Writers).

No comments about Ida M. Tarbell: Pioneer Woman Journalist and Biographer (People of Distinction Biographies).

No comments about Ambrose Bierce Takes on the Railroad: The Journalist as Muckraker and Cynic.

2 comments about Sherman's Other War: The General and the Civil War Press.

1. Marszalek's evaluation of William T. Sherman's relationship with the Civil War press is first-rate. Newspapers nor newspaper men dominated Sherman's Civil War career, but they did blast him on occasion, inferring that he was insane and incompetent. To retaliate, Sherman used what power he had to intimidate and throw up roadblocks where possible to deprive the press of opportunities to do him, his armies, and his strategic operations any harm. The volatile general, who is explored more in depth in Marszalek's well-received biography, was never one to stand idely by and be assualted without lashing back. Reporters learned that one way or the other. In this book, Marszalek thoroughly explains the hows and whys of the mostly bitter relationship the general had with the press.



2. To read Professor Marszalek`s book, Sherman and the Civil War Press, first published in 1981, and re-issued in `99 one would come away with the distinct impression that General Sherman was sitting in his tent at Paducah, at Pittsburg Landing, at Memphis, at Chickasaw Bayou etc., etc., wracking that quite outstanding brain of his, not on how to defeat the rebels but plotting the systematic downfall of all reporters. If asked to swallow Marszalek`s assertions and emphasis, the average reader might well find themselves putting down, what is afterall merely an extended thesis, something one might jot off for a P.hd, asking the question, how then did General Sherman manage to Capture Atlanta, make Georgia howl, and march 62,000 men through the Carolinas if he spent his every waking moment agonizing over " pestifirous newshounds" ? The answer is, of course, he didn`t! Lashing out at the reporters who crowded his camps merely to write up stories coloured by the personal views of the enlisted men and predjudiced by the self-glorifying comments of political generals such as John McClernand and Frank Blair was just one more aspect of Sherman`s multi-layed and complicated charactor. He was one of those people who throughly enjoy confrontation, he thrived on, was inspired by, what Londoners nowadays might term "aggro" - But Marszalek would have us believe that compared to the court martial of Knox and the discouraging of other scribblers the rebellion that was tearing his nation apart was a side show. The author portrays the General as wishing to muffle a free press - but if we put this desire into the context of this century`s conflicts, notably The Gulf War, we will realise just how vital, necessary it was to advocate General Sherman`s view - why should the enemy employ spies when the newspapers and T.V. are only too willing to share our military secrets? It is also important to remember, a fact that Marszalek conveniently forgets, that Mr Lincoln refused publishers the right to use the trains to transport their newspapers, even closed a couple when they came close to treason in their editorials. No one called him insane or obssessed. Much of this book is merely a fast track re-hash of Marszalek`s often inaccurate biography of the great General - inaccurate in fact and in analysis and conclusion. I would like to say that what the professor lacks in content and accuracy he makes up for in style - I would like to say it, but unfortunately I cannot, for Marszalek has no style. Stringing together sentances to make chapters, is not style. I wish the professor luck in finding another subject, I think he has taken this one as far as he can. It is fortunate for the professor and other Sherman biographers that the General is not alive today for he most certainly would have made THEM the object of his ire in a book to be entitled " Sherman`s third War - The General and Bad biographies." Since there was no " nil stars" rating I gave it one star for subject matter.

1 comments about Charles Kuralt's People.

1. Compiled and edited by Ralph Grizzle, Charles Kuralt's People is an anthology of newspaper columns written in 1956 by Charles Kuralt, who was then a print journalist with the Charlotte News. From a newspaper columnist, Kuralt went on to join the fledgling CBS network and became a household name in American television influenced culture. The timeless treasure that is his collected wisdom and recorded insights remains as fresh, eye-opening, and timely today, as it was nearly fifty years ago. An intellectually stimulating collection of insightful and occasionally poignant commentaries, Charles Kuralt's People is very highly recommended reading for students of the human condition in general, and legions of Charles Kuralt fans in particular.