No comments about Pinhoe: As Used to Was (Reminiscence).

5 comments about No Greater Glory: The Four Immortal Chaplains and the Sinking of the Dorchester in World War II.

1. This is a touching book about the four chaplains who gave their lives for our soldiers. You will read a biographical background on each chaplain. Their love for each other and the love for the soldiers reached beyond the line of denominations. They gave their lives so that others may life. You can see their beautiful pictures in the stained-glass window at Washington's Cathedral. I had the privileged to visit several years ago.



2. I ordered this book for my father, whose brother died in WWII. The family was given almost no information at the time, but by piecing together details, my mother determined that he was almost certainly on a particular boat when it was sunk by the enemy. That fact was confirmed by this book, and it offered a lot of information that is offered only sketchily in other areas. We appreciate the author and the information he was able to provide families, as well as the story of the wonderful chaplains. My mother, an avid reader (particularly about WWII), said this was one of the best written histories on WWII that she has read.



3. Everyone who's already reviewed this book has said so much about it that it's hard to find anything more to say about how well it's written, what a great gripping true story it is, and the amazing heroism of the four chaplains. This book is so well-written and has such a compelling and involving story that I read it in like two days, and wished there had been even more. Additionally, this heroic tale from WWII has special meaning to many of the people in my area (New York State's Capital District) because Rev. Clark Poling's church was in nearby Schenectady, providing a local connection.
   
   The book itself follows a somewhat nonlinear format, going back and forth between the pre-war lives of the four chaplains and their lives during the war, particularly after they boarded the Dorchester and arrived in Greenland for a very brief stay before going back on the ill-fated ship. After this point, the narrative switches entirely to a linear format, discussing the ship's final night before being torpedoed by a German U-boat and the chaos, heroism, and tragedy that ensued. Not many people could honestly say that they would give up their lifejackets if their ship went down in freezing waters in the middle of the night (Rabbi Alex Goode even gave up his gloves) or remain calm in the midst of such frantic circumstances and such a life-and-death situation. Many people back then also weren't so forward-thinking about interfaith relations, with a Reform rabbi, a Catholic priest, and two reverends from different Protestant denominations being such close friends and reaching out equally to everyone on the ship, largely being nonsectarian apart from when they did things like conduct services. This was still an era in which many Protestants and Catholics didn't associate with one another, to say nothing of the rampant institutionalised prejudice against Jews, and, in a number of areas, against Catholics as well. They set a moving and heroic example for all time, not just in the area of interfaith relations, but also in the area of selfless sacrifice. It was interesting to read in the Afterword about some of the people who have since been awarded the Immortal Chaplains Prize for Humanity Award, such as the Japanese Righteous Gentile Chiune Sugihara, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and Omri Abdel-Halim al-Jadah, a Palestinian Muslim who died while saving a young Israeli Jewish boy from drowning. The Afterword also provided information on what happened to the survivors of the Dorchester sinking and the near and dear ones of the chaplains.
   
   As we find out all throughout the book, this tragedy could have been prevented (it was kind of like a smaller-scale Titanic) if only the Dorchester had been inspected more closely or refurbished, or if there had been enough lifejackets and safety instructions provided, and even after disaster struck, the casualties could have been reduced if the nearby American ships had begun searching for survivors and bringing them onto their ships right away instead of thinking nothing serious had happened or going after the attacking U-boat first, but even in the midst of such bungling and such a chaotic disaster, the amazing heroism of the chaplains shone through as well as it would have in calmer circumstances.



4. With a sickening thump, an explosion wracked the troop transport S.S. Dorchester - a German torpedo had found its mark. It was shortly after midnight, February 3, 1942, and the ship was about to sink into the deadly cold waters off of Greenland. As men panicked and struggled to find a way to save their own lives, four men walked amongst them spreading calm and encouragement. Helping everyone they could find, even giving away their own precious lifejackets, the four chaplains - Rev. George Lansing Fox (Methodist), Rabbi Alex Goode, Rev. Clark Poling (Dutch Reformed) and Fr. John Washington (Catholic) - sought to serve their God and the fellow men. And when the end came, survivors saw the four chaplains, locked arm in arm, praying on the upside-down hull of the ship, just before it dove beneath the waves.
   
   This book tells the remarkable true story of four men who joined the American military as chaplains, their experiences at their Massachusetts training camp, and their final tragic mission. It is a story that is bound to bring a tear to your eye, but it is also a great story of faith and truly living the life of godly sacrifice. Overall, I think that this is a great book, on that I highly recommend to everyone.



5. If you ever feel that your fellow man has no regard for you, pick up this book and don't put it down untill you have finished it. What an inspiring story of four 'Men of God' and their dedication to that God, each other, and all those fortunate enough to have crossed their paths. You will be stunned by the character of each of these great men.

No comments about I Remain, Your Son Jack (Reminiscence).

5 comments about Lessons for Dylan: From Father to Son.

1. A very moving book. I knew Joel from a distance, all we would say is "Hi" to each other. Nothing more. Reading this book should be a school requirement. It does not get any better. What a fascinating man he was. He will be MISSED!



2. A man, approaching fatherhood late in life finds that he has cancer. What can he give his very young son that would impact the child's life. This book is Joel Siegel's legacy to his young son.
   
   It could have been overly-sentimmental or morbid. Instead it is funny, profound, and deeply moving. Those of us who have faced the same eventuality that Joel Siegel has faced, will find great wisdom here, and solace.
   
   The only quibble I have with the book, is that there are a few chapters that seem to have been added to flesh out the size of the book. A chapter on Yiddish phrases, for example, seems a bit "fluffy," though quite funny.
   
   In all, a wonderful legacy for Dylan... and us all.



3. Who ever suspected Joel Siegel led such an interesting life? I couldn't believe all of the experiences he wrote about and the funny insights into his family. He included a chapter on Yiddish words which was informative and amusing. Of course throughout the book was the touching message to his son.



4. There are no athiests in foxholes or in an oncologist's office. Siegel, an entertainment critic for ABC's GMA, faced a terminal illness, and created this story of his first 58 years of life. (He passed away on June 29, 2007 at the age of 63).
   
   At the age of 54, Siegel became a father for the first time and learned that he had cancer. In "Lessons for Dylan," Siegel shares all the things he wants his son to know, in case he is not around to tell him, things about his family history and Jewish heritage, life's pleasures and disappointments, the challenges of growing up (at any age), and, most important, who his father is and what Joel values. As Joel and Rabbi Larry Rafael discussed, Joel wants his son to be normal (but not average).
   
   Siegel was born in East Los Angeles in 1943. His Romanian Jewish grandmother survived the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in March 1911. (Her father banned her from going that day.) His father, a Levite, was an electrician, and he got the first African American and the first Mexican American into his local IBEW union. In 1965, Joel delivered a bag containing $800 in cash to a minister named Martin Luther King at a UCLA luncheon. ("Dr. King, I've come with dessert.") He ended up spending the Summer working for King. Siegel says he invented the names of several Baskin Robbins flavors, including German Chocolate Cake (my favorite) and Pralines and Cream. Siegel was nominated for a Tony Award for his work on a musical about Jackie Robinson. Siegel was a joke writer Senator Robert F. Kennedy in 1968, and witnessed Kennedy's assassination in the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. He is co-founder (with Gene Wilder) and president of Gilda's Club, a non-profit support facility for cancer patients.
   
   Only Siegel can make the story of his chemo sessions and a colostomy funny. Siegel candidly writes about the end of his marriage (his third) to Dylan's mother and the experience of having cancer. The famous ad man and partier Jerry Della Femina bought pot for Siegel during his chemotherapy. Siegel also shares great stories from show biz (featuring Orson Welles, Marlene Dietrich, Paul Newman, Brad Pitt, Stevie Wonder, all four Beatles, and more); lays out the History of the Jewish People in Four Jokes ("Why make trouble?"); and offers fatherly advice on sex ("ask your mother"), work, what to cook for Rosh Hashanah (recipes included), and a list of movies he would like to see with his son.
   
   One of his letters:
   Dear Dylan,
   One day you might remember--maybe triggered by a photograph, or a sense memory of a texture or a color--the soft, grey cashmere sweater I bought for you for your second birthday. As an adult you may wonder, "What kind of schmuck buys a cashmere sweater for a two year-old boy?"
   
   The answer is: A schmuck who tempts fate.



5. This book is a treasure in the fact that a man who has a young son (who should have been his grandson) at that age realizes that he may not be around to share all of these stories and this valuable insight to Dylan in person, and he put in print the things he would have told him (maybe) had he been a young father. The last twenty-five (27) years were a trial for him, as they were for me, as a divorced woman with a son the same age at the time of the divorce. You feel that you've just got to be there to see that son grown, then get on with your life.
   
   He is funny. The Jewish jokes were okay, and the one he had Bobby Kennedy tell about the price of meat was okay, but this whole book is written in the joking way he thinks. Serious times about lowering the flag to half-mast on the UCLA campus the day JFK was assassinated. He was there when brother Bobby died and heard the shots. He and Dylan's mother lived in an area of New York where they were able to watch the Twin Towers burn on 9-11. This is history he passes down to his son in intimate terms.
   
   He writes fondly "some of my best memories of my father are of him laughing while he and I watched TV. We didn't go to movies much; most families didn't in the early '50s." My sister Evelyn took me to my first movie about that time (before she ran off and eloped, ending up spending the rest of her life up North) and I marveled at the beauty and splendor of Tennessee Theater. I don't remember the movie, but I will never forget how I felt looking up at the mural on the interior dome. In the middle and later Fifties, I went to many movies there and even sang in a local talent show on that stage. It was no big deal.
   
   As a film critic, he explains that movies are a fraud and goes into detail about how they are made. But, those he chose for viewing with Dylan were a varied and motlely group, not my choices at all. He tells how old he was when he saw them and how he felt. He dishes the dirt about some of the big movie stars. The index is full of big names. You think of one, he has met him or her and has a funny anecdote to share. TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, I can understand why he would want to explain to his son what is happening and why. Since he is such a funny man, I guess he would choose the Marx brothers' films. I did enjoy Groucho on the t.v. game show!
   
   Of course, he wants 'I Love Lucy' and 'The Honeymooners' to be available for Dylan to enjoy and share a few laughs. His remembrance of live t.v. in Los Angeles, 'Time for Beanie,' brought back memories of 'Your Startime' hosted by Bob Lobertini for me as I was one of his regulars, and later he had a 'Popeye' show in Nashville where I took my sons. He told them on the air that he and I had appeared on t.v. together in Knoxville; that was stretching it -- he was the star, I the adorer.
   
   During the 1958 Winter/Spring, one of my best friends was the young Jewish usher, Joe Feldman, at the Tennessee Theater. I had moved to the YWCA to finish high school and, that Easter, he took me to eat Easter dinner at the S&W Cafeteria on Gay Street. I still have his senior picture from Young High School.
   
   Dylan is a darling child and so much like Ken Young when he was younger. I sincerely hope they will share many good times as he grows up -- and away. That time will come before you know it.

2 comments about Galloway Street.

1. I couldn't put this book down once I started it. All of the hardships and biases are again shown though the eyes of an adult remembering a troubled childhood. Being "different" and never "fitting in" were fealings reinforced by the parents of this child who kept bitter thoughts alive daily.



2. The Scottish Version of Angel'a Ashes, set in Paisley instead of Limerick, but the same view of growing up in a poor family through the eyes of a young boy. Down to earth , but still funny.

2 comments about More Was Lost.

1. Eleanor Perenyi's story is beautifully written and reads like the best historical fiction. The book describes a world that is gone forever, but lives in her descriptions of a castle east of Budapest, feudal customs and the wide-eyed love of a naive, privileged woman. Regrettably there is no sequel to tie up the many loose ends which are left at the end of the story. Who was this remarkable woman? Why didn't she write more books? This book is not to be missed.



2. More Was Lost, first published in 1946, has the feel of the movie classic Casablanca, but with Katherine Hepburn playing Ilsa instead of Ingrid Bergman. The beautiful author, an only child then 19 years old, is travelling though Europe with her imposing mother, when she meets the handsome Oxford-educated son of a Hungarian baron at a dinner-party in Budapest. Love, obstacles, obstacles overcome - the initial chapters of the book read like the fairy tale the author seems to have been looking for in 1937, when, as she writes, "I had not decided what to do with my life." A feminist by conviction before the stance became commonplace, Mrs Perényi recounts the details of her exotic life as the new châtelaine in a Baroque castle in Ruthenia with candor, understatement and wit. Unlike most fairy tales, however, More Was Lost doesn't have a conventional happy ending - the war closes in on the enchanted couple and, pressured by her mother and her husband, Perényi, now pregnant, makes the fateful (and regretful) decision to leave the castle and her husband and the dreamlike life she has made for herself. The smug assurance of the young bride is transformed into the poignant awareness of the single mother, who, at the end of the memoir, is now living with her child in New York and notes, "For a long time, the memory of the past sustains you, and when it no longer does, you are already a different person." Mrs Perényi is a natural writer, with delightfully crisp diction that readers fond of Waugh, Sybille Bedford or Nancy Mitford will savor. More Was Lost is an elegant, idiosyncratic memoir of a strange time and place, for her and for the world. It is a pleasure to have this book back in print.

No comments about Clouds on My Windows.

No comments about An Autobiography (Large Print Edition).

1 comments about The Parrot Who Owns Me: The Story of a Relationship.

1. "The Parrot Who Owns Me" is a delightful memoir that should appeal not only to bird lovers, but to the general public, as well. The author is a faculty member at Rutgers who has specialized in the study of gulls and parrots. As a scholar, she's written 14 books, but this one is different: It's a memoir, a story of the relationship between her and Tiko, who sounds like one great bird.

   The memior follows her adoption of Tiko when he was in his 30s, after the two elderly ladies who owned him passed away. He became depressed and agressive, but slowly, Joanna and her husband brought him around. Ultimately, Tiko really bonded to her, quite literally falling in love with her and choosing her as his "partner."

   The storytelling in this book is engaging. In between the long segments about Tiko's development, the author intersperses information about her worldwide scientific field research, some of which was inspired by Tiko, and this information sheds light on parrot behavior in general, as well as that of her beloved Tiko.

   She also briefly discusses the parrots she'd owned prior to Tiko, and their stories are touching. I did, in fact, cry more than once as she reminisced about the birds who are no longer with her. That caught me off guard. It's a surprisingly touching story.

   Note: I read the book in paperback form, but I imagine that it's just as enjoyable in downloaded form! My experiences with downloadable texts has been good thus far, and I likely would have downloaded this one had it been an option at the time.

   In conclusion, then, I think this is an excellent book that has a strong appeal to it. I'm sure that's in part because I have two parrots, a cockatiel and a budgie, who own me -- but there's so much more to this story! I highly recommend it.

No comments about Manhattan Tales (Select).