2 comments about Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet (Large Print Edition): An Autobiography.

1. Set in 1840s England, Alton Locke becomes apprenticed to a tailor as a young man and learns first-hand the miseries of the working classes. He is also a poet, but when his revolutionary poems are to be published, he agrees to the publisher's wish to revise them and "popularize" them for the sake of sales. He later regrets this decision. At first an avowed Chartist (Chartists were reformers interested in passing laws helpful to the industrial workers, especially regarding suffrage) Locke later becomes a Christian Socialist. Much of the novel is taken up with political speeches and diatribes against the tyranny businesses use against their workers. Some of that is interesting from a historical point of view, but the work as a novel suffers much because of it. The strangest chapter might be the one entitled "Dreamland," where Locke in a dream imagines he evolved from primitive life forms through higher stages to the human form. (It is as strange to the work at large as Chaplin's dream sequence is at the end of THE KID.) Locke dies while sailing to America. More a historical curiosity today, this novel was one of the first in England to deal with working-class conditions.



2. I undertook to read this book because an introduction to Mary Barton, the first novel of Mrs. Glaskell, mentioned this book as the first novel of Charles Kingsley and suggested it was worth reading. I cannot see how anyone could enjoy reading this awful book. The story it tells is really inane, I thought, tho I know one should make allowances for the period in which it was written. But we all know Dickens wrote in the same time period and his works still enthrall readers. I cannot imagine anyone being enthralled by this work. It does not help that Kingsley for entirely gratuituous reasons periodically snarls at what he calls "papists" with obvious bigotry. Towards the end there is a long chapter devoted to telling of a dream Alton Locke had, which I only was able to keep reading because I was determined to finish the book, since I seldom quit reading a book once I have decided, wisely or unwisely, to read it. Unless you are going to write a thesis or something on Kingsley you will be glad you did not decide to read this book.

4 comments about Peter Cushing: An Autobiography (Isis Large Print Nonfiction).

1. If you are a Hammer, or an Amicus, Tigon, Tyburn, and all the english gothic periode fan, you are already acquainted with Sir Peter Cushing. Unlike Christopher Lee, he didn't live long enough to bring his commentary to the audio tracks of his numerous films now released on DVD. But this book gives us his memories and his commentaries on the films we love.



2. It seems an amazing fact that the majority of actors who have tied their stars to horror have had personalities that couldn't be farther apart than the characters they played. Certainly, Peter Cushing may be the classic example of this. He often played unethical murderous characters in horror films and appeared as the hero in countless others, but he was one of the most soft-spoken gentleman one could ever meet. This book includes both of Cushing's books - written in the late 80s. His Autobiography and the follow up "Past Forgetting." The first is excellent, recounting his life and career from its early days to the present and includes many thoughtful anecdotes and his great love for his wife Helen shines through. The second part - Past Forgetting - is for fans only. It's not badly written or boring but contains little of substance and is not easily recalled. A disappointment after the first book, but then again - when you already told your life story, what are you supposed to do? Tell it again. Still, this is highly recommended for all fans of Cushing and Hammer films.



3. Peter Cushing was fiercely devoted to his wife, Helen and this autobiography certainly drives that point home. The death of his wife in the early 1970's left Cushing in a deep state of mourning that he never really recovered from, in his own words, he spent the remaining years of his life after Helen's death, awaiting his own death. Cushing regales us with stories of his early years, his years in Hollywood, his eventual return to England and his association with Hammer and Amicus, but throughout the entire book, we never lose sight of the fact that Cushing was deeply in love with his wife. One seldom hears/reads of such devotion to one's spouse, but always the gentleman, Cushing gives us all a glimpse into what his world was really like and although it would have been nice to hear more tales of his Hammer/Amicus days, the fact that he opened his heart and bared his soul unashamedly is enough to make this book a must for any Cushing fan.



4. Peter Cushing's two-volume autobiography, now conveniently combined into one volume, is indispensible reading to any Hammer fan like myself, who grew up looking forward to each new Cushing shocker. It is the essential companion volume to Christopher Lee's autobiography "Tall, Dark & Gruesome". Mr. Cushing's considerable personal charm and famous gentlemanliness shines from these pages. For my own taste, I could have used less on his great romance with Helen and more day-to-day off screen at Hammer & Amicus, but other readers, especially women, will react differently. Cushing was nothing if not madly in love with his wife, and her early death left a void nothing ever filled, though Cushing lived on past her for over 20 years. The photos have been well & generously selected, and overall, the book is a pleasureable read about one of the nicest men ever to make a career scaring the pants off us. Those who know Peter only as Grand Moff Tarkin in "Star Wars" will find a wealth of career that led to that pinnicle, and even his die-hard Hammer Frankenstein & Van Helsing fans may not know he worked with Laurel & Hardy, Cary Grant and James Whale! It makes you feel like you're sitting in a lovely seaside cottage, sipping tea and nibbling cakes while Peter regales you with tales from a life you may end up wishing you had led.

No comments about Autobiography of Christopher Kirkland, Volume 1, The (Large Print).

2 comments about How I Grew (Transaction Large Print Books).

1. I love most of Mary McCarthy, but in my opinion, this is her weakest book. It covers basically the same territory as Memories of a Catholic Girlhood, which she wrote in the 1950s. Here, however, there's little trace of her signature, tightly-wrought style. Instead, the style is baggy, with convoluted sentences, chatty asides, digressions within digressions, and endless lists of books she read, names of friends, etc. As a result, I often lost track of the basic story - which, after all, was the exact same story she had already told in Memories of a Catholic Girlhood. I'm rather confused as to why McCarthy wrote this book at all. Given that she had already written a detailed memoir of her formative years, why not just skip ahead to the mid-1930s, the subject of her unfinished "Intellectual Memoirs"?



2. Each time I reread "How I Grew" I enjoy it more. Mary McCarthy paints a picture of herself coming of age intellectually , alongside engaging and often hilarious descriptions of the people she meets in these formative years between age 13 and 21, the town she grows up in (Seattle), and her early experiences at Vassar. What I love most is her chronicle of the most important and influential books and teachers in her life at this time, and how they shaped and sharpened her already apparent keen intelligence. Witty, self-deprecating, acid-tongued, insightful, and admittedly selective in her memories, in this book Mary McCarthy gives us some clues as to how a young girl with a formidable intellect grew into one of America's literary giants.

No comments about Anabasis.

No comments about May Sarton: A Self Portrait (Curley Large Print Books).

No comments about The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.

No comments about A Doctor of Sorts (Ulverscroft Large Print Series).

5 comments about Jack and Jackie: Portrait of an American Marriage.

1. This is a little light and PEOPLE magazine-y in parts. But every now and then the author slips the needle in and lets you know he knows more than he's letting on. The catty remarks by Gore Vidal spice things up. I particularly liked the account of Kennedy's personal physician, Dr. Max Jacobson -- the legendary "Dr. Feelgood." Four times a week, right up until the assassination, the Doc was shooting Kennedy up with a special concoction; 25% vitamins and 75% pure dexedrine. Isn't it nice to know we had a speed-freak tweaker in the White House with his twitching fingers on The Button? (Funny how they didn't teach me these stuff in 6th grade History class.) Beneath Jack Kennedy's "vigorous, youthful" facade was a sickly man. And the same can be said for the whole shiney, air-brushed "Kennedy myth" and the rot just underneath the surface. They don't call it "the Kennedy curse" for nothing. Truly, the Kennedys are one of the sickest families to ever inflict themselves on the American body.



2. A fast read. Many details and secrets that probably would not have been published if either of them were alive.



3. This book brought to light so many things that I never really knew. Concerning, love, drugs, children and affairs. It was a great book, but I found the last 20 pages or so to be the most captivating. This book left me with a sad feeling, because the Kennedy's were finally beginning to truly love each other when JFK was shot. This just goes to show that life isn't always fair. This was a great book that I would recommend for anyone to read.



4. A fabulous account of the childhoods and marriage of Jack and Jackie Kennedy. Fantastic pictures of the famous couple. A Wonderful read!!!! FOR QUESTIONS OR DICUSSIONS ON JACKIE ONASSIS, PLEASE E-MAIL ME AT MellissaLD@aol.com. HPOE TO HEAR FROM YOU!!!!!!!!!!



5. As someone who was born in 1977, all that I know of the "Camelot" era has come to me second and thirdhand. This book was great at setting to rest some of the myths surrounding this famous couple and also presented some information I hadn't seen anywhere else about their private lives in the White House. I discovered many things about Jackie's life growing up that I did not know previously, and how those events factored into her decision to marry JFK.

   Sometimes the author's narrative style can be jarring ("'And what would be wrong with,' she asked coyly, 'that?'") but I do not find the dialogues related to be unrealistic. It was rather like reading a transcript of an extra-long episode of A & E's "Biography" television show. The book is an engaging account of a typical high-society marriage with a tragic "what might have been in this marriage" twist resulting from Mr. Kennedy's assasination so soon after the death of their baby brought the two much closer together.

1 comments about The Waterlily.

1. This is the diary of a year in the life of a writer, living in the Blue Mountains of New South Wales. It is honest and touching. In this book we get to see the author's frailities as well as her strengths. Kate Llewellyn is a poet and this comes across in her use of words and her observations of the everyday. It is like sitting in her lounge and talking with her about life and friends and shines with an enduring spirit. A very uplifting book - beautifully written and a joy to read.