1 comments about Joy Adamson: Behind the Mask (Charnwood Large Print Library Series).

1. My goodness! What an expose' of an amazing woman. I only know about what Joy Adamson did as far as Elsa was concerned. I was a child at the time of the book and the movie called Born Free. It captivated me along with many many others in the world. Many people, it seems, do incredible things and must go up against amazing odds to accomplish things for the betterment of a species or whatever. I, of course, am referring to the accounts of Dian Fossey and a few others I can't remember right now.

   I don't know if this account is true or partly true or not - I only know that it shows that even the amazing are not so perfect as the movies will lead you to believe. I believe that there is truth in all things and ours is not to judge so harshly because we are not in their heads and hearts at all times.

   Joy Adamson because of her "abrupt" manner was able to do things that a "nice" person could not, perhaps? It is a shame, however, that it can be so difficult for people to separate who to be difficult to and who not to in their lives.

   This book was a good read, but like I said - probably shouldn't be taken as gospel.

No comments about On the Trail of Grant and Lee.

No comments about Anne Bradstreet and Her Time (Large Print Edition).

5 comments about I Want to Thank My Brain for Remembering Me: A Memoir.

1. I love the Breslin delivery. This took us through his surgery deep into his brain, outlined every moment and procedure. Tells us that he didn't want to be "selected" as if he, in his fame, was getting special treatment. Was not at all sure he would come out knowing himself or anything of his universe. Fascinating in the telling. Well done and of major interest to anyone who wonders about the potential in their own life for 'something' to go wrong up there...



2. Well, Jimmy Breslin is Jimmy Breslin. I have always been a fan. The part of this book that really fascinated me was his reaction to the health care issue.
   He had a brain aneurysm. He has to have it operated or he dies. He could come out of the operation a vegetable. He tells his wife to get everything out of his name - the home the assets everything. Basically he says; I didn't work this hard all my life to spend my last days as a vegetable and have all my money drained into the coffers of doctors and hospitals.
   His wife did not follow his advice and luckily he came out all right.
   But isn't that interesting? Jimmy Breslin is a millionaire and with a ton of insurance but yet even he is vulnerable to the perils of this health care system.
   I guess since I'm 65 myself now and everybody I know is dead or on their way out - the death deal and everybody philosophizing about it is like water under a bridge. The insurance thing was more important to be. I agree with Jimmy, people all work too hard in this country to have whatever they have left stolen from their children and grandchildren to go into paying for this damn defunct health care baloney.
   I say good for him!



3. Outspoken New York newspaper columnist and author Breslin, famed for his sharp eye and wit, explores his own brain in this memoir of his life and his experience with brain surgery.
   
   The book opens the night before his aneurysm surgery in 1994 and closes with him leaving the hospital, mind intact. In between is a free-association of flashbacks - a rollicking ride through his life, his city and his work - punctuated by contemplative reflections on the nature of God and the human mind.
   
   "I lived in the everyday excitement of meeting strangers who unfold in front of you and become people you cannot wait to tell others about. How can you be expected to notice what is happening to your own life? ...and suddenly I look down and see that my feet are pawing strange dirt at the lip of a grave that maybe could be mine. And that is blinding speed."
   
   At age 65 Breslin made a rare doctor's visit due to eye trouble. The eye is nothing, but the attendant MRI shows an entirely unrelated "bulge," which could be a life-threatening aneurysm.
   
   Instantly Breslin recalls the Crown Heights riot after a black child was killed by a car driven by a Jew and a Jewish student was subsequently stabbed. Entering the area in a cab, Breslin was beaten and finally rescued. "The guy with the knife took me by the arm and led me through the crowd. The rest of me was reeling, a flag blowing in a stiff wind."
   
   Breslin's eye was injured in the melee and he seizes on this as an explanation. His memory of the riot is pungent, urgent, but the doctor brushes it off.
   The aneurysm confirmed, Breslin makes a joke. The doctor is amazed at his lack of understanding. But: "I also was treating it just as I do any horrible thing that occurs in a day. I report on a tragedy by remaining cold and callous and concentrate on making notes of the smallest details. In the hotel kitchen in Los Angeles, I counted Sirhan Sirhan kicking his legs five times before somebody sat on them after he shot Robert Kennedy."
   
   As he educates himself about the aneurysm and his options, he recalls the deaths of others - Nelson Rockefeller, his beloved wife Rosemary, the New York stabbing of Martin Luther King and his assassination a decade later - and endures the kindness and shocking insensitivity of various friends and colleagues.
   
   He recalls colorful characters from mob bosses to shady polls, rollicking nights in bars where he learned more than any journalism graduate sitting at a computer (he has the older generation's contempt for new ways).
   
   He remembers the cold dread of being broke, the bitterness of his childhood, his own floundering lack of identity - always pretending to be someone else. And all of it in vivid anecdotes that rivet the reader to the page.
   
   In contemplative moments he explores his relationship with God and the Catholic Church and researches the science of the mind, discovering that there isn't one.
   
   And he name-drops a bit. Governor Mario Cuomo asks the state health commissioner to recommend a doctor for his case. On the other hand murderer David Berkowitz, "Son of Sam," once pointed him out, saying " 'That's Jimmy Breslin. He's a very good friend of mine.' "
   
   Vintage Breslin, this is a compulsive page turner; funny, poignant and opinionated. His colorful, rushing style is quintessential New York and uniquely Breslin's.



4. "You take emotions, curiosity, whim, wandering around, out of a day's work and you have a corporation of zombies giving you an array of facts and details not worth space in a waste-basket." writes Jimmy Breslin of many of his fellow journalists. No commercials in Jimmy Breslin's prose, just gusty gutsy sentences, long crescendos, reflective adagios, and many many characters, all of them greater than life.

   This is a book of reminiscences first and foremost - thirty years of roaming New York's (and the world's) back streets like a mongrel journalist dog, sniffing garbage, following up on a scent, and peeing at lampposts to mark the most extraordinary territory on earth. Never awed, never condescending, Breslin is simply and unwaveringly curious - hence masterly.

   In the second part of the book this curiosity takes him into the OR and over the medical logs unflinchingly to understand the brain surgery he underwent, and to report on it. I'm not sure he fully succeeds in weaving it all into a story, though. It is like passengers watching on the TV screen the plane as it takes off - instant replay, and a bit unreal, or a gimmick. So what, it remains a great read.




5. Although the memoir is primarily the story of Mr. Breslin's diagnosis and treatment for a serious medical condition, it is delightfully sprinkled with anecdotes that pop into his head as he's contemplating his own fate. It is these stories that make this book well worth the reading. I only wish that Mr. Breslin had been more willing to let down his guard so we could get a better glimpse of the man -- I'm certain that he's at least as interesting himself as are the stories he tells about others.

No comments about Not Far from Wigan Pier (Reminiscence).

No comments about Life of John Milton (Large Print Edition).

5 comments about Twenty Years at Hull House.

1. A well written book but a littany of "look at what I did for the less fortunate" Jane Adams clearly brings out the fact that she was of the upper class and so much better than those she sought to help. Her goal it seems was to bring high society upper middle class values to the poor. She rarely talks about others who had to be involved. If it did not include her she was not interested in reporting. She also failed to show that she actually helped anyone better thier lives. She just crows about how she brought literature and art to the poor masses.



2. Along with Addams herself, "Twenty Years At Hull-House" inspired generations of US social and political activists. For decades a Hull House sojourn, or at least a visit, was virtually a pilgrimage for all kinds of progressive reformers. Jane Addams came from a conventional Middle American milieu, but was radicalized by seeing the ravages of the Industrial Revolution both in Britain and Chicago. This timeless memoir of the years 1889-1909 documents her wide-ranging concerns, embracing public health, pacifism and feminism as well as philanthropy, working-class education and poverty alleviation. Nationalist hysteria damaged Addams's reputation as a result of her antiwar stance during World War I, but it recovered enough for her to win the 1931 Nobel Peace Prize. Students had mixed views of book and author. To some she is a revelation, but others see her as rather sanctimonious (a fair criticism to some extent). Her prose is accessible but a little archaic now, sometimes appearing flowery or pompous, which deters some readers. While I respect and admire Addams, I waited in vain for the epiphany felt by thousands inspired by her life's work. People who find their own way to "Hull-House" will probably appreciate her more than those required to read her book---but such unsought exposure lies at the heart of liberal education, and brings many rewards.



3. In 1911 Addams helped found the National Foundation of Settlements and Neighborhood Centers, and she was its first president. She was also a leader in women's suffrage and pacifist movements. In 1915 she helped found the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom. She received the 1931 Nobel Peace Prize (shared with American educator Nicholas Murray Butler).
   
   The Hull House could boast a group of about 2,000 people a week. It had facilities including: a night school for adults, kindergarten classes, clubs for older children, a public kitchen, an art gallery, a coffeehouse, a gymnasium, a girls club, a swimming pool, a book bindery, a music school, a drama group, a library, and labor related divisions.
   
   The Hull House also served as a women's institution of sociology and Addams was a friend and colleague to the early men of the Chicago School of Sociology influencing their social thought of the time through her work in applied sociology, which became defined as social work by academic sociologists of the time. Addams did not, however, consider herself a social worker. She co-authored the Hull-House Maps and Papers in 1893 that came to define the interests and methodologies of Chicago Sociology. She worked with George H. Mead on social reform issues including women's rights and the 1910 Garment Workers' Strike. Addams combined the central concepts of symbolic interactionism with the theories of cultural feminism and pragmatism to form her sociological ideas.



4. I am doing a History Fair project on the Hull House. I thought that I would just be quickly skimming over the book, but in fact i really enjoyed it and I ended up reading with a lot of intrest.



5. I enjoy reading about strong women with great vision. I also enjoy this particular period in history, so this was a perfect match for me. I would love to have been part of the Plato club, or study cooking, or sewing, or heard concerts throughout the week. I sometimes think we have so much going on in our lives right now that we don't take the time to slow down and cherish the simple things. This book did that for me. It made me want to study and focus on things. I know we have tons of technology available to us, but I wish we would still discuss philosophy, and I wish more people would read - I mean, really read. Not just the top twenty things out there. But times are different...

No comments about Mia Farrow (Lythway Large Print Series).

No comments about The Great White Palace.

5 comments about Sal Mineo: His Life, Murder, and Mystery.

1. This is a rare account of a gifted and talented actor whose life was taken from us much to soon at 37 years old in 1976. H.Paul Jeffers tells the story of the highs and lows of a child actors rise to stardom and pursuit to be unique while breaking the mold of the "Hollywood system".
   Jeffers tells the story in a clear and very readable style. With this work
   the author keeps the success and trajedy of this artist's brief life from
   being lost to oblivion. A highly recommended read!



2. I bought this book because I am a Sal Mineo fan. I read other negative reviews about this book but I bought it anyway because I wanted to read about him and hoped I might enjoy it anyway. Hopefully a well written book will be published about Sal Mineo but this is not it. There was no insight at all on Sal Mineo and the type of person he was. The author just seemed to have read some old magazine interviews and watched Sal's films and wrote his book based on that.



3. As a big movie buff, especially of classic films from Hollywood's Golden Age, I have always had an interest in Sal Mineo's life career and untimely death. And I found it sad that he seemed to be slipping into oblivion in the past decade or so. He had a very complex and fascinating screen presence--particularly in his earlier films--and he carved out his place in immortality with his excellent work in Rebel Without a Cause. So I was delighted to come across this book by Paul Jeffers. I commend him for writing about someone who is not a current A-List celebrity...and exploring the many mysteries about Mineo's life and death. However, I must admit I found this book somewhat disappointing. It's not at all scholarly, exhaustively researched or even very detailed and you do get the feeling that it's a "cut and paste" job with a lot of the material coming from previously published sources and the internet. It would have certainly benefited from more leg work--interviews with Mineo's surviving contemporaries and colleagues. I found the chapters concerning his death especially weak. Still, I feel that this book is worth reading for any Hollywood film buff. And if you have no knowledge of Mineo's life at all--you will certainly walk away from it with a somewhat better understanding. In that regard I recommend it and I salute Mr. Jeffers for a very noble and well intentioned effort.



4. I know how hard Paul worked in putting this book together.
   About time for Sal to be seen as a human being which Paul has done. I would have liked to see a longer book, but being a writer I know how hard it can be. Perhaps Paul will do a second book? Just a thought. Peace Trevina



5. H. Paul Jeffers's first ever bio of late actor, Sal Mineo is great! It is honest, tender, and at times startling. But we not only get a gripping account of what Sal Mineo was like, we also get a very well researched listings of his acting work, both on stage and the screen!Also, the book celebrates the fact the Sal Mineo was perhaps one of the first major actors to come out of the closet and definatly paved the way for the gay community.Sal never gave it a second thought, and was true to himself as he was to his career. And Sal was lucky to have had a wonderful friend like . Paul. Jeffers, as the author has made a steller biography about the life of his friend! Loaded with great pictures, this book is class "A" all the way!!!