5 comments about The Dance of the Dissident Daughter: A Woman's Journey from Christian Tradition to the Sacred Feminine (Plus).

1. Sue Monk Kidd captures the reader with her openness about how she became a feminist, almost by accident. This is a very personal account describing her experience of moving from accepted Christianity to feminism. I found the story fascinating and finished it in only 3 days. For the most part, the author simply told her story and how she interpreted the events she faced along the way. However, at various places in the book she began to generalize her experiences to all women, which made me agree with the reviewer who said her journey is not my journey.
   
   What I found a bit disconcerting is that the author states that she made a living as a writer for Christian and inspirational magazines and yet on page 83 says that she suddenly realized that the Bible focuses primarily on masculine rather than feminine attributes of God. Actually, the primary message throughout the Bible is that the God who created the universe wants to have a personal relationship with his creatures, both female and male, and how that is achieved. Even the author would classify relationships as a domain which is more in the feminine rather than mascuine realm. Likewise, the majority of the 10 Commandments deal with relationships and in Matthew 22:36-39 Jesus said the 2 most important commands were loving God and loving your neighbor. I don't see how anyone can miss these more feminine qualities of God.
   
   Maybe the fact that America is a much more egalitarian society than when the book was written in 1996, and maybe some of the recent books that I've read, like The Female Brain, which highlights some of the hormonal and internal changes that women undergo explain why I disagree with the author and don't view the elements of patriarchy in society as something that needs to be attacked. Also, Kidd identifies many identity issues as struggles for girls and women, which I believe are universal struggles regardless of one's gender.
   
   However, even with these complaints I believe the book is important to read if one wants to understand and interact knowledgably with a feminist.



2. Sue Monk Kidd's journey resonates for me as I have long struggled with the way we tend to ignore or excuse the masculine priority that surrounds women's lives. Ms. Monk explores and ennunciates the "stacked deck" of everything from language and religion to the ingrained assumptions of women's secondary status in the world. True the balance has shifted somewhat, but as long as there are places where men have a "right" to beat their wives, where it is against the law for women to be educated, where it's a BIG DEAL to have a woman run for president, where we criticize a woman for being today's connotation of the word FEMINIST for speaking simple truths; we have a problem. Not one to be trivialized or ignored. Can you imagine the hue and cry that would erupt were we to refer to all humanity as "whitekind"? Ms. Monk is shining a light on the endemic prejudice women live with every day of their lives by sharing her journey, her questions, her fears, and confusion with us. I am grateful to her. I don't feel so alone.



3. Sue Monk Kidd expertly and openly shares her most intimate experience in finding the Divine in this well written and referenced personal account.



4. Finally, a book about the female goddess written by a woman with great knowledge and wisdom AND amazing research. The research allows us to believe that we are NOT being duped by a woman...like we've been duped by all the men.
   
   This is an excellent book with such profound insight into a woman's soul. Every woman should read this. Sue should write another book filled with even more research!!!



5. Sue Monk Kidd has created a beautiful masterpiece in Dance of the Dissident Daughter. Her personal and touching story of a woman who became slowly disillusioned with the male patriarchal church which surrounded her, and her own feelings of guilt and pain through her journey is intensely touching. So many novels treat these journeys as solitary paths that we can tread at our own pace, but Sue's real life story encompasses the realities of her husband, her children, and her extended family - and their reactions to her rejection of the tradition patriarchy that held sway over her. Her journey is an inspiration to us all, and should be read by men and women alike (men can and are oppressed by the patriarchy of the church, too!).

5 comments about The Crowd Sounds Happy: A Story of Love, Madness, and Baseball.

1. The Crowd Sounds Happy is an eloquent autobiography written with keen awareness and insight by someone that has survived and understood Severe Mental Disorders (SMD) in a parent. Laced with periods of happiness, the disturbing story describes the periodic psychoses of the author's father that required his family to flee when Nicky was a toddler. Resulting family anxieties haunted his obstacle-filled youth.
   
   Nicky's forced visitations with an explosive, dangerous parent throughout his youth are devastating to witness. More devastating is his frugal, frustrated mother, cursing him as an ingrate in the next room of their tiny flat, where he can hear every word.
   
   Mom forbade television and snacks, but made room for adventures: trips to the country, baseball games, and summer baseball camp. As a teacher, Mom instilled the love of reading in her children. That and radio led Nicky to develop a loyalty to baseball and the Boston Red Sox that had been his maternal grandfather's and aunt's favorites. Nicholas adopted the Sox as more his own more than many fans do their teams. They were his family.
   
   Nickolas spent the bulk of childhood in New Haven, Connecticut during the 1960-70s, witnessing the city's decline into ruined welfare projects, abandoned schools and factories, street prostitution, pedophiles, and widespread crime. This harsh backdrop hosts the neuroses of families of patients suffering SMDs and the book shows how long-lived these conditions all become.
   
   Nickolas describes how he dealt with the injustices placed into his life by others' mental illnesses and family-based anxieties that create magical thinking, the need to control, and the drive to please a world of others in order to avoid attack. While some teens turned to TV heroes, Nicholas turned to the Red Sox and sports writing, becoming a Pulitzer Prize finalist.
   
   Missouri-based brain research indicates the magnitude of damage done to children's neurology by parents with unsuccessfully untreated SMDs. Readers from middle school through adult can read The Crowd Sounds Happy to discover strong examples and solutions.
   
   Armchair Interviews says: Powerful and well-written memoir from a child's point of view.



2. Among my all time favorites in the personal memoir about growing up with baseball are those of Doris Kearns Goodwin and Wilfrid Sheed. Nicholas DaWidoff's recent entry in this category has topped them all. It's not the usual "fathers playing catch with sons" story, for Dawidoff's parents were divorced and his father, suffering from mental illness, was an unsettling and sometimes looming presence on the fringe. This is an elegantly written and deeply moving account of a boy growing to manhood in the shadow of a broken family, coming to grips with it and learning to understand the heroic efforts of his mother to make things work. His own passion for and participation in baseball is not incidental, but is a primary source of solace and strength.



3. A great book relating real-life to baseball fandom especially from the perspective of a teenaged youth! Nick Dawidoff has always had more than a way with words dating back before his college newspaper years and his descriptions actually transport you to his New Haven CT home and neighborhood with his single mom, sister, and classmates. An avid and long-suffering Red Sox fan, he describes the complexities of a simpler time, when one hung on the every syllable of the radio play-by-play announcer for the game details. Nonetheless, these diamond idols were a great preoccupation for a young man facing the severe mental illness of his father in the yet unrejuvenated New York City. In addition to his fantastic description, you may be occasionally running to your (unabridge) dictionary to enlighten your vocabulary, yet these words are used judiciously and knowledgeably, giving expanse to his autobiographical account. A truly enjoyable read! The Crowd Sounds Happy: A Story of Love, Madness, and Baseball



4. 
   For me, this book is a picture of financial poverty and intellectual richness. What this broken family of three couldn't afford was plain as day to all of them, but the riches of language, of books, of words were flowing like so many rivers through their little cramped apartment, as if that was so normal. I love this book. There is a beauty in the way this not so interesting place comes into full color. ND is great at capturing his boyhood self. It makes me appreciate the details and undefined moments of my own childhood and alerts me to the overflowing otherness that my own children are likely experiencing in the world beside me.
   
   Agent A



5. A gorgeously written, warm-hearted, and sincere study of childhood and its many wonders... both good (the mysteries of the backyard, the baseball field, young love, the adult world in general) and not so good (a family dealing with mental illness, the unguided quest for the masculine self). Dawidoff comes across as a sensitive soul in search of meaning -- which his stalwart mother creates through the idea of order -- and comfort, finding it in the simplest and thus most profound places. The story is compelling, the prose inspired.

5 comments about Istanbul: Memories and the City.

1. I have now read all of Orhan Pamuk books available. I have learned so much about another culture because of this brillian author.



2. I finished this on a flight from Izmir to Istanbul. It's a good thing I did: it provides an excellent preface to visiting that amazing city.
   
   Pamuk has three guiding ideas in this book. First is that all Istanbullus share a sort of melancholy which Turks call huzun. The idea is that they all lament the decline of their city since it was the capital of the Ottoman Empire, and that they lament their servitude to the Western world. Secondly, Pamuk wants to harness this huzun and create an artwork that is distinctively Turkish -- not Western, not Muslim, but a harmonious blend of the two. Thirdly, Pamuk believes that the city inhabits the man just as much as the man inhabits the city: Pamuk feels Istanbul's moods and it feels his. Huzun is thus a strictly collective emotion. One cannot feel this sort of melancholy on one's own; one can only experience it in a collective way along with one's fellow-Istanbullus. (Indeed, it's not clear to me that residents of any other city -- Vienna, maybe? Pittsburgh? -- can feel huzun; it may be a nostalgic melancholy that only Istanbullus are logically entitled to feel.)
   
   I didn't feel the huzun in Istanbul, but then I was only there for a few days; Pamuk doesn't believe that anyone can understand his city without living there for ten years or more. It may also be impossible for a new generation of lifelong Istanbullus to feel the huzun: those born into today's Istanbul may not realize that there's anything other than the Western model to follow.
   
   This is all his perspective as an insider to the culture. As an outsider to it, my perspective says something altogether different. When I visited Istanbul, there was at least one mosque, minaret, and muezzin per quarter square mile. One block off the main drag in Beyolu (Istiklal Caddesi), our cab had to stop to let a flock of sheep and their shepherd pass. One block off on the other side was a warren of little streets filled with conservative Muslims. I felt distinctly foreign there, both in nationality and in culture. If this is "the West," Istanbul-style, then Pamuk has nothing to worry about.
   
   At times -- certainly over the last fifth of the book -- Pamuk's melodrama about huzun gets to be a bit much. He haunts the miserable streets of a lost empire, collar upturned against the snow, trying to shake off his own desperation at a lost love and make an art form that doesn't just ape the West. On and on he goes, trying to beat us over the head with the idea that the city inhabits the man and the man the city: we cut back and forth between his furious wanderings in the streets and his fight with his mother over what he'll do with his life. Pamuk thinks he is terribly clever. He wants us very much to know how clever it is; earlier in the book he drops hints about its "hidden symmetry." This symmetry, so far as I can tell, is just the symmetry between the man and the city. So now you know. If you were paying attention during the first half of the book, you already knew. I'd rather not be bludgeoned with the Cleverness Stick.
   
   Still, it's a fun read. It's peppered with (deliberately) black-and-white photos of old Stamboul, from an era when people flocked to the shores of the Bosphorous to watch the Ottoman pashas' wooden "yals" (waterfront mansions) burn to the ground one by one. There's great romance in this book, great love for the Bosphorous, and delicious history. Worth reading, but not worth owning.



3. The book is personal, moody, altogether a very lovely snapshot of an enigmatic city which hangs between East and West. Vintage photographs add their atmosphere to the text.
   
   Orhan Pamuk is a master at his craft; for further reading after this, I suggest "My Name is Red."



4. Times gone by. Greater times, present days. A very personal take on the Great City by one of the world's great writers. Not always popular in his home country, his prose transcends borders, showing Istanbul as it truly is: universal. Packed with great black and white pictures.



5. I think book reviews, rather like any similar activity composed of observation, reception and reflection, can be skewed by our personal experiences and knowledge, as well as corrupted by the opinion and speculation that we sometimes try and keep under control. The empathy and sense of understanding that I felt when reading Istanbul, Memories and the City, were very much shaped by my prior experiences, my personal interpretations of what I had seen, and my own frame of mind.
   
   I was going through Istanbul's Ataturk airport last December (2007) and with the prospect of a long and dull journey in front of me, I was looking in the bookstore for something that I could "lose myself in" during the incredibly dull and boring journey back to Alicante. I was doing some idle browsing in the airport bookshop and I came across Orhan Pamuk's book entitled Istanbul, Memories and the City.
   
   After hurrying to the gate to embark on my flight, there was yet another set of security check, another set of the same procedures to go through - belts off, boots off, everything metal through the scanner, mobile phones, MP3 player, pens, coins, I had so much junk; I even put the Pamuk's book into the plastic tray they provide as part of the terror free scanning service.
   
   Actually this book seemed to be of more interest to the security person than all the rest of the modern technology and metal crap I was having scanned. She looked at the book placed in the tray, as if it might contain some thing rather subversive material, she smirked, picked the book up, then she chucked it back into the tray. I pretended not to notice. Again she picked the book up, made some comment to one of her colleagues, and then chucked the book back into the tray, laughing the way people do when actually there is nothing funny to laugh about; a forced laugh. I still pretended not to notice and of this "behaviour", and just walked through the detector and picked my things up at the other end.
   
   Little things like that can really turn me off a place, it can lead to momentarily dislike and antipathy towards places, especially one that I have found to be, on occasions, desperately depressing, grey and miserable, somewhat filthy, frequently anachronistic, and neither comfortably traditional nor fundamentally contemporary; a pessimistically gloomy halfway house, stuck between a densely populated provincial backwater and a peculiar and unauthentic pastiche of modernity.
   
   I boarded the Iberia flight back to Madrid, with the feeling of someone arriving home, to the familiar and friendly. I took my seat, and prepared for the 4 hour flight to Madrid, within 5 minutes I was asleep.
   
   I awoke to the sound of the in-flight service, I was handed a tray, and I also took a bottle of nice red Spanish wine to accompany dinner.
   
   Sufficiently relaxed and replenished, I took out my recent literary acquisition and started to read.
   
   The book, as I read it, focuses on Orhan Pamuk's recollections of the experience and sensations of growing up in Istanbul, from a very young child in the fifties to a young adult in the seventies. Pamuk expresses a wealth of empathy for the memories of his childhood, and for the city that has been his home for most of his life.
   
   In many ways, Pamuk's account of his Istanbul reminds me very much of many aspects of my life in Cardiff and South Wales when I was very young. This idea was reinforced by a review in the English daily newspaper The Telegraph, in which David Flusfeder wrote:
   
   "Europe has its share of melancholy cities: the citizens of Lisbon take each destructive fire as fate's latest grim joke; Warsaw has been regularly ripped apart by foreign invaders; and it's hard to be cheerful in Trieste or, indeed, Cardiff."
   
   I find it curious that quite a few "western" travellers, writers and artists have sough to represent Istanbul, to recall memories of Istanbul, even modern Istanbul, as a somewhat some what exotic eastern place, full of mystery, harems, intrigue and promise; interesting for its cute differences and it's perceived quaint traditions, for it's ancient history, for its old buildings and even older dirt, for the perceived charm, permissible decadence and cultural diversity. As an aside, I find some of the reviews of Pamuk's work to be bizarre and only vaguely byzantine in their intricate expressions of misplaced and arrant nonsense, and far more so than authors are typically exposed to.
   
   However, I do not find it so strange that many of Pamuk's compatriots are as quick to dismiss and deride him as others in Europe are as quick to laud him, and both doing so on the basis of scant knowledge of the author or their work, and are frequently seasoned with oppressively recondite forms of anachronistic nationalism, by people both in Pamuk's home lands and elsewhere in Europe.
   
   But in his book of memories, Pamuk talks to us about his family, his father, his mother, his friends, desires, the Black Rose, as well as the city; the quarters, districts and neighbourhoods; The Pamuk apartments; Cihangir, Beyoðlu and Niþantaþi; flavoured gin, stuffed mussels, sweets and puddings; the peoples, the Turks, the Italians, the Armenians, the Germans, the French, the Greeks, the Jews, the Persians, and others; art and literature; the necessity of the cosmopolis and the importance of authenticity; the ever present Bosphorus; books, bookshops and booksellers; the cities pizza eating dogs; the trams, buses, shared taxis and metro; the calming and relaxing nature of act of painting; simit sellers and unmentioned fish sandwiches; the changes in life; shared experiences; schools and colleges; books; fishermen, fantasies and murder; art, artists and the artist as seen by the bourgeoisie; the collisions between ships on the Bosphorus, crumbling buildings, the effect of neglect on wooden buildings and the burning of palaces of Ottoman Pashas; the end of empire, the decay that follows and also the new opportunities; family apartments, change and movement; the other self; walking the streets at night; black and white; the taste of a little goats cheese held in the mouth and a sip of tea; ships and ferries; big American limousines; quarrels and complications; the westernised, ornate and hardly used lounges in many apartments; Istanbul Modern; life and death; the writers, poems and novels; the humorous anecdotes culled from articles written during more than 100 years of Istanbul journalism; of architecture, and, of course, writing.
   
   Throughout the book Pamuk comes back to the theme of melancholy (hüzün, in Turkish) which I think he strongly identifies with a depressing spectre that haunts certain abstractions of what can be seen and felt as being Istanbul. I am not so sure exactly where this melancholy stems from, but I would bet that much of it comes down to a deep sense of deception and loss, that goes way beyond the passing of innocence and has been allowed to grow into a monster of nightmares that threatens to cast asunder any modern senses of education, culture and civility; the sad and avoidable debasement of hope and the defeatist crushing of the promises of a better future.
   
   Pamuk seems to have used the writing of this book as one might use a mirror, to reflect his states of mind - his moods, and to project his desires and dislikes, his hopes and fears, into the world. It is a truth that I find compellingly attractive, authentic and very contemporary. Of course, it might not be to everyone's liking, but if you want to truly understand Istanbul then it really is a "must read".
   
   Thinking again about the insignificant incident at the airport, I suspect that the behaviour of the security guard was just another example of the petty, provincial and anachronistic spirit that has created such a depressingly and melancholic place for people who have made Istanbul their home, and yet who desperately want to live in the global "here and now", in their own interpretation of a cosmopolitan, comfortable, modern, cultured and civil society, and unsurprisingly, they do not want to be dragged back into the distant past, into the dark ages; those times that most of us have fortunately never experienced; a return to times, backwardness and conduct, that none of us in our right minds, would ever desire.
   
   Orhan Pamuk, very much like Immanuel Kant who never ventured outside of Königsberg,, has lived virtually all of his life the city of his birth. The following words written about Kant by the critical philosopher Ursula Reitemeyer, in "The History of Mankind between Nature and Reason" strike a chord of relevance and similarity:
   
   "So criticism is the core of Kant's metaphysics of history and the reason, why his metaphysics outlasted his epoch and made him to the very first global philosopher. Kant, that is to say, identified "world" not with a coincidental and necessarily limited perspective of the world but with the whole history of mankind as a morally evolving process. On this theoretical basis every human being is a citizen of the world by birth. This message contains Kant's lasting merit for the modernity - and is probably its only chance."

5 comments about Hope's Boy: A Memoir.

1. *Minor spoilers*
   
   The beginning of Andy's story, first with Grandma Kate and then with Hope, is very compelling. It is clear that he has taken pains to recall everything he could about a brief but influential window in his life.
   
   However, after the first year or two in foster care, the details start to become few and far between, and it felt somewhat empty to me. Like some of the other reviewers, I found his perspective on his foster family to be skewed. I wanted to believe him, but I simply found the Cinderella-esque description of his life in this setting to be a bit flimsy. Oh my God, Mrs. Leonard made terrible snacks and wore garage-sale clothes! And did I mention she was FAT??
   
   This family shared a home with him for a decade and did more for him than Hope did. When a social worker tells the adult Andy that Hope came close to winning him back several times but sabotaged the reunion at the last minute, why didn't he consider that maybe Hope DIDN'T want him back? He shows more generosity in his memory of a woman who seriously endangered him and reduced him to living in a closet and stealing cat food than he does for a family that provided him with a home and some semblance of security, if not love, for 11 years. He admits that he stayed in touch with the Leonards even into his years with the law firm, but he doesn't fully explain why beyond grudgingly saying it was a place to go to at Christmas or on school breaks.
   
   I think in the end he has a very important point to make, that he would have preferred what he perceives was his mother's love and transient life over the relative stability but frigid conditions in foster care. But I'm not sure how that translates into reality for the thousands of children who are removed from their families each year. Bridge raises many questions, but he doesn't offer realistic answers. He hints that someone should have told him Hope wanted him back, or that someone should have helped Hope reunite with him. But how could this be achieved? Hope battled a serious mental illness, and he does a valiant job of defending her, but realistically, what can the state do to help a schizophrenic woman maintain ties to her child? If he has ideas -- and he may very well might -- they aren't noted here in any detail.



2. A friend of my wife's recommended Hope's Boy. It drew me in immediately. Bridge tells his story in such a way that I kept reading, wanting to find out more about what would happen to him and Hope. His writing style is poignant, yet without self-pity. I was struck by the profound loneliness he felt - being taken from his mother, and then living in a foster home where he was treated indifferently, at best, and abusively, at worst. Yet, despite all of those obtacles, he relied on his strengths and belief in Hope's love for him to persevere and excel in the ways that the "outside" world valued and rewarded, while keeping his "inside" world hidden. High school honors, college scholarship to Wesleyan University, Harvard Law School, Fulbright Scholar, legal advocate for kids in foster care. What a great take-away message of the power of hope!



3. Andrew Bridge has written an extraordinary memoir about our country's most vulnerable women and children. Anyone who works with children and families or cares about what we need to do to help them should read this book.



4. 
   I am so glad that I read this book...
   
   What a story. What a life. This book tells a page-turning story of love, loss, struggle, courage, survival, and incredible strength. It is a story of how a young man became intimately, personally, brutally aware of the flawed system that reared him, and how through his own strength and increased understanding sought to fight against it. A haunting and moving story... A real call to awareness and action... A definite must read.



5. After reading the "Hope's Boy" book bonus in Reader's Digest I was able to meet the author at a B&N signing. His honesty, sincerity and deep love for his mother made me want to read more.
   
   "Hope's Boy" was hard to put down. I, too, have many vivid memories of my childhood. Unlike Andrew, my memories are of a big family and happy times. It breaks my heart to think of the children with memories of separation, loneliness and fright.
   
   Good luck to Mr. Bridge as he works with the childcare system.

5 comments about Iceman: My Fighting Life.

1. This book tells a good story and gives you a peek at the explosively popular world of MMA. Chuck Liddell is an example for America's youth to look up to. Honest, hardworking and straight to the point. Very happy with this purchase.



2. I read Chuck Liddell's book in about a 3 week span, inbetween work and working out and other activities. Although it was a quick read, it was a very insightful and entertaining book. Growing up in SLO and his problems with his father not being in the picture. To playing HS football and then being a near perfect student-athlete at Cal Poly. Until his fighting days in obscure bare knuckle fights in Brazil to what we have as the UFC today, with all the highlights and lowlights pinpointed and brought to life in a fun way. Kickass Book!



3. I wasn't a Chuck Liddell fan until I read this book.I'll being cheering for him to win his fights until he retires now.Thanks Chuck!



4. Sometimes there are icons of sports. In the UFC, Chuck Liddell is a name that immediately comes to mind. His fights with Tito Ortiz are legendary, and the trilogy with Randy Couture is even more so. His kick to the head of Renato, "Babalu" Sobral, is still a highlight KO to this day! And the painful comeback fight with "Ramapage" Jackson that didn't even make 2 minutes in the first round still lingers in the hearts of UFC fans. But who is Chuck Liddell? What makes him tick? Read this book to find out!
   
   He's been called the baddest man on the planet, and he will always be a legend in the UFC. But you learn that he's always loved to fight. Whether in a bar, or on a simple street corner, or, of course, in the Octagon, just waiting to load up for that knock out punch that will end it all. You'll read about it all in this. From his days of football and wrestling, to when he stepped into a dojo, and simply longed to spar. You'll find out about The Pit, and about the man John Hackleman is. And you'll read about most of his fights. He really gets into it, and he loves to talk fighting.
   
   But you'll also see a man outside the Octagon, the man who likes to party and hang with the ladies. Somewhat of a lifestyle that has had many saying he lives a rock-star MMA life.
   
   All in all, you'll find out about Chuck. When reading the book by Matt Hughes, I was impressed, despite the fact that he didn't go into detail all that much like Liddell did. And Liddell does indeed go into detail, because he's proud of who he is. Sometimes he offers a little too much information, attempting not to boast.
   
   But he knows what it's like to be the best, and to be beaten by the best. But he's still ready for a fight or two. And until he can't get in that cage anymore, he wants to keep on fighting! Quite interesting overall.



5. Natch, this is one of those autobiographies written "with" a real writer, in this case, Chad Millman. But given the Iceman's persona and interest reflected herein, this book still has the ring of authenticity, as captured in quotes like these regarding pre-fight preparations:
   
   -- "...I could think, focus, and go over my game plan, which was essentially to go and beat the cr** out of the guy."
   
   -- "My plan was to punch him in the face as much and as frequently as possible."
   
   You've got to love it. (That, or return the book.) My guess is that Iceman fans will enjoy getting the lowdown on Liddell's life, and this also provides an interesting history on how the UFC became what it is today.
   
   I am downgrading this book to four stars because its binding was so crummy, whole chapters fell out as I worked my way through it.

5 comments about We've Always Had Paris...and Provence: A Scrapbook of Our Life in France.

1. some of the anecdotes are interesting, i found overall the book was a featherweight and self- aggrandizing.



2. This was my introduction to Patricia Wells, about whom I've heard and read so much over the years. Her cookbooks may be wonderful, but the writing in this book certainly is not. The language is uninspired and the details she and her journalist husband choose to share about themselves are almost embarrassing. There also wasn't a single recipe that sounded appealing. The descriptions of Provence were lovely, and it's nice that they've made such a happy life for themselves, but somehow the way they present it all just comes off wrong. Readers would be much better served by picking up Jacques Pepin's charming memoir, The Apprentice.



3. What a delightful book! As a browsed through the bookstore, I wasn't sure what to pick up. The title intrigued me and I sat down to browse the book. 95 pages later, I had to buy the book. I couldn't put down the wonderful love story that weaves throughout the book. I most of all love the sense of humor for love, fashion, food, and Paris! My time is limited when reading for pleasure and this book is on my top 5!



4. Let me start by saying that I have copies of all of Patricia Wells's cookbooks and generally like them. "Bistro Cooking" is a particular favorite. This book, however, was a chore to read and rather than enhancing my opinion of her as a person it nearly negated everything. The book is co-authored with her journalist husband--with each taking turns with alternate chapters. They come off as very shallow, self-absorbed, and self-serving people. The book is riddled with black and white photographs--most looking canned and posed as if for an advertisement for her cooking school. It was just too much to hear about her beauty and exercise regime--eyelash curling and all. Upon seeing a woman in the street that looked haggered and spent, her husband turns to her and applauds Patricia's efforts in not letting herself go as this woman obviously had. Just too awful to bear reading this stuff. I don't know what I expected this book to be--but certainly not this. If it weren't so much trouble I would return it to Amazon.



5. just like a letter from friends. Wish she would update FOOD LOVERS GUIDE TO PARIS AND TO FRANCE

No comments about The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit: A Jewish Family's Exodus from Old Cairo to the New World (P.S.).

5 comments about Black Like Me.

1. This book is the account of a white man, named John Howard Griffin, who turned himself black to study the real extent of racism. It starts out with his experiences in New Orleans as a black man. He knew about some of the things that are done to black people, but didn't know the full extent of how much white people try to degrade the sense of value or self-worth of all black people. He experiences having to walk miles ot get a drink of water, working for hours and having just eough money to eat that day, and the whites attempts at lowering all black's self worth, including the "hate stare." However, New orleans is relatively nice for Bkacks. When he reads that in Mississippi there was a lynching case the FBI had found tons of evidence for and the White grand jury wouldn't even open the packet of evidence. The mississippe folks claimed they had wonderful relationships with the Negros. Griffin had even met some of them before, and talked about there relationships with the Negros. He saw a whole new side of them when he went as a black man. He was horrified at how inhumanely people could treat other people and shares very insightful thoughts ion what racism was really like.
   
   I would highly reccomend this book for someone to read, although it's not for younger children. it''s more for tenns and audults. It has a plethora of large words that some with smallish vocabularies might not understand. Otherwise this is one of the best boos I have ever read and I highly reccomend you read it.



2. Though approaching the fiftieth anniversary of the events in this book, reading BLACK LIKE ME today shows both the inroads America has made towards erasing the blight of racial intolerance, as well as the limits that America has in truly educating itself about all kinds of Hate. Indefensible Hate still exists here, and there is no indication that it will make as great a stride in the next fifty years as it has in the last fifty.
   
   Without question, this book should be required reading for all teenagers (and adults) across the country. To understand another's perspective is the first, primary step in eradicating intolerance. This book (which is a slight bit didactic at points) is the remarkable journey of a man who bothered to really try to understand the life of the black man in the American South as best as he could. Of course he could never truly KNOW, but he certainly took pains to do what he could to understand the experience better than anyone before.
   
   Students (eighth-graders) in my Honors Language Arts class are required to read this book, and I hope they will discover from where we as a nation have traveled. Those who easily bandy about epithets or think unkind thoughts about others (whether because of race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, heritage, or ability) might get an honest sense of perspective by taking the trip with John Howard Griffin.
   
   Better yet, after reading this book, ask yourself these questions (and I will ask my students): "If given the opportunity to change my appearance so dramatically as to appear to be from a different race for six weeks, would I do it? What would I fear going into it? Suppose I was told after four weeks that it was impossible to change back; how would it make me feel?"
   
   For a country that falsely prides itself on equality for all, I believe that our conversations about racial equality are sorely lacking in our public dialogue. BLACK LIKE ME would be an excellent place to start a meaningful conversation.



3. Originally published in 1961, Black Like Me is the account of how white journalist John Howard Griffin had his skin medically darkened and traveled through the Deep South as a black man in an attempt to explain the hardships black people in the South faced. It also covers the backlash against the publication of his story.
   
   Black Like Me is a concise, fast and engaging read. The reader is often able to see things through Griffin's eyes, even as Griffin tries to see things through the eyes of others. He does an excellent job communicating the cultures of fear and despair he encountered. The entire account of his travels as a black man is riveting.
   
   If there is any nit-picking to be done, let it be for this: at times, particularly early on, Griffin's descriptions of mundane, everyday objects and details seem forced and do not aid the narrative.
   
   While today's racial tensions are much less overt (and much less publicized), Black Like Me still has quite a bit to say about the universal elements of human nature and the culture of racism.
   
   HIGHLY RECOMMENDED



4. Here's something that often makes me laugh...
   
   People who seem to have no Black friends, don't know any Black people other than at a distance (say in another department at work), have none in their social circle and who have no knowledge of 'Black' history, the history of racist thought and practice or its persistent legacy of discrimination are quick to say those magic words:
   
   'I'm not racist'.
   
   I've observed this many, many, many times. It often precedes 'but...' and someone saying something that often reveals staggering ignorance. Now I'm no mind reader but I would ask the question of anyone who says 'I'm not racist' - how do you know?
   
   We all have opinions that we would do well to examine from time to time. I've heard people from different ethnic groups, countries etc say the most stupid things imaginable about 'other' people and even themselves. Men say stupid things about women, women say stupid things about men. Let's face it - stupidity is common currency all over the world.
   
   This book, if honestly read and understood, is an antidote to the abject stupidity of racism.



5. John Howard Griffin is a man of deep thought and deep feelings. He wants to know what it's like to be separated from a priviledged world. As his skins becomes darker and darker, the less respected he becomes. He no longer is able to find a bathroom or even a glass of water because of the way he was "born." People treat him like a slave. This book will convert you into a person who speaks out for Negros, even today. You will no longer be able to tolerate racial jokes.

5 comments about The Water is Wide.

1. This is an early example of the promise of Pat Conroy. Everything I have read of his has been extraordinarily beautifully written. There are pages I have to reread just for the joy of the wording, the descriptions, the expressions of thoughts.
   
   As a teacher he must have been a treasure. It is an indictment of the school system in which he worked that he was not fostered and encouraged. America's children are the losers in the situation. I know the people of "Yamacraw" felt the loss when he was not allowed to return to the school there.
   
   America's readers have reaped the benefits of Conroy's education and experience and his exemplary use of the language.
   
   Enjoy!



2. After having read the book, we had an opportunity to tour Daufuskie Island (Yamacraw Island in the book). After the tour we stopped at the General Store and noticed that The Water Is Wide was not offered for sale. We asked about this. We were told the Gullahs thought the book put them down and they did not want the book available on the island. ..... Interesting.



3. While reading The Water is Wide, I experienced exactly the kind of heart-warming, comical, enjoyable reaction Pat Conroy had in mind while writing the book. Several themes are apparent throughout, and it was easy for the reader to recognize the most important one. Pat Conroy taught his students and readers that no matter a person's race, literacy level, age, or gender, everyone matters, and everyone is equal.
   Pat Conroy moved many times as a child, since his father was in the military. His first job was teaching English in Beaufort, South Carolina. He then found himself teaching on the remote Daufuskie Island, which was referred to as Yamacraw Island in the novel. This teaching job provided the inspiration and plot for The Water is Wide.
   Pat Conroy, referred to as "Conrack" by some students, has an excellent way of teaching readers the importance of acceptance and equality. He does not preach or lecture his message, but his delivery of it through countless situations is just as effective. Sometimes his point is concealed by the amusement of the Yamacraw students, but by the end of each chapter, the reader will be reminded of the seriousness at hand.
   The Water is Wide never failed to entertain me. The book takes countless turns in the plot, and each turn results in comedy, sincerity, or amusement. The reader finds him or herself relating to each character, even though the lifestyle on Yamacraw Island is much different from most of the United States. Pat Conroy made me realize how lucky I am to live in a society where education is important and emphasized. This book opened my eyes to how people in other, less fortunate areas of the world live. I recognized that education is imperative, and how much the average student takes for granted.
   While Pat Conroy had no problems capturing my attention with plenty of interesting stories, he sometimes overwhelmed readers with his personality. Several parts of the book were filled with Conroy's strong opinion on characters and school rules. This sometimes interrupted the plot. Other than the occasional rant by Pat Conroy, the book flowed smoothly.
   The Water is Wide was an excellent read for teenagers and adults, especially those interested in teaching. I enjoyed reading this book from cover to cover, and it influenced me in ways only exceptional literature can.



4. The author has an excellent command of words in describing characters and action. Unfortunately, they are not used to good effect in this autobiographical novel.
   
   For me the book lacked interesting characters, a fascinating plotline, and impending danger and escalating conflict. Consequently it lacked ongoing suspense, failing to involve and absorb me in this so-called story.
   
   I say so-called because the book seems more like a a series of isolated incidents, hardly focused on a particular end or goal, and therefore take on a rambling, babbling, numbing quality, one which I, for one, found increasingly boring.
   
   There was no point in the book where I felt I couldn't put the book down and wonder or care about what was going to happen to the main, or even the subordinate, characters. It was all ho-hum. To me, a good book compels me to keep reading, even if I have to stay up all night doing so. Not this one--if anything, it threw me into an uncaring state of somnolence. And many of its points that are continually repeated contribute to this
   
   At page 115 I tossed the book into the trash can so that I could better use my time by reading something better, hopefully a book that is more involving and fascinating.



5. I was really impressed with this book. Not only did I enjoy the story, which is true, but I also enjoyed the writing of Pat Conroy. This is the first book I have read by Conroy. This is about the experience Conroy had in the early 70's teaching in a one room school house on Yamacraw Island (which is the pseudonym for Daufuskie Island), an island off the coast of South Carolina. This island was populated by mostly African Americans. The experience was truly eye opening . It really depicted the society of that time: Civil Rights, Segregation and Southern Culture and it's resistance to change. Conroy took a true life experience and put in down on paper in such a way that the reader felt like they were there on the island with him. Add to that an exceptional sense of humor that was drizzled throughout the story and you have yourself a masterpiece. I have added all of the rest of Conroy's books on my wishlist and I feel a little bit more with the program after finally reading one of his works.

5 comments about Roasting in Hell's Kitchen: Temper Tantrums, F Words, and the Pursuit of Perfection.

1. This book grabs you from page 1. Anyone who thinks they know Gordon Ramsay -- even after watching him on TV -- will be taken aback by what they read. Here is a climb from despair, through mine fields of restaurant kitchens, to the heights of fame and fortune.



2. The book itself is a breeze to read on the Kindle. It is fairly short but doesn't come across that way on the Kindle. The pictures that he included in his book were definately a nice touch, 95% of them came out perfectly fine. The remaining 5% either came out pretty horribly or didn't come out at all. I am a big fan of his show and have had to explain to people in the past that he is doing some of the things that he does in part because he is looking out for the participants themselves. The only way to learn sometimes is to have a lesson become implanted because their is an unpleasant memory that is attached to it. His own personal history is so rough that I can see where he gets his drive to succeed in life. Anyone can make it in life we just have to not give up. And that lesson is worth infinetly more then the price of this book.



3. This is a very quick read from Gordon Ramsey. I think the media exaggerates and feeds preconceived ideas into people's minds about what this man is about. The book really hits some high notes about where Gordon Ramsey is coming from. When he appears on tv yelling and pissed off at someone, it is usually because he sees their potential and that is his way of bringing it out of the person. Surprisingly easy to read, the book gives insight on his past and just what makes him the man he is today. Definitely worth a read. I read through it pretty much through 2 sittings and found new respect for this man.



4. There's a kind of breathlessness about this wonderful autobiography, a sort of "I gotta tell this story, get it all out, and say it right." that carried me almost non-stop through it. This is no polished work edited to smithereens, it's raw, real, moving, and a lesson in how one climbs over the debris of a rotten childhood one step at a time and makes it thru commitment and hard work and dedication to a chosen profession.
   
   I first saw Ramsay in his "Kitchen Nightmares" on BBC America. Having cut my teeth on Bourdain's "Kitchen Confidential", I had the advantage of not being all that shocked at the ghastly mess some of these professional restaurant kitchens are in and could focus on his approach to trying to help the restaurant of the moment start to get back on its feet. It was his passion and skill and kindness to the youngest employees and selected others of the staff and the frequent humour around his eyes that grabbed me. The cussing and the yelling were just a reflection of his passion, and I could have cared less if they were appropriate.
   
   And "The F-Word" reveals other aspects of his character that start to share a fuller picture of who this man is - the jokester (e.g.,the wine-tasting test with the guy who couldn't even identify his own wines), the boss in his own kitchen, the father of those marvelously smart, funny, giggly, balanced little children, the cook with those wonderfully simple elegant recipes that we can indeed make at home, etc. etc. etc.
   
   So buy the book and settle in for a good read - there's still a lot of Ramsay one can learn about by doing so. He may not particularly care for being an example (I read it as "Quit yer whinin' and dig in and get to work.") but he's stuck with it now. Thanks, Mr. Ramsay.
   
   :)
   
   
   



5. This was a good book. It was simply written in Gordons style. I liked it.