5 comments about A Year in Van Nuys.

1. To be honest, there's so much stuff in this book, subjects all over the map, that I'm having trouble writing a review. Every subject hit me a little differently. I found myself getting extremely bored on one tale, and then immensely enjoying another. That I had trouble getting past the first 30 pages had no bearing on how much I enjoyed the middle 10, or indeed that story about the writing workshop, which came near the end and was one of the best. R.A. Salvatore said that you know you are really a writer only if you just can't stop, and Sandra Tsing Loh makes this point wonderfully.
   
   One reason I read this book is because it was apparently about Van Nuys; however, that suburb of Los Angeles did not figure into the book nearly as much as I thought it would. The author devotes too much time and energy on Hollywood, which is a very different place from the San Fernando Valley (which Van Nuys is part of), so the title may be misleading.
   
   You don't really need to know much about Los Angeles to understand this book, but a good knowledge of pop culture of the time helps. Recommended if you like those things and amusing streams of consciousness as well as the subjects of writing and aging.



2. Tsing Loh is a new talent in the essay genre, and she will appeal to anyone in their 20's or 30's who is post-college but still searching for themselves, while watching annoying overachievers from college become television anchors. Some readers find her a bit too whiny, but she really hit home with me, and I loved her way of examining the world. The book has some terrific hand-drawn illustrations and diagrams expressing Sandra's feelings (one winner is a pie chart comaring ideal time spent together by a married couple, actual time spent together by hetero couples, and actual time spent together by gay male couples).
   
   The end of this book didn't sit well with me, because the message seemed to be to abandon your dreams, and it was depressing. The journey to the end definitely had its high points, though.
   
   Tsing Loh has some other great books about living in LA, and anyone from the area will be able to identify with the places and events she talks about. Fans of Tsing Loh will love essayist Laurie Notaro, who writes about the same age and experiences, but definitely in a less whiny voice. Check out Notaro's The Idiot Girls' Action Adventure club.



3. I've been told that it's important to "step outside your comfort zone" every once in a while, and that's exactly what I did by reading this book. The experience was, well, a little bit weird.
   
   FULL DISCLOSURE: Sandra's female, I'm male. She's Asian-American, I'm your basic WASP-American mongrel. She's a product of life in metro LA, I'm a Midwesterner living in a small city. I don't particularly care for southern California and I'm sure she'd be bored to tears by Battle Creek, Michigan. And so forth.
   
   For me, reading "A Year in Van Nuys" was like stumbling on a diary that someone accidently left at the airport. Sandra is spilling her guts throughout most of the book about her marriage, career problems, friends, therapist, money issues and somewhat desperate life in suburban LA. She mixes regular narrative text with e-mails, cartoon drawings, diagrams, photos, confessional essays and some other strange stuff to make it read like a confidential journal. I loved the use of "strike through" type to show earlier versions of her thought process.
   
   Whether you like it or not, Sandra forces us to be voyeurs. That can be funny and also annoying. For example, her take on the role of religion in weddings is hilarious, as are her riffs on life as a freelance writer. On the other hand, her obsessions about eye bags and cosmetic surgery are just kind of boring. The last few pages of the book bring some sense of resolution to her free-floating self-loathing, but not enough to matter, in my opinion.
   
   Ultimately, "A Year in Van Nuys" is a quick, silly, moderately entertaining read -- just right for that wait between flights. To find Sandra's REAL comedic talent, you'll have to listen to one of her commentaries on NPR.



4. I am flabergasted that so many people liked this book. I had to force myself to keep turning the pages to get through this whinning drivel, and in the end I regretted not giving up sooner. Most of Sandra's problems appear to be entirely her own fault. She gets too drunk at a Fox party and screws up her sitcom deal. She gets a new editor at her online magazine who doesn't like her style. Welcome to the real world - none of this is special or interesting because it's Van Nuys and the entertainment industry, and not just some shmuck in a cubicle. And here's a shocker - in real life, Loh was fired from her cushy radio commentary job for cursing on the air, and has blamed everyone at the radio station for it. No one feels as sorry for her as she apparently feels for herself.
   I like one reviewer's comparison to the comic strip Cathy - this was like having to listen to Cathy complain in complete chapters instead of a few frames. By the end of the book I not only wanted the $5 I paid for it at a used bookseller back, I wanted to personally find this woman and give her a good slap across the face.



5. This is a good - not great - book that generally entertains, but goes too far in an effort to keep the reader amused and interested. The author writes at a higher intelligence level than your typical best selling author does. The downside is that she knows it, and it effects her work. More importantly, however, is the prevalence of eye bag references that nearly made me throw this book in the trash, something I have never done in my life. Six weeks after having finished the book, I sit here editing this review with one prevailing thought in my head, the less-than-enjoyable eye bag references.
   
   The book is presumably about a year in the life of the author. While I don't know how much resonance there is between her real life and what we read on the pages, you can tell there is some. There are too many passionate outbursts for all of this to be fiction. After all, what writer doesn't reveal some of their soul in the words they create? This is what makes it so real and easy to read. As someone once said somewhere, write what you know. But then, what if you know nothing? I digress.
   
   The author clearly knows more than nothing and for the most part, the contents of what she does know are enjoyable to read. Some of the events in the book are resonant with things I've experienced in my own life, despite the fact that I'm a man. I'll go ahead and say the eye bags are *not* one of those things. Still, the struggle to be an author and her ultimate decision in that endeavor are thoughts close to many I have had before. Her final decision, entirely contrary to the fact she authored a book, is something I've also come to adopt. Maybe it this freedom has led her to this work? Again, I digress.
   
   It's a refreshing book, light yet intelligent to a point. It's a quick and enjoyable read. You could certainly do a lot worse. What's more, it has diagrams for those slow on the uptake. All in all, it's generally entertaining and contains real-life insights that can be applied to life and used to learn a little about yourself. Well worth the time spent reading it.

5 comments about Change Me into Zeus's Daughter: A Memoir.

1. This memoir is not just Barbara's, but is the story of everyone who has grown up in an alcoholic family. I could empathise with her trials, fears, anger and perceptions, and would often find myself nodding subconsciously as I read along. I felt I knew her well. Thank you so much for courageously sharing your story.



2. Change Me Into Zeus's Daughter is a powerful and poignant story of impoverished life as experienced by Barbara Moss.
   
   Surrounded by poverty, alcoholism, abuse, malnutrition and facial deformities, Moss could easily have allowed herself to be trapped in that negative world. Instead, through determination and the kindness of a few strangers along the way, she rose above adversity and has been able to escape the clutches of childhood demons.
   
   In 1996, Moss won the Gold Medal for Personal Essay in the William Faulkner Creative Writing Contest. Her winning essay became the first chapter of Change Me Into Zeus's Daughter. Her life, her determination, and her writing acheivements serve as an inspiration to the aspiring writer in me.
   
   When I first read this book, I was working through the emotional impact of having undergone facial surgery to remove a malignant melanoma and recreate a nose. At the time of that first reading, I was more tuned into the parts of Moss's story which dealt so poignantly with the emotional effects of her deformed face and people's unkind reactions to that deformity. Her drive to find a way to resolve the situation was nothing less than admirable. Now that I am a few years beyond my surgery and have re-read her story, I find her desire to become Zeus's daughter (the goddess of beauty) pales in comparison to the beautiful person who writes this remarkable story.
   
   With grace and insight, Moss takes us back in time to a place where life seemed to surely be waging war against her. In what she calls an effort to heal wounds and reclaim her family, she writes of both the challenges and the triumphs of childhood, adolesence and adulthood. Throughout the story, Moss interjects memories of a humorous nature - proving that even in the most desparate of situations, it is possible to find joy.
   
   In what can only be described as a "wise beyond her years" approach, the ninth grade Moss wrote a list of eight things she wanted to do to improve herself. At the top of the list were "1. Remove moles on face, 2. Get braces on teeth, 3. Fix face." It is incredible that one so young would seize such determination and not let go until she had accomplished these seemingly insurmountable goals. Shortly after writing these goals, she began to act upon them. Her book reveals the ways she accomplished them. With remarkable insight, Moss writes about how each achieved goal created both negative and positive issues for her.
   
   Moss's writing talent is evident in this deeply personal and moving story. Her gift to her readers is the lesson of redemption and grace in the midst of life's biggest hurdles.
   
   by Lee Ambrose
   for Story Circle Book Reviews
   reviewing books by, for, and about women



3. I could not put this book down! I got so caught up in this memoir, I couldn't wait to finish it. Then, when it was done I wished I hadn't read it in 4 days! It is filled with gut wrenching stories, sometimes so incredible it seems they can't be real. The part that takes place at Christmas was especially moving to me.
   
   I can't recommend this book highly enough.



4. 
   a heart-wrenching true memoir that is almost unbelievable to imagine. how children can cope with the harshest
   
   abuse,emotionally and physically, with a mother standing by silently shows what resilience the human spirit can endure. looking forward to the sequel"fierce"



5. I didn't know much about about this part of the United States..I have been reading more memoirs set there since I read this book.

5 comments about Tab Hunter Confidential: The Making of a Movie Star.

1. I confess. I am one of the millions of people who confuse Tab Hunter with Troy Donahue. Blond, photogenic, and somewhat talentless. However upon seeing Tab Hunter promoting his autobiography on 'Larry King Live' I was intrigued at the candor of the author. And it is somewhat refreshing to see an older gay man come out for all the world to see. So I didn't hesitate in picking up 'Tab Hunter Confidential' when I saw it in a secondhand bookstore.
   
   So how was it? Rather good. Tab Hunter pretty much tells us all about his career and his private life without resorting to sleaze. He seems refreshingly devoid of ego, and admits to be rather imperfect. Only rarely does he blast people who've burned him. But otherwise his autobiography is an enjoyable and surprisingly quick read.
   
   
   Bottom line: recommended to fans of Tab Hunter and even to those who still can't distinguish him from Troy Donahue.



2. I am going to do this review on a personal level, instead of going into the content of the book. Why? Because after you read this book, you will see that Tab is made from a different mold than most people who have made it to Hollywood. He is more of an average person than the movie star so many have grown to enjoy. I am lucky to say...Tab Hunter is an amazing guy and friend. My mother and Tab became friends a few years back and I have gotten to know and love him through the eyes of my mom, who has since passed on. He is charming and sincere. So it was not a surprise to me that his book would be anything but absolutely wonderful. From the moment you pick up this book, you feel as though you are there...experiencing this incredible life through Tab's eyes. It will touch you in many ways. It is true and raw. The style in which Tab tells his life story allows the reader to feel the uninhibited emotions, joys and turmoils of his career. The pictures are subperb. I won't go into details of the book. That would spoil it for the ones who have not taken the opportunity to experience this fabulous read.
   Once you have read this book, you will become to know and love Tab. So don't delay. You must add this to your collections of favorites today!



3. As movie stars' autobiographies go, this is one of the best I've ever read. Tab (a/k/a Art Gelien) is completely charming and open about his life, but what makes it truly wonderful is his guileless, disingenuous approach to himself. He frequently refers to himself in the third person because he's never truly believed that he IS that person. He makes me wish I had the chance to meet him. As a gay man myself, born about five years after him, I can relate to the obstacles he faced back in the uptight 1950s. Highly recommended.



4. Tab Hunter's ethics seem to have been shaped to fit his impulses in this well-written, well-paced autobiography. He takes us for a swim in the shallow end of the pool but that doesn't mean we don't enjoy the water.
   
   Hunter is a proud and practicing Catholic, even after being chased out of the church by a torrent of abusive language after confessing to homosexual thoughts when he was young. This passage, one of the most startling in the book, makes you wonder why Hunter would ever want to return. But he does, saying he decided to imagine that God loves him just like everyone else. He has always been attracted to the pomp and ceremony of his religion and learns to comparmentalize the way he feels about things. To him, it is a practical matter. Not an ethical one. If they disapprove of what I am, I will change to suit their expectation of me, at least on the outside.
   
   This of course is basic training for a career in acting.
   
   From his late teens to his late twenties, Arthur Gelien (Hunter) is alternately groomed and groped up the ladder of success by a succession of drooling agents and producers who can't resist his golden good looks and the money to be made from them. A willing commodity, Hunter hooks up with the notorious Henry Willson, Rock Hudson's agent. Rock Hudson, Rip Torn, Reb Wheeler, Rory Calhoun, Tab Hunter. Willson was famous for giving his actors these odd names, and for taking a personal interest in them as well. Hunter eagerly follows Willson's plans for him.
   
   The rumor mill had it that Henry, a particularly homely gentleman, slept with all his clients. Hunter doesn't go there in this book, though admits to taking a cruise with him to Bermuda (hmmmm). Later, the two men have a permanent break when Hunter suspects Willson of giving him up to Confidential Magazine to protect Rock Hudson, a story that is most-likely true.
   
   Perhaps it's the fact that Hunter has grown so used to repressing his feelings that the reader finds himself reading a travelogue of facts and tidbits devoid of much human emotion. "These things happened to me. Here they are."
   
   We get the whole story, and it's a pretty good one, but we never really make it into the deep end of the pool. It's like having a perfectly satisfactory meal. You can't really complain about it, but it doesn't leave you either raving about the food or wanting any more.
   
   I don't blame some of these older actors like Tab Hunter and Richard Chamberlain for waiting until their 70's to "come out" with their autobiographies after spending their careers staying in. Of course, it's career suicide for a gay man to come out, even now. Women all over the world have a stake in the actors they turn into romantic idols, and they want them to be straight in real life too, not just on the screen.
   
   I found the biography of Tony Perkins, Split Image, to be an interesting bookend to Tab Hunter's reminiscenses. Perkins entered intensive pschotherapy to come to terms with his conflicted sexual desires. Hunter dislikes psychiatry and endless bouts of self-investigation.
   
   We get an image of Tony Perkins as being quite the kinkster in Split Image, which made me wonder what Tab Hunter left out. A lot, it seems. He focuses on his career and "studying his craft" even after most actors his age have mastered it. As career options dwindle at the end of his twenties, Hunter gently steps off the Hollywood merry-go-round and heads for Europe.
   
   Tab Hunter is at least honest in the depiction of the positive and negative reviews of his work. He is most often described as being wooden. But he accomplished a lot in his career. He knocked Elvis Presley off the top of the charts with his insipid pop song "Young Love," and he was adored by millions of young girls around the world. Without a doubt, Tab Hunter was one of the top pop idols of the 50's.
   
   While I would have liked a bit more candor in his big sell-out, tell-all moment, I was satisfied by the story he told. It was interesting and well done. I don't know if this is due to the input of Mr. Hunter or of his writer, but the result was a readable, enjoyable portrait of a conflicted teen idol and his hidden life.



5. This review is from: Tab Hunter Confidential: The Making Of A Movie Star
   
   Tab Hunter Confidential: The Making Of A Movie Star, By Tab Hunter and Eddie Muller, is, in my opinion, a glossed over version about the story of an inflexibly wooden, dispassionate, and emotionally bankrupt actor whose main contribution, to the many movies he appeared in, was merely to serve as decorative window dressing - and nothing more.
   
   To be fair, he did appear in a handful of A-List movies. But even in those roles, in which another young actor might have brilliantly excelled, Mr. Hunter's performances were always sadly lacking in both substance and meaning.
   
   No doubt, his stoic upbringing had much to do with his inability to openly and effectively express the true depth of his innermost thoughts and feelings.
   
   Having been brought up by a formidably stern, strong-willed mother, who, we are told, dearly loved both her sons (Tab and his adored older brother Walter) she, nonetheless, never really offered either one of them anything that might even tangibly resemble any sort of emotional stability. Neither, we are also told, did she ever openly show them any real affection. Apparently, this factor proved to be most instrumental in helping to create the impenetrable wall of reserve that Tab Hunter had built around himself very early in life, and which he conveniently used as a means to keep himself separated from the rest of the world.
   
   Whatever the reasons involved, however, the sad fact remains that it greatly inhibited his earlier growth as a substantial human-being, and heavily contributed in his never being able to realize the full potential that he later might have aspired to as an actor.
   
   This becomes increasingly clear when one is confronted with the undeniable truth concerning the severe limitations of his acting abilities - and by the painful realization that this one-dimensional actor was only capable of re-creating, time and time again, the same old familiar characterization of just being himself - Tab Hunter.
   
   Throughout his entire career, he never once truly captured the subliminal spark that would have ignited within him all the necessary warmth, and sincerity of passion that is so vitally essential in bringing total believability to the elusive art of great dramatic acting. It was almost as if he was pre-ordained (by the limited range of his emotional output) to forever just remain the perennial blond surfer that he so tellingly portrayed in "Ride The Wild Surf."
   
   If Tab Hunter should ever wonder why his acting career was so shortlived - perhaps the answer is a relatively simple one. The only thespians who endure the ages are those who infuse their acting by reaching far down into the very depths of their heart and soul and bring forth, through the magic of their artistry, an astonishing new interpretation on the age old verities of life that is an absolute revelation to watch. Those who are there merely for adornment purposes only - fade away after a brief time, and are completely forgotten.
   
   Mr. Hunter's homosexuality, an important part of his life that has helped shape him into the person that he really is, is never fully addressed here. The several male lovers that he has had throughout the years, including some outstandingly famous ones like Anthony Perkins, Rudolph Nureyev, and ice-skating champion Ronnie Robertson, are mentioned, but barely. They appear as rather sketchily drawn presentations - in a matter-of-fact same sort of a way as footnotes that might appear at the bottom of a printed page. Here he is, in reality, being the same emotionally unresponsive person that so faithfully represented the trademark performances that he usually gave on screen.
   
   It was always a no-strings attached, no commitment type of relationship that he usually shared with most of these men, conveniently affording him the option of being able to unceremoniously cut all existing ties with them whenever another more attractive prospect came along.
   
   Because of the incredibly good looks that he had been endowed with, one gets the feeling that most of these men were merely conquests that he felt he could have just for the taking.
   
   Although a warm, friendly and outgoing personality weren't exactly his forte, I'm sure there were other less visible attributes that more than certified his credentials as being a card carrying member of the human race.
   
   Being an independent, self sufficient person was an admirable trait that had been successfully instilled in him by his mother, a stalwart woman, who, during very rough times, literally raised both boys by herself after having escaped from the clutches of a brutally abusive husband. Another admirable trait was loyalty. Loyalty to his mother, a woman he had often been at odds with, by vowing to support and care for her until the very end - which, I might add, was dutifully accomplished. To further enhance his humanistic resume, Mr. Hunter also has a genuine love for animals - especially dogs and horses. Horses, predominantly - a love for the animal that his brother Walt had helped to cultivate within him. Anybody who religiously vows to care for a parent (and actually does so) and has a deep, respectful and caring love for animals, certainly makes them alright in anyone's book - especially mine.
   
   There is one touching, memorable moment in the book that literally shines with the true spark of heartfelt humanity. It happened during a horse jumping show at the Cow Palace in San Francisco. Poised on his horse, and waiting to be called into the ring, Mr. Hunter was approached by a soldier, who, after inquiring if he was Arthur Gelien (Tab's real name) proceeded to soberly inform him that his beloved brother Walt, at age 35, had been killed in action in Vietnam. Dazed by the tragic, unexpected news, Tab somehow managed to go through with the show, winning the event in honor of his brother's memory. Later, alone in the stall of the horse he had ridden, he completely broke down into tears and sobbed uncontrollably. Evidently, Walt was about the only person in the world that he truly ever did love with his whole heart and soul.
   
   The one thing that bothers me most about Tab Hunter is that he had all the opportunity in the world to try and become a better actor - but, instead, chose to squander it all away by not striving hard enough to put himself in touch with the vast reservoir of untapped human emotions that could have made him a far greater actor than merely being the recipient of an empty, superficial type of glamour fame that was only too briefly enjoyed.
   
   There is much in this book that should be of considerable interest to the Hollywood buff. The authors have done a remarkably fine job in vividly re-creating the portrait of a particular time and place, and accurately describe, whether intentionally or not, the dizzying, merry-go-round existence of those celebrities viciously caught up in a whirlwind vacuum of self-idolatry and indulgence. We are also offered an insider's look into the workings of motion picture studios, the people who run them, and the rather dubious methods that are used in the hiring of what particular stars, for what particular movies, and for what particular reasons. In most instances, needless to say, inside politics always plays an important role.
   
   Fascinating as these insights tend to be, it still doesn't quite overshadow the importance of the bigger picture here. In the final analysis, one comes away from this book with the sad conclusion that a bright light has been allowed to shine down, perhaps too brightly, upon an acting life that, at best, has been considerably less than stellar.
   
   At the end of the book, Tab Hunter writes, and I quote: 'TODAY I AM HAPPY to be "forgotten". I can go anywhere and for the first time in my adult life be unrecognized'.
   
   I pray that this is indeed true, and sincerely wish for him everything that is only the very best that life has to offer.

5 comments about Stealing Buddha's Dinner: A Memoir.

1. This book is just okay. There were a few insighful moments about acculturation and religion, but nothing really new in the ethnic-american and/or memoir genre. It's a nice collection of memories, especially if you grew up in the 1980's. However, it lacks good storytelling. Nothing really happens. I find it surprising that the author teaches literature and creative writing. Overall, disappointing.



2. There is much to enjoy in "Stealing Buddha's Dinner." It is a nostalgic, pop culture fueled book that will appeal to anyone who can't leave the '80s behind. It is also a touching, almost gut wrenching story about Vietnamese boat people and their assimilation in the US. These two threads coalesce in a narrative that is centered around eating, particularly the American junk food that Bich Minh Nguyen glamorizes while growing up in Grand Rapids, MI.
   
   On the food front, I can relate to the author. I grew up in Minnesota during the same years, and my childhood was full of longing for the colorful candy and fast food that my parents disallowed. I used to steal away to the neighbors and luxuriate in junk food and bad TV. Good times. (Then again, when candy and toys look alike, that may be a sign of a culture headed towards an obesity epidemic. But I digress.) Nguyen writes in great detail about food, making this the literary equivalent of those nostalgia picture books that take you back. She also ties in a lot of pop culture -- music, TV, clothes. food -- somehow all these things slip into one category.
   
   Far more poignant are Nguyen's tales of her assimilation into American culture. I wasn't expecting this to go as deeply as it did; by the end the author has learned family secrets and reunited with lost relatives. I was almost crying by the evocative final chapter. It's amazing to me what people go through to get to this country, only to be met by mixed blessings.
   
   "Stealing Buddha's Dinner" is not without its problems. It skips around a lot, and many chapters don't rise to the quality of writing that the last few paragraphs achieve. Call it uneven. It is also truthful, fun, moving, and engrossing. I doubt I'll read this author again, but I'm grateful for this dip into her world.



3. As a child of the 80s (which was truly a silly time to grow up with the hairstyles and fractal patterned Trapper Keepers and whatnot), and a lover of food, I found much to love about this book.
   
   There were a few passages that I found to be a little off-track, like the chapter where the author rhapsodizes about the Laura Ingalls Wilder's books.
   
   But on the whole, I viewed it as a tiny but vivid window into the immigrant experience. I could find some way to relate to every member of the author's family, even when they were not on their best behaviour. I especially loved her depiction of her grandmother, Noi, who has such a lovely peaceful and nuturing presence throughout the book.
   
   The book was thoughtfully crafted and planned out, and beautifully written. I would recommend it to others.



4. As a Vietnamese-American, I related on so many levels. I laughed out loud, too many similar thoughts and experiences.



5. I really enjoyed this book. It is a fascinating look at the complications of being a first generation Vietmamese American. The places where cultures clash are sometimes very amusing and sometimes hard to take, but always enlightening.

5 comments about The Grizzly Maze: Timothy Treadwell's Fatal Obsession with Alaskan Bears.

1. Since the day Tim Treadwell died I have kept a file on all the media information to appear about him. Why? Because I never met him, but talked to him on the phone several times about bears. He was the first person in my life who ever had the nerve to say "hey bears might not be the monsters people have been lead to believe they are". Having said that, I realized from reading his book that he was partly wacko, no question. I also realized long before he died that he was the kind of person who people either liked in a tolerant, funny sort of way or they really, really hated him. A person who can generate that kind of hate is a lesson to all of us. Nick Jans says he never met Tim Treadwell but he writes this story with common sense and neutrality and a good deal of careful craft. The story of Tim Treadwell's death itself has never settled on me as the whole truth. When I read this book, all it gave me were more questions which will never be answered. As a tracker, a seeker of facts, I was astounded that the discovery of the tragedy wasn't treated as a crime scene. In search and rescue they ALWAYS treat each incident as a crime scene until it is proven otherwise. In this case they just assumed it was obvious what happened, and maybe it was, but procedurally that was wrong. Also, the only evidence of what happened outside of appearances, was the audio tape. That tape was a crucial piece of evidence and if the bears involved had been humans charged with murder, even an inept attorney could have gotten them acquitted based on the handling of that evidence. SO,if you are interested in what happened to Tim Treadwell read this book as it contains the best information available. Nick Jans is to be congratulated on a fine effort in a situation where he was pressed to get a book done. His book is as honest, fair and complete as possible where as several other versions are not.



2. I just finished reading this book and was riveted throughout. Unlike several other reviewers who found the last third of the book superfluous, I found it highly informative and thought it fit in beautifully with the rest of the story. I appreciated Nick Jans' account of his personal journey with bears and the insights he gained into both his own soul and the behavior of grizzlies/brown bears. I think it is exactly what qualifies him to surmise what motivated Timothy Treadwell to choose the lifestyle he chose. Jans remained objective yet weighed the pros and cons of Timothy's behavior with sensitivity and good sense. He leaves it up to the reader to form his or her own opinions. I saw the documentary "Grizzly Man" when it was in theaters - three times. I was fascinated by Tim's story and thought Werner Herzog did a fine job of presenting it. This book and the movie complement each other very well.
   Jans writes beautifully; I was pleasantly surprised to find a touch of the poet in his prose.



3. I learned alot about bears.I appreciate his love for the bears,but do not think he went about it correctly.



4. Because of the success of Werner Herzog's movie, "Grizzly Man," the world thinks that it knows Timothy Treadwell. While Herzog treats Treadwell as an emotionally and socially defective person, Jans is much more sympathetic. He provides a respectful, richer, and more rounded portrait of Treadwell than does "Grizzly Man."
   
   As a result, Jans is probably insufficiently critical of Treadwell. Treadwell was "protecting" a healthy grizzly population in a national park, indulged by the National Park Service despite flaunting its rules, and engaging in unsafe practices that ended in the death of two people and two grizzlies. An overall assessment of the man must take this into account.
   
   After telling Treadwell's story, the second half of this book turns to Jans' musings on humans' relations with bears, and wildlife more generally. This was less successful than the first half of the book. Even so, Jans is a talented writer and the book moves along very nicely.



5. Nick Jans' "The Grizzly Maze" is a good read to complement seeing the Werner Herzog movie, "Grizzly Man." The book clears up some of the murkiness left behind the movie. Tim Treadwell is a conflicted soul, whose sturm and drang both helps and hurts grizzly bears. Turning to the study of coastal brown bears (a sub-type of grizzly) in the Alaskan summers for many years in Katmai National Park, probably kept Treadwell from self-destructing on alcohol, drugs or the sheer arrogance of his ego. The man learned a lot about bear behavior over those 13 summers. However, his very presence, his defiance toward Park authorities and his smug disregard for the proper practices in bear country resulted in his own death, the death of his girlfriend and the death of two bears. Wasn't that the reason he claimed himself to be a friend and guardian of grizzly bears? Treadwell greatly exaggerates the poaching issue and completely disregards Park policies designed to minimize bear-human conflict. In the most self-righteous and self-serving way, he ends up habituating bears to humans, doing the very thing he cautions others not to do. Jans brings this front-and-center in his tale. The only reason this book gets four stars instead of five is that in the final chapters, Jans wanders off-course and the focus gets a bit lost. Still, a great read for clearing up unanswered questions in the movie.

1 comments about Razor-Wire Dharma: A Buddhist Life in Prison.

1. Though I have never been in prison and never hope to be, I found this book and its stories to be so heartwarming that I will definitely read it again. Plus, it reminds me that we are all in prison, in various forms of prison due to limited income or just our stubborn views. One thing I really appreciated about Malone's stories was that they didn't dwell on violence and horror, as many prison books tend to. That was good because it is so tiring to read about murder, mayhem and rape over and over again.
   
   The apple story, where Malone finds a perfect green apple on his dinner tray in the midst of a drab, depressing day and comes to appreciate the whole universe in it. Though there were many other sparkling moments and purple patches, this one was truly a jewel, a little green jewel.
   
   What an uplifting book!!!

5 comments about Dear Diary.

1. I had high expectations when I bought this book and they weren't met. I was expecting a book that ended in an epiphany or was written a little better, I guess. It's an honest book, however, and I did like how Arfin went back to the people she wrote about during her junior high and high school years to get questions answered which is why I have it more than 1 star. What I didn't like is that it all seemed so superficial. It was like Arfin was trying too hard throughout the book to be obscene--not through the original journal entries, but through the follow up conversations.
   
   I think you might like it if you're in junior high or high school. You might be able to relate to a lot of the journal entries than I could being out of high school and away from the drama for so many years. Towards the end, once Arfin starts spiraling down on her heroin addiction, it becomes more real than reading about her first dry humping experience or first kiss.



2. author is shallow and full of herself...basically, she's the person who just wants to go on and on and on because she likes hearing herself speak.
   
   there is nothing useful or helpful here, the writing is weak, undeveloped, and juvenile; the author seems very proud of herself for what she was involved in--and what info there is of that is very sketchy...even as i was reading this 5-minute story, i found myself wondering why this book was published at all.



3. The writer talks as if you're having a cigarette outside of a mall rather than in a confessional. Comfortable but with a little distance,(for purposes only in protecting herself) she keeps herself vulnerable throughout the story (most of the time) with recalling the past, mini- update-interviews with past acquaintances (which were great) and coming of age revelations.
   
   I enjoyed the book, found myself cracking up at her dry humor and some of the references of growing up in the 90's. Overall I'd recommend the book, just don't take everything literal or too serious. it is her story.



4. I enjoyed reading this book and it does have its very honest, brave and hilarious moments. But I didn't feel like I could identify with a lot of the book and I agree with another reviewer-- nothing about this book particularly strikes me as, "These were my mistakes; don't make them too." I found the style of writing to be refreshingly conversational, but sometimes a little self-centered or self-righteous. Still, I enjoyed reading this book and will probably read it again in a few years.



5. if you were ever a teenage grrl in the burbs and hated it u must read this. or, if u ever went to hampshire college and were a neurotic, drug-addled sex addict u must read this.
   
   its all so true.
   
   lesley's story isn't unique, but what's remarkable is that she's documented well what bored teens in the burbs and HC alums have gone thru.
   
   why do ppl raise their kids in the burbs? don't they know this is what they do to them? wtf.

5 comments about Dijiste Que Me Queras: Como Sobrellevar lo Impensable.

1. Este es un gran libro basado en la realidad de los hechos, y que nos hace reflexionar profundamente sobre nuestras relaciones de pareja.
   Se lo recomiendo a todos.



2. I have been watching Maria Antonieta Collins on Spanish television for a long time now--first as an anchorwoman for Univision and now as the presenter on Cada Dia, a popular morning variety show on Telemundo. She seems like a very nice person, all smiles and joviality in front of the camera. But no one knew what was hiding behind her smiles and perkiness. As her career skyrocketed, her personal life got worse and worse. She finally revealed everything during a very emotional interview with Maria Celeste Arraras on Telemundo. (Collins, who considers Arraras her friend, reported that she was "hurt" and "dismayed" with some of MC's questions. As a fellow journalist, she should understand that Arraras had to put friendship aside and ask the hard-hitting questions.) She talked about her husband's battle with cancer, and how she'd been his rock and strength throughout his illness. But that was the least of it. She revealed that her husband had been unfaithful and committed bigamy. He was married to a woman in Colombia while he was married to her! In Dijistes Que Me Querías: Como Sobrellevar lo Impensable (You Told Me You Loved Me: How to Survive the Unthinkable), she writes in detail the entire thing she had to go through after she found out, and about her decision to stay with him after he discovered he had cancer. This is one of the most heartbreaking memoirs I have read, but it ends with a hopeful tone. Collins gives advice on what to do after you discover your spouse has been cheating and how to pick up signs of deceit. This is a self-help book as well as a memoir, and it pulls at the heartstrings. I have nothing but respect for this Emmy-award winning journalist, and I wish her the very best. She deserves it.



3. Nunce crei que leer este libro me hubiera abierto los ojos a lo que puede vivir cualquier mujer. El libro esta escrito con tanto dolor que termina uno odiando a tipo y hechandole porras a una excelente mujer. Es de mucho aprendizaje. yo solo lo habia comprado para que mi mama tuviera algo para leer durante su recuperacion y terminamos leyendo mi tia y prima y yo. Bravo por la senora Collins y su leccion a la fortaleza y el perdon. La pregunta que me hago es que si yo me hubiera dado cuenta de una infidelidad Perdonaria?



4. The product arrived before the time that I expected even though it was during the holidays and I thought it would be delayed. The product also arrived in excellent condition. Thank You.



5. La verdad no esperaba aprender mucho de este libro cuando me lo regalo una amistad. Pero, una vez que comenze a leerlo no pude parar hasta llegar al final. Parece sacado de una telenovela, pero es la realidad. Admito que aprendi muchisimo de el, porque cada tragedia incluye lecciones de como sobrevivirlas.
   Encontre varias faltas de cuidado en la edicion, que aunque no quita de la calidad del libro, si se ve feo.

5 comments about Naples '44: A World War II Diary of Occupied Italy.

1. This wonderful book is as powerful as it is wonderful and it is as applicable to today and to all wars as it is wonderful and powerful. This book has deep insights as to how war is really fought, how huge bureaucracies are ugly blunt instruments of war, how occupied people cope, survive and live, and how naive well intentioned souls are awakened in the ugly reality of it all. This is a book for life.



2. I group this book with Eric Newby's "Love and War in the Appenines" for unsentimental and direct views of the corrupting power of war that use Italy as examples. Liberation seems such a romantic idea that one can hardly resist it, and yet here we can easily read and understand that true liberation takes a lot more than military objectives and shouting in congress.
   
   Lewis's eye was remarkable in one so young. I hope that both these books have found their way to the library at West Point. It is perhaps too much to ask that they should be read anywhere inside the beltway.



3. Can a foreign military "successfully" occupy another country? Where can we look for historical lessons to our clusterf**k in Iraq. What are our boys reading in West Point? Is there large scale prostitution and venereal disease..Are there markets openly selling stolen U.S. military items.. Where are ordinary Iraqi's getting $ to survive with their economy is shambles? Lots of questions.



4. Naples 44 is a beautifully crafted account of allied occupation in Naples. Norman Lewis describes, with his usual gentle irony, the unique lifestyle of Neapolitans and how they survive abject poverty.
   He has an eye for the absurd whilst retaining his compassionate love of humanity.



5. When I was younger I knew an Italian-American veteran who spent time in Naples at roughly the time covered by this book. His stories while entertaining always seemed a bit exagerated to me. Now, after reading Norman Lewis' account of those days I owe my long departed friend an apology for having doubted him.
   This is a remarkable account from a gifted observer. Lewis as a British intelligence officer assigned to the Area occupied by American forces immediately following the expulsion of the Germans was in a unique position to observe many aspects of the struggles and adaptations of the locals under these extraordianry conditions. The ingenuity and superstition of the Italian people is displayed from a point of view that is neutral in it's judgements while sparing the reader nothing of the darker side of the stuggle to survive at the same time.
   As somone who has read extensively about WWII I was surprised this one got by me for so long. I stumbled on it while browsing Amazon and highly recommend it to anyone interested in the War ,Italy or just a good entertaining read.

5 comments about Wolf Willow: A History, a Story, and a Memory of the Last Plains Frontier (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics).

1. Stegner once again reveals his writing prowess, This time in a self-indulgent adventure to haunts of his youth.
   
   I have some qualms about this work, however. In particular, I was not so keen on those parts where Stegner relied heavily on book-based history that never directly touched his own life. To be frank, his writing in these parts surprisingly got a bit stodgy.
   
   His thought on sense of place and belonging, however, are remarkable, hitting me right between the eyes. Indeed, he had me wistfully recalling my own childhood in what seemed a remote area of the world with the archaeological junk heap and all. In measuring his boyhood to my own, I noted how little times had changed in that interval of 60-70 years and how much has changed for kids in the last 40. It had me wondering how my own sons lives would be different were it not for the MAFIA (mother's against fun in America).



2. This book has no right to be so absorbing. Though the topic of this forgotten book by Wallace Stegner reeks of self-indulgence-- A writer returns to where he grew up, reminisces about his youth and the history of the frontier town his transient childhood most identified as home and concludes with a 100-page fictionalized account of a the terrible winter of 1906-- he manages to tie his past inexorably to ours, linking his nostalgia for his youth with our own, and exploring the promise and inevitable waste of the American Dream lived out on our frontiers.
   
   Stegner, like Proust, experiences an "ancient, unbearable recognition" spurred by a return to the sites, sounds, and most importantly, smells of his childhood. He dreams of this period and is "haunted, on awakening, by a sense of meanings just withheld, and by a profound nostalgic melancholy." Everyone has some awareness of a deep meaning lurking in our past that has not, or cannot, be fully interpreted.
   
   Perhaps the best part of the book is section three, the novella length exposition on the hope and danger of the high plains that does a superb job of creating looming dread as the winter drops hard on the land. Near the end of section three, Stegner expounds on what it is to be an American pursuing the Dream:
   
   "How does one know what wilderness has meant to Americans unless he has shared the guilt of wastefully and ignorantly tampering with it in the name of progress? One who has lived the dream, the temporary fulfillment, and the disappointment has had the full course.... The vein of melancholy in the North American mind may be owing to many causes, but it is surely not weakened by the perception that the fulfillment of the American Dream means inevitably the death of the noble savagery and freedom of the wild. Any who has lived on a frontier knows the inescapable ambivalence of the old-fashioned American conscience, for he has first renewed himself in Eden and then set about converting it into the lamentable modern world."



3. This wonderful collection of essays and fiction about the last Western frontier is both romance and anti-romance. Writing in the 1950s, Stegner captures the breath-taking beauty of the unbroken plains of southwest Saskatchewan and the excitement of its settlment at the turn of the century. Part memoir, the book recounts the years of his boyhood in a small town along the Whitemud River in 1914-1919, the summers spent on the family's homestead 50 miles away along the Canadian-U.S border. His book is also an account of the loss of that Eden and the failed promise of agricultural development in this semi-arid region with thin top soil.

   Stegner is a gifted, intelligent writer, able to turn the people and events of history into compelling reading. The opening section of the book describes the experience of being on the plains and specifically in the area where Stegner was a boy. And it lays out the geography of that land -- a distant range of hills, the river, the coulees, the town -- which the book will return to again and again.

   The following section evokes the period of frontier Canada's early exploration, the emergence of the metis culture, the destruction of the buffalo herds, the introduction of rangeland cattle, and then wave upon wave of settlement pushing the last of the plains Indians westward and northward. A chapter is devoted to the surveying of the boundary along the Canada-U.S. border; another chapter describes the founding of the Mounted Police and its purely Canadian style of bringing law and order to the wild west.

   The middle section of the book is a novella and a short story about the winter of 1906-1907. In the longer piece, eight men rounding up cattle are caught on the open plains in an early blizzard. Stegner builds the drama and the peril of their situation artfully and convincingly. The final section of the book returns to Stegner's memories of the town and the homestead, ending with his family's departure for Montana.

   Stegner lived at a time and in a place where a person born in the 20th century could still experience something of the sweep of history that transformed the American plains. I've read many books about the West, and because of his depth of thought, his gifts as a writer, and his unflinching eye, Stegner's work ranks for me among the best. I heartily recommend this book.




4. Part history and part dreamy reminiscence, this book is an account of a boy growing up in Southwest Saskatchewan in the early part of the 20th Century. The central portion of the book is pure history, and the long chapters on cowboys are particularly challenging because they require an intimate knowledge of cowboy terminology. Stegner does not mince words about the difficulties of life on the plains--extremes of heat and cold, wind, hostile topography, lack of cultural amenities--the result of which is that most who grew up there moved elsewhere. But he also shows a passionate attachment for the country of his childhood. The narrative often seems rambling because, like James Michener, the author tries to incorporate so much besides history--including the biology and geology of the nearby Cypress Hills, the biologically diverse area nearby--and even his poetic musings have elements of fact, as when he describes the wind, or the gophers, or his swimming hole, or his school, or his family's homestead, or the problems involved in the town's incorporation.



5. Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Wallace Stegner grew up on the prairie frontiers of North Dakota, Saskatchewan, and Montana, and in the mountains of Utah. As is indicated by the subtitle, this volume combines history, a memoir, and historical fiction. Readers who have spent significant time on the snow swept northern steppes may find a small part of themselves, and of this land, in Wolf Willow. ...
   "On those miraculously beautiful and murderously cold nights glittering with the green and blue darts from a sky like polished dark metal, when the moon had gone down, leaving the hollow heavens to the stars and the overflowing cold light of the Aurora, he thought he had moments of the clearest vision ... In every direction ... the snow spread; here and there the implacable plain glinted back a spark - the beam of a cold star reflected in a crystal of ice." (The scene evokes in me a powerful memory, as I recall often standing alone on just such "murderously cold" snow blanketed prairies and gazing into those "miraculously beautiful" night skies.)