5 comments about The Short Bus: A Journey Beyond Normal.

1. The Short Bus is allegedly a record of Jonathan Mooney's four month, 35,000 mile journey around the United States to document the lives of people who have been labeled "not normal" by our society. As a homeschooling parent who is intimately familiar with the plight of young people who do not thrive in a "one-size-fits-all" school system, I was looking forward to reading about how these unique individuals define themselves and succeed on their own terms.
   
   That's not what this book is about. Instead, The Short Bus records the self-absorbed ruminations of a sad, insecure man whose past colors and shapes every experience he has.
   
   According to the author's notes, "all profiles of individuals are subjective renderings of their experience." No kidding. Some of the portraits are so brief that their inclusion adds little to the narrative. Many more of the "biographies" track the author's purported growth and self-discovery through the acceptance of others whose differences from "normal" are greater than his own. Mooney could have allowed these exceptional individuals to describe themselves, their lives, their goals and their beliefs. Instead, his self-referencing interpretations of his subjects and their experiences hang cloud-like over every encounter. Worse yet, Mooney admits (at least twice) that while others are talking, he's not listening!
   
   Mooney's single-minded indictment of the educational system is also questionable. By his own admission, he grew up in a family where the carpets "always reeked of [dog] urine." His father is an alcoholic. His (now deceased) grandmother was prone to alcoholic rages. His sister, mother, and maternal uncle all struggle with clinical depression. His mother raised his half-siblings on welfare, with the help of her brother, who cared for her children when she was "(depending on the source) either fighting for the workers' liberation or drinking with hippies." His family's history is one of "amnesia, lies and denials" and his relationship with his father is strained at best. Yet Mooney skirts the possibility that his dysfunctional family life may be at least partially responsible for his existential unhappiness---instead, our narrow-minded society and flawed educational system are primarily at fault.
   
   While I'm not denying that schools and society can cause great misery for some kids, strong and functional family members can help children navigate or exit educational bureaucracies and can also be powerful allies who support children through extremely difficult times. A "different" child whose family life adds to his troubles is in dire straits indeed.
   
   Mooney is also unable or unwilling to examine some of his mortifying experiences from anyone else's perspective. For example, he describes confusing "a right from a left turn" during a road test with the Department of Motor Vehicles, and is insulted when the examiner asks if he's "retarded" and writes "disparaging comments" such as "distracted" and "shows poor decision-making in traffic" on his temporary license. While the examiner's name-calling is inexcusable, Mooney is so invested in his victimhood that he does not consider how the examiner felt when the driver he was evaluating made a glaring error. Did he feel angry, helpless, afraid for his life and for the safety of others on the road? Did Mooney apologize or was he sullen and defensive? Could his mistake have caused an accident? Additional information would have been helpful, but any detail that doesn't reinforce Mooney's self-righteous indignation is omitted.
   
   Finally, I believe that this young man, who parents of labeled children look to for hope and guidance, needs to take a close look at his own poor choices. Mooney has a family history of alcoholism, was arrested in his youth for underage drinking and spent a night in detox, lost his driver's license for five years for driving under the influence, yet deliberately and repeatedly chooses to get drunk during the course of this book. It is unbearably sad when a person with so much potential can't seem to recognize or acknowledge that he needs to reexamine his relationship with alcohol.
   
   I wish Mr. Mooney all the best, but I did not like his book.



2. This book is full of compassion and insight for those that Jonathan visits with and writes about. His honesty will challenge you to deal with your own preconceived ideas and stereotypes. You can not read it and not get real with yourself.
   
   Jonathan's humor and honesty are what makes this book possible. There are not that many people that would be invited into the homes and lives of all the people that you will meet in his journey. The various personalities all mesh together to create a thought provoking story that will draw you in and not only entertain you immensely but educate in you ways that we all need to be educated.
   
   Thank you Mr. Mooney for writing this book!



3. I picked up this book almost as an afterthought. The topic looked interesting and I thought it would make a good quick read...instead I was enthralled with each story and found that after every chapter I needed to take a little time to digest what I had read.
   
   The Short Bus is an excellent read...a story of a journey for one man to understand himself through traveling in the very symbol of his own "imprisonment" He gains insights which come from looking at and examining the idiosyncrasies in the lives of others. Mooney is honest about himself..his own prejudices and judgements..each story enlightened me about various learning disabilities..and demonstrated how categorizing can easily limit people or cause them to be ostracized. While I felt saddened by the treatment of many of the people Mooney visits, none of them caused me to feel anything but hope and amazement at the power of the human spirit to survive. Mooney is insightful and humorous while honoring each of his stories with truth and compassion.



4. So thrilled to have randomly come across such an entertaining, inspiring, and truly engrossing story that is both refreshingly honest and open heartedly spiritual, (in the best sense of the word.) The message of unconditional love and acceptance for those different then ourselves, while acknowledging his own and society's past shortcomings in this regard, needs to be heard! A hoot besides: despite my own unique wiring, I zipped through the book- allowing no distractions and laughing heartily all the way. from Suzi in Rye, NH



5. I thought this book was going to offer some hope and practical wisdom.
   Rather, its a chronicle of the author's search for validation that offers no real insight into how one can deal with ADD (unless railing against norms helps.) Though the heart of his "success" story is to have graduated from Brown, he does not actually seem to have overcome anything to do so - its just another adventure on his way to who knows where. He's a likeable character and the stories of his trip across country are amusing enough. But I was pretty sick of his obsessive musings about his girlfriend and seriously worried about the families that reached out to him for advice and encouragement for their own "beyond normal" children. He was admittedly not equipped for either, other than to say: I was once a "tard" on the short bus but now I'm here!! I wish him all the best anyway.

5 comments about The Bishop's Daughter: A Memoir.

1. My husband was an Episcopal Priest. He admired Bishop Paul Moore. The book is a walk down memory lane; I knew a number of clergy mentioned in Honor's compassionate story.



2. Honor Moore deeply engages her memories and the documents of her family. She uses photographs, letters, journals and newspaper reports to inform and challenge her original memories as well as plenty of psychotherapy to inform her insights. Her book reflects an adult making sense of her family and herself ... within the context of wealth, privilege and many well-known names.
   
   Most compelling of all is the cost of her parents dishonesty about affairs, sexual orientation and affections. As another reviewer notes, this book is a carefully reflected upon object lesson for all people about the damage done by denials and lies.
   
   At the same time, it chronicles the opening up of new opportunities ... such as Bishop Moore's ordaining the first out lesbian, and other changes in the Episcopal Church. The overall message is one of hope and faith and love (as in the best kind of charity.)
   
   Read it!



3. I happen to have had the good fortune of meeting Ms. Moore in school, many years ago and we have remained in touch sporadically over the years. Can I be objective because of my relationship? Yes and no...I have other friends who have written books and I am predisposed to like them, that said, some I like better then others, reporting to you that I love Honor and I truly loved her latest book. Found it very moving and respectful, not a "Mommy Dearest", loose liped memoir at all. Wonderfully written, evocative, funny and sad and above all written with a full heart. One of my favorite reads in the last few years. Bless her and Mom and Pops too.



4. I wish that the author of this book had enough income from her trust fund that she didn't have to write and publish a book like this. There is an incredible amount of private information in this book that should never have been made public. Honor Moore has dishonored her family.



5. Honor Moore could teach Freud himself a few things about family relationships. The first of nine children of a marriage between a privileged Episcopal priest and his well-born wife, Honor from an early age longed to get inside the dynamics of her parents' life together.
   
   Coming as it does while the Anglican (Episcopal to Americans) church is in the midst of a controversy about the roles of gays and lesbians, her memoir is especially instructive about the way sex and gender play out in this ecclesiastical world. It is also a cautionary tale about the ripple effect of dishonesty nurtured in closeted homosexuality.
   
   What makes this memoir so compelling, however, is not that Honor Moore outs her iconic father, Paul, the bishop, but her gentle but relentless search for the factual and emotional truth about her parents' multiple liaisons and her own. Meticulously, she recounts her childhood awe of her father's spiritual identity, separate from the one he assumed around the rectory. In his clerical garb, he was apart, but even more than she knew was hidden.
   
   The years the family spent in Jersey City during the late fifties and early sixties in a ministry that involved all its members formed her character and created the image of her father as a dashing activist priest aware of the roots of racism and poverty. She speaks dispassionately of the huge family fortune that provided some respite for the family and enabled her father's ministry. He called it his cross of gold. She would say, I think, that the cross he and his family bore was of a different nature.
   
   Aside from its political implications, this memoir is a deeply personal exploration of Christianity and the erotic and worth reading no matter what your sexual or religious orientation.

5 comments about Swimming to Antarctica: Tales of a Long-Distance Swimmer.

1. This book was great... an awesome person who has done amazing things. You cant get over the crazy abilities the author has and the determination to succeed!



2. The most exotic descriptions of planetary waters ever experienced by a human female...Cox writes of swimming through Icelandic waters that stream from volcanic fissures and mix with glacial melt so that it feels as if her body is moving across liquid guitar strings...swimming through 38 degrees into 90 degrees then back into 38....Remarkable, astounding ferocity of will...fiercely visionary in her solo quests to swim all flavors (and terrors) of open waters and call forth the highest aspects of human nature...connectivity without borders of any kind. Maybe her greatest strength. Lynne Cox absolutely refuses to acknowlege pseudo human imposed limits, boundaries.....anywhere, anytime. Xtreme swimming adventures that are breathtaking in scope, risk and accomplishment.



3. This story is not only impressive in the athletic achievement; it is noteworthy that she refuses to abandon her goals even when faced with the impenetrable wall of the Kremlin's closed border mindset.
   
   Well worth reading.



4. Based on the other reviews, I was quite excited about reading this book as I generally enjoy books about athletic exploits by unusual athletes. However, Lynne Cox never quite explained why she was doing what she did. By the time she was swimming to Antarctica, I was left asking why??
   
   Unlike, say, Lance Armstrong's book, Lynne lacked a central goal, and so the book was really a series of short stories about the various swims she tackled. As one other reviewer pointed out, it became somewhat repetitive. The early stories about swimming in California and the English Channel were to me more interesting simply because it was the first time I heard the tale.
   
   The book isn't bad, but it's also not great.



5. For the first 150+ pages I was intrigued with Ms.Cox's swims.....her amazing endurance and determination. But then...page after page after page....more or less the same....far more than I ever needed or wanted to know about long distance swimming particularly in icy cold waters. When.....at the last chapter...she actually did swim in Antartica waters, although I was sitting in my warm office, I shivered.

5 comments about The Echo from Dealey Plaza: The true story of the first African American on the White House Secret Service detail and his quest for justice after the assassination of JFK.

1. I remember it like it was yesterday. On September 27, 1964 the Warren Commission released it's long awaited report on the facts surrounding the assasination of President John F. Kennedy less than a year earlier. I was only 13 at the time but after hearing the details of the Warren Commission Report I somehow knew even at that tender age that something was just not right. Over the years I have read an assortment of books on this topic and so it was with great anticipation that I latched on to a copy of "The Echo From Dealey Plaza". The chilling story told by author Abraham Bolden who was a Secret Service agent at the time of the President's assassination only serves to confirm what so many of us have suspected all these many years. Indeed, something was greatly amiss in Dallas on Friday, November 22, 1963.
   Abraham Bolden was the first African-American to serve in the Secret Service. He had graduated cum laude from Lincoln University in Jefferson City, MO with a B.A. in music composition. After his marriage to Barbara he went to work for the Pinkerton Detective Agency in nearby St. Louis. Bolden found that he enjoyed this type of work and a year later he found himself working in the Criminal Investigative Division of the Illinois State Police. A couple of years later he heard that the Secret Service was looking for agents. He was not terribly surprised to find that at that time there had never ever been a black Secret Service agent. Nevertheless he decided to submit an application and was astonished to learn that he had been accepted into the agency. The year was 1960. Abraham Bolden worked out of the Secret Service office in Chicago. In the spring of 1961 President Kennedy came to town and Abraham had the privilege of meeting him. As a result of that brief encounter Abraham Bolden would be offered an opportunity he deemed much too good to pass up--a chance to serve on the White House detail in Washington D.C.! What Abraham quickly discovered during his brief stint in Washington was that the agency was rife with racism. He also observed many other types of deplorable behavior by some of the agents he worked with. In his opinion, many of these agents were derelict in the performance of their duties, so much so that he feared for the life of the President. Because of all this Bolden opted to turn down a permanent assignment in Washington and chose to return to Chicago where he continued to serve with distinction, primarily in the area of counterfeiting investigations. But the laxity displayed by those agents continued to gnaw at him and he continued to observe behavior by some of his colleagues that made him extremely uncomfortable. Suffice to say that Abraham Bolden was not at all surprised when he learned that President Kennedy had been gunned down in Dallas. Both before and after the assassination Holden made his concerns known to some of his bosses in the Secret Service. His bosses came to the conclusion that Abraham knew far too much and would have to be dealt with. What happened to Abraham Bolden as a result of all this is the primary focus of "The Echo from Dealey Plaza". It is not a pretty picture.
   The next several years would prove to be a nightmare for Abraham Bolden. He was brought up on a trumped up charge of bribery and forced to endure two trials that most objective observers would consider to be a mockery of justice. Once he was convicted and had exhausted all appeals Abraham would be sent to federal prison. "The Echo from Dealey Plaza" offers a detailed account of the legal proceedings that would ultimately find Bolden "guilty as charged". You will meet all of the key players in this sorry saga and relive along with the author the hellish details of the trials. Finally, you will follow Abraham Bolden into the federal prison system and discover what life in these facilities is really like. As far as I know "The Echo From Dealey Plaza" is the first and only book that Abraham Bolden has ever written. It turns out that he is a very gifted writer indeed. I could not put this one down. Highly recommended!



2. Abe Bolden, a seasoned and decorated law enforcement officer and the first Black to serve on the Presidential detail (handpicked by JFK himself) as a member of the Secret Service, experienced a staggering fall from grace, due in large part to "guilty knowledge" he had that bore on the possible conspiracy to assassinate President John F. Kennedy. Having been alerted by uncommonly vicious backroom verbal attacks against Kennedy (and racist attacks against himself) by his colleagues and the very men sworn to protect JFK, Bolden's antenna were on full alert as he witnessed event-after-event that could only be interpreted as "purposeful laxity" in both the run up to JFK's cancelled visit to Chicago (where an assassination attempt was foiled) and the President's fatal visit to Dallas (where it succeeded).
   
   Bolden, as a seasoned agent, was deep inside the Secret Service's inner loop as an "eye" and "ear" witness to all of the behind the scene maneuverings that resulted in both the failure to apprehend the suspects who conspired unsuccessfully to kill JFK in Chicago a couple of weeks before Dallas, and then as witness to his colleague's laxity during the President's fatal visit to Texas, where they apparently succeeded.
   
   Once it became clear that Bolden was not going to "be a team player" in the cover-up of possible Secret Service complicity in the assassination, things turned very bad for him indeed. Unable to silence him on the outside, Bolden was then framed by his colleagues in an elaborate setup that apparently had the support of the judge who presided over his "railroading" through the U.S. Criminal Court system. After a lengthy sequence of trials that went all the way to the Supreme Court, he eventually landed in a series of increasingly brutal and isolated U.S. jails, work camps, and prisons, ultimately ending in the prison psychiatric ward on heavy and regular doses of psychotropic drugs.
   
   In what can only be considered an epic miscarriage of justice that one would think could never occur in the U.S. -- highlighted by the admitted perjury and recantation of the key witness against him (a low level mobster and snitch affiliated with the Sam Giancana outfit (also implicated in the JFK assassination) named Joseph Spagnoli), combined with the ruthless bias of a federal Judge (J. Sam Perry) bent on prosecuting him at all cost, Bolden used up his savings, his good graces, his reputation, and apparently his nine lives before he was summarily sentenced to six years for having allegedly sold a criminal file to his accuser for $50,000.
   
   The real saga of this tale is not just that justice failed at every turn through a lengthy series of Court battles, but that it was an obvious and blatant "frame-up" from start to finish. Once Bolden was caught-up in the American legal grinding machine, there was nothing anyone could or would do to overturn his situation. Like in Kafka's novel "The Trial" as Bolden moved deeper and deeper into the bowels of the U.S. prison system, almost inexorably, laws were stretched, procedures twisted, and documents disappeared just enough to continue his progression towards, and to ensure, the already pre-determined outcome of either silencing him or changing his mental state so that he would eventually end his campaign to tell what he knew.
   
   Apparently six years in prison and years of heavy medication seems to have succeeded in silencing him, because in this book, which was written after his release, Bolden (beyond telling us about an "all alerts bulletin" for someone with the name "Hurd" immediately after JFK was shot, and the fact that a prime suspect in the Chicago attempt, named Echeverria, just disappeared from the radar screen) Bolden still has not given us a full accounting of, or any additional insights into what he actually knew.
   
   That this travesty could occur in the U.S. against a citizen with an impeccable Law Enforcement record, with not even an eyebrow raised, is just further confirmation that we still live in the post-JFK assassination era, an era that continues to be chilling in ways that we as a nation cannot be very proud of.
   
   Four Stars



3. This work is intriguing as Abraham Bolden gives his side of how the Secret Service framed him rather than permit him to give testimony to the Warren Commission about the lax in the duties of Secret Service agents to protect President John F. Kennedy. The Warren Commission investigated the assassination. Bolden was the first black to serve on the White House Secret Service, assigned to protect the president, and was invited to that post by Kennedy. Bolden is very brief about his childhood, and tells even less about his teen and college years. The main purposes of this section is show the development of his sense of duty, honesty, and other values his parents taught him. Most of the book is devoted to his tenure as a Secret Service Agent and how all that he had built professionally was destroyed. He provides very detailed accounts of the trials, and his appeals and other strategies to clear his name and get his freedom. Despite all that happened to him, his family stood my him. The work is well written, and written in such a way that the reader can get a sense of the intellectual, emotional, spiritual and physical trials and tribulations of the author and those around him. The minute details are necessary because Bolden is attempting to clear his name and actions from a time period that is very controversial. Therefore, he uses footnotes so that the reader can cross check the facts. Some documents were unobtainable, but Bolden proves to a great researcher, using various primary source materials to support his claims. Unlike most autobiographies, the work is indexed. Others have criticized the book because it sheds little light on the Kennedy assassination, but this is an unfair assessment. The book is about Bolden, not Kennedy. This work is a very much needed addition to black American history, particular in the history of Secret Service Agents. In addition, it also contributes to the historiography of the assassination of President Kennedy, as well as the general historiography of the 1960s. It could also be used in the study of racism, organized crime, the criminal justice system, and the legal system. This work stands, perhaps, as the final testimony of Bolden, who wants to public to know his ordeal. At this point, the public becomes the jury.



4. What a story of shear guts and determination of a man who paid the price for speaking out against the Secret Service protection for President Kennedy. I wish I had half the guts Mr. Bolden has, and I hope that in the end, those who for the most part framed Mr. Bolden, will be held fully accountable when they meet their maker. There was definitely a breakdown that fateful day in Dallas of Secret Service reaction when the first shots were fired. REading about one of the agents losing his credentials in a bar the night before the assassination definitely makes one wonder about the "phony" Secret Service agent who flashed credentials behind the grassy knoll.



5. This is an amazing story of injustice, racism, a corrupted justice system, and dogged, courageous persistence to clear his name. Abraham Bolden was clearly his own worst enemy, if only because he wasn't shy about pointing out the shortcomings of his colleagues and bosses. Most of us would shake our heads and pass on by. Not Bolden. If Secret Service agents came to work drunk, he spoke up about it. If they let security relax on President Kennedy's White House detail, he told his superiors. That's not a strategy to warm the hearts of co-workers, but this was the Secret Service, and the President's life was at stake. Bolden took his protective mission to heart. The obvious and blunt racism of his colleagues is surprising forty years later but typical of the sixties. After a stint with the First Family on Nantucket Bay, Bolden writes that his shift supervisor, Harvey Henderson, a good-ol'-boy Southerner, commented to him, "You're a nigger. You were born a nigger, and when you die, you'll still be a nigger. You will always be nothing but a nigger. So act like one!" If that doesn't stagger your perceptions about the Secret Service, nothing would. Imagine trying to do your job with that kind of attitude hovering over you. Transferred back to Chicago, his home base, after a month on the White House detail, Bolden's troubles continued and eventually culminate in charges, conviction, and imprisonment. As he presents the case against him, the corruption, racist conspiracy to destroy him, and the fumbling, blockheaded pursuit of the case by authorities eventually overpower and convict him. It is justice pursued in the most invidious fashion for the most insidious motives. The man is black. Get him. Yet, after all that he and his family endure, Bolden emerges years later undefeated. And that is what makes him a man admired. This is one heck of a story! And the horrifying thing is, it's true.

5 comments about All Souls: A Family Story from Southie.

1. One of my favorite books. I give it to someone every christmas. Perfect for "reluctant" readers- should be on curriculum in every Mass high school.



2. Every once in awhile a book comes along that affects me in a profound way. This is such a book. I laughed, I cried and I got angry. The characters came alive for me, proud of their heritage, with their self-identifying clothing brands, hairstyle and tattoo dot on the wrist, branding them forever as a "Southie"
   Amidst the poverty, the drugs, the fights, and the untimely deaths, there was still a sense of community. In a world where most of us hardly know our neighbors, Southie was a tribe of white Irish warriors where every outsider was perceived, and rightly so, as the enemy. It was never dull in Southie, for life was lived on the edge. As Ma laments years later after moving to the mountains of Colorado, "people here just don't know how to have fun". What a family, what a life, set in the background of an era that is now over and gone, there will never again be "no place like Southie".



3. i could not stand this book and did not finish it. it was poorly written and has probably gotten its good reviews from people who feel sorry for their poverty, but it is neither touching nor sympathetic. if chapters on hiding the boyfriends and the big color television from the government welfare worker appeal to you, you are in luck.



4. The past few years there has been a bright spotlight shone upon the South Boston social and political climates that have forever given Southie the reputation of being a sort of rough and tumble sort of place. With movies such as The Departed glorifying and demonstrating to the rest of the world what exactly Southie was all about, the resurgence to try and understand what living in South Boston must have been like is perhaps stronger now than ever before.
   
   Though a textbook format could certainly provide readers with a sociological and psychological look at the factors that went into making South Boston perhaps one of the most volatile sections of the country, not everyone is always looking for the highfalutin academic approach to gain a glimpse into a society. Rather, what is too often not focused on is the personal stories of the area.
   
   Thanks to the work of Michael Patrick MacDonald, readers from across the globe can read a much more personal take on life in the South Boston projects, streets, hospitals and morgues. In 2000, MacDonald and Ballantine Books release All Souls: A Family Story from Southie . MacDonald, who grew up in the projects located in Old Colony in South Boston tells an amazing family story that is so far reaching that each page seems almost as unbelievable as the next.
   
   The MacDonald family, although perhaps never willing to admit it back in the day, did not have it easy. Though they may have been masked in their zeal for their homeland, South Boston, the realities that existed were perhaps only realized once a look back at Southie was taken by those members of the family that were fortunate enough to get out.
   
   The book tells remarkable story after story in which the trials and tribulations of the MacDonald family and the life and events taking place in the world around them in Southie. The family is perhaps the ideal capture of a family that has been through so much yet continues to remain strong. Certainly the societal factors so prevalent in South Boston such as drugs, poverty and Whitey Bulger affected this family as it did so many in Southie. However, the remarkable part is that the author faced with the tragedy of having to bury sibling after sibling and seeing both his family and friends suffer so much is capable of releasing such a well thought out and brilliant book.
   
   What remains true not just for the MacDonald family but also so many that grew up in South Boston during the mid to late 1900's is that despite all of the social evils taking place around them perhaps the unifying factor of being from Southie was all they needed to remain strong. When others might have crumbled or lost all hope, Southie residents and the MacDonald's in particular were able to time and time again pull themselves out of the gutter and move on in life.
   
   The book is written in a very methodical and organized way. The stories tell a sort of time-line approach to the life of MacDonald and how it interrelated to not just his family members but also the issues that Southie will forever be remembered for: the busing riots, the drug trade of the Irish underground and the fist fights on street corners that turned into an almost daily occurrence.
   
   What MacDonald does well in this book is not just tell a story, but rather allows the reader into the lives of those around him. Through an almost genealogical lens, MacDonald brings the reader into his family in a way that at times makes the reader forget that they have no idea of this family prior to turning to page one.
   
   All Souls is the perfect read for someone that is both familiar with Southie either because of geographic or historical relevance or for someone who has no idea about what South Boston and its residents were faced with. The book is an amazing account of what is right about South Boston when so much has been wrong about South Boston. Even when faced with amazing extenuating circumstances, what held South Boston together was families like the MacDonald's.
   
   Though certainly sullied by a few bad apples, the bunch is never ruined.
   
   
   Recommended:
   Yes



5. MacDonald characterizes himself as cursed with an "Irish whisper." That is, unable to keep the secrets he's entrusted with under wraps, blaring out what he should have kept hidden. This memoir of the 1970s through the 1990s, when Whitey Bulger's thugs replaced the anti-busing protests for media attention in South Boston, moves efficiently, with modest attention to Michael Patrick's own coming-of-age as contrasted with a fearsome family scenario of ten siblings, four of whom meet violent ends and three of whom die tragically. The one who survives might as well have died earlier; she survives a coma only to emerge a psychological and physical wreck. While this story often blurs the schooling, or lack of, that the author gained as he grew up in the midst of the anti-busing boycotts, and while you gain a stronger sense of the other members of his family rather than himself, this may be redressed in the new sequel, "Easter Rising." You get a less distinctive depiction of himself compared to his larger-than-life Ma and assorted brothers. Yet, the author appears here to deliberately focus upon his family and the violent milieu that boasts of its solidarity yet which poisons its very cohesion by such corruption on a moral level and a sociological scale. MacDonald redeems himself and his neighborhood as he grows up not only in body but in spirit, managing a buy-back gun program and learning to trust (a few perhaps) police.
   
   The same department who sought to imprison his brother, at thirteen, as Boston's youngest suspect: such maturity for the narrator emerges gradually and realistically. His story of how he survived Old Colony, absent of maudlin sentimentality or contrived cutesy anecdotes, reflects what in his acknowledgements appended he calls "every painful and personally redemptive sentence." (265) MacDonald manages to tell a story that could have been akin to the film "The Departed" or the HBO "Brotherhood," yet avoids ethnic cliche and predictably pat endings. The drama of abiding by the neighborhood code that forbids snitching but vowing to break that same omerta by seeking the culprits behind two of his brothers' deaths and the imprisonment of a third adds natural tension to this narrative. Yet, MacDonald sidesteps special pleading.
   
   Many of the memories he shares deserve repeating. For this review, three quick examples. First: the author accounts for the absence of a regular man in Ma's life as she cares for eight kids. "A man would only be abusive, tear at Ma's self-worth, and limit her mobility in life. Welfare could do all that 'and' pay for the groceries." (33). Her third (named) partner and second husband, Bob King, gets hit over the head by Ma with the wine bottle that made him drunk. When he comes to, she accuses him or stealing the "Christmas money" and he's sent off down Jamaica Ave. for the last time. Staggering down the street, to staunch his bleeding head, he holds what Michael Patrick fetched on his mother's orders: a Kotex pad.
   
   Ma herself gets shot randomly, through the living room window, by a teen high on Whitey's cocaine, just before the episode of "Dallas" comes on that she and all of America had been waiting for: "Who Shot J.R.?" Whether evoking the terror of his brother Davey's schizophrenia at Mass Mental, the fear of rats and roaches that infest the projects, the rage of the busing protests, the desperate schemes of his Ma to stay ahead of the authorities, or the conniving that infects both cops and criminals with the same lack of morality, MacDonald holds a calm eye for the telling detail and a cool pen to record what transpired. I look forward to his sequel, "Easter Rising." He keeps to the unadorned, if often witty, accounts of "street justice" that complicate his series of vivid incidents, recalled conversations, and local lore that add up to a poignant, yet honest, depiction of what it was to grow up in what was Southie, before gentrification, integration, and disintegration.

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

1. It has been one of the greatest privileges of my life to know Calvin Malone.
   
   In a time when all could have gone so terribly wrong, he helped me through the darkness with his infectious smile, his humorous stories, and his flat refusal to pretend that, just because we were locked up, we should give up and act as if life were over.
   
   Calvin is a natural student of Dharma, not because he was born saintly and lived a virtuous life, but because he is a living testament to the beauty of flowers that are well fertilized. Life gave him filth. He planted a garden.
   
   His message is one of hope for people in all sorts of prisons. Whether your walls are brick and steel, or self-imposed, Calvin is an example to us all that you are only a prisoner until you choose to be Free.
   
   Calvin walks his talk. I can give no higher compliment.
   
   To read his words is to share the merit of a Bodhisattva who practiced in hell, where it is needed most.
   
   N.



2. Reviewed on 11/13/08 by Jesse Kornbulth for Head Butler at [.....]
   ...The chapters are character portraits, often of the never-ending pageant of cellmates. One, knowing Malone's TV is funky, presses the buttons so hard he breaks it. Another throws filthy underwear against the wall and does nothing to remove it when it sticks. Another steals from him. But, over and over, Malone sees through appearances --- the men who do him wrong are revealed as his teachers.
   
   "When we take the time to know people around us, it becomes easier to extend compassion and loving-kindness to them," he writes. "Those who are in prison and seem different are simply people who need the same kindness everyone else is seeking. No matter what they did, who they are, what they look like, or how they act, like all of us, they want to be happy."
   
   I wish I were as good a man as this convict
   
   Read the full write up at [.....]



3. If you think it's hard to honor your spiritual beliefs as you walk freely around our troubled but beautiful land, imagine how much harder it would be to live your faith in prison.
   
   Like, in Airway Heights Correctional Center, in Washington State. Where the windows are sealed and the air is rotten. Where the cells are like 60-square-foot closets with two men sharing 2.8 square feet of unobstructed floor space. Where light comes into your cell through two slits, five inches wide and six feet long. Where punks in the gym routinely call you --- and it's not personal - bitch, punk, faggot. Where you take a half step and make a slight turn as someone approaches, because a careless prisoner can so easily be a dead prisoner.
   
   Oh, and you are bi-racial. Your parents met in Germany after World War II; your first language was German. While you're in jail, your mother thinks she's buying her first house --- and is swindled out of her down payment. While you're in jail, your father dies of illnesses caused by Agent Orange. While you're in jail, your drug-addict brother dies.
   
   That's what Calvin Malone --- sentenced to 20 years in jail in 1992 for aggravated assault --- is up against when he becomes one of the 2,000 prisoners at Airway Heights. But he has an angel in his pocket; he's interested in Buddhism, he meditates.
   
   Malone manages to get a job in the library. Christian books were on open shelves there; you had to ask for books about Buddhism. There were few, so Malone went on a writing campaign. About $20,000 in Buddhist literature flowed in. And that was the start of a Buddhist community that eventually extended through Washington's prisons.
   
   "Razor-Wire Dharma" is just what its subtitle promises --- a straightforward account of a Buddhist doing prison time. You and I might drift and dream. But a Buddhist is compelled to be here now --- it was Malone's obligation, therefore, to be where he was. In jail.
   
   The chapters are character portraits, often of the never-ending pageant of cellmates. One, knowing Malone's TV is funky, presses the buttons so hard he breaks it. Another throws filthy underwear against the wall and does nothing to remove it when it sticks. Another steals from him. But, over and over, Malone sees through appearances --- the men who do him wrong are revealed as his teachers.
   
   "When we take the time to know people around us, it becomes easier to extend compassion and loving-kindness to them," he writes. "Those who are in prison and seem different are simply people who need the same kindness everyone else is seeking. No matter what they did, who they are, what they look like, or how they act, like all of us, they want to be happy."
   
   I wish I were as good a man as this convict.



4. 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 Unbowed: A Memoir (Vintage).

1. Wangari Maathai is such an inspiration because she is identifiable to so many groups. She is empowering to women, to mothers, to advocates for education, for biology, for equality, and most importantly she is an inspiration to anyone who ever thought their one voice could change the planet. Maathai writes with a sincerity that can be identified in any language! Read this book, to learn about Africa, about plants, about women, about everything. Most importantly read this book to learn about a rather amazing woman who never backed down from a fight for what's right. Let the greenbelt movement, move you.



2. This person is exceptional, but don't let that stop you from emulating her! She has courage, integrity, and intelligence to spare--and she used it to save her country's ecological health as well as struggling for democracy and the rights of women for equality and dignity. She went through very perilous circumstances, but fortunately for us all, she still continues to this day as a voice for democracy and honesty in government. We need more like her!



3. Reviewed by Charles Shea LeMone [...]
   
   Nobel laureate, Wangari Maathai was born in Nyeri, Kenya, in 1940. Her earliest memories of the highland country are of a paradise of fertile soil, lush forests and abundant crops. The land was rich with rivers and streams. However, returning home from college in America, one of the first things she noticed was how deforestation and the mass cultivation of cash crops had devastated the countryside, causing severe top soil erosion and many creeks and streams to dry up. Furthermore, the people in her region were no longer as robust and strong as she recalled. Instead, having changed their diets to eat like Europeans, they now appeared weak and undernourished. She found the same to be true of the animals that her people raised.
   
   As a professor, a biologist, and a Kikuyu woman, she turned to the women of her country to help restore the decimated forest. Launching the Green Belt Movement to plant trees--more than 30 million since 1977--she was subjected to beatings, arrest and death threats. Nevertheless, she and her women followers remained unbowed. In fact, the discrimination she faced for merely being a woman, led Maathai to question all human rights abuses that the corrupt government was guilty of perpetrating.
   
   She also fought for free elections, which further alienated her in the eyes of the local leaders. Despite all of their efforts to discredit her, though, in 2002, she was elected to Kenya's Parliament. A year later, she was appointed assistant minister for the environment; and in 2004, she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. She continues to live and work in Nairobi.
   
   On the back cover of "Unbowed a Memoir" there is a quote from former president Bill Clinton. "Wangari Maathai's memoir is direct, honest, and beautifully written--a gripping account of modern Africa's trials and triumphs, a universal story of courage, persistence, and success against great odds in a noble cause."



4. I agree with the other reviewers about this being an amazing memoir of a brilliant, undaunted woman, and I highly recommend it. I found it intriguing and instructive for other reasons as well: it's an eye opener into Kenya from British colonial times - when the author was a child in an indigenous society close to the land and animals. Her village seems very much like a Native American village surviving (or trying to survive) through missionaries, reservations, racism and harsh, coerced cultural assimilation, etc. Many of her memories are strikingly parallel to my own, growing up in the Arctic in Inupiaq culture colonized by whites but maintaining much of its old collective ways and animistic ties with the land.
   
   The effects of this colonial legacy are still with Kenyans today, for better or worse. Maathai does not romanticize her indigenous, tribal roots. She admits her father beat his wives and Kenyan women had somehow lost their ancient role of authority, but she evenhandedly points out beneficial aspects of polygamy - for example, children were well taken care of and loved with multiple mothers, so she grew up with a powerful sense of security and groundedness. She describes British farmers who were kind and friends with the locals they used as serfs. Life is full of moral ambiguity and she does not deny the good aspect of missionary boarding school where they beat her for speaking her native tongue: it launched her into her a western education and knowledge of the greater world, which she put to such good use.
   The memoir continues through the Mau Mau uprising (which was a rebellion against the cruelty of British taking all the good farmland and forcing thousands into far off impoverished reservations, and pitting the many tribes against one another). Maatthai proceeds into current times, always with keen insights into the increasing degradation of the ecosystem with climate change, the introduction of foreign species to turn Kenya into plantations, and the destruction of the old native wisdom/stewardship which helped keep things in balance.
   "Unbound" was published before the current conflict that is spiraling into full civil war, with ethnic cleansing and the use of mass rape as a terror instrument. I am sure that Maathai would have plenty to add about this in her memoir if she updates it, with equally keen insights. She would point out that the conflict has its roots in colonial rule and the destruction of a sustainable ecosystem and native life ways, as we see in so many parts of the world now. She would surely have some advice on how to stop the violence.
   I really admire this woman, and hope a lot more will read her book. It seems very important!



5. Maathai is the first African woman and the first environmentalist to win the Nobel Peace Prize-in 2004.
   
   Masthai's life is inspiring-from her humble beginnings as a child laborer on the plantation of a white English colonial farm with her family, to her early education in the primitive Ihithe primary school at age 8, to further education at St. Cecilia's at the Mathari Catholic Mission, to college in the United States. She taught at the University in Kenya, and was active in the National Council of Women in Kenya (NCWK) for many years.
   
   Many failures are scattered throughout her life: she was divorced by her husband; she lost her job at the University when she tried to run for office, and she was arrested many times for her work in promoting democracy in Kenya. One of the projects she worked on was to stop the construction of a huge 60-story skyscraper in the middle of Uhuru Park in Nairobi; another was to obtain the release of over 50 men who had been imprisoned for agitating for a multi-party system. She held a hunger strike with their mothers, in Uhuru Park, and then they all retreated to a nearby Anglican cathedral to continue to protest after being routed from the park by armed police (Along with many others, Maathai was beaten and taken to hospital). Eventually the men were released.
   
   Maathai started the Green Belt Movement in 1977. In 2002 Kenya finally held free and democratic open elections and Maathai won a seat in the Parliament. See the Green Belt web site for extensive details of her grassroots tree-planting program. The act of planting a tree is helping women throughout Africa help the environment. The GBM has planted more than 40 million trees across Africa, resulting in reduced soil erosion has affecting the critical watersheds
   
   Everyone can make a difference. Just today I watched a report on the news about the devastating drought in the Southeast United States. Hard times are coming. We need to learn about climate change and what we can do to manage it.
   
   Armchair Interviews says: One woman helping other women and her country.

5 comments about You Can Run But You Can't Hide.

1. I thought this was a wonderful book. It's full of information about Dog's life and exactly what he's had to deal with along the way.



2. This book was passed on from my conservative cousin (doesn't drink, cuss or smoke); then to my Mother (who's not a reader); then on to me. They both highly recommended the book to me but I wasn't really interested and wouldn't have bought the book for myself. I started thumbing through the pages and couldn't put it down. I was up until 12:00 midnight wanting to see what came next! What a life! You really feel like you're there (riding on the back of a motorcycle in a gang; tracking down a fugitive!) I agree it's written rather roughly; no fancy prose here but raw, real life events. I can't wait to get home and finish reading the rest!



3. I've Been A Fan Of Dogs Show For About 4 Years. This Book Is Very Informative About The Struggles Along The Way For Dog And Family. Dog's Gonna Get You If You Jump Bail On Him And Beth. He'll Take You Down Hard, But He'll Try And Bring You Back Up. He's Tough Outside And A Softy Inside, Which Makes Him Unique. The Book Is A Tell All, No Holds Barred Account Of His Years Of Struggle With The System, Drugs, Women And Other Bondsmen. Dogs Love Of His Family Is Paramount In His Life.



4. 
   It was great. Anyone who likes watching the show will really like the book



5. Duane 'Dog' Chapman is a unique individual and this biography is one that will hold the reader's attention from start to finish.
   
   I had not known a great deal about 'Dog' Chapman before reading this book. Of course I had followed his capture of the infamout Rapist Andrew Luster and his subsequent imprisonment in Mexico. On a couple of occasions I had seen parts of his show on TV, although I've never seen a full episode. After reading this book, I may have to watch his show a time or two.
   
   'You Can Run, But You Can't Hide' chronicles 'Dog's' life including a stint in prison for 1st Degree Murder (He did not do the actual killing), being the top salesman in the country for a vacuum cleaner company, running with a biker gang, and more. It includes his early criminal life of drug dealing and being a burglar.
   
   This book does not try to hide the bad side of his life. It includes his drug addiction, prison sexual behaviors, and more. Some of the language is pretty rough. That and some of his earlier experiences may be too much for those with more delicate sensibilities.
   
   There is much in his life that can be a lesson for those going down the wrong path. He has made all kinds of mistakes and freely shares them. Many will love this book. I'm sure that others will not like it at all. I think it is a worthwhile read.

5 comments about In Search of Captain Zero: A Surfer's Road Trip Beyond the End of the Road.

1. I picked up this book after having read the fictional "Cosmic Banditos". It's the mind-boggling road diary of Weisbecker's trip off the grid. He sells off his life, grabs his dog and surfboards, and heads out with no real direction other than 'south'. His funny, relaxed writing evokes a storytelling session around a campfire on the beach.
   
   
   This is the kind of audacious drop-out from society that most of us will only dream about. After cringing at some of Weisbecker's more harrowing adventures, some of us will be glad we never took the leap. The story takes an uncomfortable turn when Captain zero is finally found, a turn which may cement your commitment to staying safely on the grid.



2. Anyone who is nostalgic about surfing, the beach, women, friends and the passage of time should read this book. It is hard to believe how well written it is. There are many interesting, sad and funny stories in the book. The scene about the large wave hitting their small beach house in Hawaii actually had me, dare I say, laughing out loud. I'm now reading the book a second time after a one year hiatus, and enjoying it just as much (a good activity until I can get back to the beach!).



3. There's nothing like a surfing trip to Costa Rica with flashbacks to drug dealing days to make for a great literary achievement.
   
   The book may be $10.00, but the chapter on "The Boat" is priceless! I've bought at least 10 copies to give to my friends to read. It is a true classic.
   
   How this book has gone this long without being made into a movie is incomprehensible.



4. This book appealed on so many levels. Want a good surf adventure, you got it. Like a nice travelogue, it hits there too. Want an excellent character study, absolutely. If you want to shake your head while laughing out loud, you get that here also. It was a book that was fun and yet thought provoking, strongly recommended.



5. A very different kind of surfing story. For those that that are into surfing and travel it's pretty cool. It's a good adventure surfing story. I started reading it on an island in Panama durring a surf trip which gives me a different perspective. It definetly made me want to keep traveling/surfing. For the non surfing types, I have no idea how it would be recieved....

5 comments about 80.

1. This book is so entertaining and interesting... and will make you realize you don't have to get old... These people didn't!



2. This book was such an inspiration. I am 43 and so hope I can live until I'm 80+. The participants were honest, good and bad, about growing old in such a youth crazed world. I am going to buy at least 4 copies, from Amazon of course, for Christmas presents this year. A great wealth of knowledge.



3. This book is a must read for anyone who is 80, or who plans on being 80 one day. Your parents or grandparents will enjoy this book since they can compare their thoughts, feelings and experiences with those of the stars and celebrities they followed throughout their lives. Younger readers, and that means anyone not yet on social security, will learn how the 80 famous people discussed in this book have handled aging so gracefully, and with so much vitality. This is an inspirational book which reminds us that age need not affect how a person chooses to live life, and that life holds great rewards for anyone -- including people over 80 -- who choose to remain young at heart.



4. I've now sent this book to three people as gifts. This is a marvelous gift from all these famous 80-year-olds, to tell their stories of how they got there. Because each profile is in the first-person, I really feel as though I got to know many of these extraordinary people.



5. A wonderful read for anyone who thinks they're getting
   on in years and wants to know how the 80plus set
   keeps it interesting. It's a "How To" book that should be
   on every night table and coffee table.