5 comments about Conquering Stroke: How I Fought My Way Back and How You Can Too.

1. A stroke can radically change one's life - to the point that he or she isn't the same person anymore. "Conquering Stroke: How I Fought My Way Back and How You Can Too" encourages sufferers of strokes to not let it and do whatever it takes to overcome their affliction and live how they want to once more. While offering plenty of advice for both treatment and the recovery process, it acknowledges that the best cure is prevention and has a focus on that subject as well. "Conquering Stroke: How I Fought My Way Back and How You Can Too" is a top pick for senior health collections and for anyone who fears or wants to overcome stroke.



2. As the caregiver for my husband who suffered an AVM (arteriovenus malformation) 23 years ago, I wish I'd had this book then. Looking back, I did a good job of monitoring his doctors, nurses and aftercare. What I did NOT do was take care of myself. Valerie has written a terrific account of her medical trauma, which brings the reader right in the room/bed with her. You feel her helplessness, her frustration, her fury. We all encounter those in the medical community who make assumptions rather than medical assessments, either due to patient overload or malaise. Regardless, I recommend this book to virtually everyone. Everyone either has had or will have a medical emergency in their life and this is is a primer on how to take care of yourself when that happens. You may not have a family member near to look out for you and will have to fight for yourself. Buy this book. Valerie makes it easy to read and puts all the technical information in the bibliography for your reference. She is a hero!



3. My father had a stroke three months ago. I was desperate to find information regarding strokes - not only for my father but also for my mother - his primary caregiver. My father is unable to read, speak or walk but is able to understand everything that's going on around him. I began reading Valerie's book to him and the way he paid attention was astounding! It was as if he wanted to say, "That's how I feel!" It was important for him to know that someone else has been in his exact situation before and that we knew what he was going through. He also needed to know that, through sheer determination and will power, he too will be able to walk and talk again. At the end of each chapter my mother and I would read the Resources section together. In a sea of confusion and frustration it was great to find such a wonderful and inspirational book to help us get through this most traumatic time in our lives. I would recommend Valerie's book for, not only the stroke patient, but also friends and family.



4. This is an excellent "how to" manual for overcoming the debilitating effects of stroke, not only for the survivor, but the survivors' caregivers, family and rehabilitation team! If you're wanting complemetary medicine as an adjunct to the standard medical route, this is a "must have" book! Valerie is not only a great story-teller, but humorous in her approach to life and its pitfalls. She knows from the inside how a person must fight this disease, and is able to share it intelligently and step-by-step in an easy-to-read format.
   This book should be in every home!!!



5. As a stroke survivor myself, I am thrilled with this very informative, inspirational, moving account of Valerie Greene's journey. What an incredible amount of work and heart have gone into this long awaited account of her triumphs over a catastrophic event in her very young years and what maturity and obvious study and hard work have gone into her writing of this book. The information supplied at the end of each chapter is invaluable! I've read a lot since having my stroke in July of 2000, but never has so much been provided in one account. I highly recommend this for any and all people who have in any way been touched by a stroke and for the caregivers who are the heart of encouraging the survivors as they continue along their journey with new and different goals, yet hope for a bright tomorrow!

5 comments about B-Shifter: A Firefighter's Memoir.

1. This book is a highly entertaining view of life inside a career fire department. If you're interested in this book and want a sample go to www.bshifter.com and click on the link for the blogs. Then select the blog titled Staring into the Sun. This book is not a collection of Nick's fire magazine articles but new or fresh perspectives on his observations of his fire service career.



2. I have been a firefighter for 30+ years. We are a workforce that runs into burning buildings when everyone else is running out. We are often times the last people many victims will see before they die. B-Shifter captures the human element of our profession as well (if not better) than any other book I've read. Brunacini paints an accurate and mesmerizing picture of the work and the workforce. The book also manages to be side-splittingly funny. It is a book that I didn't want to end.



3. Hilarious, twisted, crude, TRUE, and did I say it was HILARIOUS!! I laughed until I cried in some places and wanted to cry in others because I'm a firefighter and he reminds me of things that I've seen. I could see the dishwasher incident happening in my own station. Way to go Nick!! You said it for all of us who can't write!



4. This book is twisted, warped, offensive, gut-wrenchingly funny, and heart-breaking all at once. It is wonderfully paced, and an amazing first time novel. The author captures both the family ties and the history of this work force. It is hands down one of the best books I have ever read. If Hunter S. Thompson and Joseph Wambaugh had a love child, Nick would be it.



5. My brother is a firefighter, and after he read this, he passed it on to me. I wasn't sure whether I could get into a firefighter book, but he promised me I would love it and I did love it. Its really hillarious, even if you're not a firefighter. Some of the stories are kind of gross, but it's real life stuff. The writer did great job of telling these stories. His perspective is pretty unique and sometimes you think he might be a little cold-hearted to actually write these stories, but you realize as you read his insights that he's a softy (I think so anyway). The stories, even the sad ones, manage to be be funny in their ability to capture the human experience, but also touching and sweet. It's really a great book. A great quick summer read. I think this would be a great vacation book for men especially who want something fun to read on the beach or by the pool or whatever.

5 comments about On the Wild Edge: In Search of a Natural Life.

1. This has got to be one of my favorite books of all time. Dave Petersen seems to have figured out early on how to get his priorities in order. That money and 'things' are fleeting and empty acquisitions. That what really matters are great relationships with those you love, be it your spouse, friends or even your dog, and that being debt free is a power all it's own. Dave freely admits that he doesn't have a lot of money, but, he is most definitely the captain of his own ship, truly able to call his time and what he does with it his own. How many of us can say that? It is a great wake up call and definitely motivates you to get your own priorities in order. Dave finds more value in the treasures of nature, the wild animals that call it home and the ability to know how to appreciate it than in 'filthy money' as he so rightly puts it. I happen to love his political rants about the state of our world, he is dead on most of the time, and thank goodness doesn't sugarcoat it one iota!! This is a must read if you love the mountains, snow, wildlife, and unlike so many Americans who seem to only be able to follow the herd, have the ability to think for yourself.



2. I read Dave's book, along with several other good reads, during the dead of winter this season. Time well spent. I found myself consuming the book each evening, and it was finsihed in short order. Following Dave from season to season, reading about his everyday experiences and thoughts, mulling over his political views, sharing his pains, exultations, celebrations of life, and observations of his natural world, I finished the book feeling quite satisfied. This should be required reading for any environmentally-aware hunter-naturalist, or anyone else who loves the outdoors, for that matter. I like it.



3. David Peterson writes very well and has a great ability to engage the reader and make them feel as if they are part of the forest where David writes. I am only about half finished with the book and have enjoyed his views on simple living and self sufficiency. However, his subtle and not-so-subtle interjections about politics totally distract from the beautiful writings about nature. If I wanted political commentary, I would read a book about politics, not a book about nature and simple living.



4. Mr. Petersen is a far left liberal hippie. Throughout the book (I actually only made it about halfway through before I could no longer force myself to read anymore) he is always interjecting his misinformed political views, always saying how bad the humans are compared to the animal kingdom, (especially American humans), but yet he seems to enjoy his car (which he says it always smokes a lot when it is running), electricity to run a few house hold items, (radio, well pump, hot water heater), and the gas to run his chainsaw and his car. He is not too divorced from the "evil civilization", considering he does have a road that goes to his cabin.



5. What a treat! I bought this from Amazon back when it first came out in hardcover, and it has resided on my to-be-read shelf all this time. We now have snow here and, in a wintry mood, I was prompted to pick this one up after finishing Vardis Fisher's excellent THE MOUNTAIN MAN and watching the Robert Redford movie based upon that book.
   
   What a dustjacket! It says here that Caroline Peterson, the author's "permanent wife," took that photo. If the gorgeous, dustjacket art especially appeals to you--as it does to me--then you might also enjoy looking inside at these marvelous tales of David and Caroline Peterson in their natural surroundings.
   
   This author will resonate to those who love the nature writings of Emerson and Thoreau, Doug Peacock and Edward Abbey. Peterson writes with the practical common sense of Wendell Berry mixed with an almost mystical be-here-now sense of wonder. He sees the Great Spirit in things.
   
   We found this a delightful, gorgeous edition to our personal library of naturalism. This author edited A. B. Guthrie's enviromental essays and wrote the afterward to Guthrie's marvelous autobiography. I can't say if this is Peterson's best book because I've yet to read several of his others. They are now moving up on my list.

5 comments about The Skillful Huntsman: Visual Development of a Grimm Tale at Art Center College of Design.

1. Watch Video Here: http://www.amazon.com/review/R24YAWVXSPRFQE This is essentially a sketchbook. It also looks very much like a school project for art students. And the art students in particular are Khang Le, Mike Yamada and Felix Yoon.
   
   The Skillful Huntsman is actually a story by the Brothers Grimm.
   
   Based on the short story, the artists then came up with concept drawings for the characters, set, props and environment. As you can see in the video, there are lots of sketches on character designs. For every subject, there's comment from the artist on the thought process for the creation. And just beneath that comment is another one from the Scott Robertson, a teacher at the Art College of Design.
   
   It's fun to see how the 3 artists interpret the stories and come up with their own unique concepts and designs.
   
   Bear in mind that this book was published in 2005. These talented students have already gone on to work at major studios.
   
   There are more pictures on my blog. Just visit my Amazon profile for my blog's link.



2. Ever wondered what students work at art center looks like? look no further, both the skillful huntsmen and into the future are absolutely stunning books for the students at art center. For anyone who has ever dreamed of pursuing concept art as a career, these two books are amazing!



3. Very informative book. its good being able to get a glimpse of the creative design process.
   
   i thought it was kind of intersting (a little unexpected) that the 3 artists being featured are asian, even though i myself am asian as well.
   
   i wonder if other nationality of artists have different styles and processes? That would be interesting to see
   
   also, having the teacher's critique right under the student's explanation was a good idea! a compare and contrast to new and seasoned talents!



4. Here's an overview of Art Center's Entertainment Design teaching process, as told by several of its most gifted students. Shows Entertainment Design work at a high level, though it doesn't reach the level of the best graphic novels. (should one expect such maturity from student work?) This book illustrates the didactic process of nurturing the next generation of visual storytellers.



5. I have been looking for good concept art books and have yet to find one I like as much as this one. If you are like me you have looked through tons of book store for good art books, but only manage to find lame kiddie stuff. I was so tired of "how too" books on comic heros and magna, that were drawn at a 4th grade level. If you are looking for quality art, this is some of the best freehand skething I have seen.
   This book really is not an instruction book or anything of that nature, but if you need good drawing refrences or inspiration for new and creative comic like ideas this is the book for you.

5 comments about Coming Back Alive: The True Story of the Most Harrowing Search and Rescue Mission Ever Attempted on Alaska's High Seas.

1. An excellent read for any offshore fisherman anywhere- recreational or commercial. Author also blends beautiful descriptions of Alaska along with the suspense of the rescues. A great testimonial to the hard work and sacrifices made by our USCG.



2. I have read some reviews that have been placed on this book and I understand where everyone is coming from. Spike may seem to throw a lot of words in there to describe something and the writing might not be absoluately fluid and pleasing. BUT...Spike Walker is a fisherman first, a book writer second. I saw him on Deadliest Catch where he sat with all the crab boat captains in Dutch Harbor. He writes about this stuff because he lived that life. He might not be able to write a book like The Perfect Storm, but he has been in the middle of the Bering Sea in the most unbelievable weather you can imagine. So while Junger was able to write an amazing and almost "perfect" book, Walker makes up for it in living the life of a crab boat fisherman, knowing those who have been lost at sea, tasting the Bering Sea as he pulled crab pots on deck, and living to tell about it. I anticipate everything he writes because he lived it. He did not simply research and write about it.



3. I know Spike and this is the first book of his I have read. I started reading this at night on my graveyard shift job and couldn't put it down. I spent the winter of 1979-80 in Unalaska working as an engineer at Pan-Alaska Seafood's crab plant and know what Alaska weather is like. I've seen king crab boats with 3" of ice on a 3/4" cable, and the rigging and railings full of ice. I'm from Astoria, Oregon and know lots of fishermen who fish Alaska. I can't imagine anyone having a hard time believing this. Spike nailed it, I felt as though I was in the H-60 with the crews. Its hard to imagine waves of the size described, but I know they do happen in big storms. This book gives an accurate description of the Coast Guard and the kind of weather they go out in to help those in need. I can't comprehend people who tear apart a writer for too many adverbs, writing style, etc. This is a helluva book, Spike is a great writer who does his research well and I would recommend this book to anyone who likes factual adventure stories.



4. This is one of the most mesmerizing books I've read, and definitely one of Spike Walker's best. You will not believe what the fishermen and Coast Guard rescuers go through... tossed about in 50-70 foot seas in leaky survivial suits in 38 degree water in the middle of the night for hours on end. The human will to survive, and the human will to succeed will never be better captured by a more riveting account. Spike Walker's writing captures the right level of detail and he artfully weaves together human emotion and extreme adventure.



5. Excellent book. Keeps you on the edge of your seat. Very well written.A good look over the shoulder of the Coast Guard and at the life saving service they provide.

5 comments about Ronnie: The Autobiography.

1. Ronnie takes us all the way through his life. Interesting stories that are well told, funny & insightful. As well as his fellow members in the Stones, you get an idea on the personalities of other rock musicians which Ronnie shares with you & which you will also have a chuckle at. A well told interesting & enjoyable read.



2. This is a fun read. Just don't trust any of the dates past 1978. The chronology is definitely jumbled. Perhaps this is understandable considering the copious amounts of drugs that he admits to consuming. However, the fact that no editor corrected statements like Woody saying he did a show with Dennis Wilson in 1985 (he died in '83) is almost shameful...



3. THE WOODMANS LONG JOURNEY WEAVES US THROUGH THE
   LABARYNTHS OF ROCKS HALCION DAYS - ETCHED WITH
   CANDID IF NOT GRAPHIC FLASH BACKS TO THE MUSICS
   EARLIEST INFLUENCES TO WHAT HAS NOW BECOME TO ALL,
   QUINTISENSUAL CLASSIC ROCK.
   
   RONNIE IS FOR THOSE WHO LIVED THROUGH THE LATE 60'S
   ONWARDS - AN ENGROSSING READ!.
   
   THE CONSUMATE JAMSTERS ABILITY TO ADAPT HIS CHOPS
   TO SO MANY STYLES OF ROCK LUMINARIES THAT FINALLY
   CULMINATES TO HIS ASCENT INTO WITHOUT A DOUBT THE
   WORLDS GREATEST WORKING BAND IS REMARKABLE.
   
   WARTS - D C'S AND ALL THE 356 PAGES FOCUSES ON FAMILY,
   WIVES,CHILDREN,FRIENDS,PLAYERS AND LEGENDS - NOT
   ENOUGH ALAS WAS SPENT ON THE LONDON YEARS - NO
   MENTION AT ALL OF "THE SPEAKEASY" THE CLUB THAT
   HOSTED MORE HISTORIC ONE NIGHT IMPROMPTU JAM
   SESSIONS THAN CAN EVER BE IMAGINED,WOODY BEING
   IN NEARLY EVERY ONE..
   
   I WOULD OF ALSO LIKED MORE ON THE IMPORTANCE
   OF THE STYLE AND FEEL OF LONDON DURING THOSE DAYS.
   MORE ON GRANNYS - SWEENYS - COSTAS - RUSKINS AND
   OF COURSE THE CHELSEA COBBLER ..
   
   STRANGELY MISSING - HARDLY A WORD ON GLIMMER TWIN
   NUMBER TWO ? BUT THERE AGAIN"LOOSE LIPS MIGHT SINK SHIPS"
   
   WE WILL JUST HAVE TO WAIT FOR HIS MAJESTY TO PUT
   PEN TO PAPER,BUT DON'T HOLD YOUR BREATH.
   
   'YOU DON'T WANT ME TROUSERS TO FALL DOWN NOW DO YA"
   
   RONNIE ON THE P C ROCK BIO GRADE TWANGS IN AT A SOLID 7.
   
   WEAVE IT OR LEAVE IT - RONNIE IS DEFINITELY A WEAVER WORTH
   WEADING



4. First get me right here: as much as I do NOT like the Stones that much, this is a very nice and funny little autobiography by one of its members. He has had a much more interesting career as a member of the Faces and the Jeff Beck group among other things. However the very sympathetic way in which he recounts his past experiences make even the Stoens years interesting (OK, I guess they ARE an important group after all). The book is written with a great deal of wit and he comes over really well in this biography which is not the usual "my groupie and drug hell" kind of bio that everybody seems kind of keen on producing as of late.



5. Why this man is not classified as one of the true Rolling Stones is beyond me.

5 comments about Quiet, Please: Dispatches from a Public Librarian.

1. Scott does such a good job of drawing the reader into the situation, that you feel like you are there. I really enjoyed the book and think everyone else would too. I don't have much time to read, but I found it hard to put this book down.



2. I've worked in public libraries since 1978, and I was appalled by this book. While showing what libraries are like "behind the scenes" was a great idea, Douglas' delivery was flat, annoying and patently untrue.
   The "footnotes" on every page were unneccessary and repetive; in the one where he says a female employee's name was Dan, his footnote says "Yes, HER name was Dan", which was actually explained in the next sentence of the paragraph, making the entire footnote superfluous.
   While he got a lot of the patrons right (the crazies, the nice ones, the abominables), his stereotypes of library workers were offensive and mostly untrue. To say that most librarians are sour and old and wear their hair in buns is pathetic and misleading. (The library I worked in was in a suburb of Portland, Oregon, and we had piercings and dyed hair and wore leopard print pants, and not one had a bun. I guess they do things different in Anaheim.)
   What tore it for me was his whining about 9/11 and how Californians felt 'left out' because they hadn't been attacked too (talk about stereotypical, that SoCallians are self-involved and want everything to happen to them).
   Douglas tries too hard to be David Sedaris and falls woefully short. I would avoid this book at all costs. I didn't make it through three chapters. Don't waste your money on it-- but if you really want to read it, supoort your local library and go check it out.



3. Librarians are known for their knowledge of the system and penchant for silence, but QUIET, PLEASE goes beyond the stereotypes in presenting a series of librarian profiles to spice the profession. From a librarian who thinks Thomas Pynchon is Julia Robert's latest love to a patron who believes the government is canceling her print jobs, patron as well as librarian anecdotes and history are blended into a survey of library events and fun circumstances from Carnegie to modern Afghanistan, making for a fun and whirlwind tour perfect for any general-interest lending library.



4. I love libraries and was really looking forward to this memoir.
   
   In Quiet Please: Dispatches From a Public Librarian by Scott Douglas, the author was a college student who liked books and needed a job, so he became a page (shelving books) at the Anaheim Public Library. Lacking better career plans, he accepted a state grant to get a degree in library science. In this memoir, Douglas reports on the types of individuals that frequent the library. He focuses on teens, homeless people, crazy people and the elderly. His stories about what he has encountered working in the library are so funny. I thought his comments about his coworkers, and about librarians not being readers to be very humorous as well. The chapters were numbered (using the Dewey Decimal System) which I found to be very clever. My only complaint was that some of the writing seemed to be scattered; just as I was enjoying a few passages the subject matter seemed to shift completely. All in all this was as enjoyable memoir.



5. I loved this book! It's funny, unique, informative and is the kind of book you hate to see end. More please, more please!!!

No comments about Stealing Buddha's Dinner.

5 comments about The Naked Civil Servant (Penguin Classics).

1. "When the telegram announcing my father's death arrived, I felt nothing except irritation at the thought of having to go home, attend the funeral, and come back."
   
   Quentin Crisp is not a likeable human being. About one quarter way into this book, I was tempted to throw it aside for good. But given its generally favorable reviews, I felt I should give it another chance. And a peculiar thing happened. Although Crisp does nothing to present himself in a more favorable light - if anything, he goes out of his way to make the point that the reader's approval matters nothing to him - by the two-third mark, one cannot help but develop a grudging admiration for the man.
   
   It's hard to know why this happens - perhaps just a case of sympathy for the underdog. Crisp was born in a time when homosexuality really was the love that dare not speak its name, and made his mark by never obliging those who would have him live life in a shadow, instead choosing to flaunt his difference. This book is an account of the price exacted. While the reader may be moved toward a grudging admiration for Crisp's refusal to be ground down by the prejudice and cruelty surrounding him, it's impossible to feel any real sympathy for the man. Because, ultimately, this is the autobiography of a narcissist. Reviews of this book invariably mention its wit and brilliant self-mockery, qualities I found singularly absent. Given a 200-page book in which no other character appears as remotely human, as anything other than a sketch or cipher, and in which the author admits to never having loved, or been loved, the final effect of this strangely empty memoir is bleak indeed. I feel a certain admiration for Quentin Crisp. But I can't say that I enjoyed spending time in his company.



2. Rereading "The Naked Civil Servant" after many years, I find Quentin Crisp's melancholy wit just as bracing as I did when I first encountered the book. The chiseled perfection of Crisp's aphorisms recall Oscar Wilde (though Crisp's distaste for Wilde was famous; Wilde's hubris and subsequent downfall made life that much harder for the gay men, such as Crisp, who came after him). One famous example: "I would have been tempted to say that he was ill did I not know that health consists of having the same diseases as one's neighbors." Another: "'Immaturity' is one more word that requires definition. To men it means the inability to stand on one's own two feet. A woman flings it at anyone who doesn't want to marry her. Here I find myself for once inclined toward the masculine view." Yet despite the humor, the overwhelming mood of "The Naked Civil Servant" is of loneliness. Crisp, who outed himself flamboyantly forty years before Stonewall, presents himself as a wildly contradictory character: exhibitionistic yet inherently and Englishly modest, too honest to present himself as anything other than he was, yet realizing fully the opprobrium and loss of companionship he would suffer by doing so. Reading his autobiography shows a younger generation of gay men precisely the mindset a hidebound society instilled in homosexuals in the early 20th century. Crisp, despite his flamboyance, was not immune to it: "Homosexuals were ashamed. They resented not being in the mainstream of life. The feeling varied from irritation to the anguish of irrevocable exile. It had little to do with God or the neighbors or the police. It was private and irremediable." In subsequent years--he lived to be ninety, outliving the publication of "The Naked Civil Servant" by three decades--Crisp found a measure of public acceptance and acclaim he would have thought impossible in the 1930s. Yet the loneliness and melancholy never really left him. To read "The Naked Civil Servant" is to be impressed by a great personality and a brilliant, acute observer of sex and society. But, at the same time, you wish he could have found a little more happiness for himself.



3. I have heard of The Naked Civil Servant for many years and finally decided to pick it up to read. In many ways it is a great piece of gay history that would have been lost were it not for Quentin Crisp's acerbic wit and very English sense of time and place. As a historical piece, The Naked Civil Servant is well worth reading.
   
   Unfortunately, I also found myself wanting the book to end - in the same way that I wanted the movie Capote to end. I found Quentin Crisp to be a singularly unpleasant and self absorbed man who strives for fame by being outrageous, but never pleasant. His personality took away much of the value that I was hoping for in this book. I found his humor to be too cute in many cases and his quest for self-importance highly aggravating.



4. What kind of title is that? Well, for 35 years, he was a nude model for art classes. So there you go. A naked civil servant. Now there's a career choice my high school guidance counselor never told me about.
   
   Quentin is the quintessential outsider. He outed himself as flamboyantly gay in 1931, and manages to be both sincere and parody at the same time. Forget the gay part. Focus on the outsider part. His writing style is quite crisp, ho ho!
   
   Time to scan the cover again, as opposed to being original.
   
   "His wit is brilliant, his observations acute, his self-mockery undiluted by the need to sentimentalize."
   
   "'As soon as I stepped out of my mother's womb... I realized that I had made a mistake,' Quentin declares, giving a small hint of the witty and wry approach he takes toward the life he describes with undiluted exuberance in this classic autobiography, which is both a comic masterpiece and a unique testament to the resilience of the human spirit."
   
   "His hilarious descriptions of encounters with parents, friends, employers, soldiers and sailors, and the law reveal the strength and humor of an honest man, determined to face the world with the uncensored, unapologetic truth about himself."
   
   "A work of great wit, intelligence and sensitivity."
   
   Quite.



5. "This is an unusually riveting, exuberant autobiography of a man who, in 1931, 'came out' in the streets of London as a self-confessed and self-evident homosexual. At a time when the slightest sign of homosexuality aroused immediate disgust, Quentin Crisp made the courageous decision to be true to his nature. He adopted an outrageously effeminate manner and appearance ('I wore makeup at a time when even on women eye shadow was sinful'), and his flamboyant exhibitionism, henna-dyed hair, and unconventional behavior shocked London society of the thirties. Though he was harassed, ridiculed, and beaten, he was determined to spread the message that homosexuality did not exclude him or anyone else from the human race. ¶ Quentin Crisp has become a cult celebrity since the highly acclaimed dramatization of The Naked Civil Servant was first aired on American television. His is a unique life story. One feels the strength and humor of an honest man, determined to face the world with the truth about himself."--© zebraz

5 comments about Lost in Translation: A Life in a New Language.

1. this was one of the best books i've ever read. it was packed with profound insights. the writing itself is just beautiful.



2. A wonderful book on moving from one culture to another and one language to another--Polish to English. Anyone who has had this experience will immediately identify with the author. Eva Hoffman writes beautifully about every nuance of her family's move as a young teenager from Communist Poland to Canada. Cultures that are superficially similar turn out to be very different and the effect on family life is staggering.



3. Hoffman's description of Poland in the Communist years following World War II is riveting, and so is her narrative of life in the U.S. following her arrival here at age 13. But what impresses me most about this book is its assured writing style, and the author's ability to skip back and forth from one decade and year to another without boring or losing the reader. Hoffman is an unusually gifted writer. I am using her text as a teaching tool for a would-be memoir/autobiographer. Thank heaven her parents survived the Holocaust and brought her to us.



4. I started reading this wonderful book 6 months before I left Brazil towards Israel. After finishing the first Part (Paradise) I just could not keep on reading, and I abandoned the book for a while. After I landed in Israel I re-took the book and was delighted again with the realness of it. A thought occurred to me that the reading was so descriptive of the immigration sentiment that I just could not understand it before immigrating myself.
   
   The book helped me to understand and to organize the infinite sensations that come with the leaving/arriving to another country. How the language affects the way we think and act, how sadness and happiness are mingled into one strange feeling, how we cope and forget without noticing, and how we urge to succeed and prove that we can be part of the new country.
   
   In addition, the book also brought to me new feelings and curiosities about my grandparents, whom also escaped from Poland and Russia in the late 40's. Hoffman describes so well how the old traditions and languages influenced the new live of those who left their country because of prejudice and persecution!
   
   One passage that I am specially fond of: "No, I'm no patriot, nor was I ever allowed to be. And yet, the country of my childhood lives within me with a primacy that is a form of love. (...) All it has given me is the world, but that is enough. It has fed me language, perceptions, sounds, the human kind. It has given me the colors and the furrows of reality, my first loves. The absoluteness of those loves can never be recaptured: no geometry of the landscape, no haze in the air, will live in us as intensely as the landscapes that we saw as the first, and to which we gave ourselves wholly, without reservations." It reminds me of Wordsworth when he writes about Tintern Abbey.
   
   A wonderful life-changing book.



5. I loved this book when it came out and I love it still many rereadings later. This portrait of the Wandering Jew as a young girl begins with Hoffman's childhood in Cracow, Poland just after the second world war; moves to Vancouver, British Columbia when she is thirteen; continues on to Texas and Massachusetts for her university years; and ends in New York, where she becomes a writer and an editor at the New York Times Book Review. It encompasses many themes: the defining power of language; the cost of changing cultures, the construction of personal identity, and the consequences, for many Jews, of the Nazi and Communist regimes. Hoffman was born in the summer of 1945. Like many Jews in post-war, Soviet-controlled Eastern Europe, the Hoffmans observed Passover and had home-baked challah, on shabbat but Eva was culturally Polish, reading Sienkiewicz's nationalistic novels, playing Chopin etudes, attending church with her friends, receiving gifts on St. Nicholas's Day. After emigration, she adapts to North American culture, first Canadian, then Texan, then New York. This is a memoir squarely in the Jewish immigrant tradition but one in which the immigrant is a graduate student at Harvard, and relates her situation not only to Mary Antin but to contexts laid out by Sartre and Nabokov, Jung and Freud. Lost in Translation contains stories and essays, phrases to ruminate on, ideas to consider. It is a demanding read that challenges its reader to consider her own autobiography, her own childhood, her own assumptions. Having compiled an international bibliography of Jewish women's non-fiction books with poet Irena Klepfisz (available on my website) , I can say this is one of my favorites.