No comments about Cyril Fox: Archaeologist Extraordinary.

1 comments about The House of Joshua: Meditations on Family and Place (Texts and Contexts).

1. The author challenges the reader to understand how environment and place shape who we are. After reading this book you will never again take the places in your life for granted. The author's poignant essays will touch your spirit and inspire you to explore the places which make you who you are.

No comments about The Correspondence of William James: Volume 9, July 1899-1901.

4 comments about My Therapist's Dog: Lessons in Unconditional Love.

1. The author of this impossibly self-absorbed little book spent a day in the library -- compiling a list of historical and biological facts about dogs -- and uses these to pepper a story about her own life and woes. "Pepper" is exactly the right word too, because a little bit is seasoning; a lot becomes an irritant.
   
   Even without the distracting arcana & ephemera about dogs this book is annoyingly whiney, with the author essentially asking "Why me?" everytime somebody dies in her life. It's hard to lose loved ones, 2-legged or 4-, but the author's own little disfunctional family is hardly unique in that regard.
   
   And as to "Unconditional Love" I don't think the author has a clue -- she lets her dogs run undisciplined, and her relatives live unmoderated, and then moans when bad things happen. That isn't love, it's abandonment.



2. I hate to burst the bubble here, but I was disappointed in this book. In my opinion, it's trying to be two different books: a memoir of therapy and an informal history of the relationship between dogs and people. The jumps between the two genres are awkward and disorienting, and often have the unintended effect of trivializing the very serious issues Wells is discussing. In the midst of a moving description of a session with the therapist, she will suddenly shift to discuss some particular breed of dog. It's almost as if the dog stuff is there to distract her (or us) when the material gets too heavy.
   
   I also would seriously question the ethics of the therapist in this story, but given the way the story ends, that's a cheap shot on my part.



3. Diana Wells has written a sophisticated memoir about recovery from personal loss with a dog as a kind of remarkable deus ex machina. This book works on the dog-lover's level, on the confessional level, as a memoir from a fascinating person, and altogether is a fine story extremely well written.



4. this is a sweet story about the sacred bond between animals and people.

No comments about Sandor Ferenczi: Reconsidering Active Intervention.

No comments about Louis Dumont and Hierarchical Opposition (Methodology and History in Anthropology).

1 comments about Uncommon Lives: My Lifelong Friendship with Margaret Mead.

1. Margaret Mead shared our home for the last thirty years of her life and was my godmother. My mother, Rhoda Metraux, worked as her collaborator and partner.

   Margaret Mead was a fascinatingly complex person. The late Pat Grinager kept a detailed diary of her lengthy friendship with Mead and understood her personality very well. What we have here is a very well developed study of Mead's personality. If you want to know what kind of person Mead really was, you will find it here.

   One brief story that tells one a lot about Dr. Mead. I once asked her to define the word, "Success" as in "Who is a Successful Person?" She replied, "That's easy. A successful person is one who before he dies, brings happiness to another person....who improves the life of a fellow human being."

1 comments about Rudyard Kipling: Library Edition.

1. Kipling’s words give the key to understanding his real, but sadly limited, achievements. He was capable of an extraordinarily sensitive empathy with people, especially with those who did the work of the Empire, the doctors, engineers and administrators. But his political sympathies constrained his emotional sympathies. His love for the Empire was twisted in with a most unintelligent hero-worship of the scoundrels who ran it, and with hatred for those who opposed it.

   His works reflect this ambiguity. Many of his writings are excellent, for instance the Jungle Book, some of his stories and many of his poems. Lycett has presented an amazingly detailed portrait of Kipling’s adopted class and milieu. But he lacks a novelist’s imagination and ease with language; the biography often just lists Kipling’s possessions, travels, guests and friends. In reflection of Kipling, he smothers his finer understandings in a blanket of conventions. We still need Angus Wilson’s fine book, ‘The strange ride of Rudyard Kipling’, to see the full peculiarity of Kipling’s career.

3 comments about Hearst to Hughes: Memoir of a Forensic Psychiatrist.

1. I can't believe this book isn't more popular. If you're interested in crime or forensic psychology (as I am), you'll love this book. Lunde's writing style is engaging--there's no technical mumbo-jumbo, and the pacing never gets bogged down. There's relatively little about Lunde himself in the book, although he does give readers entertaining glimpses into his opinions on a wide variety of issues, from gun control to the death penalty. In this sense, it is not a traditional memoir. Whether or not you agree with Lunde's opinions, you'll respect his ethics and appreciate his honesty. I was sorry to see this book end!



2. Excellent insight into the Hearst, Hughes and other trials including much information not previously published. Dr. Lunde's insights were on target, and it is wonderful to find a man of such note who had high ethical standards and didn't deviate from them, nor compromise. A great read and a keeper.



3. Dr. Lunde's compelling account of his involvement in many of the most widely publicized criminal cases of the last half of the twentieth century kept my attention riveted to the pages. As Herman Wouk points out in the Preface, the tales do tend to meander--plus a little redundancy--but the book is well worth sticking with to the end. I'm glad Dr. Lunde set the record straight with his first-hand knowledge of cases I followed closely during those years.
   
   Greta Manville, author of mystery/suspense novels

3 comments about The Good Listener: Helen Bamber, A Life Against Cruelty.

1. Why does this book have only 2.5 stars? One German reader doesn't like it, the other reviewer doesn't think it's political enough, and every reviewing publication gives it a very high recommendation. It seems that the stars are very simplistic and robotic.



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3. This book like Schindlers List creates heroes which can be used to characterize the offical enemy as evil, much like a t.v. melodrama, while ignoring the complicity & collaboration of Britain & the U.S. in the very crimes they chronicle, when it suits their colonial ambitions. While Six Million Died. by, Arthur D. Morse a more substantive history, describes Britain in a far less innocent manner, but apparently the publisher could not afford Amazon's asking price for a prominent spot on their home page.