5 comments about Outer Search\Inner Journey: An Orphan and Adoptee's Quest.

1. As the parent of a child adopted internationally, I found great understanding in this book about such experiences---from the child's perspective.
   
   This book was a wonderful inspiration for me on our own family's search for our child's birth parents. As the narrative makes clear, finding one's birth parents is not the be all and end all for any adopted child. But it IS the beginning of healing from a trauma concerning which most psychologists, physicians and educators still have very little insight.
   
   This book is very well written and provides a great understanding to parents of children adopted abroad.
   
   However, the book should will also assist anyone who works (in any capacity) with children adopted overseas. Highly recommended, along with The Primal Wound and Betty Jean Lifton's Twice Born.



2. This book opened my eyes to a different side of adotpion that I had not considered. As most I looked at adoption as givng a child a home he would not have otherwise been able to experience. This book showed me that there is much more to this process and those adopting need assistance in helping the child understand and to feel loved - in showing it - not saying it.
   I would be very intereted in knowing how this author has lived the last 10 years - has he truly opened his heart and accepted love when given - or is he still searching and still has fear that he will not be fulfilled.
   It was a very touching book for me.



3. I could not put down the book! You will truly become part of the story. I felt I was there right along on the incredible journey to find Peter's birth-mother. I have not read a book in a long time that has stayed with me long after I have finished it- like "Outer Search, Inner Journey." If you are looking for a book that will lift your spirit, and celebrate the joy of overcoming adverse conditions-this is a must read. I hope there is a sequel.



4. I picked up Outer Search\Inner Journey on a Tuesday night and started reading that evening. I was so captivated by this story that I took the next day off from work to finish reading this incredible book. I am not adopted but enjoy reading autobiographies. This book drew me into the author's life, his experiences-thoughts-feelings--like none other I have read. I felt I was by his side every page of his life. After reading this story, I am surprised adoption agencies placing foreign children don't discuss the destrutiveness caused by the child's loss of language, culture, heritage, history and family, as well as the emotional toll caused when a child is taken from her/his native land. I have friends who beleive it is quite fashionable to adopt children from abroad. This book offers a picture of the complexities and drawbacks of international adoption. Still, the author doesn't blame and his story is one of overcoming immense barriers to find purpose and fullfillment in life. A must read for everyone desiring to read a superbly written book with a powerful plot!



5. Most people would like to believe that adoption is a lovely solution to the problem of an unwanted child. Taking a child from one world and immersing him or her into another without regard is as absurd as expecting a horse to live under water. Like Peter F. Dodds I was taken from my homeland, Germany, and plunged into another world. The shock and trauma that he went through is as honest and as real as it gets. What happened to Peter Dodds is what happens when trauma, (in this case the trauma of transcultural adoption), is not taken care of. As I read through this book I felt the chill of recognition at his questions as well as his confusion regarding his own identity. In many ways his struggle mirrored mine. This is a book that anyone involved in inter-country adoption should read.

5 comments about On Fire: A Personal Account of Life and Death and Chocies.

1. As a lover of Southern fiction (Faulkner, O'Connnor, Styron, etc), I just don't get the praise for Larry Brown. To me, he writes like an imbecile. I do not exagerrate: I see an embicile in my head when I read each line, like maybe Carl Shivers from Sling Blade. His memories are so inane that they should hardly be shared (I watched a man jog past the firestation...)and his writing is so basic and abscent of color. Like bad Hemingway more than anything.
   Skip it and go read some Cormac MCcarthy.



2. I also purchased Billy Ray's Farm and Facing the Music, Amazon is a great place to buy from online. They always ship very fast and products are as expected at a great price.



3. I thought this author would share his experiences of life as a firefighter; I thought wrong. He shares more about his dog not being able to produce puppies than he does about the various accidents and fires he has been a part of. I was shocked by how much he digresses, over and over again he talks about animals which have absolutely nothing to do with firefighting or even his life! The author has written a book that will put the most astute reader to sleep. I wish it had been a bit more interesting, but alas, it was not.



4. I did not know of Larry Brown until I saw the film "Big Bad Love," based on one of his stories. I wasn't crazy about the film but was fascinated by the imagination it emerged from, and gave one of his books a try. For starters, I read his memoir "On Fire," about his years as an Oxford, Mississippi, fireman. I thought it would be about fighting fires, responding to emergencies, and what goes on in the firehouse in between. I expected some reflection on the world of firemen, which I understand to be a social order of its own, like policemen.

   There is all of that and considerably more in this wonderful collection of short essays, many of them dashed off during those off hours in the firehouse, often recounting an experience Brown and his compatriots just had, rescuing someone trapped in a smashed car, putting out a fire, or just screwing around. You learn something of the process of firefighting as Brown reconstructs the events of several fires, including one in the top floor of a building at Ole Miss. He explains how they use the Jaws of Life. You learn about the daily routines of checking equipment for readiness, as well as continual training in CPR and different kinds of fires.

   But much in the book is unexpected. There are pieces about dogs, hunting, lost kittens, cookouts, practical jokes, watching hawks, petty thefts, driving, drinking beer, and S and V on HBO. Essays that will stay in my memory include his account of a trip to New York to appear on the Today show when one of his books is published and learning while he's there that his wife and son have been hurt in a car accident, then discovering when he finds out they are OK that his dog Sam has died. The mental image of him crying in the airport is vivid and moving.

   On a more hilarious note is an account of a long day's drive to a training exercise in the Delta, where they arrive late and drunk. On a more literary note, there's his account of setting up a hose to provide fake rain for a documentary film at William Faulkner's home, just down the road from the firehouse. His reflections on Faulkner sitting in the house and writing novels are full of awe and respect for a giant of letters, a giant who had a cup of coffee every night at a local restaurant where he always left a dime tip for the waitress.

   If you've read or you're thinking of reading Brown's fiction, I recommend this book. It's a wonderful introduction to the man and his world, and you get a sense of the raw material that feeds his imagination.




5. I don't know how this book ever got published. It was a rudderless account of unrelated stories about nothing. Many stories revolved around actions you probably warned your kids never to try... and Mr. Brown seemed to be pretty proud of that.

2 comments about Goffman Unbound!: A New Paradigm for Social Science (The Sociological Imagination).

1. This is very sincere, very emotional, informative and very useful page-turner. It is not easy to grasp Goffman - or is it for some? Thomas Scheff opened a whole new universe in micro sociology and sociology of emotions.



2. This is very sincere, very emotional, informative and very useful page-turner. It is not easy to grasp Goffman - or is it for some? Thomas Scheff opened a whole new universe in micro sociology and sociology of emotions.

2 comments about Street Soldier.

1. Thank you Dr Marshall for writing the story of the Omega Boys Club. I think you have outlined here, very well, how anyone with knowledge, dedication and insight can touch the hearts of our youth!
   
   The Black man is becoming extinct and we, as a nation, are allowing it to happen. Thank you for not tolerating it!



2. Marshall has succeeded where others before him have failed. Street Soldiers offers all the "urban reality" stories to get you out of your comfortable chair, but doesn't simply stop there. Outlining a clear and concise approach for dealing with youth violence, Marshall has put forth the solution for tackling one of our nations hidden epidemics. Whether your a frontline worker with youth or not, you will find this a must read book to find out how you can best help stem this incidious disease impacting all of us.

No comments about Bandido: Oscar "zeta" Acosta And The Chicano Experience.

No comments about Paul Virilio (Routledge Critical Thinkers).

1 comments about Radical Nomad: C. Wright Mills and His Times (Great Barrington Books) (Great Barrington Books).

1. This is a terrific look at the creative forces of Mills and Hayden during the 60's and the revolution that changed American college student thinking. Interesting and well-written. One caveat -- the primary text is based on Tom Hayden's Masters Thesis at the University of Michigan -- as such, the reading is somewhat less developed than his other writing, and tends to sound academic throughout. That being said, this is wonderful reading and places into context Mills thinking, his influences, and how world events changed his thinking and the New Left. This will no doubt be required reading some day in American History courses covering the 60's and radical change.

No comments about Character Is Destiny: The Autobiography of Alice Salomon (Social History, Popular Culture, and Politics in Germany).

No comments about The Actuality of Walter Benjamin.

No comments about Charles S. Johnson: Leadership Beyond the Veil in the Age of Jim Crow.