No comments about Woodrow Wilson: Princeton to the Presidency.

5 comments about Darkroom: A Family Exposure (Associated Writing Programs Award for Creative Nonfiction).

1. I confess I was drawn to this book by a)the inside jacket cover photo of the exceptionally attractive young female memoirist who seemed posessed of an enigmatic, almost haunted look, and b) the mysterious suggestiveness of the book title and partially obscured cover photo -- redolent of dark family revelations -- and I was not disappointed. 30-year old Jill Christman writes a searing account of harrowing family traumas, including her own recovered memory of childhood sexual abuse, the tragic auto accident that killed the young man who was the love of her life, her older brother's being nearly scorched to death by a freak shower incident, her near life-long estrangement from her father, and the wretched death in jail of a beloved uncle incarcerated for growing marijuana. All of these dark tales are leavened with ironic humor and described in superb detail. For me, the near 20 page account of Jill's preparation of a melted cheese sandwich for her frail grandmother, the ingestion of which led to her not untimely demise, was the piece de resistance.



2. If you have not read this book I suggest you do. I laughed out loud, cried, and was at a loss for words with this book. I really liked how the author used the nameless voice to bring out the questions and answers from the inside. I love to read and this is by far the best memoir that I've read.



3. I laughed out loud, cried, and was at a lost for words while reading this book. The element that sticks out is the second voice that appears throughout the piece. I encourage everyone who loves to read to read this book. I couldn't put it down once I started. I read it in one day. Job well done Professor Christman!



4. This book is a perfect example of the possibilities of creative nonfiction. Like the originator of the personal essay, Montaigne, Jill Christman chooses her self as her subject-the "I"-yet, in doing so, is really writing about all of us-the "we"-of humanity. Like more modern writers-Woolf, Stein, Eliot and so on-Christman also brings to her work a richness of prose, an understanding of arrangement and construction, and the confidence to employ such techniques as flashbacks, photo collages, and intertextuality. As a teacher of literature, I enjoyed this book for all of the reasons listed above. As a person who simply loves to read, I enjoyed this book because it is a GOOD READ! Sometimes sad, sometimes happy, sometimes terrible, sometimes funny-this book consistently had me turning the pages. I certainly recommend it.



5. Christman does a remarkably good job of solving the problems of telling about parts of her life and family in a creative new way. Like an outstanding photographic exposure, she brackets her frames by under exposing and over exposing in all the right places until she comes up with that perfect balance between light and dark, with remarkable shadow detail in the final image. She dodges and burns, weaves in and out, and through, the painful events in her life by the use of crisp transitions, and, in many cases, unexpected humor/irony. The accounts of her life experiences are compelling -- almost too much to take in even at proper viewing distances, but her clever use of photographic imagery and her references to technical aspects of the art during some of these transitions seem to require use of both sides of the readers' brain -- making the trauma somewhat easier to allow in. The clear presense of Christman's soul in this book keeps the reader engaged in a way that makes her/him feel as though s/he is there with her. So few people are willing to risk this exposure -- to allow others to see past a seemingly "circle of confusion" to the true image on the other side of the lens without hiding behind "fiction."

   Christman, a courageous woman, is also a master of her craft.

5 comments about Man Overboard: Confessions of a Novice Math Teacher in the Bronx.

1. We all must show respect for those who survive in schools of this kind. Education workers like Mr. Klass are to be commended for enduring an environment of their own choosing if not of their own making. Still, after all the hugs and congratulations, someone has to call out these "teach for America" volunteers and ask why they put up with all the crap instead of joining forces and refusing to proceed. Even the eighteen-year-old grunts in Iraq had the courage to protest being sent into battle without proper gear and protection. Year after year we read the same stories by earnest do-gooders who find happiness among the ruins. What is needed now is fewer acts of goodness and just one brave act of defiance. Let the education workers walk out and leave the asylums to the bureaucrats who thrive in them. If the parents so earnestly wish to be involved, let them take over the schools. They'll soon be using the soiled textbooks as toilet paper, but so be it. They can always apply for a grant from Bill Gates for free lap top computers.



2. 
   
   This author speaks for all of us teachers who are struggling every day in dealing with hoardes of unruly students. After only reading a few pages, I felt like I could have written the same book. The fact that it is in diary form makes it all the more real and frightening. Reading it is definitely helping me get through the end of this horrific school year. I have highly recommended it to my colleagues.



3. Man Overboard is a very witty and poignant autobiography about the experiences of a new second-career math teacher (actually ninth-career in his case) spending his first year teaching high school in the Bronx. On one level, it explores in an absorbing and meaningful way the various problems in the world of Bronx high school culture. On another level, Mr. Klass is also writing about his career aspirations, and how it feels to have frustrations meeting his goals of helping some people who need it. The book connects with the reader very well on both levels. I particularly liked how the drumbeat of daily problems is punctuated periodically with reflective essays, cast in italics, which are full of common sense and practical, logical analysis and suggestions. It is a very well written and enjoyable book, and I would highly recommend it to all.



4. Ric Klass, with humor and a clear, purposeful writing style, took me into his math classroom in an inner city high school in New York. I found myself empathizing with his desire to do someone some good; to make the world a better place. It was easy to understand his frustrations with all the barriers he had to get around to try to fulfill his dream, and just as easy to rejoyce in some small hint of success.
   As well as being a good read, this book has an important message for us. We must make some changes in the way our children are being taught, especially those students who need to escape from a seemingly hopeless environment. I recommend this book to anyone who cares about children and our future as a nation. I'm telling all of my friends about it. JL in SD



5. Ric Klass' tale of teaching in an inner city school in the Bronx is an open, honest account of his experience. It's humorous and sad at the same time. It's engaging and fun to read. Educators will recognize its truths; others should read it to find out just what goes on in public schools and not only in New York.

3 comments about Memoirs of Lorenzo Da Ponte (New York Review Books Classics).

1. I trawled my way through this book as I usually like to start what I finish, but, my, it was hard going. The first half particularly is basically a lot of score settling which comes across as being so irrelevant especially now two centuries later. Half the time, my mind wandered and I just found the whole thing difficult to follow. Da Ponte seems full of self-pity and perhaps a justified sense of victimhood. Anyone would think he was a failure!



2. Da Ponte's Memoirs are a worthy, if eccentric, addition to the NYRB catalog, but the NYRB provides almost no help in situating it. This translation first appeared, I believe, in 1929 and has been available in recent years from both Dover and Da Capo. One, (or was it both?), carried an excellent preface by the distinguished scholar of the Renaissance, Thomas Bergin. NYRB does not republish Bergin. It does republish the original 1929 introduction (by Arthur Livingston, once a teacher of Italian at Columbia) but with no hint of its provenance and, so far as I can discern, no mention of the date (the biblio page gives you a hint when it mentions a "renewal copyright" dated 1957). There is also an LC entry identifying "Livingston, Arthur, 1883-" but I doubt very much that Livingston was still alive when NYRB published in 2000. There is a preface by the distinguished music-scholar Charles Rosen, but it is beneath him: a slapdash affair that does little aside from assuring us that Italian olive oil is now available everywhere in America.

   Aside from these matters of production - the text itself is absorbing and instructive if you understand what you are getting. Da Ponte's only real claim to fame is, of course, that he is the librettist of Mozart's three great comic operas. Da Ponte cheerily declares that Mozart was the greatest composer of his time - perhaps the greatest ever - yet he gives this greatest of all composers perhaps a half dozen pages out of the entire 472-page text, less than any of a dozen other drifters and dreamers or down-market impresarios whom he met along the way.

   Rather than reading it as a work of music criticism, you can take it as a loose-jointed adventure story, in the tradition of Casanova (Da Ponte claims him as a friend) or Benvenuto Cellini. A perhaps more interesting comparison would be to Stendhal's "Charterhouse of Parma": readers who are scandalized that Da Ponte gives such short shrift to Mozart will recall that Stendhal's hero trekked all unknowing through the Battle of Waterloo. I suppose it is just possible that Stendhal read Da Ponte: I have no idea whether he did in fact. But it doesn't matter; the comparison adds a gratifying resonance anyway.

   Moreover, even if this book is not remotely useful as direct criticism of Mozart, I think it does cast the great libretti in a new light: you come to understand the schemers and seducers of the Mozart operas were not a mere nonce creation: they accompanied Da Ponte throughout the whole of his long and rumbustious life. "I trusted them and they betrayed me..." would be a pretty good title for the whole. You can certainly tire of his preening, his score-settling his tale-telling. Indeed you come pretty quickly to realize that not 100 percent of it can possibly true. How much, then? 80 percent? 50? 20? Of course I have no idea: maybe 50 will do as a guess. But I don't think that matters either. Recall what Goethe said about Livy: yes, they are just stories, but they are good stories. At the end, I think you can give Da Ponte credit for his most (nearly) disinterested passion: his desire to spread Italian culture to the Anglo-Saxon world. In this light, we can greet him on his own terms: se non e vero, e ben trovato.

   Four stars for the book, one for the presentation. Compromise on three.




3. The best thing about this book is the preface by Charles Rosen. The rest it hugely disappointing. It is amazing how a poet can be so non-descriptive! How can any writer has been friends with both Mozart and Casanova and yet have nothing to say about them? One gets no sense of what life was like during the end of the 18th century at all. Even Da Ponte's own thoughts and motives do not come across. All that is left are petty political games at an assortment of different opera houses. Da Ponte's story is less amusing than the description of a single flirtation in the truly interesting and picaresque memoirs of his friend Casanova.

4 comments about Noah Webster : The Life and Times of an American Patriot.

1. I found this fantastic book on the clearance stack at Border's. I became aware of Webster's importance from references to him in other books on the Founding Fathers. However, it wasn't until I read Unger's work that I fully appreciate how important Webster really was. Soon after graduating from Yale, the Connecticut native embarked on a lifelong dream of improving the educational system of the fledgling country to both unify it and to instill the young with the moral and intellectual virtues necessary to maintain a free republic.
   
   The first step was to have America adopt an agreed upon spelling convention tailored to the US to replace the current chaotic spellings borrowed from Britain. After years of hard work, he succeeded in getting his spelling books adopted in practically all schools within the US. The book later was nicknamed The Blue-Backed Speller and was the standard in American schoolrooms throughout the 19th century. To protect his creation, he successfully petitioned national leaders and all state legislatures to enact America's first copyright protection laws. In the course of his campaign he befriended George Washington, Ben Franklin, James Madison, and John Jay. An ardent nationalist, Webster wrote a widely read political tract in 1785, Sketches, calling for a strong national government to replace the Articles of Confederation. This work would have a powerful impact on the Convention of 1787 as Washington summoned Webster to Philadelphia to meet nightly with him and other attendees to solicit his views on how to craft the new constitution.
   
   In 1793, he returned to the national political scene to take the lead in countering the French representative Citizen Genet, who, on behalf of the revolutionary government, actively attempted to convince the American citizenry to overthrow President Washington in order for the US to support France in its struggle against Britain. (France's malevolent intentions included having the US become a French vassal state. ) Couching his speeches in the ideals of the American revolution, Genet gained quite a bit of popular support. However, Webster exposed the ruse and denounced American supporters for Genet as dupes. He publicly defended Washington and his administration's stand on neutrality against the onslaught of the anti-Federalist press, who sympathized with Genet.
   
   Besides serving in local politics, Webster led scientific inquiries with help from Benjamin Rush to combat infectious diseases (a world first) and to abolish slavery. Toward the end of his life, he embarked on his greatest achievement: a new, comprehensive dictionary of the English language. His endeavor comprised decades of research which included his learning several languages, both old and new, and traveling to the national libraries of France and Britain for etymological histories of words. His achievement won him stunning praise from the world over.
   
   A family man, Webster's indomitable character was forged by his strong Calvinist beliefs. This book traces the life of a most remarkable individual and too sadly neglected Founding Father. The book is written in an easy style and an obvious result of a great deal of research. A must for those seeking to appreciate the reason behind America's success over the last two centuries.



2. This is an outstanding biography of a person who, because he never held high political office, is less well known than he deserves to be. In reading about Webster's life, one also learns much about the political controversies of the early United States--how many know, for example, that George Washington had bitter political enemies while President, or that the War of 1812 was so unpopular in New England that it prompted many there (including Webster) to discuss seceding from the Union? This biography deserves to be widely read.



3. In his preface, the author notes that Noah Webster is so famous for his dictionary that it's overshadowed his many other achievements. Too true! I was amazed to learn of Mr. Webster's achievements in politics and education reform, particularly the influential role he played in shaping the U.S. Constitution. This book is a Must Read for anyone who wants a deeper and more accurate view into early American history.



4. If you're ready for a reprieve from contemporary biographical sleaze, read this fine biography of Noah Webster, a good and moral man who held his family and country in balanced respect. You have lots to learn from this book if all you know about Webster is the dictionary. What surprised me was a life that spanned the years from colonial times to the mid-19th century. This was a man who never held high elective office but was an influential friend of those who did -- Washington, Franklin, John Adams and Madison. He spent months traveling up and down the East coast, espousing his beliefs in the ideals of Federalism. He advocated tirelessly for an American language and literature independent of the British tradition. To protect himself against piracy of his highly popular reader for schoolchildren, he campaigned successfully for copywright legislation. For this reader, whose last course in American History is a blurred memory, the "times" part of this story was as fascinating as the "life." I was reminded of the chaos of the country in the interim between the Revolution and Constitutional Convention, of Shay's Rebellion, of the acrimonious regionalism that nearly tore apart the young country, of the XYZ affair, and the threat to a fragile democracy of the War of 1812. I was made to recall the inadequacies of early American education and the perils of public health before urban sanitation systems. In this carefully-researched portrait, Unger presents Webster sympathetically as an American Renaissance man, curious and informed in fields from law to medicine to philosophy to lexicography. One of Yale University's early graduates, he spent his life educating himself. Because Webster was such an assiduous diarist and letter-writer, the book also provides a rich portrait of his family and private life -- his devotion to his wife and children, his frustration with a ne'er-do-well son, his financial concerns, and his delight in hearth and home. The culmination of the story is the dictionary, the product of a lifelong belief in the necessity of a uniform American language to unify the disparate voices of a young nation. Webster the scholar devoted years of careful research to this project, both at home and in Europe. His efforts secured his mention in history books. Harlow Unger's book fleshes out the man and his times with substance and grace.

2 comments about An Invitation to Laughter: A Lebanese Anthropologist in the Arab World.

1. Here is a slender memoir of a Lebanese-American anthropologist's experiences plying his trade throughout the Levant and Middle East, studying power structures throughout the region. The reason behind the title as explained by Khuri is that whenever he explained what he did for a living, his friends and relatives back home in Lebanon would laugh uproariously at the thought of such an oddly named profession.
   
   Khuri, who received his PhD from the University of Oregon, is charmingly self-deprecating in the telling of his story, obscuring the fact that his work was groundbreaking (his book Emirs and Imans is essential for understanding the differences between the region's various Islamic sects, including how their theology informs their politics). Even in this book, there are little, almost throw-away insights that forced me to reconsider some of my notions about the Middle East.
   
   It's also apparent that Khouri was a decent and gentle soul, someone who saw worth of experience in everyone. Couldn't recommend this book more highly.



2. Very enjoyable. A collection of Mr. Khuri's writings, the title and cover image accurately reflect the content. And a Lebanese man I know laughed and agreed when he heard Khuri's description of "Lebanese:" "It is a profession, not a nationality."
   
   Also worthwhile for dispelling notions that there is no humor in the Middle East.
   
   After reading this book, I wish I'd known Faud Khuri, a generous and good man who had a life well lived.

3 comments about A Journal for Christa: Christa McAuliffe, Teacher in Space.

1. This book is written by the mother of the Late Christa McAullife.It was a wonderful book!Interesting and a inside look at the excitement they felt being chosen then the tradgedy they felt after the Loss of her.It basicly is a bio about Christa.



2. Unlike most books about Christa McAuliffe this one discuses Christa's life before the selection as teacher in space as well as after the selection process and it is written by the person who knew her like no one else, her mother. We learn of Christa's childhood and her spirt and joy that stayed with her during the course of her whole life. Nothing could take this away from her and with it she enriched and touched the lives of every student she had. Corrigan's book using letters and family history paints a touching portrait of Christa no one else could. Everyone should read this book and it will uplift you farther than you ever thought possible and give you a whole new out look on teachers and what the power they have to uplift. No matter what your backround is you will benefit from having read this book.



3. This book is honest and touching. Rarely do we receive the privelege of being allowed into the heart of a mother who has lost a son or daughter. So much is learned from Corrigan's novel.

No comments about The Culture Broker: Franklin D. Murphy and the Transformation of Los Angeles.

3 comments about The Emergency Teacher: The Inspirational Story of a New Teacher in an Inner City School.

1. It is fair to note that had Christina Asquith taught in a more affluent part of Philadelphia or a middle class suburban community, she probably couldn't write a book about her one-year experience as a teacher. Before being trained as such (even trained teachers have to struggle in the beginning by learning on the job) she should not have accepted a teaching job from a district which would simply throw her to the wolves, as such. As she pointed out, a few teachers in this abysmal school were dynamic and great managers of their classes. And it seems true (was for me, at least) that it takes about three years to build ones teaching techniques--and maybe five years to really feel confident. But Asquith had an unfortunate placement in a tragically-run school.
   
   Nevertheless, Asquith's portrayal of the (reputed) worst school in Philadelphia (and too many others come close) is heart-rending and shocking, and the revelation an embarrassment to the district--let's hope.
   
   The author had it many times harder than I. How she held on for a full school year is a testament to her character in the face of the school district's incompetence. The book is more revelatory than inspirational, and though a fast and sometimes engrossing read it is rather depressing. I think a prospective teacher--who isn't desperate--would tend to not teach in a big-city public school after reading this account.
   
   I retired a few months before Asquith started her experiment in teaching, and my school (after at least 30 years of relative calm) was just starting to become infected by students creating bedlam in their classrooms and hallways. I had good control, was creative and motivational, but even my tolerence with the system forced me and other veterans in the school to take the early retirement incentive being offered by the state (so the district could hire two new teachers for the price of one veteran with higher degrees). We could see what was coming.
   
   Now, the reader will understand why 50 percent of new hires leave teaching within 3-5 years--the shorter time representing big-city public schools. Teaching can be very rewarding, but also one of the toughest jobs there is, and the emotional stress is equal to that of a police person "on the beat"--I've read.
   
   The following partial paragraph from page 98, gives a sense of the entire book:
   
   "I'd set out wholly single-mindedly to learn to teach, and suddenly my failure became a real possibility. I'd personally staked everything on suceeding, I'd given up my career, my Inguirer [Newspaper] friends... If I was failing and wasn't making a shred of difference, what was the point? How could I answer the question: How was your day?"
   
   A Non-Workbook, Non-Textbook Approach to Teaching Language Arts: Grades 4 Through 8 and Up



2. Every teacher young and old should have this book. This book tells the tale of a new teachers struggle to get through to an inner-city school. Sure there have been plenty of movies with the same plot, but this account is great. Chirstina Asqquith writes with heart and soul, and you will really route for her in this inspirational story.



3. How many employment opportunities require minimal or absolutely no experience required? I certainly didn't expect that teaching would be one of them when I first looked into substitute teaching.
   
   There are some areas in the U.S. where substitute teaching requires an actual teaching degree. These jobs are filled by newly graduated or retired teachers. There are other areas in this country where "some" college or simply a H.S. diploma is the requirement.
   
   The difference comes down to supply and demand economics. If you have an excess of talent in a small market, you will almost certainly need a master's degree to step into a teacher's role for the day.
   
   I just finished reading "The Emergency Teacher" that relates the first hand account of Christina Asquith's first year as a full time teacher at one of the worst schools in Philadelphia, despite being untrained and uncertified.
   
   Synopsis:
   
   "School District of Philadelphia, in desperate need of 1,500 new teachers, instituted a policy of hiring "emergency certified" instructors. Asquith, then a 25-year-old reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer, joined their untrained ranks. More challenging than her classroom in the crime-infested neighborhood known as "the Badlands" are the trials she faced outside, including a corrupt principal, the politics that prevented a million-dollar grant from reaching her students, and the administration's shocking insistence that teachers maintain the appearance of success in the face of utter defeat..."
   
   She lasted a full 180 day school year and didn't result in the typical Hollywood ending.
   
   That's 179 more days than I would have attempted had I been crazy enough to try. I guess that's the difference between being young, idealistic and full of energy .vs. mature (re: much older), realistic and pooped.

2 comments about Morning Glory, Evening Shadow: Yamato Ichihashi and His Internment Writings, 1942-1945 (Asian America).

1. Detailed and exhaustive book by/about Ichihashi who came to the US from Japan in 1984 at the age of 16 to study. He graduated from Stanford, got a Ph.D. from Harvard, became a professor at Stanford. He and his wife and son "relocated" to Santa Anita and then Tule Lake and then Granada (Amache) during WWII. He became embittered and an elitist during the war years, which is told in a very dramatic albiet exhaustive fashion in the book via his letters. Following relocation he and his wife returned to a very different Stanford University and environs, which he found very difficult to cope with. Very enjoyable book, personal as well as historical.



2. Though long and at times cumbersome to read, this is a valuable addition to the literature in Asian American and World War II internment history. Yamato Ichihashi is an all but forgotten figure who has left a written record of his internment experience as he lived it, making this book a rare and important piece that all students of the internment should read. At the same time, this book belongs to the body of literature in Asian American social history. Who knew that in the early 1900s, Stanford University had a Japanese American professor among its faculty? What kind of life did he lead considering his anomalous position as an academic compared to other Japanese in America and the intense anti-Asian atmosphere of those times in the West? How does knowledge of this man's life enrich our understanding of Asian American history and American history at large? All of those questions are satisfyingly answered. Ichihashi's writings take center stage in the book, but Chang provides lucidly written annotations and a bibliographic essay that make the volume quite readable and enjoyable. Chang allows Ichihashi's words to speak for themselves which allows the reader to get a very vivid picture of life in the internment camps. In addition, reading his thoughts about his circumstances as an academic, a professor at Stanford, and an internee offer rare and revealing insights.