5 comments about When I Was a Soldier.

1. In the book, When I was a Soldier, in my opinion, this was a very good memoir. The author, Valerie Zenatti, did a great job about writing what its like to be in the military for Israel. I really felt a sense of connection with the characters in the book. She did a great job at writing about scenery, character building, and self-inquiry.
   This book did a good job writing about scenery. When I was reading her descriptions of the surrounding area, I really almost felt as if I was there and I was easily able to picture the spot she was talking about. When she was talking and describing Tel Aviv, I could picture what it looked like in my mind. Her character description was also very well done. When she described certain characters I could imagine what they looked like without much thought. The descriptions she used were very in depth, but easy enough for almost any one to understand.
   The book also did a great job at showing her self-inquiry, it almost made me think about myself. From the time she left her home, to the time she left the military, she changed a lot. She started to question about the ways she thought or acted. When I read this book I also thought about the way I thought about some things. She was once immature and more worried about what people thought about her, she cared more about some guy who would stand her up rather then being the stronger person. When she started to question that, she started to become stronger, and now she cares more about doing what is right for her and what is best for her, rather then worrying about what some other person thinks. This memoir made me think about that a little bit as well.
   The character development in this memoir was also done very well. Her character started as a co-dependent eighteen year old about to go off into the military and she only cared about her boyfriend and her friends and she needed them. By the time she got out of the military, she was independent and didn't need her friends to live but still loved to have them around. Her other characters that she was with in the military also built up a lot of their own personalities as the memoir progressed. A lot of the characters in the story, by the end, had their own personalities and contributed their own special part to this memoir. In my opinion, that is one of the things in this memoir that made it very good.
   (And theres my extra credit for critical lit)



2. Being both informative and inspiring, When I Was a Soldier really lets you see the world through a girl soildier's eyes and get a glimpse into Jewish culture and history.
   This book is about a girl named Valerie who starts off as your average 17 year old. However, when she turns 18, she is forced to join the army, and her life turns upsidedown. As she juggles her friends, family, the army, and the despair of losing her boyfriend, she holds tight to her dream of one day writing a book.
   With determination, hop, persistence, and bravery, Valerie Zeratti shows shows the world what it truly means to be a girl soilder.



3. Book Review of When I Was A Soldier:
   When our grade was assigned to read a nonfiction book, I groaned. The class then went to the library to pick out, either a biography, an autobiography, or a memoir. I searched and searched for a book that didn't look too boring, but all were things like Jane Arre or something else without a plot. I was on the verge of despair, when I saw a book in the corner of the room that didn't have soft watercolor pictures of ladies in frilly hoop skirts and a scrawling title, but that had a picture of a young girl in an army uniform on it with the title When I Was A Soldier. Ever since I was little, I've always wondered what it would be like to be a soldier and for many years I had the dream of one day joining the army and being a hero that girls everywhere would look up to and say that girls could do anything. Now that I've grown out of that aspiration, the feminist part of me, and the interest in the army remains, so I picked up the book. The back cover had a passage form the book on it that mirrored perfectly my views; "Why should I hide the fact? I'm fascinated by my submachine gun. They're instruments of death and we're finding them easier and easier to handle. We don't think for a moment that we might that for real someday. But at the same time, it's the ultimate sign that we really are soldiers, on completely equal terms with the boys. And it makes me feel proud." It's perfect. I checked out the book and put it in my locker to take home, and eventually forgot about it. That night I remembered it and started reading. I couldn't stop.
   This book is a passage in Valerie Zenatti's life that illiterates the duties, drawbacks, and rewards of being in the Israeli army. She writes about the average soldier in a peaceful base far away from any fighting. You wouldn't expect this; I was expecting wondrous heroics and endless action. But I was wrong. Valerie describes her two years in the army with a sense that she is living through it at that very time, and not years later. She vividly describes the conditions at her bases and her tasks with the emotions of a growing teen-ager. She writes about her anger and sorrow on losing friends and lovers, and her wishes for the future on gaining new ones. I was very impressed by this book and how it was written. I highly recommend this to young adults and those who have a bad stereotype of nonfiction books. This will change how you look at the genre. I truly intend to read more nonfiction books in the future.



4. When I first saw this book, I thought I was in for a great war story. This book is more than that. Zenatti tells her fantastic story about how she managed to leave her friends and family, loose her boyfriend, and still work so hard in the Army that she earns to be in the Secret Service. Usually when you read biographies, you think of endless boring facts, but when you read this, it's like you are right there with Valerie. You feel what she does, and you just get right into the story. I recomend this to, well, everyone. If you do plan to get this book, I hope you will enjoy it as much as I did.



5. When I saw the "JUV" label on the spine of Valerie Zenatti's memoir I must confess I was quite a bit apprehensive about delving further into the book than its front and back covers. However, I must urge you not to make such a mistake; this book merits a read, not just a look.
   
   I was born and raised in New York, about half a world away from Israel: the notion of entering mandatory military service upon turning eighteen is so alien that I had to continually remind myself while reading that this work was not by Robert Heinlein but rather by Valerie Zenatti. Nonetheless the latter, serving as protagonist and narrator, does a wonderful job shepherding her reader through compulsory "peacetime" military service. This is hardly the demoralizing world of boot camp we have all seen 307 times in literature and film. Valerie isn't dressed-down by an evil drill sergeant, her head isn't shaved, and she doesn't lose her identity to become a faceless cog in the military machine.
   Valerie's story and rite of passage is much subtler. She drifts apart from her friends but only as much as can be expected. Her superiors are more often than not women a few years older than her. At the conclusion of the story she doesnt find herself in a pitched gun battle but instead in a routine surveillance op. The freshness of the tale never ceased to keep me involved.
   
   Politically the book is fairly neutral. Characters express both left and right-wing sides to Israel's questions, with the author actually falling more on the former. Though I am not someone intimately acquainted with the struggle between Israel and its neighbors, I beleive that this book would be acceptable to most audiences. First and foremost it is the story of an 18-year old girl; it rarely stops to comment on politics and certainly never preaches.
   "When I Was a Soldier" is an exceptionally quick read (indeed so much so as to be a detriment; though the book has a decent narrative structure I would have preferred more of Valerie's second year and a less abrupt ending) and a good one. It has not lost its wit, charm, or exigence in translation and I thoroughly reccomend it.

4 comments about War Child: Growing Up in Adolf Hitler's Germany.

1. I was honored to be able to buy this book directly from the author when she attended our women's Spring Luncheon as our Guest Speaker. She was so kind as to sign it for me with a German dedication. Although I was born an American, my children both carry German passports. I am glad for this opportunity to share with them the story of their country through the eyes of someone who was there to experience it all first hand.

   We are already planning to buy her next book, War Bride, and read more about her experiences with immigration.




2. What a book! What a storyteller! I remember a few snippets from freshman English class that you shared with us, but the opportunity to glimpse the whole picture was a rare treat I've been looking forward to.

   I once read an account by an "undercover" war correspondent- who attended a speech by Hitler, and found himself so moved and overwhelmed by his speaking prowess that he suddenly found himself cheering and shouting with the rest of the crowd. You communicated that same spirit, that same awesome power of the prevailing tide. I feel one lesson that Nazi Germany teaches us is how dangerous unchecked government can be: how it can creep into and start to control our daily lives -with the best of intentions- and soon compromise our freedoms and even our right to independent thought. I very much appreciate and value your perspective as one who has lived through such a strict (and successful!) propaganda machine. I strongly feel if we just trust in our elected leaders and let them satisfy our wants and desires in exchange for ever-increasing tax rates the United States will soon cease to exist as we know and love it.

   On the other hand, I'm forced to be impressed by what the Third Reich was able to accomplish; how a broken and defeated nation at the end of WWI was able to come within a stone's throw of conquering the world. It's been said that if Hitler hadn't imprisoned all of the (Jewish) scientists... Germany would have developed the A-bomb before the United States and ended the war on their terms. Germany already had a more reliable rocket (V-2) than we did! What also strikes me is the wealth of development that Germany saw before and early in the war - the autobahn, fine, new schools (for loyal party members of course), the housing and works programs and impressive social motivations to join the Nazi party always reflected Hitler's genius side (not the other side of his personality that wrought great suffering and evil). How insightful he was regarding human nature though - how else could he have enticed so many to join his crusade.

   In one part of your book I actually stopped reading and contemplated how beautiful the writing is - how descriptive and wonderful the wording; when you described the morning of your departure and the breathtaking surroundings you were so familiar with that I truly felt the natural wonder - and the love you had for your home.

   Thank you again for letting me share in your story. I will be recommending this book to my friends!!




3. We are grateful to have learned of this book when it was first published in spring 2003. It gives an unusual and unfortunately rarely noted perspective about German life from 1933-45 as experienced by an ordinary person and family in a small town. Annelee tells her own story in a very open and honest way, from the early days when she wanted to wear the uniform of the Hitler Youth, to the terrifying end days of the war when urban Germany was virtually destroyed. This is not an academic study of war theories; it is about what really happens to a people when their government chooses a tragic course.



4. Ms. Woodstrom's first publication will help you understand the reason so many Germans viewed Hitler and his promises the way they did before and during WWII. This book is a first hand account from the author, presented in her voice at the various stages of her life during this time. She tells of the day-to-day life of her family and community and captures the perceptions that people had about Hitler, the economy, the reasons for this war and the drastic changes in their lives. It's a real insight into the struggles and the challenges and yes, even the joyful times. "War Child" not only kept me reading far into the night, it also left me feeling like I want to know more...what happened to her family, her neighbors and her town after she left? I have a new appreciation for the freedom and abundance here in America. This book is suitable for all ages.

1 comments about Buckeye Women: History Of Ohio'S Daughters (Ohio Bicentennial Series).

1. My mother bought this book and loaned it to me to read. If I had a daughter, I would give it to her to read. These women are the unsung heroes of time and history. From frontier days to modern civilization, women have always been the backbone of any social change. Women have fought for equal pay, equal rights and better working conditions. Women have fought for the right to vote. They fight to better society. They fight to keep the family farms. They raised children and worked in factories to keep food on the table. They may have been subjected to men and laws ~~ but they have always fought to have a better life.

   This book is very inspiring. Buckeye women are strong and intelligent women who didn't let prejudice stop them from achieving their goals. They fought for what they believed in. And some of the Buckeye women have moved onto the national platform ~~ bringing Ohio into the forefront of history. It's a fascinating read ~~ very insightful and for those who don't care for long descriptives, this book is brief and straight to the point. I didn't feel like they've left anything out ~~ in fact, this book has piqued my interest in Ohioans and read more on Ohio history. It's a fascinating look into time. It also makes me very thankful that my foremothers fought to give me better opportunities in life ~~ it's a book that everyone should read.

   4-17-03

5 comments about Listen to Her Voice: Women of the Hebrew Bible.

1. Someone questioned the quality of the paperback's image reproduction - I know both the hardback and the paperback of this book well. There's no reduction in the quality of reproductions in the paperback. In fact, after some color correction and updating, I think the quality of images may be superior in the paperback! The cover is gorgeous. This is one paperback no one will feel looks chintzy when given as a present.



2. My wife and I chose this as a Bat Mitzvah gift for the daughter of Jewish friends. It was recommended by an Israeli associate. The text was well thought out and instructive for both Christians and Jews, and the classical paintings of the various women were superb. I think I want a copy for myself. I haven't heard from the recipient, so I can't say what she thought of it.



3. I had gotten one other copyof this book in hard cover through Amazoin and expected that this copy would be the same quality. I was not told that it was a paper edition and was very disappointed in its appearance and the quality and color of the print and illustrations - altogether very bad experience.



4. I have just finished using this book as the primary text for a Women's study. For eighteen plus women who met for six weeks and covered the first six chapters this was a wonderful text. Lots of discussion and excitement. Wonderful art! Miki Raver offers a new and refreshing look at the women from the OT we thought we knew.
   I also used Marsha Mirkin's book 'Women Who Danced by the Sea' as an additional resource. For those who want to explore the role of women in the fulfillment of God's plan I would recommend these texts.



5. This is the most wonderful Book I have ever read. I wished I could have had a book like this in my 20's . Mothers, buy this for your daughters. Nothing I have ever read has given me so much. This is Book is a treasure.
   
   
   Pamela Patterson
   Port Arthur, Texas

5 comments about Ladies First: Revelations of a Strong Woman.

1. This is a good book to get into the Queen's life and see what she went through rising to the top, her ups and downs, and the painstaking loss of her brother. Very interesting.



2. ... you're going to love this. This book candidly reveals a lot about Latifah that you probably didn't know. Did you know QL doesn't like celery? Well, Chapter 6 is devoted to finally telling you the whole story. Ever wondered why Larry Storch and Queen Latifah have never worked together? Well, QL tells all in Chapter 28. Ever wonder what hip-hop's first lady likes to think about while shaving her armpits? Look no further than Chapter 87. Refreshingly honest, like the woman herself, Ladies First isn't just about the rise of one strong woman to entertainment's pinnacle, it's also a gripping account of Pete Gray, the first and still only, one-armed man to play in the Major Leagues.



3. I have Queen Latifah's autography and I LOVE IT and I know almost everything about Queen Latifah that there is to possibly know. Just in case you all don't know her real name is Dana Elaine Owens.Queen Latifah's career has blossomed a whole lot. She has had her own synicated talk show and she also had an acting career and she has starred in movies such as:Brown Sugar, Beauty Shop, Bringing Down The House,Barbershop 2:Back In Business, Set it off just to name a few. I'm a huge fan Of Queen Latifah because she has had to endure the terrible pain of her brother which I think is horrible and sad. But inspite of all of the things that has happened to her in her young life she still strong as she has ever been before. Queen Latifah is also the President of own company Flavor Unit Inc.
   
   Your #1 fan,
   Tiffany Miller



4. I purchased this book initially to get to know more about Dana Owens but instead I learned more about myself. I took my time reading the book because after every chapter or so I had to stop and check myself. I felt as though Queen Latifah was seated in front of me and reading pages from my life. My life does not come close to hers but yet I felt as though it did. I agree that every now and then as women we must stop and do our own personal inventory. Am I who I want to be and is God pleased with who I am?



5. She's been through it all to stand the test of time. She instantly became smart and wise from her mistakes and moved on to become the Blessed and Strong Queen of the Millineium. All Hail to the Queen.

5 comments about Farmworker's Daughter: Growing Up Mexican in America.

1. The story of Rosela begins in Mexico, in a dry land where people need much and many times do not have enough. She and her mother take the journey up, to unknown lands with so much uncertainty...but with an incredible desire to see their lives amount to something other than a shunned, divorced mother and her fatherless daughter. Mexico will remain Rosela's identity throughout her memoir, sometimes she loves this fact, others ( like when she was a teen in the 60's she wishes it were not so) she wishes she could be, and especially look more like her blond American friends. She lives in time when immigrants lives were even more uncertain than they are today, a time when the Vietnam war was full force, and the excitable 60's and 70's were rolling through. I enjoyed reading about how this impacted her as a foreigner, and what the feelings were towards her during this time.
   
   Rosela does not set the goals that would be acceptable for her to reach (as an immigrant in a small town), but she longs for dreams that will satisfy her, and fulfill her purpose. She grew up an outsider, but not only an outsider when she was in California, but also when she went on trips back to Mexico. Life is not easy, and mistakes are made, but Rosela's story is one of hope, dreams and much courage. I was honored to read Rose Castillo Gibault's memoir, the lessons she learned are not only for her situation, but I found them completely relatable. Because I could easily relate to this feeling of not fitting in very well, or depending on other's mercy to feel "at home", Farmworker's Daughter was that book that just feels right. Not pretentious, preachy or condemning, but just the right blend of truth, reality, and life.
   
   The writing of Farmworker's Daughter was really great, I enjoyed reading from the perspective of the little girl, then adolescent, then college age woman. It had really good follow through and lead me on right to the end of the book very smoothly. I loved reading this book, check it out!
   
   
   
   Here are some quotes ( I love quotes so I always have to include them!!):
   
   "As a teenager I once asked my mother why she had left since she always talked about the greatness of Mexico. Maybe she had given up too much to come here, I suggested. She thoughtfully considered what I knew to be an impudent comment, and I immediately felt guilty. She shook her head sadly and looked into space, as if her gaze could travel back in time and pinpoint the precise moment she had made that momentous decision. [...] "There was nothing to loose. There was nothing for you and me.""(p. 23).
   
   " Once I stepped outside my door, I was all alone and had to fend for myself. The only thing I feared more than school was disappointing my mother, so I hid my anxieties" (p. 48).
   
   "One of the most memorable episodes during my years in Mrs. Rojas class was the day our class picture was taken and Mrs. Rojas announced that the prettiest and most photogenic person in class was Ramona--a shy Mexican girl. The blondes were shocked, Ramona blossomed with new self-confidence and the rest of us were struck by the notion that a Mexican could be considered beautiful" (p. 86).
   
   "It was great to be popular in Mexico by acting out being an American, because in the United States I certainly didn't feel like one" (p. 112).
   
   " Those Americans found Mexicans in Mexico charming, but those same Mexicans, it seemed, quickly lost their "charm" once in the United States. My cousins were proud, and being snubbed left them with little desire to explore beyond the small-town prejudices. They did not return" (p. 114).



2. Rose Castillo Guilbault's memoir is a great addition to the narrow field of autobiographies by Mexican American women! Well written and honest, this memoir will help readers, teens and adults, experience what it was like to grow up as a working class Mexican American girl in Arizona and California in the 1950's and 60's. In spite of our cultural differences, after reading this book I feel a kinship to this author. I believe that Rose and I could have been friends if we had gone to school together. I look forward to her next memoir because I sense there is much more of her life story that needs to be told.



3. We haven't read the book yet, but our eleven-year-old, grand daughter did. She liked it so much, that she patterned her school report about her grandmother on it.



4. Teens will be moved and inspired by Rose Castillo Guilbault's memoir, "Farmworker's Daughter: Growing Up Mexican in America" (Heyday Books, $11.95 paperback). The chapters in this richly detailed book arose from a series of essays first published in the San Francisco Chronicle.
   Guilbault is best known as an award-winning broadcast and print journalist who now is vice president of corporate affairs at the Automobile Association of America of Northern California. Her memoir recounts the intellectual, cultural and emotional trek from her youth in the border town of Nogales, Mexico, to growing up in California's Salinas Valley. Guilbault fights bigotry, economic hardship and sexism. She eventually finds success in the world of words -- although the phrase "I can't" has no place in her vocabulary. [This review first appeared in the El Paso Times.]



5. These biographical vignettes surely represent the experiences of many immigrants to the US. But they also describe the problems faced by most families as they struggle with the challenges of personal differences, adolescence, bad luck, and poor decisions. As a result it failed to inspire either my sympathy for the characters or a sense of need for immigration and/or social reform. Sadly, it is boring. The style is not professional; it is not even "good writing". I expected a story of hope and inspiration or a call to activism but was disappointed. I regret my reaction. Perhaps it would have been different had the story been told by a seasoned author.

5 comments about Savage Summit: The True Stories of the First Five Women Who Climbed K2, the World's Most Feared Mountain.

1. There just aren't many books by women about high-altitude climbing so this one was a welcome addition to the pantheon. Jennifer Jordan (who is not herself an Alpinist) has written an interesting but slightly flawed book about the lives and deaths of the first five women to summit K2.
   
   Everest may be the world's tallest mountain, but K2 with it's unpredictable weather systems, isolated location, avalanche danger (made more prevalent by global warming), technical complexity and colder climate is considered the more difficult climb. At the time this book was written, out of the nearly 200 people who had summited, only five were women who are all now deceased (there have been a few more women who have successfully summitted in the time since.) Three had died on the descent, the other two later on subsequent climbs. In the group were two Frenchwomen (Chantal Mauduit, Liliane Barrard), one Pole (the legendary Wanda Rutkiewicz) and two Brits (Julie Tullis and Alison Hargreaves.) Jordan has researched their lives as best as she could given some (particularly Barrard) left little in the way of autobiographical information. Along the way, they deal with sexism-both from the Pakistani government as well as, more depressingly, their male climbers-as well as certain advantages of biology (women seem to be less prone to high-altitude sickness and frostbite although the reasons for this are still speculative.)
   
   Jordan has lots to say about sexism in mountaineering that was quite illuminating. Additionally, she is a worthy voice for these women who are not near as famous as their male counterparts. She clearly liked some of the protagonists better than others but she does make the effort to portray them as the complex, flawed and original women that they were. There is lots of information about the history of mountaineering both in the Karakoram and on Europe's summits and some great anecdotes about the women's early climbing experiences.
   
   What was less enjoyable was Jordan's thesis that there is a curse on women who climb K2 (the mythology being that K2 is masculine energy as opposed to Everest's feminine energy.) With a 1 in 7 chance of a climber dying on descent, it is sad but not surprising some of the first women to climb K2 did not make it down. As many men in the book survive K2 only to die on a future summit as well (Michel Parmentier, Rob Hall and Benoit Chamoux to name a few), Rutkiewicz and Mauduit's later deaths are indeed tragic, but also not unexpected. High-altitude climbing is a hobby with high mortality rate. No mystical reasons need be sought and I think it does something of a disservice to the climbing community-female in particular-to spread superstition. As some other reviewers, I also found Jordan's habit of speaking of the dead's thoughts in their final days as disconcerting since some, such as Hargreaves who died in a storm on her descent from the K2, could not have left a record of her thoughts on making the summit. While Jordan mentions in the beginning she took "Perfect Storm" liberties, it was mildly off-putting.
   
   Despite these complaints, I still did enjoy this book. It is for the most part well-written and gives attention to a chapter in mountaineering that is sadly marginalized. Read it and learn about the pull of the Death Zone, the history of K2, and the victories a small group of exceptional women experienced in a male-dominated sport.



2. "Savage Summit" - it seems that every author who writes about K2 feels the need to write IN BOLD the difficulty of climbing the world's most dangerous peak. Or is it a weakness for climbing cliches? It is difficult to find well - written mountaineering books, and Jordan's lack of climbing experience (or is it writing experience? Or both?) marrs this attempt.
   
   The climbers she covers are all exceptionally interesting, and Jordan does do an adequate job of depicting the difficulties encountered by female alpinists in the hyper macho, competitive and male dominated world of Himalayan climbing. Especially interesting to read about are Mauduit and Rutkiewiecz, opposites in their personal style in the Himalayas. But I do agree with other reviewers - too much juvenile male-bashing here. And given the arena, its not hard to find easy targets.
   
   But her attempts to resurrect the psychological states of these five dead climbers can be awkward, and sometimes just inept or embarassing. The writing in general is unexceptional, too amateurish, and sometimes I wondered how much she really knew about the climbers, or climbing in general. In the end, it comes off as an attempt to write a feminist critique of Himalayan climbing by trying to show that there was some general feminist motive shared by all five of these climbers. And as they are all dead, we can't ask them, but Jordan founders in this respect. In the end their only shared legacy is a love for the highest ranges in the world.
   
   Overall, worth reading. Not worth buying.



3. Jennifer Jordan is an outstanding writer and somebody who knows mountaineering inside and out. Because of her background, she makes the tragic stories of the first five women who climbed K2 (Wanda Rutkiewicz, Liliane Barrard, Julie Tullis, Alison Hargreaves, and Chantal Mauduit) come alive. These women were all complex individuals, but they all had what I consider an insane drive to achieve something few people would bother to achieve. And in the end, like so many other top mountaineers, they ended up dead.
   
   Some may romanticize their deaths as something they would have "wanted," that the manner of their deaths was better than rotting away from Alzheimer's, cancer, or getting killed in other, more mundane accidents, but in the end this reader was totally appalled by their foolhardiness, their stupidity even. Just in case the reader may think I am sexist, I also think it is idiotic for men to engage in high-altitude mountain climbing. Sooner or later, there is a very real chance a person will die from it. And for what? For bragging rights? Talk about pointless.
   
   Nevertheless, this is a great read, almost as good as Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air.



4. I could not put this book down. I knew nothing of alpine climbing to begin with, but became engrossed by the descriptions of the mountains that inspired the lives of the first five women who climbed K2. Myself, I am inspired by the strength of these women. One reviewer commented that the author seemed to have something against male climbers. I did not get this feeling, but rather felt that she was descrbing things as they were, with men often resenting and feeling threatened by these women's accomplishments. As other reviewers have said, these women were indeed complex. I was struck by the pattern of some of their deaths: continuing on when weather was bad for example, or underestimating their need for gear in their summit bids. But then, at 8,000+ meters in freezing temperatures and with little food to eat and scarce oxygen in the air, one can understand how decisions would be difficult! I suspect that these mistakes are not unique to women, but have claimed the lives of many a climber, male and female alike.
   
   A wonderful read, an inspiration, and a tribute to the awesome power of nature and the strength and fragility of human life.



5. As a man, I came looking for a story of risk and adventure from a woman's perspective. I too wanted to understand what drew these pioneers to the high and lonely places. The stories of the five women were gripping and well written, but I found the harsh and unrelenting criticism of the male ego tiring. The men and women of the climbing community share the same desire to conquer and to be tested. I had hoped for a story of shared desire, not of bitter divide between fraternity and sorority.

2 comments about Five Sisters: Women Against the Tsar.

1. This book sat unread on my shelves for a while, and now I can't believe it didn't actually leap off the shelf into my hands to MAKE me read it; it's so utterly fascinating and engrossing that I haven't been able to put it down. I was expecting some dry history and feminism; this is a fascinating first-person portrait (or rather, five first-person portraits) of political struggle, social norms, everyday life, and revolution from the writings of five very literate, engaging writer/revolutionaries.
   
   I hardly know how to review a book like this (since I can't talk about plot or about structure of arguments, as it's first-person memoirs), but it's been among the most worthwhile 250 pages of my reading life.



2. The most amazing thing about this book is its entertainment value actually equals its historic value. These are bios of women who put their values and the lives of Russian peasants ahead of their own. It features the primary account of the world famous assassination of Governor Trepov from the pen of his assassin, Vera Zasulich. It also features Vera Figner's account of her unsuccessful (and finally successful) attempts to assassinate Tsar Alexander II. The sacrifices of these women include shedding aristocratic lifestyles for back breaking labor in noblemen's fields so they could teach peasants how to read and spread propaganda for their cause. Some of their comrades actually went insane in the process. You will read about their experiences as exiles in Siberia, and one of the greatest escapes Hollywood never saw. Whether you consider yourself a history buff, or just appreciate great stories, you will love this book.

5 comments about After Long Silence.

1. I'm sorry but I couldn't finish it... so I did not get to the part of the author being lesbian (!) It was... funny, predictable, I read books like that before written by Jewish Americans, they all seem to use the same myths over and over and base whole book around them. You read one, you have a feeling like you read them all. Boring...



2. I really enjoyed reading about the holocaust from the perspective of the second generation. The content was often not pleasant (what holocaust story is?)but the effect on the next generation and the family relationships made for a different story line that I appreciated. I definitely recommend this book!



3. Imagine as a young adult, passionately involved in your career, you start pulling away the pieces of the facade your parents had created to protect you and your sister fom the truth about your own family. Like pulling a thread and unravelling your entire wardrobe to show your nakedness, Helen Fremont knew whe was dealing with sensitive, even explosive issues, but he could not stop pulling that thread.
   What she has done with this remarkable memoir is show her family's roots and branches in ways she never knew existed before she and her sister began discussing the "What if's?" It is a moving story packed with complicated relationships and the true history of her parents' lives and the terrors they went through during the Holocaust era in Europe. You finish the book wondering how such a powerful story could be supressed, and cheering for Helen Fremont for unearthing it. As with so many memoirs, you are also left wondering, "where are they now?" and hoping for a sequel.



4. I have given this book as a gift to at least five friends. I couldn't put it down!



5. From today's perspective, it is difficult to comprehend just why a couple who survived the Holocaust would hide their Jewish identify from their daughters for years, insisting that they are Polish Catholic refugees in the USA. This memoir, however, explains how their fear of a repeat pogrom drives them to deny their heritage, keep secret their loss of religious identify, and assuage their horrific memories and guilt at surviving.Fremont and her sister's quest to discover the truth causes their parents much pain, but the author is clear that the family's pain had dominated their lives since birth.

5 comments about Limbo: A Memoir.

1. and I put down after only a few pages before. This time I started it I read the whole thing. The last part of the book had the deepest meeting for me. I am glad I gave it another chance. I have read her fictional story called "Sister" some time ago so I was familiar with the author. I also read the book "Read this and tell me what it means" another book by the author that book is a short story collection. I am glad I gave this book another chance. :)



2. There are those who easily turn to their religion to find comfort in the midst of nearly any difficulty. Then there are those who REFUSE to do so and who are able to find their way through the pain anyway.
   Ansay falls into the latter group (and I want to be clear here,...I'm not saying one viewpoint is better than the other, only pointing out the facts).
   She is quite honest about her unwillingness (or inability) to make that choice for herself. She is faced with a mysterious illness and no guarantee of recovery. She may be in a wheelchair all her life. She is young.
   THe result? A book about how she comes to grips with all of this WITHOUT insisting on finding "meaning" or a sense that she was destined for this or that there is some deeper significance or spiritual pattern in her illness.
   If you know someone in a similar circumstance, someone for whom religion is not an easy comfort and who wonders how others have coped, this would be a perfect choice. It is also worth reading by just about anyone who wonders "What if?" or "How would I handle this?". Honest, detailed and unflinching.



3. In "Limbo," a memoir by A. Manette Ansay, the author remembers growing up in the sixties and seventies, for the most part, with fondness. Although Ann's traditional Catholic upbringing gave her nightmares on more than one occasion, the strict rules and routines that governed her life made her feel secure. When her parents took her to Wisconsin, she got to know her large extended family, which included sixty-seven cousins. As a youngster, Ann enjoyed physical activity of any sort. She loved to run, jump, and wrestle, and she even did sit-ups and push-ups when she was in elementary school.
   
   One of the great loves of Ann's life was music. She took piano lessons for years and practiced for hours each day. She became so proficient that she was eventually admitted to the prestigious Peabody Conservatory of Music in Baltimore. Tragically, her promising musical career was cut short when physical symptoms that she had been battling for years suddenly grew worse. She suffered from intense pain in her arms and legs, and the doctors she consulted could not agree on a diagnosis. She tried cortisone shots, anti-inflammatory drugs, splints, braces, surgery, hypnosis, and many other treatments. Nothing cured her, although there were times when she could walk under her own power for short distances. However, because of the pain in her arms, Ann knew that she had to give up her dream of becoming a concert pianist. After much soul searching, she eventually turned to writing.
   
   "Limbo" is an episodic memoir that goes back and forth in time. The shifts are sometimes too sudden and they give the book a choppy feel. In addition, it is a bit confusing when Ansay uses the present tense to describe events long past. However, her descriptive writing is vivid, lyrical, and evocative. She uses creative imagery to depict the people she has known and the experiences that have shaped her life. The author includes in her memoir engrossing anecdotes about a wide variety of topics, including her troubled Grandmother Ansay, the way that Chaim Potok's novel, "The Chosen" changed her view of the world, her ambivalence about religion, and her childhood worries and escapades.
   
   The book is most affecting when Ann talks about her illness and how it transformed her. She attended and completed college, even though she was unable to take notes or written exams. Strangers stared and pointed at her in her wheelchair or made rude comments about her disability, such as, "You've got it easy--the rest of us have to walk." However, the illness brought Ann closer to her parents, especially her mother, who was an invaluable asset to her sick daughter. In 1986, Ann's mother took her on a seven-hour drive to the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota every six weeks for treatments.
   
   Today, Ansay is a successful writer, and she has come to terms with her condition. She says, "It's a good life, made up of the people I love, the novels I've written and those I plan to write . . . ." Her persistence, determination, and resilience are inspiring, and I recommend "Limbo" for those who are interested in a true story of courage and grace under pressure.



4. 
   "The abyss opens beneath our feet, and we leap it,
   *not* because we are particularly brave, but simply
   because we must. We land in a whole new country. We
   put on its clothing, learn its customs, begin again .
   . . ."
   
   This book is the saga of one person's approach to the
   abyss, her eventual leap, and the long process of
   resettlement in the "whole new country" -- a locale in
   which she resides with grace and wisdom.
   
   The book is also a succinct autobiography,
   selective in its particulars. While it begins and ends with the author's transition to chronic disability, its substantial midsection constitutes one long flashback to her most
   formative years. In these pages, she allows us ever so gradually past the periphery and closer to the essence of her active, exploratory childhood and her "good-girl" adolescence in the small community of Port Washington, Wisconsin.
   
   Especially subtle and well-crafted
   are the evolving portraits of the most influential
   people in her life: the feisty, sometimes fiery
   immigrant grandparents; the mother who drives long
   distances (often through the chilliest northern landscapes, in an unheated car) to deliver the author
   to the best available music lessons; perhaps most endearing, in the end, the taciturn breadwinner-father
   -- for it is her father's story, once his speech begins to flow in the face of his daughter's suffering, that ultimately anchors, even permits the telling of, her own story. As Ansay flowers into full personhood, becoming ever more accessible and sympathetic to the reader -- so does he: a man whose life was,likewise, disrupted and derailed by serious illness in his youth. They share a certain resigned if sorrowful firsthand knowledge, as well as a deep camaraderie, borne of their historical social isolation and gratuitous suffering
   
   As the author recounts her life, she mentions almost in passing -- confessing to what she seems to
   consider an amateurish avocation -- that she has written some poetry early on. However modest she herself may consider those early efforts, a fine poetic sensibility is evident throughout the description of her odyssey to the edge
   of the abyss and beyond: the rhythmic flow and careful patterning of her prose, her well-honed capacity for understatement and nuance.
   
   No doubt her writing has also been influenced by her
   long and rigorous training in music. Until she is
   stricken by the still-undiagnosed (demyelinating?)
   disorder that forces her to leave the Peabody
   Conservatory and abandon her longtime dream -- a career as a concert pianist -- music is her daily regimen, even obsession. It becomes her spiritual sustenance as well: "the purest language I knew, the bridge between what I was supposed to believe and what I knew in my heart to be true." The transition to a whole new language -- to literature and the writing of novels -- becomes her ultimate redemption and salvation; inevitably, her first language informs her second.
   
   It is that first and dearest language -- the hours of grueling piano practice -- the push for a better instrument, a better instructor, a scholarship -- that carries her safely through the Port Washington years. Even in childhood, though, we see evidence of other strengths, such as her keen observational powers, her sensitivity to sensory input. We see through her young eyes the lush checkerboard of Wisconsin farmland, viewed from a child's perch on a bicylcle -- the squares reflecting the whole ordered lifestyle of immigrant farmers, the clearly delineated boundaries of their industrious and God-fearing moral code. We come to know, too, through the author's neurons and receptors, the omnipresence of Lake Michigan in its many moods; at a certain season, mentally strolling its beaches beside her, we can almost inhale the rich rankness of the alewives.
   
   We also come to see how asphyxiating a small community can be in terms of its moral strictures -- its church-bound preoccupations -- and we catch glimpses of its predictably sinister underbelly. Ansay writes of growing up amid a vast, extended Catholic family, primarily originating in Luxembourg and Germany. The somewhat monolithic family, the insular and even xenophobic community (its first Jewish family arrives during Ansay's eighties-childhood, but soon returns to the city) impresses upon her relentlessly the obligation not to make waves, never to stand out too noticeably or think too highly of oneself.
   
   Thus, as she navigates an adolescence both gifted and
   repressed, it seems somewhat inevitable that resentful classmates take to terrorizing
   her -- threatening gross punishments (assault, even rape) for her alleged aloofness or visible self-regard; bringing her to fear she may not even make it to graduation before she is annihilated. Her descriptions of the high school sociopaths who lurk in the shadows, of the horrifying notes slipped anonymously into her locker, will ring true for everyone who has ever been bullied in school -- for every woman or girl who has dared not to apologize for intellectual excellence or
   outstanding achievment.
   
   In fact, though she doesn't say so explicitly,
   the creepy two-bit persecution Ansay recounts from her high school years is probably good preparation for her later encounters with adult-aged creeps and insensates -- with the whole gallery of unthinking, gaping, sometimes reproving or sermonizing strangers who tend to assail a visibly disabled person wherever she goes, intruding on her privacy and dignity with their endless repertoire of bizarre questions and surreal remarks.
   
   By the time Ansay reaches her twenties -- an
   expatriate Catholic with severe new medical limitations,
   reconciling herself to assistive devices such as wheel
   chairs and power scooters -- she seems eminently well
   equipped to deal with such individuals. She dispatches
   them with a wonderful, dry, ironic sense of humor that
   had me laughing and reading passages out loud to those
   few people in my own life who might understand. The
   smarmy, patronizing salesman; the man in the cultish
   pain management program whose hand she would rather
   not be holding during Twelve-Step-esque vespers; the
   intrusive evangelist who speaks to her of throwing away her wheel chair -- all are fair game for Ansay's droll, subtle, devastating wit.
   
   This memoir properly belongs to the genre of
   such outstanding works as Nancy Mairs's *Waist-High in
   the World,* Oliver Sacks's *A Leg to Stand On,* and
   the wonderful New Yorker piece by Laura Hillenbrand
   (author of *Seabiscuit*), "A Sudden Illness -- How My
   Life Changed.* It might be read especially
   appropriately as a complement to the fine expository
   volume and research study *When Walking Fails* by Lisa
   Iezzoni, a distinguished Harvard health researcher and
   veteran of MS.
   
   All refugees -- abyss-leapers, entrants into the
   wilderness -- must typically limit their luggage
   severely, settling on a few spare, precious remnants
   they will transport into that whole new country.
   
   This spare, poetic, insightful memoir --
   marked up in black ballpoint and yellow highlighter,
   extruding additional notes and comments on multiple
   rainbow-Post-Its -- elegantly truthful, no matter how
   hard the truths -- calmly, sometimes delightfully companionable in its recounting of familiar interpersonal misunderstandings at once horrific and hilarious -- is definitely one of my own essentials, to be tucked into my specially lightweight backpack or that small, handy storage space just under the seat of my walker.
   
   Elizabeth Rasche Gonzalez
   Medical/Legal Writing & Editorial Services
   Chicago, Illinois
   Email: poetryperson@sbcglobal.net
   
   The author is a longtime medical writer and midlife law graduate (admitted to the bar in 1994). Since 1997, she has been disabled by defective spinal hardware, surgically implanted to correct scoliosis. In the past five years, she has undergone six additional spinal revision surgeries. Elizabeth owns and manages a 488-member forum for other adults with scoliosis who are coping with ongoing problems arising from Harrington rod instrumentation: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FeistyScolioFlatbackers



5. Since writing my own memoir, BABY CATCHER: Chronicles of a Modern Midwife (Scribner 2002), I have been studying the style of other memorists. I found Ansay's prose lyrical, mesmerizing, and almost poetic throughout this beautiful book. To be able to write about her losses as a result of a still-mysterious illness similar to MS, with calmness and lack of hyperbole, is admirable and enviable. From the very beginning you know this story doesn't have a happy outcome, but at no time did I feel depressed. On some level, I rejoiced for this author, for her own successes and insight and hope and the joy in small gains, small triumphs over her difficulties. Limbo is a love story, an admirable one. I wish this author lived next door to me. I would sit at her feet in awe and bake her cookies and bread at every opportunity. May she continue to write and write and write.