5 comments about The Whole World Was Watching: Living in the Light of Matthew Shepard.

1. Matthew Shepard is looked upon as part of a context. The technique is really very interesting. For one would think that Matthew's story would be narrated in the usual manner, starting from the beginning and ending at the end. But this book is nothing like this. The book is about Matthew Shepard as much as it isn't. It is the story of an emergent identity (that of the author) precisely because of Matthew's tragic end. In this sense, Matthew's murder is an end but also a beginning. And this book warmly and objectively commemorates the former, and beautifully celebrates the latter. It avoids making Matthew an object of mere curiosity, and nor an icon. It keeps him true and warm and personal. A truely sensitive tribute.



2. Romaine Patterson has a nice way with an anecdote, though the book might be just a little too much about her own peregrinations for most readers. Her story would be an interesting one even if she had never met the young Matthew Shepard at school, but there's still way too much of it. She and her girlfriends have bigger and better breakups and makeups than most people have hot meals, and each time she meets a new girl it's almost like a little gift from heaven. She's adorable in her own way, but the tangles of her family life (she is one of seemingly dozens of siblings, all of them pretty much interchangeable except for Michael, who dies of AIDS early on in the narrative) are complications to a courageously simple life. I kept thinking, if only Kelly Clarkson could act, she would be the perfect one to play Romaine in a movie. (Unfortunately for her, she was played by none other than Christina Ricci, the poison dwarf, in the film version of THE LAEAMIE PROJECT. Ricci went on to act out some of Romaine's personality crises in a subsequent project, MONSTER, in which she played the love interest of Aileen Wuornos.)
   
   She has been criticized for detailing Matthew Shepard's peccadillos in a matter of fact way. One does come away from this book not liking him much, though Romaine reports an astonishing turnaround in his final months. But before that, the drug use, the torpor, the way he spent money like water then mooched from working class friends, nothing was attractive about him. Did the rape in Morocco ever really occur? From Romaine's tone you get the hint that perhaps it was, not a fantasy of Matt's, but maybe an alibi? Nevertheless when she hears about his attack in Laramie, she rushes to his side, and when the trial begins and Judy Shepard is pestered by Fred Phelps and his band of insane rightwing creeps, Romaine comes up with a once in a lifetime plan to separate them from Judy by playing angels in huge dress up costumes, which catches the eye of the network news and becomes one of the most telegenic displays of our age.
   
   Patterson also is able to diagnose what upset us about Matt's murder is a simple, yet logical way. "The brutality of his murder," she explains, "brought people together in an unprecedented way, and once they saw that they were united in their shock, they realized it might be possible to do something about it, to stop it from ever happening again." God bless her and the angels who, unrelenting, work night and day in invisible ways to one day rid our beautiful land of hate.



3. The world shall not easily forget the memory of Matthew Shepard. Wyoming college student, so senselessly murdered on a cold October night, left to die alongside a fence with prarie lights visible in the distance, so close to help, yet so far. Much has also been said about the people in Matthew's circle; Laramie residents, all affected whether they knew him or not, and his friends and family, who formed a net to catch this falling star, only, not in time. One of these friends speaks in her frank and earnest memoir, "The Whole World Was Watching" by Romaine Patterson.
   
   It would be too easy to see Romaine just through the eyes of the Matthew Shepard story, although it's obvious she will forever be associated with him. Romaine works to expand her own self by allowing us to see her grow up first. With three other gay siblings in her family, a new life opens up to her when she discovers her own sexuality. She writes fondly yet honestly about her older brother Michael's fight with AIDS. By the time Matthew enters the story, she's our friend and ally, as well as his.
   
   Then Matthew comes and goes in the story, almost too quick. Perhaps we want to hold on to him, to protect him, but life must go on. Romaine is thrown into the media melting pot of instant celebrity-hood, and successfully manages to learning the ropes rather quickly.
   
   The heart of the story comes with Romaine's decision to protect Matthew's somewhat distant parents at the trial of Russell Henderson, when a "he-who-shall-not-be-named" preacher planned to visit and protest. In a moment of inspired brilliance, the Wyoming Angels are borne, and with a few feet of PVC pipe, a cross-section of people, and hearts of gold, one of the greatest acts of peace was born. Romaine tells the story, downplays her role in it, and realizes how it becomes a defining moment in her life.
   
   The book then becomes a journal of what happens after "the end"; a somewhat surprising and honest journey that Romaine takes, still the celebrity, yet still just a normal girl trying to grow up. She realizes she must find her own feet, and walk her own path; and what twenty-something doesn't realize that at some point? Her journey I must say was interesting, if not all too honest.
   
   Romaine's journey is far from over, and after reading this book, I only wish her a few years of contented peace. In the meantime, I think I'll start a letter writing campaign. It seems that at least one of the angel costumes should be in the Smithsonian. And maybe some people in Sweden ought to have considered the brave actions of this girl when awarding their little peace medal.



4. I didn't know who Romaine Patterson was until very recently and I didn't see the Laramie Project or anything. When "The Whole World was Watching"; I wasn't. I heard Derek and Romaine (Sirius OutQ 106) on the radio first. I knew about Mathew Sheppard, but didn't know much about it and certainly didn't know Romaine at all.
   SO - I found the book interesting on many levels. Romaine seems extremely earnest and honest in this book about herself, her family, Matt - everyone; no B.S., but that's her personality; she'll tell you like it is. Romaine's self reflection throughout the book is really captivating, maybe even now still having to explain her motivations to be in the media. Also, the book forces the reader to ask his or herself, "What would I have done?" Was it youthful idealism or naiveté or somehow was Romaine prepared for this `role' through her unusual wonderful family dynamic, own self possession and survival skills? Finally, and perhaps most importantly, you really do realize that Romaine could have been me and Matt could have been my friend. As big a story as it became and as much as Matt is now a symbol of 'hate crime victim'; he was still a friend, a son and a brother - an ordinary person as beautiful and flawed as me or you. And Romaine was a good friend; a brave friend with interesting growing up stories of her own. Read the book.



5. I received the book today and could not put it down. It really helped me understand the "real" story in Romaine's eyes and life. Thank you for bringing your story to mainstream. You are the best!

5 comments about Galina: A Russian Story.

1. Of all the singer's biographies I've read (which is plenty!) this remains at the top of the heap. It is a journey that could have only come from the pen of Vishnevskaya and, unlike so many autobiographies which eventually turn into a "And then I sang _____, and then I sang at the White House, and then I . . . " Galina reads almost like a novel. Her description of the Soviet Union during the war years is positively chilling. The road she took to success, punctuated by hardships followed by tragedies is never less than enthralling. How many biographies can truly be called "page turners?" Well, this is one!
   
   The insights she gives into the Soviet system, the role and treatment of artists by the government, her personal views on politicians, singers, composers all come off with rare candor that almost caused me to blush.
   
   Feeling mezzo soprano Elena Obratzsova had been been a betrayer, she humiliated the young singer in public shouting out "Judas" writing of Obratzsova's exit, "Like a snake with a broken spine, she crawled past the amazed Americans, who stood aside to let her pass." Ouch!
   
   My favorite passage from the book succinctly, and pointedly paints the most vivid picture of the Soviet system:
   
   
   In this vast, monstrous theater, with our faces twisted by
   underground jargon, we Soviets wriggle and squirm for one
   another. We are actors by compulsion, not by calling, in an
   amateur theater run by no one. And all our lives we perform our
   endless, pathetic comedy. There are no spectators, only
   participants. Nor is there a script, only improvisation. And
   knowing neither plot nor denoument, we act.
   
   I cannot recommend this book highly enough. Whether or not one is a fan of opera, this will prove to be an enlightening, fascinating read.



2. [Taken from my review of the hardcover edition - same comments nevertheless apply.]
   
   As one reads this book, where Gospozhá (Mme.) Vishñévskaja is throughout blunt about everything she turns her pen to, one really gets not only great entertainment generally (it is most excellently written!!); it is a superb window into the Russian soul at its best in addition to being an outstanding analysis of the conditions of artistry, artistic life and life generally under the Soviets!! It also serves as an excellent guide into the great composer Dmítriy Dmitrjévich Shostakóvich's life and artistry as well as that of her husband Mstíslav Ljeopóljdovich Rostropóvich; furthermore, its recounting some of the scandals forced by the Communist leadership when they couldn't accept the fame and worthiness of such books as "Doktor Zhivágo", "The First Circle" and "The GULag Archipelago" as well as such pieces of music as "Lady Macbeth of Mcjénsk District", the 13th Symphony and enough other works of Shostakóvich is positively juicy even in the midst of the disgust and revolt caused by reading how intolerant Communism really is!!!
   
   An ABSOLUTE MUST for any intelligent person to read and have in his library - especially if he is into the arts and/or politics in any way whatsoever!!!! This is one of those relatively rare books which both entertains AND edifies - and does it all superbly (what a life experience on her part!)!!!!
   
   [POSTSCRIPT: This very book (which I've enjoyed rereading MANY, many times!!!) also was critically influential in preparing me to go hear - and fall in love with!!!! - Shostakóvich's operatic 'magnum opus' "Lady Macbeth of Mcjénsk District" when it was given its Canadian première by the Canadian Opera Company in Toronto in 1988.]



3. Vishnevskaya's reputation for forthrightness AND the sub-title she chooses here --A Russian Story-- indicate strong intentions for this book. Not 'MY Russian Story', but 'A Russian Story', because Galina Vishnevskaya tells an epic Russian story, honoring with a severe truth the Russia of sorrows of which her story forms but a unique part. This is no prima donna's idle tableau of a curtained career. Vishnevskaya's art comes of suffering, & she doesn't head down that road. She divulges her art generously, but her attitude never self serves. Her aim is always higher - she's interested to say not only what HAPPENED in Soviet life, but what WAS. and WHO!--- Vishnevskaya regularly excoriates with galvinizing abandon the soviet lackeys with whom she had to deal! She names names and motives, because it's the damned truth! The West in general and artists in particular owe a huge debt to Rostropovich and Vishnevskaya for the willing sacrifice of themselves in exile for the simple truth. Rostropovich garners the commentary in the West with the cello & conducting, but Galina is the heart of genius, and THAT seems the telling component in this book. Her depiction of Solzhenitsyn is heartrending, and stands as the book's axis; everything leads to it, and derives from it. Her friendship with Shostakovich, her brilliant feelings toward him-- an almost daughterly reverence informed by the highest artistic aesthetic. It's also through the part Shostakovich played in her life that we meet a musically learned Galina as well. She was a musician FIRST, singer second. How rare and wonderful - no wonder Slava fell in love! Galina dances with the shadows of Shostakovich throughout, & it's one of the book's endearing aspects. There are wonderful stories too of Britten and his music, & a surprisingly frank exposition of Furtseva, soviet Minister of Culture, whose enigmatic machinations both helped and ill-served Galina more than once. Vishnevskaya can sing AND write! The book ends when you don't want it to, leaving Russia... it's ultimately a love story -- Galina and Russia. Maybe she'll yet write her American story.



4. Galina, né Pavlova, has many interesting stories to tell about her remarkable life: as a baby abandoned by her parents, an army officier and a polish/gypsy mother, she was raised by her paternal grandmother. Galina overcame so many difficulties in her life, surviving the blockade of Leningrad during the war and so many hardships such as tuberculosis and starvation. Unlike so many singers' biographies, this intelligent artist shares more than anecdotes about the opera world and her many successes in the theatre. She speaks of her personal friendships with people such as composer Shostakovich her neighbor, scientist Andrei Sakarov, also a neighbor, and writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn, a live-in guest in her dacha. There is much commentary written with not a little bitterness about the Soviet authorities who so often thwarted her career and blocked free expression in the arts within the Soviet country and in other countries where she was invited to perform. She writes very well and with much insight into philosophy, human relations, personalities, etc. I found the book very absorbing and hard to put down. Her close friendship with British composer Benjamin Britten also yields many stories of their memorable times together both at Aldeburgh and on vacation in Armenia and Russia. Her remarkable and at times stormy marriage to cellist/conductor Mstislav Rostropovich, her third husband, brought about big changes in her life, and their mutual courage and boldness to stand up for freedom against the Soviet regime cost them their citizenship.



5. "...We were actors in real life and human beings on the stage."
   
   Thus spake Galina Vishnevskaya, in interviews she and her husband, Mstislav ("Slava") Rostropovich, gave in Paris in 1983, captured in a companion book ("Russia, Music, and Liberty: Conversations with Claude Samuel.") to this one. The quotation barely begins to suggest the Kafkaesque world in which they lived, when they were musical artists of the highest order in the Soviet Union.
   
   Vishnevskaya was a "prima donna assoluta" at the Bolshoi Opera during her prime, arguably the finest Russian soprano of all time. And, as her prime overlapped those of Maria Callas and Renata Tebaldi, one can only wonder what her international reputation might have been had her career been entirely in the west; the first two-thirds (and best) part of it was largely away from the gaze of the international music community.
   
   This is, as she subtitles it, her "Russian story" covering her life up to the final hours in 1976 when she left the Soviet Union, eventually (two years later) as an exile. And it almost ended before it ever started.
   
   Born in poverty to parents who abandoned her to her grandmother, she possessed an incredible voice as a child. Largely self-taught, and then - at age sixteen - improperly taught - she didn't learn proper voice technique until after she had established a beginning career in operetta. Then she contracted TB, and the doctor caring for her offered that the only cure - which she refused - was to collapse the infected lung. It was only by mortgaging her future singing fees for black-market purchase of scarce antibiotics that she recovered.
   
   In 1952, in her mid-twenties, she auditioned for the youth group of the Bolshoi Opera Theater, was instantly accepted, underwent a meteoric rise through the Bolshoi ranks on her voice and talent, and soon became the prima diva of the troupe. In 1955, she met Rostropovich, whose courting of her is one of the few lighthearted sections of an otherwise chilling tale of intrigue, deception and lies in the intelligentsia circles in which the pair of them existed and performed.
   
   The next two decades (1955 - 1975) of this journal focus largely on one person, and the special relationship that they had with him: Dmitri Shostakovich. As artists, it was only natural that their paths would cross and thereafter, for the rest of Shostakovich's life, intertwine. But this was more than acquaintanceship; it was friendship based on trust during Shostakovich's years when it was virtually impossible for him to trust anyone. And Vishnevskaya defended that trust with the ferocity of a tiger. One anecdote of her ferocity will suffice as an example.
   
   In the early 1960's, the poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko was well-published in "accepted" Soviet literature journals despite his "rebelliousness." His famous poem, "Babi Yar" (1961) about the German slaughter of Ukranian Jews during WW II, gained overnight success, and Shostakovich, moved by the poem's message, placed it at the core of his Thirteenth Symphony with Yevtushenko's warm agreement. The work received its Russian premiere "as is" on December 18, 1962, and was tumultuously received by the audience but not by officials of the state, who read into it a message of Russian complicity in the matter of anti-Semitism, a subtext of Yevtushenko's that was undoubtedly accurate, as he revised the text shortly after the premiere without consulting Shostakovich. Some years later, in London where Vishnevskaya and Rostropovich met up with Yevtushenko, Vishnevskaya gave Yevtushenko a tongue-lashing over his "revisionism" that runs several pages.
   
   In an act of supreme political courage involving another Russian writer, Rostropovich provided refuge, for four years in the early '70's, to Alexander Solzhenitsyn, whose writings on conditions in the Soviet Union were officially banned. Solzhenitsyn subsequently went into political exile, but this act of courage was to have its effect on the careers of Vishnevskaya and Rostropovich, particularly the latter, who for all intents and purposes had his abilities to perform and conduct stripped away from him. Only by "pulling in markers" were the two of them able to secure permission from Brezhnev to go abroad on a two-year "artistic leave."
   
   "Galina" ends on a note of uncertainty and apprehension, as Vishnevskaya, in 1976, boards a plane with her two daughters to join Rostropovich in the West, eventually (1978) in exile when their citizenship was revoked for the Solzhenitsyn matter. But this is merely the end of her "first" Russian life and the beginning of another, more international, one. Her own career as a diva continued for nearly another decade; Rostropovich went on to become an internationally-known conductor while continuing his career as a preeminent cellist; with "perestroika," they made an historic return to Moscow in 1990 (after Gorbachev restored their citizenship), at which Rostropovich conducted what is to me the finest performance of Tchaikovsky's "Pathetique" Symphony (immortalized on a Sony CD that also included Sousa's "Stars and Stripes Forever" and William Schuman's orchestral arrangement of Charles Ives's "Variations on America").
   
   Nowadays Vishnevskaya loves to brag about her six thoroughly-Americanized grandchildren. They oversee the Rostropovich-Vishnevskaya Foundation, a charity for immunizing Russian children against disease. She recently founded the Galina Vishnevskaya School of Opera in Moscow, for providing master classes to promising young artists. All in all, a rather remarkable "follow-up" for this peripatetic pair of seemingly perpetually-young 75-year-olds.
   
   But the clock cannot be turned back. "Galina" serves as a gripping reminder of how things were over the fifty years that the two of them spent in the Soviet Union. And, at least as important for me, it serves as one of the most honest and accurate appraisals of Dmitri Shostakovich the person as one is likely to find, from one who knew and loved him as a true friend.
   
   Even in a totalitarian society, supreme artistry can sometimes carry clout. For Vishnevskaya (and Rostropovich), there was enough clout - barely - to get out and "live to tell about it." Thankfully.
   
   Bob Zeidler

No comments about Glass Houses: A Battle With Cancer A Battle Of A Lifetime.

5 comments about Don't Call Us Molls: Women of the John Dillinger Gang.

1. The book has an academic structure of sorts including notes for each chapter, an index and lots of photographs. However there is no list of photographs and they are not all referenced. Regarding the notes they do did not include all the information I expected and occasionally where I thought part of the story deserved a footnote for further explanation there was none. For example on page 372 the murder of nurse Myrtle Jordan is never fully explained and on page 377 a photograph of the Barker Death House is shown but no explanation is given as to why it is now unapproachable.
   
   Due to the large number of people mentioned and the complex nature of relationships between some of them a diagram or cast of characters would have proved invaluable whilst reading the book. I frequently got lost as to who was who, the authors' habit of referring to people by any one of their aliases was tiresome and irritating and showed a lack of consistency. The author couldn't even settle on the breed of dog Evelyn Frechette had!
   
   I think the author made a mistake in not starting off with the story of John Dillinger at the beginning. I realise the premise of the book is to show how important the women were to the gang but to be honest who were they without John Dillinger? Instead the author describes the marriage of Patricia Young to Art Cherrington and Evelyn Frechette to Welton Spark. Personally I think the book jumped backwards and forwards far too much which made it confusing. The book is also littered with spelling mistakes and the use of English gets worse as the book progresses.
   
   Personally I think the author wanted to show how important the women were to the Dillinger Gang however with the exception of Mary Kinder I am unsure this was the case. Frequently the women seem to have been a liability, often leading officers to their hideouts or dishing out information once they were caught.
   
   Although the book attempts to give an insight into the interesting and often tragic lives of many of the women in Dillingers acquaintance it seemed patchy in places and absolutely dire when relating what happened to them after the gangs demise. For example what ever happened to Sally Bachman after she was released from prison? There are far too many gaps in the biographies of these women afterwards and this is very disappointing.
   
   It might have been better to do a full biography of just one of the women rather than attempt a sort of biography of all of them.
   
   The book needs to be restructured, re-edited and re-released. It was like reading a very rough, unedited proof which is a shame because it could have been very good indeed.



2. I believe that anyone who is interested in the Middle Western crime wave during the Great Depression is sure to enjoy this book. Ellen Poulsen leaves no stone unturned in this meticulously researched chronicle of the women behind the public enemies who shot their way into the headlines during the Thirties. The author provides us with a wealth of little known facts about Evelyn Frechette, Marie Conforti (real name Comforti), the Delaney sisters, Bess Green, Opal Long, Helen Gillis (Mrs. Baby Face Nelson), and scores of others who, through sheer misfortune and tough times, shared the beds of some of the most notorious outlaws in the annals of U.S. crime. An informative book which furnishes insight into the sad lives led by the "gun molls" glamorized by the press.



3. Don't Call Us Molls: Women of the John Dillinger Gang
   
   This is a fascinating book that details the lives of the most famous "Dillinger Women"...Polly Hamilton, Anna "The Lady In Red" Sage and the love of his life, Evelyn "Billie" Frechette. It goes much deeper, profiling lesser-known girlfriends and female associates of the Dillinger gang such as Pat Cherrington, Opal Long, Mary Kinder, Beth Green, Marie Comforti, Jean Delaney Compton, Pearl Elliott and Helen Gillis as well as female associates of other criminal gangs of the era such as Dolores Delaney, Winona Burdette and the infamous Kathryn Kelly.
   
   Ellen Poulson weaves a fascinating true history of these desperate women, illustrating in detail and with great empathy how their roller-coaster lives went from giddy excesses to grinding poverty, all the while being hunted like animals. This is a must read for any fan of American criminal history!!
   
   Anne Rosenthal



4. As a member of Kathryn Kelly's family, I wanted to read this book as I knew there were a few mentions of her. I was immediately caught up in the story of the women of the Dillinger Gang. This book is well researched and captures the mood of the times. It completes the story that most other books have never covered - the domestic side of life of a 1930's gangster. Highly recommended for anyone interested in the era.



5. I must say that in all the recent books about gangsters and their molls from the 1930s, this book is one of the best ever, period! Full of new information on the Dillinger gang and Ma Barker and her brood of killers. Also, many photographs, which have never before been published. If you don't purchase this one, you are missing out on an important part of researching any gangster from this time period, which will include the woman who ran with these bandits.

2 comments about Two Lipsticks & a Lover.

1. Sheesh... I've been living in Paris for about 7 months and got this book from another ex-pat. I thought it would be fun. I think it was really an excuse for the author to meet well known French women and get into exclusive/expensive stores. I found most of it to be pat, over generalized, contradictory and highly stereo-typed. The book describes a small percentage of French women, primarily the elite, but not necessarily. The average french woman is not as different as the book would have you believe. Yes, there are some truths in there: you will rarely see any french people, male or female, wearing sneakers unless they are on their way to or from some form of exercise. Yes, you will rarely see clinically overweight people, male or female. I think the author should have focused more on her own experiences and generalized a lot less. Peter Mayle did a much better job on this and his books are much more enjoyable.



2. Nothing new. The book is just okay. Not as amusing as I thought it would be. Enjoyed Paris to the Moon a lot more.

5 comments about Islam Our Choice: Portraits of Modern American Muslim Women.

1. This book really hit home! It provides insight and understanding into the great faith of Islam,with real stories that any woman can relate to. It answers the "why" question for many formerly Christian women. I recommend this book to anyone who is new to the faith, thinking about Islam, or for those Christians who really don't understand why their friend or family member has chosen Islam.



2. Alhamdullilah! Finally someone has come forth to share their stories!. This book is not about Immigrant muslim ladies but rather is the tale and testimony of six American born sisters and their conversion to Islam. This is the story of the struggles, successes, apiritual enlighnenmant and journey from the dark into the light of peace and clean worship. No it is not easy being a minority muslim in a otherwies dominant culture. I recommend this book to new reverts, People investigating our faith and those who just are interested in knowing more about Islam and the lives of some muslim women. may God watch over you for reading this!



3. This is an awesome book. Finally, a voice for us when everyone else in the world is trying to speak for us.
   Alhamdullilah, people see that no matter what governments are doing, wars being fought, people threatening, Islam is always there for us and you can choose to follow its straight path. It does not stop you from working, being happy, having a family and friends, from pursuing your dreams.
   Inshallah, we will get great Muslims in the spotlight educating each other and making the world better and then show everyone how great and true we are, instead of looking to terrorists.
   Then again, they will probably ignore and plug their ears in disbelief.... sigh



4. I really loved reading this book. The sisterhood of Islam was evident in the lives of these women. Alhamdulilah!



5. If anyone is interested in the lives of Muslim people and want to know why they became Muslims, this is a book that must be read. This book offers insights on the type of lives a few American Muslim women live and the kind of challenges they face as they try to raise Muslim families in predominatly non-Muslim environments.

5 comments about Dressing Diana.

1. I really enjoyed learning about Diana and how her taste in clothes evolved and improved. I was pleasantly surprised to find out how she had clothes re-worked and how many times she wore the same outfit - or an outfit without a portion of the outfit (i.e. the Elvis dress - without the jacket), and dresses, etc. reworked to update or change the look of it - making it new again. The impression I believe the public was left with was that she never wore anything more than once which was not true. She learned well and knew what she needed to fulfill what task she would wear the outfit to. She was adept at working her wardrobe around where she would be traveling to..... no one missed the attention she made to detail and loved her for it..... she will always be well remembered by the publich who loved and still love her.



2. I LOVED this book for it's beautiful color fashion photos of the Princess Diana. In particular, I really enjoyed that there were many head to toe photos of many of her most famous outfits. There was also was a nice section on her hat makers as well as Jimmy Choo and some of the shoes he made for her. This book has many photos showing her shoes which is something I really enjoy seeing as part of her outfit. She was very coordinated with her shoes and her hats which was pointed out in this book. It also had many nice close-ups of the materials used in her outfits, which brought out details that I had never seen before, in some smaller pictures in other books. Overall, if you enjoyed the fashions of Princess Diana, I think that you are going to LOVE this book. To me it is a "must have".



3. I have a vast collection of Princess Diana memorabilia. My collection of Diana books is quite enormous, and sometimes I lose track of the books I own, but this book is one in my collection that ALWAYS comes to mind first! It is one of the most well done books I have seen. The photos are fabulous, and the design of the book is very cleverly done. It shows Diana in her most famous outfits categorized on each page by colour.(Her red gowns, her blue gowns etc.). If your a Di collector, this book is a must for your coffee table.



4. This book will attract two kinds of individual: those who loved Diana and those who love fashion. Everyone would agree that Diana was one of the most stylish women of our day, and this photographic visit to her clothes closet is a wonderful opportunity to browse and maybe dream a little.



5. this is the best pictur biography the princess could have asked for

5 comments about Eyes of the Tailless Animals: Prison Memoirs of a North Korean Woman.

1. While printed by a Christian publishing house, Soon Ok Lee does not devote much space to her conversion to Christianity. I would like to know more about her rationalization of religion after growing up atheist.
   
   The book describes Soon Ok Lee's horrible life in North Korea's gulags. Born to a well-to-do family and given a good job, she is falsely imprisoned. She tells the horror stories that she and her fellow citizen-inmates went through. It's unfortunate that her story is consistent with other memoirs of North Korean citizens, because it shows the reality of the world's most isolated country.



2. EYES OF THE TAILESS "BEASTS" translates better. BEAST. BEAST. BEAST. ABUSING PEOPLE BEYOND WHAT WE CAN IMAGINE? yes. she has been there, seen it, experienced it by her FLESH. her calling is to write this book and tell the world about N.korea.



3. It's hard to say that a book like this is good. Perhaps HORRIBLY informative is a better way to put it.



4. The purpose of this novel is not only to reveal the atrocities that occur in the prison camps in North Korea, but also to explain the mentality of the North Koreans that enforce these crimes.
   The author explains that because all organized religion is banned in North Korea, the cult of Kim Il-Sung and Kim Jong-Il takes the place of religion. The North Koreans have no concept of God, and instead, they worship a man and consider his state policies to be the divine word: "...Several books of anecdotes illustrating the infinite wisdom and love for the people of the Great Leader Comrade Kim Il Sung ... are like books of stories about Jesus ... Obviously it aims at binding the hearts of the people to their leader to obtain their unquestioning loyalty and obedience and unite them in a common faith. The quasi-religious element has been explicitly acknowledged."**
   Soon Ok Lee's goal is not to explain her suffering in graphic detail, but to show what can happen in a society in which the morals of a mad-man are worshiped: Torture becomes acceptable, brutality becomes the norm, and no human life has value, except for those of the "Great Leader" and the "Dear Leader." [...]
   The author believes that the only way to combat the ignorance of the brainwashed North Korean people is to bombard them with bibles, for it will teach them to question the status of their "godly" leaders, while it will also instill in them a respect for humanity.[...]The author lived through this, we did not, and she offers insight, ideas, and solutions to human rights violations in North Korea -- [...]**Quoted from "A Year in Pyongyang," : http://www.aidanfc.net/a_year_in_pyongyang_p.html



5. This book opened my eyes about the true intentions behind the North Korean regime. This reclusive regime thought it could keep its political prisons secret to the world. However, thanks to such courageous survivors as Ms. Lee we now know what is really going on in the hermetic North.

   Those interested in human justice must read this book.

1 comments about "They Say": Ida B. Wells and the Reconstruction of Race (New Narratives in American History).

1. This great book on Ida B. Wells is not and explicitly does not try to be a biography but rather a scholarly narrative history. This is a noble attempt for which the book deserves praise since the historical narrative has long been a neglected and maligned form of serious history in a field dominated by scholarly monographs. Instead of chronicling all Ida's life as do traditional biographies (the narrative stops in the late 19th century) Davidson tries to examine the ways that former slaves "reconstructed their identities" after the Civil War. Ida B. Wells is more than simply a vehicle for this lofty goal for this is distinctly her NARRATIVE that describes her immense struggles and immense victories.
   
   Ida B. Wells (July 16, 1862 - March 25, 1931) was born in Holly Springs Mississippi a two months before the Emancipation Proclamation. Her father was a carpenter born from a black mother and white plantation owner father who treated his son very well (meaning he had a profitable trade after the war). He became an outspoken proponent of black involvement in southern politics sometimes risking his life to vote. Some of the most interesting parts of the book examine the ways that the Southern Democrats prevented ex-slaves from voting. Her mother was cook who advocated the Victorian ideals in her household after the war. At the tender age of fourteen Ida's parents died in a Yellow Fever outbreak and she took over as surrogate mother to her young siblings. Ida was educated at the local college and became a teacher before finding her real passion while living in Memphis - journalism. She wrote outspoken political pieces dealing with key issues of the day (it was very rare for a women to be writing for newspapers, yet alone political articles). She waged a campaign against the increasing segregation in the railroads and was even forced to leave the newspaper she was co-owner of because her articles were seen as two controversial. She was an advocate of civil rights (traveling to the UK and all around America), women's rights in the male dominated field of political journalism, and launched anti-lynching campaigns.
   
   James West Davidson's book uses her early life (not a heavily documented period) to examine the KEY reconstruction issue that of self-definition in post-slavery new world where the "socially constructed definition of race [became] spelled out with greater and greater specificity" (pg ix). Davidson does a brilliant job weaving in sections of the education of blacks of the day, the beginnings of the Ku Klux Klan, even the growing postcard fad as Ida B. Wells comes into contact with these phenomena. This is a relatively new form of writing, one which tends to defy easy definition, and my primary critic comes from the fact that the narrative form forces all the analysis of her life to a lengthy Afterwards. Most readers (myself and my history honors reading group included) will be confused as to the purpose of such a form, in comparison to a more traditional biography until reading the massive Afterward. All in all this is a very well written book that certainly adds to existing scholarship on this remarkable woman.

No comments about Endgame: A Journal of the Seventy-Ninth Year.