4 comments about A Visit With the Tomboy Bride: Harriet Backus & Her Friends.

1. While this book was in no way as interesting as Tomboy Bride, it still brought further revelations about Harriet's interactions with the other mining families in their tiny community. It is a good, but not great, backward glance.



2. Harriet Backus's 'Tomboy Bride' is a classic - Read it and skip Duane Smith's commentary - repetitous and adds very little worthwhile new inormation.



3. After a Jeep ride that just happened to go through the Tomboy Mine, I read about Mrs. Backus' book on the Ouray, CO website and ordered it here at Amazon.com. Of course, they recommended this book as well so I ordered it at the same time. Boy am I glad I did. I enjoyed Mrs. Backus' book so much and didn't want it to end. It was great to be able to pick up Professor Smith's book and learn even more about her life.
   
   I swore I would never go up that trail from Telluride again. It is much as Mrs. Backus and Professor Smith wrote and showed-- very scary. But now I want to go back to the Tomboy Mine one more time!



4. Wonderfully illustrated with superbly vintage black-and-white photographs, A Visit With The Tomboy Bride: Harriet Backus & Her Friends is an impressive and inherently interesting collection of the correspondence that took place between Harriet Fish Backus (author of the classic book "Tomboy Bride") and Colorado historian Duane A. Smith. Delving into the adventures of Harriet's life, and exploring a unique picture of an era gone by in the rugged San Juan Mountains of Southwestern Colorado, A Visit With The Tomboy Bride is a unique and enthusiastically recommended contribution to Colorado History reading lists and library collections.

5 comments about Our Hearts' True Home: Fourteen Warm, Inspiring Stories of Women Discovering the Ancient Christian Faith.

1. I really liked this book. I was initially drawn to it because it was suggested for those considering entering into the Orthodox Faith. As a Protestant who lived with a Greek Orthodox family and went on a pilgramige to an Orthodox monastery, now years later these experiences were comming back to me to warm my heart, whilst in a church which initially satisfied, but has failed to do so in the long run.
   
   This is a book of stories from women from different faiths who have found their home in Eastern Orthodoxy... their different backgrounds, their experiences in previous faiths, how they came to be interested in Orthodoxy, what eventually called to them to have them convert. But I found something I could relate to in each and every story, and they all helped to point me towards this Faith.
   
   This book gave me a feeling of being able to relate to so many other women from different experiences, who ended up in the Orthodox Church, as I did. I found something I could relate to in each and every story. So it was very affirming during a time when I was making a very big decision. As a woman entering into Orthodoxy, it is a really good book. (It has been said, as a put down, that Orthodoxy is a man's faith, but I don't agree.) It gives a lot of perspective on why people leave other faiths, and what it is like from an experiental perspective, rather than a theological basis for the change.
   
   I recommend this book to any woman who has an interested in the Ancient Faith of Orthodoxy.



2. "Our Heart's True Home" is just as warm and inspiring as the title proclaims. Unfortunately, the pinkish cover and the female-oriented subtitle may be a bit off-putting to men. Unfortunately, because the contents are heartfelt accounts the can inspire folk of either gender!
   
   The chapters of "Our Heart's True Home" are honestly told chapters of how over a dozen people left new age practices, Judaism, Catholicism, and various Protestant denominations and found peace and joy in the Holy Orthodox Church.
   
   My wife read this book when we were getting disenchanted with our mainstream Protestant denomination, and found it not only moving but also a reality check of what life is like for the Orthodox. In many ways, this is the great value of this book. Being Orthodox involves a lot more commitment of time, lifestyle, and physical effort than other Christian communions. The curious and the seekers will find the foretaste valuable.
   
   Well, my wife badgered me into reading this opus and I found it relevant and enjoyable as well, so I recommend it for women AND men.
   
   No, this isn't a book of theology or a real apologetic, and readers should not expect that. I'm also taking one star off because this book is not really of much interested for the incurious or even for most 'cradle Orthodox'.
   
   However, at least in America, Orthodoxy is moving from a Church of mainly immigrants, to a church combining third-generation Americans and increasing numbers of converts. This book is for those joining those ranks.



3. Our Hearts' True Home is an anthology of inspirational stories written by fourteen different women who learned to embrace the Orthodox Christian faith. Each woman's struggle has been uniquely different, yet all share a common experience with God's love and mercy. Black-and-white photographs of the authors intersperse this heartfelt, passionate, and devoted anthology, which awakens compassion and spiritual empathy in the reader.



4. I never really have understood the Filique question and personally I don't really care. Supposedly the Father, the Son & the Spirit are all One so maybe I will care to ask that question after I die and maybe I won't care. They are a bit biting on it, but then it DID separate the Catholics and us during the Great Schism and continues to divide us as other things come into play.

   These women tell of their personal journies and in accepting Orthodoxy also take on a culture. Being a former Fundamentalist then Athiest then Orthodox chic, I identify with them. In accepting Orthodoxy, you accept it as the One and Only Faith. We have documents in existence that prove our heritage and customs and since we feel that it is right, we live it.

   It's not Hell & Damnation, just personal accounts of women who live the Faith. I wouldn't reccommend it as a "must read" because there are so many more books that I find more stimulating, books that deal with cooking during Lent with the 15 products that we are allowed to eat (an exaggeration, but if you are Orthodox you will understand!) to understanding our history.

   Look at the cover of this book-- the little heart and the feminine colours-- you can tell a book by it's cover and it won't apeal to the scholar in most people. It is a "lite read" that I enjoyed while convelescing during an illness and if you have time on your hands and a few dollars, it is not a bad choice.




5. Quick! Where do you stand on the filioque question? (That is, does the Spirit proceed from the Father and the Son, or just the Father?) If you get it wrong, this book brands you a heretic. In fact, the contributors brand a lot of things heretic: Catholicism, the Episcopal church, Protestantism, confirmation separate from baptism, not fasting properly, and so on. According to this book, if you dare to say women are equal to men, you are a "purveyor of immorality." One woman talks about feeling superior to everyone in other churches; another excoriates anyone who uses the term "sacraments" instead of "holy mysteries." It is a pity that a denomination as old and honorable as the Orthodox Church should be represented by this kind of hostile and unloving rhetoric. I seem to remember that the Samaritans (a different sect from the Jews of Galilee) fared a lot better in Christ's estimation than the Pharisees. For myself, I believe I'll go back to "purveying immorality" and leave these ladies to their self-appointed holiness.

5 comments about Let Me Go.

1. i just finished the audio version of 'Let Me Go.' Over the course of a lifetime, thanks to countless tv documentaries, books, movies, museums exhibitions, etc., we're aware and informed of so much that occurred in the death camps during the Holocaust. We have heard many barbaric specifics before or at least enough to extrapolate much of the rest; much of it is not a surprise or revelation, per se, but more than half a century later in this story, the truths of the Holocaust still shock. Can you call an audio book a 'page turner?'
   
   What sets this book apart in this audio version, is it's no-holds-barred, accounting straight from the mouth of a former female Nazi SS guard, the mother of the author, Helga Schneider. The author's rollercoaster of emotions and pain is pitiful and incredibly moving enough and in Rosesnblat's hands, the mother's undiminished hatred is so palpable; she is vile, repulsive, and totally unrepentant. This book speaks to the pathological motivations and complicity of that time. This is the voice of one woman and it is the voice of many. The question has been asked incessantly, by so many as to render it trite; 'How could this have happened?' In this book, in these words, and especially in this superb reading, you sit there and say to yourself, "This is how such a thing can happen."



2. Let Me Go is one of the most un-put-down-able books I've ever read. Though in general my husband and I have very different reading interests he also found it to be so. We each had it finished within 24 hrs. In it Helga Schneider exposes the raw emotional journey of seeing her aged and estranged mother for the last time. This is an intensely personal book focussed entirely on this exchange and to a limited extent the intruding context of Helga's childhood and Helga's previous visit decades ago. The book leaves questions unanswered, and that is it's strength. Just as some readers may find that there are no satisfactory answers in some respects, there are none for Helga. The book does not interpret it just tells you the story with an honesty that is incredibly courageous. There may be things that the reader wishes had been resolved or discussed in the exchange, but this is not the reader's story, it is Helga's story. I have read a lot of Military history and I found this book a wonderful, powerful and moving counterpoint as it illustrates the lasting legacy for the innocents even so many decades on.
   I consider this book to be one of the most precious in my library.
   This review is based on the hardcover edition.



3. Something was missing for me in the historical recount.
   
   She meets her 90 year old mother in a nursing home and starts asking very leading questions that suggest she should feel pity (whether she should or shouldn't isn't the point) when I was just waiting for her to head in the direction of how her mother came to believe in the nazi lifestyle in the first place. The previous reviewer is right, they pick right up where she leaves her children and joins the SS party and is viewed as a monster but I think it's responsible to attempt to understand humanity's motives and find out what the catalyst was to her drastic life change. There are even hints that she missed her old life terribly but these reasons are not explored, only pondered over by the writer in hindsight. As the famous saying goes, if you neglect to understand these situations, however painful they may be, history may repeat itself.
   
   Overall, it was a very good read but the detail above it why I'm giving it 4 stars.



4. History is often written on the grand stage. The huge battles or landmark laws are recorded. The feelings of the children whose parents are caught up in the "monumental events" are rarely recorded. In "Let Me Go, Helga Schneider has given us just such an account. Her mother was a seemingly unapologetic nazi who abandoned her family to serve Hitler. Helga is now going to visit her dying mother, who is possibly suffering from dementia. Helga just needs to know, and engages in incredibly difficult conversations with her mother. Is her mother still rational? Is she telling the truth? Why would she do the brutal things that she herself describes (including tortures and nonchalantly sending another woman who offended her to be enslaved in a brothel). This is compelling reading, and an underappreciated way of knowing history. The only comment I have, and it is not directed at Schneider, but at society in general. We are always surprised when it is a woman who in engages in such terrifying acts, as it violates the stereotype of female behavior. We would probably not be as surprised if this book were written in terms of going to see her aged father.



5. I enjoyed the book but kept wondering why the mother's name or the camp she worked at ever mentioned. Would have made the book more enjoyable.

5 comments about Life al Dente: Laughter and Love in an Italian-American Family.

1. Life al Dente has a few amusing moments with heartfelt memories by the author. The predominantly Southern Italian family memories are described directly and crassly, devoid of any flair, descriptive language, or writing style. Foul language accents this poorly written novel. The cover illustration and title are its only redeeming features.



2. Life al Dente is a wonderfully written and well-spun story that will take anyone back to their youth to remember the finer things in life. Gina Cascone reminds us that family, no matter how flawed, is a constant source of joy and strength. As a writer of a number of novels, I enjoyed the pace and flow of the story. It painted beautiful images in my mind that left me smiling chapter after chapter.



3. Oh my, I laughed so much reading this book...she nailed my family so well...thank you



4. Don't think you need to be a member of the family to enjoy this warm, loving and quite funny look at childhood. You can feel the warmth this author has for her zany family in every nook and cranny.The feelings are universal; love, loss, despair at your parent's behavior and the laughter that only family can share. Curl up with this book and remember what it was like to be a child.



5. Ah, to have the relatives, the wit, and the warm memories of a flawed but sincerely loving, close-knit Italian family such as Gina Cascone's. But even with the same material, few could render the experience of growing up Italian and female in suburbia as well as Cascone has done in this, her 2nd book. The eels! Omigod, the eels for Christmas dinner, first writhing in the bathtub, then writhing around your arm, then writhing on the chopping block, and STILL writhing as, cut into cross-sections, they were tossed into the saute pan! Now, that's a memory few can share. Funny, sad, sentimental, tolerant, it's everything you could want from a short little book. But the overwhelming feeling that comes through is Cascone's love and gratitude for her family.
   Don't miss it.

2 comments about A League of My Own: Memoir of a Pitcher for the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League.

1. Pat Brown's A League of My Own is a great addition to anybody's baseball library. While there are have been several great books written on the league's history, Brown's has the distinction of being written by an actual former player. For AAGPBL enthusiasts, A League of My Own offers great insight into the events, attitudes, and experiences of the 1949-1950 player development teams which is mentioned in most accounts, but so far hasn't been detailed this well. Also interesting to read of this woman's personal story and how professional baseball was just one chapter in a long sports career. Great Book!



2. My sincere thanks to this author. I was facinated by the movie, A League of Their Own. I welcomed the detail and reality of the era of womens baseball that this author shared. It was warm, humorous and long overdue. She was a remarkable woman, with the courage to follow her dreams.

5 comments about Confessions (The World's Classics).

1. This book is a very powerful, memorable spiritual autobiography and Augustine tells his story like none other. He is transparent and honest at every turn, holding nothing back. He tells of his faith struggles, his sins and his temptations very candidly. The story of his conversion is truly beautiful and will stay with you. He has written in such a way that you truly see the hand of God at work in his life. A phenomenal read that will stay with you. Highly recommended.



2. Augustine is one of these characthers from antiquity who illustrates that humanity is always an everywhere the same - we share the same form, namely the soul and we thirst always and everywhere for the same thing, namely the infinite, which is God. Augustine is poetic in his treatment of God, he addresses him as a bride to her husband. Let him speak for himself:
   
   "Late have I loved you, O Beauty ever ancient, ever new, late have I loved you! You were within me, but I was outside, and it was there that I searched for you. In my unloveliness I plunged into the lovely things which you created. You were with me, but I was not with you. Created things kept me from you; yet if they had not been in you they would not have been at all. You called, you shouted, and you broke through my deafness. You flashed, you shone, and you dispelled my blindness. You breathed your fragrance on me; I drew in breath and now I pant for you. I have tasted you, now I hunger and thirst for more. You touched me, and I burned for your peace."
   
   His own struggle is the struggle of every man and woman to find God. And, yet, not only was Augustine the master of the inner life, he was a great philosopher - witness the chapter on time, which is wonderful. Miss not also his shared ecstatic vision with his mother, Monica.
   
   This is a great work - but, there are bits that are not easy (his exegesis of Genesis, for example) but persevere, its worth it!.



3. Saint Augustine is spiritual, philosophical and always profound.
   Warning: Likely to blow your mind.



4. Augustine's confessions are confessions to God, and thus, prayer. Augustine bares his soul--his doubt, fear, guilt, as well as his joy, peace, and love. All this is addressed to God as prayer. Like the Psalms, these prayers are shockingly intimate--you can't read these properly from a comfortable distance.
   
   I am grateful to Augustine for sharing his personal relationship with God in a way that leads me closer, too.



5. As a non-believer, some of the more entertaining bits were Augustine pining that he wishes he'd been made a eunuch as a boy, and describing at length the sensual dreams that aroused and tormented after he gave up his lecherous ways and escaped the lesser torment of marriage.
   
   Interesting historically as a document of how Platonism was explicitly wedded with Christianity, but some of the theology is a bit strained, i.e., his exposition of Genesis chapter one in which he attempts to explain how God created everything outside of time and without any effort, and yet this took six days and he rested on the seventh. His attempts to solve the problem of evil also do more to confuse the issue than to clarify it, but that is to be expected.
   
   But it is definitely far better in terms of both literary style and quality of thought than the efforts of today's believers, and it is worth reading for anyone interested in intellectual or religious history.

1 comments about Virginia Lee Burton: A Life in Art.

1. This book is one of the most interesting biographies! It bring this wonderful author alive with many anecdotes about the woman who gave us The Little House and Mike Mulligan. She was a complicated person, and Barbara Elleman's writing makes this a page-turner. It's a coffee table book that will be read over and over!

No comments about Emma Goldman, Vol. 1: A Documentary History of the American Years, Volume 1: Made for America, 1890-1901.

5 comments about Sweet Caroline: Last Child of Camelot.

1. A lot of celebrity biographies, or "tell-alls", I take with a grain of salt, but this one seemed very credible when I was reading it. Most of the author's sources were people from the Kennedy's inner circle, including Pierre Salinger, Ben Bradlee etc. I didn't think this book would expose anything new, but I was actually quite surprised and intrigued. Most often I was surprised by the behavior of Jackie Kennedy and new facets of her character were revealed that made me see her in a totally different light from her Camelot image (an image which she created). A fascinating page turner!



2. Not only does this book do a fabulos job of detailing the intimate life of Caroline the only remaining survior of Camelot. But it also gives an imtimate look of the lives of her family. Jackie, John and John Jr. And even the before and after family events surrounding the assination of her father President John F. Kennedy. Whom Caroline herself, first heard about the assination from the radio. Also intimate details of the power and control that Jackie exerted over her family. Her (Jackie) extreme drive to obtain her vast wealth and to protect the family image and to shelter her and her children's privacy from the public-at all costs. The struggles that Caoroline faced with being a Kennedy, how she could't understand why she was famous for nothing more than her name. So, if you like me, enjoy reading about the intimate life of America's royal family, this book is for you.



3. this was a good book, and we got to know a lot about caroline, and how sweet she was, despite her tragedies. it broke my heart to learn that she always felt neglected without a strong male figure in her life, especially since her mother centered all her efforts on her son having a strong father figure, or risk having him "grow up to be a fruit." yet, caroline made it through. i absolutely felt sorry for her, and i don't even know how the erroneous belief that jackie kennedy onassis was such a great mother has lasted up until today. she spent most of her time on vacations and shopping, and sent her kids off to boarding school when they were so young, spending little time with them. i feel caroline suffered greatly from it, since she got taken care of mostly by nannies, and not so much by her parents, since her dad was killed when she was young, and her mother was so into shopping and money that she neglected her daughter's needs regarding the idolization her daughter felt for her father, and being there for her in this aspect. overall, a great book



4. Andersen misleads the reader when he markets this book as a book about Caroline Kennedy. In fact this author does nothing more than re-hash everything that has already been written about the family. He sells it as a book about Caroline simply because he constantly uses the possessive form of her name to refer to the actual main characters in this book (Caroline's mother, Caroline's brother, Caroline's father etc.).After reading this book, I realized that this is because Caroline has lived a rather simple and scandel free life. The only remarkable thing about Caroline's life is that it's not that remarkable. Like so many Americans, she cooks her children breakfast every morning, video tapes their school pageants, and considers being their mom her most rewarding job in life. Caroline is to be commended for her stellar academic record and her accomplishments as an author. However, without the last name "Kennedy" no one would find her life particularly compelling reading. There simply isn't enough provacative information out there to fill up an entire book about Caroline alone. Unlike her mother, she wasn't first lady of the United States, married to one of the most beloved presidents, she didn't hold up an entire nation during three of the darkest days in our nation's history, she didn't marry a wealthy shipping magnate from whom she inherited 26 million dollars and then went on to parlay that money into 200 million. I could go on and on about Jackie but in the interest of brevity, I think you've got the picture.
   That said, I believe Mr. Andersen has done a great disservice to his reader when he sold them a book complete with the tacit implication that we were to really learn who Caroline Kennedy was as a person. The information may well be out there but Mr. Andersen has yet to find it.



5. I have read all of the Kennedy biographies and there is very little new information in this biography. The first part has been covered in all of the others, and the second part has been covered in the tabloids, which makes we question the accuracy of anything here that has not been lifted from another source. I noted two parts of this book that do not appear to be in keeping with what has been well documented. 1. The books states, that on April 4, 1968, Caroline was in her classroom when a teacher came in and whispered to her teacher that Martin Luther King had been shot. Quick research on the Web states this happened at about 4:30PM EST..Are 11 year olds in class at that time? 2. The books states that when visiting the White House JFK Jr. told then President Nixon, that he used to play under his desk. Everyone knows that the famous Kennedy desk was removed when he died, and not used again until it was brought back by President Clinton.

3 comments about Quilts and Women of the Mormon Migrations.

1. I thoroughly enjoyed learning about the Mormon Pioneer women and the way they created a "heaven on earth" in their early Utah homes through quiltmaking. I would encourage anyone who enjoys LDS Pioneer history to use this book as a great reference guide for inspiration in creating a warm home.



2. This book is a remarkable history of the fabrics used & the styles chosen together with where the women were born, when they stitched the presented treasure, when & where they joined the Latter-Day Saints & when they made the migration westward.

   Each quilt, no matter its condition, its purpose or the technical skill, leads to a compelling discovery of previously unknown women's lives. Witness the three lions in a circlet on which has been embroidered the British monarch's motto or the "Star Quilt" of Sage Richards Treharne Jones from Wales who came on her parents' mission, both of whom succumbed along the trail. Or Mary Mortensen Bjork's migration from Denmark & her lively "Crazy Patch Quilt"; or Christina Erika Forsgren Davis from Sweden & her plain & simple "Strip Quilt". Or Betsy Prudence Howard Bullock's "Peter and Paul Quilt" all the way from Bedfordshire, England. Or Matilda Robison King's "Washington Plume" applique on her way from Montgomery County, New York. Many women were members of the same Relief Society & so made several quilts with similar designs.

   Mary Bywater Cross has done quilters, pioneers & women in general a profound service by her research, writing about & cataloging these fragile & beautiful works of art & comfort. There is something deeply connective about the fabrics & designs created by these intrepid & enduring women.

   A must for anyone who loves quilting & history - do visit my site for my full review & eInterview with this quilt historian as well as other books on quilting.




3. I was looking for a book to pass the time. I got lost for hours in this book and wished it was hundreds of pages more. The photos of the quiltmakers and the quilts are priceless. There is so much historical knowledge in this book, that I feel Mary Bywater Cross should be awarded an honorary doctorate degree in the history of quiltmaking and of the Morman Migration.