2 comments about Mormon Midwife: The 1846-1888 Diaries of Patty Bartlett Sessions (Life Writings Frontier Women).

1. Patty Sessions didn't spend a lot of time detailing the happenings of each day, she was too busy doing everything else imaginable. The entries are usually just a few lines for each day, yet month by month, and year by year, she paints a picture that is an effective illustration of what life was like in early polygamy, what folk beliefs influenced her, and the her role she shared with the more recognized greats of the mormon West, like Brigham Young.
   Patty Sessions shares her life and passion for religion, but her religion is quite different from the Mormonism of today. Patty Sessions' life makes great reading for any student of history at any level.
   The editor, through pain-staking effort, has added notes of background and clarification that really bring some obscure parts to life. I have given other books about Mormon History five stars, and I regret it as this book IS Mormon History, and provides unique insight that only comes from witnessing a life in words of those who lived it.



2. I am the 4th great granddaughter of Patty Sessions. This book is an excellent genealogical source for me. She in one or two places in her journal addresses her descendants. I feel as if she is speaking directly to me. She worked hard all of her life, you can tell by her entries. It humbles me to know that I am related to such a great lady. I am thankful that I am able to have this book in my library.

2 comments about Lady Caroline Lamb: A Biography.

1. An extraordinary accomplishment in a rather crowded field. Douglass explores the complex root causes of Lady Caroline Lamb's more outrageous public acts, and achieves his own stated goal of paying her the close attention she seemed to crave.



2. I respect Paul Douglass for his detailed study of Lady Caroline Lamb's life, which includes extensive quotes from her literary works and follows her intense personal and social relationships.
   
   What Douglass deliberately refuses to address in relevant depth however are some of the most important aspects of her character and the genesis of her terrible reputation: Caroline was mentally ill (bi-polar and obsessive-compulsive), a drug addict, and an alcoholic. These aspects, especially her mental illness, were obvious and troublesome even when she was as young as six, but Douglass consistently skirts them in his effort to rehabilitate her as a literary genius. Unfortunately, most of her literary work was inspired by her thwarted obsession with Bryon and was embarrassing imitative of his style and content.
   
   Her over-use of opiates (in the form of laudanum) and heavy drinking probably exacerbated her already severe mental problems, but Douglass barely mentions her alcoholism until late in the book when describing yet another Byron crisis, one that took place years after their brief affair ended.
   
   The truth of her relationship with Byron was that they were lovers for only a few months and although it was intense while it lasted, Byron moved on quickly not only because that was his nature but because Caroline began to frightened him with her obsessiveness. She would not let go when he was ready to: she broke into his rooms while he was away, stealing and leaving the creepy message "remember me" on one of his papers, she forged his name to get a painting of him, followed him around, and wrote him constantly. She even stabbed herself at a party to get his attention. This woman was obviously the one who was "mad, bad and dangerous to know" but Douglass more than implies that Byron's love for Caroline lingered for years despite blinding evidence to the contrary (he married for example). No, Douglass would have it that the few personal meetings Byron did agree to were not because he hoped to disuade her, but because he actually wanted to see her again and was still affected by feelings for her. No way.
   
   The book is interesting and the details make for an interesting read, but Douglass's attempts to whitewash a very disturbed woman at the cost of the truth didn't go well with this reader.

5 comments about Nell Gwyn: Mistress to a King.

1. nell gwyn was born from a impoverished and abusive childhood but never became a cruel or bitter woman.she stole the heart of a king bearing him childern.their love affair last 16 years became one of royality greatest love story.



2. I lived for a while by Nell Gwyn's house in Newmarket, Suffolk, England and so was interested in her greatly. I've read biographies of Charles II and had a perspective of his mistresses. The details of Nell's life are great; however, as a descendent of Charles II and Nell Gwyn, Mr Beauclerk's bias is obvious. His descriptions of the other mistresses are vicious at times. A great perspective of Restoration England.



3. I was spellbound as I kept reading this fascinating biography, written by a direct descendant of Nell Gwynn and King Charles II.
   This is a true life biography of the rag to riches ascent of a girl living in grinding poverty who scaled the heights and became the mistress to the King of England. The true story of the beautiful, enterprising, intelligent Nell Gwynn is sure to fascinate.



4. 
   I've been prone to reading about the Tudors so the Stuarts and the merry merry life of Charles II was new to me. Beauclerk's readable biography of his famous ancestors has really piqued my interest in the Stuarts.
   
   He notes in the text that 15 biographies have been written about Nell. Not having read any of them, I don't know how this one differs, but it reflects the author's broad knowledge of Restoration theater and poetry. He depicts the strange sort of liberation that followed Cromwell. He describes the changing role of women who now had a crack at few careers besides prostitution such as orange vending, acting, playwriting, and, well, courtesanship.
   
   The author is disciplined and sticks with his subject. He gives us enough background in Restoration politics so that we can understand Nell's (precarious) position.
   
   Nell's success in her short life was certainly made possible by the times in which she lived. The King's early life required normal socializing with commoners. Without this, his life and court might have been more like any other, with not so many out of wedlock children, and certainly none acknowledged. Nell would have had absolutely NO access were Charles' succession linear.
   
   Nell must have been a real card. I'm trying to think of a contemporary equivalent, and cannot. The description of the bed she had carved (and the cost of it) really takes the cake! It's hard to imagine her lack of prentense in the world in which she moved.
   
   The final chapter on her many descendants from her one surviving son is interesting. There were too many to keep track of but the general discussion is heavy with the weight of the British class system.
   
   That Beauclerk has written of his foremother, not of his forefather, is a sign of our times. It has been all too frequent for children to "reach up" to the male for prestige, career and/or status, as Beauclerk notes that the Duke of Monmouth does. This is often accompanied by ignoring or insulting the mother and what she brings to the match. Beauclerk does not minimize his royal line of which he could very well boast (I'm a descendant of a king!) He celebrates the intellegence talent, wit and adventuresome spirit that is part of his matrilineal side.
   
   After reading the book I checked Wikipedia and learned that Princess Diana is a direct descendant of both Barbara Palmer AND Louise de Keroualle and Charles II, and that Camilla is a descendant of Louise de Keroualle and Charles II!



5. Far more than a mere recitation of dry facts, Charles Beauclerk's biography of the magical life of Nell Gwyn displays rare insight into the human condition, which insights one soon realises are acutely applicable to the here-and-now of politics, art, and the mysterious attachments of the heart. To history, Nell Gwyn was all to often misunderstoond to be merely (pg. 297) "...the stuff of legend, the girl from the slums who had won the heart of a king." In the author's hands, however, this story of love reciprocated (for such it was) is more than romance- it shines a spotlight on the theatre of politics and power which was the 17th century and still is today, in which nothing is as it seems to be, and fame provides a most convincing disguise for the truth. Beauclerk's evident erudition is worn lightly, and in this biography the richly comedic serves to illustrate the philosophical. Beautifully written, the author's style is both polished and relaxed, not unlike the later diaries of James Lees-Milne, with a limpid clarity of prose interspersed with surprising imagery, like his description of the Protestant rabble-rouser Titus Oates, (p. 279) "His mouth, we are told, was in the centre of his face, and he was built like an orc, with short bandy legs and long lifeless arms." On nearly every page one finds apt insights as, for example (p. 293) referring to the death of Nell's mother, "...like many alcoholics, old Madam Gwyn probably found a way of abandoning decent surroundings for a life of misery somewhere." The world of Charles Stuart and Nell Gwyn was a theatre, both metaphorically and literally, and whether on stage or at court everyone acted a part. In his biography of Nell, the plays of Dryden, Marvell, and others are neatly dissected by Charles Beauclerk to reveal unexpected depths of meaning. Nell was above all a comedienne, a star in her own right whose alliance with the saturnine, tricksy Charles Stuart made them the most successful double act of the 17th century. And there is, of course, the well-known account of Nell, whose coach being attacked by a mob mistaking her for the King's French (and Roman Catholic) mistress Louise de Keroualle, ordered her driver to stop, and flinging open the window (p. 307) "...cried out good-humouredly, 'Pray, good people, be civil, I am the PROTESTANT whore!' Immediately, the curses turned to cheers, caps were tossed in the air, and a path cleared for her coach. Waving and smiling, she passed on." And so, waving and smiling, Nell's brightly shining spirit has been well and truly awakened in this present biography.

1 comments about Freedom Writer: Virginia Foster Durr, Letters from the Civil Rights Years.

1. Virginia Foster Durr's letters tell the story of her work for FDR, for the Civil Rights Movement, for an integrated South. I was riveted.

2 comments about Joan of Arc: Maid, Myth and History.

1. This book is easy on the eye. It is written in a pleasant style guaranteed to ruffle no feathers. Yet the author has nothing new to say about Joan herself. It's a good repackaging of what is already out there, so while I enjoyed the read, I drew little from it. Perhaps he feels there is nothing new to say, but too many coincidences are taken a face value, too many important questions are left unanswered, even unasked. For example, what was the nature of the relationship between Joan and the Duke of Lorraine and Rene d" Anjou? What was the heresy with which the Church charged her? Why did it take over 500 years for the Vatican to canonize Joan? The author can't even bring himself to opine whether Joan's "visions" were real, imagined or a calculated deception. He has no clues as to whether or not Joan was part of a larger conspiracy. And so on and so on. These topics should not be the sole domain of conspiracy theorists. The only reason they are, is because historians like Wilson-Smith are afraid of ridicule. Well, Mr Wilson-Smith, God gave you a neck, so you might as well stick it out from time to time...



2. As a new historic reader, I must say this book has some outstanding forums! It historically demonstrates the events based upon actual records and it shows how the fear of God drives one soul to victory even after her death! While reading, it almost puts you in the court room and on the battlefield witnessing her triump over dark forces of england! Timothy Wilson-smith wrote this book very well and I know any Joan of Arc fan would enjoy it! A must read book! While I don't like to much dry dramatics, this book doesn't really have any. It does give circumstances and stories of important key people such as Charles VII and yet it doesn't dig too deep into their life, but focuses souly on Joan and her quest to free france. It also gives first hand accounts of the men who fought along side of her while giving testimony! I didn't fully understand (but always heard of) her full story until I read this book. I'm not sure if this book is with full details of 'all' accounts of the historic records, but it sure will start you off in learning and understanding a true saint for Christ! As a christian, I don't speak a word of french, but all that serve God is a fellow child of the King!

5 comments about Teta, Mother, and Me: Three Generations of Arab Women.

1. I grew up in Cairo and now living in the US. I loved this book so much and relate to every word of it. I would defintely recommend it to my son to read in the future as it is a beautiful mix of sociology, history and psycology.



2. The social history and politics of Arab women illustrated by the author's love for her mother and grandmother.



3. Makdisi's memoir carefully collects fine details of the Arab Christian history in Syria, Lebanon, Palestine and Egypt. In tracing her mother and grandmother's and her own personal story and the families that surrounded them, Makdisi takes the reader on a journey that shows the meaningfulness of geographical origin in the arab culture as well as the inherent ability to change, transform and relocate.
   
   This memoir presents an opportunity to encounter in a very human way the event of the partition of Palestine and its effects on families' lives. It is broad in scope touching on everything from questions of class, the situation of women, colonialism, raising a family in a time of war, social movements and the upheaval of governments, being stateless, suffering loss...
   
   This book is recommended to the patient reader who is serious about garnering a deeper understanding of this area of the world or the related subject matter in women's studies.
   
   It is worth noting that Makdisi is the sister of Edward Said. I didn't realize this myself until many many pages into the book.



4. The impetus for this lively, emotionally engaging exploration of three generations in Makdisi's maternal line came from her conflicted feelings about feminism and the traditional domestic-centered woman's role as well as the friction between the two cultural influences in her life - East and West.
   
   Her father was an affluent Christian Palestinian who immigrated to the US and became an American citizen. He returned to Jerusalem to honor his mother's dying wish, "but never really forgave her for deflecting him from what he had seen as his destiny in the New World." Her mother was Lebanese and Palestinian, the daughter of a strict Baptist minister and his European-mission educated wife (Teta) who was, in turn, daughter of an Evangelical pastor.
   
   Makdisi and her siblings (which include the late Edward Said, professor, writer and pro-Palestinian activist, and the historian and writer Rosemarie Said Zahlan, who was also a pro-Palestinian activist) grew up with American passports, though she was born in Jerusalem in 1940 and grew up in Cairo.
   
   "Until 1948, and the Palestine war, our family moved regularly between Jerusalem and Cairo. For Palestinians, the year 1948 was a time of movement, of scattering, of families breaking up and moving apart. It was a time of breakdown, of entropy." Though a child and sheltered somewhat from outside events, she recalls the upheaval in their Cairo home as a stream of relations - distraught refugees - moved through.
   
   "In 1948 the heart of our family was torn out, and the centre of our existence was broken....It is only recently that I have come to understand how deeply affected we have all been by the Palestinian experience, how we have lived our lives in its shadow. Most of all, though we have lived well and done well and accomplished much, though we have made many deep friendships throughout the world, since 1948 we have been outsiders - not only my parents, but their children, and, I fear, their children's children as well."
   
   Makdisi does not dwell on "the Palestinian experience" in this book, which is as much biography and history as it is memoir, but its long shadow is always visible.
   
   As she moves backwards and forwards in time, she describes an arc - a move towards an ideal of "modernity," synonymous with westernization, that carried her grandmother and mother farther from the extended family that gave women support and strength into an isolated role in the nuclear family.
   
   This movement began with the values her grandmother absorbed in the mission schools and culminated in her own marooned existence in an affluent Washington DC suburb, frustrated, bored and conflicted between her role as perfect mother and housewife and her ambitions to be something in the world.
   
   A century-long embrace of Western culture is clearly to blame in her mind, though Makdisi certainly does not advocate a repudiation of all things Western. Instead she concludes her book with a call for a new synthesis of priorities, which combines the "sustenance" of home and family with a connection to the outside world. Well, sure. In the best of all worlds, anyway.
   
   Makdisi grew up thinking her grandmother led a sheltered, isolated, domestic existence, comfortable but limited. But as she researches this book - getting her own mother and uncles to write memoirs and delving into the history of the time, a more rounded and nuanced picture emerges of a woman who endured war and tragedy, love and loss, who worked to build her husband's congregation and who, during WWI and again after her husband's death, struggled alone to keep her family together with little financial support.
   
   Makdisi's mother, Hilda, continued the move away from Arab customs, filling her house with European furniture, dressing in the latest Western fashions, adopting Western tableware and eating habits. No one seemed to regard any of this as a rejection of Arab culture at the time - it seemed more a matter of fashion and sophistication.
   
   Only in retrospect does Makdisi see how it isolated her mother and grandmother from other women and robbed them of matriarchal status later in life. Yet her grandmother was miserable living with her mother-in-law and the matriarchal status seemed to work best when the financial power rested with the matriarchal generation.
   
   Makdisi makes a number of generalizations that readers may quibble with. While I don't know the joy and comfort of the extended family (and it certainly does not appeal) I do know you cannot extrapolate middle class American life from the homogenous confines of an affluent D.C. subdivision. Miserable in her isolation there as a newlywed (as I too would be) I wondered why she didn't move into town, which they could easily have afforded.
   
   The book touches on a century of culture and upheaval - the European occupation and recarving of boundaries after the defeat of the Ottoman Empire, various ensuing rebellions, the rise of Zionism in a land where Jews had always lived and the belated reaction of alarm, the bitter legacy of exile and rootlessness following the 1948 war.
   
   She does not explore any of these events in a deep political way but rather notes how each specifically affected her family. Perhaps this is why she does not touch on certain issues, such as the practicality of co-existing Israeli and Palestinian states and the repeated Palestinian rejection of partition.
   
   This is a book filled with rich history, cultural detail and colorful anecdotes, all of which help illuminate a place and people that seem to grow more remote and frightening with every passing day. Makdisi is a fluent and visual writer, with a foot in two cultures and her book should be read by anyone with an interest in the Arab world.
   
   --Portsmouth Herald



5. The wife of Edward Said grew up, like her brother, among the richest of the Arab elite, the Bourguise that had come up with the Arab Awakening following the Arab revolt in 1917. This was a class of wealthy, European educated, mostly Arab Christians who became not only nationalists but highly knowledgable about the world. Because of their connections and the fact that they were inter-related with Arabs across the middle east they were very worldy.
   
   The Said family were two generatiosn removed from Baptist Arab converts in Lebanon who had immigrated to Palestine and then on to Egypt. They had summer homes both in Jerusalem and Lebanon. Theirs was a life of luxory and western ways, western dress, western values and eventually western self hate.
   
   THis memoir covers the period 1940-2000. We are given insights into life after the flight from Palestine in 1948, life in Beirut during the war and insights into the arab world. Despite being a 'housewife' Mrs. Said is not really immigrating to Lebanon when she marries a Lebanese instead she is merely returning to her homeland. This is where the memoir is problematic. It covers up the very unique status of the Said family trying instead to put them in a larger arab morass which they do not exist in. There is little difference in the upbringing, wealth and outlook of the Saids and their western counterparts in the richest sections of London or New York. This is not an account of Arab women because 99.99% of Arab women do not live like this jetting between capitals and conversing in multiple languages.
   
   Despite attempts at portraying her family as refugees one has only to compare the memoir with the truth of the many homes of the family to see a more complete picture. If this memoir is interesting it is interesting because the female protaganist did nothing for women's rights and gives us a journalistic account of life in the Arab world, a biased account of course covring up PLO atrocities, during the period.
   
   Seth J. Frantzman

2 comments about Jane and Her Gentlemen: Jane Austen and the Men in Her Life and Novels.

1. As Audrey Hawkridge notes in her forward to "Jane and her Gentlemen", the limited biographic material on Jane Austen has been pretty well raked over; it is difficult to write anything fresh and different. Nevertheless, Hawkridge is game for the challenge. The result is a highly readable, engaging discussion of the real and fictional gentlemen in Jane Austen's life and novels. While there are few relevations here, Hawkridge's enthusiasm for the subject will make this a pleasant read for Jane Austen fans.
   
   "Jane and her Gentlemen" is divided into four sections. The first is the short, obligatory biography of Jane Austen. The second is the story of her brothers and their relationship with Jane. The third is a survey of the various men who make cameo appearances either in her life or in her fiction. The fourth and perhaps most interesting section is an exploration of the gentlemen who provide the romance in her fiction and in her life.
   
   One need not agree with Hawkridge to be entertained by her opinions on the leading men in the novels. The obvious romantic hero Mr. Darcy is compared with the rather uncertain male leads of "Sense and Sensitivity." Hawkridge wrestles, as have others, with whether Edmund Bertram was the proper match for Fanny Price in "Mansfield Park." Mr. Knightley of "Emma" and Captain Wentworth of "Persuasion" draw her approval.
   
   Hawkridge's account of the men with whom Jane Austen may or may not have had relationships in life is also very worthwhile. Her summary of the known facts and her informed speculation about the unnamed man who attracted Jane's interest at a seaside resort in the summer of 1801 is as good as any I have read. Hawkridge does her due dilengence on the rumored marriage proposal by mail of one Thomas Harding Newman of Essex, and on a painting, said to be of Jane Austen, that was given by Newman's descendents to one of Austen's grand-nephews in 1880.
   
   Hawkridge's strong opinions are honestly presented. She portrays Jane Austen as a woman with a distinctive and independent personality and the courage to follow her own convictions with respect to love and marriage. "Jane and her Gentlemen" is highly recommended to fans of Jane Austen.



2. The literature on Jane Austen is so vast that it becomes helpful to have a tertiary literature on special points. This is information about men who were, or may have been, significant in Jane Austen's life. As such, its importance is that it pulls together widely scattered information. I don't think that Hawkridge has come up with significant new information, but she has come up with a number of things that I didn't know, although I have read about 20 books on JA. Since this is a specialty book, she puts in information that most books would regard as inconsequential (e.g. a man rumored to have proposed to JA in a letter), and puts in alternate versions of familiar stories.
   
   Hawkridge also studies the different types of romantic leads that JA created, and considers their relationship to people she knew, although she does begin the book by quoting JA's famous statement that she likes her male characters to well to associate them with a mere mortal.
   
   For people interested in the topic, this is the obvious place to start. Hawkridge has numerous notes and a select bibliography leading the reader to other sources to be explored at length.
   
   I have great praise for the inclusion of of a chronology, would that more historical writers did that, as well as an extremely informative family tree, a bibliography and an index. I give a thumbs down on the notes. In the time-honored and idiotic fashion, the notes are in sections headed simply by the number of the chapter, while the pages have only the chapter title as a running title. Tracking down a note either means keepng track of the chapter that one is reading (a trick that I have never mastered) or flipping to the front of the chapter to find the number.

2 comments about Choking on Marlon Brando.

1. I had read Antonia Quirke's book on JAWS that she wrote for the uneven BFI series on notable films, but I must re-read it now that I know so much more about its author, sort of a real life Bridget Jones who proves that sometimes, you can get too much into the movies and they prevent you from having satisfying experiences in your real life romantic life. What guy in real life can compare to the rush of sexuality young Antonia got while watching STREETCAR on TV as a young girl? And that's just the beginning of an amazing read, in which she lays bare the dynamism of literally hundreds of male screen idols, while a few dozen earthly Englishmen fail to capture her attention for more than a few dates apiece.
   
   Her book is very funny in parts, and in other parts she seems to recoil from the path she's leading, so the clash of the two genres, comedy and a tragic self-destruction, produces sparks but also gives the book a rueful texture. Makes you feel complicit even for reading it. Now and then one just wants her to find the right bloke, but most of the time one longs for her to meet another loser in life while drooling over another he-man in the cinema. She makes you appreciate the erotic perfection of even unlikely idols, such as Kevin Costner. She knows he's dopey, dull, superpatriotic, and probably conservative, but he's got something going on and she details it all. Remember Madonna pretending to gag after Costner told her that her show was "neat"? Hark Antonia Quirke: "That hollow cacophonous bird made of beaten tin painted gold (and failed actress) who sticks a finger down her throat after meeeting Costner [is] blind to the non-synthetic idiosyncrasies that unspun blandness might contain." He has a "beautiful veim of sadness running through everything he does, like when the light begins to strain at the end of a summer's day." You think David Thomson has it bad for Nicole Kidman? Wait till you hear Quirke on Depardieu!! Or Keanu Reeves, the male Marilyn Monroe: "Like Marilyn, Keanu introduces an electric tension into everything he does because of the combination of uncontrollable charisma and technical incompetence."
   
   Most controversial will be her discussion on 228-9 of which star has, like her boyfriend Jonathan, the "perfect arse." She names James Dean, Dennis Quaid, Richard Gere, Gael Garcia Bernal--the usual suspects, reaching out to Terence Stamp in (POOR COW) and David Hemmings--she's as patriotic as Kevin Costner. She dismisses Clint Eastwood and Sam Shepard. But stop the presses, why is Dustin Hoffman on the list of "great arses"? The thought of it makes my gorge rise. And Jim Carrey? Yeah, his is great--for talking through! She names the four compass points that the perfect arse must balance itself among-- "a Gene Kelly gluteal muscle and a Keith Richards scrawn, a slovenly acre of sexless John Wayne flesh and a priapic preening Antonio Banderas baboon backside." I'm squinting but in the center of all those I am utterly failing to locate Dustin Hoffman!



2. Wow. This book is stunningly great. Antonia Quirke's writing -- her voice, her control, her sheer prowess -- is blazingly magnificent. This book is a treasure, a discovery, a triumph of publishing. Pick up the book, read the first paragraph, and get carried away.

5 comments about A Change of Heart.

1. This book was given to me by my fiance who had received this book while in the hospital after receiving his heart transplant. Being 18 years old and having a heart transplant is hard enough, and he was able to find some inner peace from this book. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and I highly recommend it to anyone who is interested in organ transplantation or anyone who wants to read an uplifting story. Claire and my fiance are definitely inspirations to me, and this book also helped me understand some of the feelings and emotions that these two wonderful people have expierienced throughout their journey. I urge many others to take the time to read this wonderful story.



2. I just finished reading "A Change of Heart" - Claire Sylvia & William Novak's original book. It's currently no longer in print, so I wound up ordering it from a used bookstore. It appears that the reprint is now available - with a slight title change (it now incl. "A Memoir").
   
   At any rate, I found this book to be truely amazing! The basic premise is that Claire went through a heart & lung transplant, and afterward, she noticed some major changes in her personality (i.e. likes and dislikes) - was it due to the fact that she now had another person's heart and lungs within her? That is a question that you are left to answer for yourself.
   
   I like the fact that this book explains what was occuring through Claire's point of view, and then goes on to discuss many other "experts" ideas as to why these things were happening. No one idea is pushed on the reader - the information is layed out for you to make your own decision.
   
   I believe that this book is a "must read" for anyone who has gone through a transplant, knows someone who has, or is just plain interested in happenings that cannot currently be explained by western science. An open mind is a must!
   
   
   P.S. This book also reminds us of just how important it is to check that little box on your license & become an organ donor. It may give someone the gift of life one day!



3. Claire Sylvia's book will cause you to reevaluate everything you know about your body, your personality, and life overall. Before reading her account I never would have believed that individual organs within the human body have their own awareness, intelligence, and memory. Slyvia's story is a testament to enduring and magical properties of living things and shows that modern science has yet to fully grasp the amazing nature of biological life. Highly recommended. (Dr. Simeon Hein is the author of Opening Minds: A Journey of Extraordinary Encounters, Crop Circles, and Resonance and the forthcoming Planetary Intelligence.)



4. This book was amazing, it changed how I looked at transplants. What the patients go thru, and there are times that the Doctors want to only think CLINICALLY, but there are times and instances that you have to look beyond, and believe what you don't see and trust in that.



5. After reading "The Heart's Code" by Paul Pearsall and now this book I am convinced we are just beginning to scratch the surface of the science of transplant information and details about the heart and how it controls personality.

   It is a proven fact that heart patients who are ill have a sudden change in temperment and also proven that transplant patients take on some characteristics of the donor.

   There was a case of a nun who received the heart of a prostitute (absolutely true story) and many more in Paul's book and this book seems to focus on one true story of one woman.

   You have to be careful though, if you've had open heart surgery or are waiting on a transplant it can get a bit emotionally heavy as you related to her having to face death. Watch the dark tones and you'll be fine as you read the info. The object is to come away having learned some secrets of what to expect and those are very very interesting.

   There was also a case of a transplant recipient who began using vocabulary words from the donor and then later when the patient met the donor's family and used those rare words randomly they were floored. Good read.

2 comments about The Sun in My Eyes: Two-Wheeling East.

1. Amazon seems to have several negative reviews of Josie Dew's books that I find baffling. I've just finished a second book of hers (Sun in My Eyes) and thought it was excellent. Perhaps other reviewers haven't spent days (and weeks) cycling over mountains and through rainstorms. Josie Dew seems to do this with aplomb, and her writing is interesting and full of informative detail about Japan.
   
   In fact, Ms. Dew is full of praise for rural Japan and the overwhelming generosity of the people that she encountered. She has done her homework in researching the history of Japan and interweaving it through her story in an interesting way.
   
   The best compliments are that I was sorry to see the book end, that I plan to buy others of her books, and that her book inspires me to try a cycling trip to Japan.



2. A buddy lent this to me to read on a trip. I had read her other Japan book and thought it was horrible. This one has improved little, although this time she did not spend page after page reporting on what the Armed Forces radio was playing. She has turned into a Japan explainer of the type we had years ago and thought we were rid of when the "revisionist school" became accepted. Well, now we have a quasi bike story and a quasi chrysanthinum club J-apologist hybrid. Overly long, nothing new or deep about Japan. Not much a a travel tale either. ...