No comments about Choosing You: Deciding to Have a Baby on My Own.

5 comments about And I Don't Want to Live This Life: A Mother's Story of Her Daughter's Murder.

1. I loved the book by johnny Lydon [Rotten: No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs]
   I bought this book after reading Johnny Lydon's book but this one was a let down.
   Sid Vicious was a hot looking punk star and lots of girls (me to) still love him.
   I read a little of this book but it's mostly lady who gets pregnant and she complains and my kid drives me nuts and i wish i had a abortion, blah blah my kid's going to the funny farm,lol,if it wasn't so full of "I this" and "I that"and 'I wanted to go to college, but she was in my way" it could've maybe been a little interesting.
   Whining and complaining just turned me off and I doubt I'll ever finish it. It's like "Diary of a whiny housewife".
   If anybody knows where I can geta copy of Ann Beverly's Family Album please help.



2. This book is very dark and full of contradiction, written by a haunted, troubled author about her daughter who had deep emotional problems, a constant hunger for love , terrible insecurity.The child suffers from feelings of inferiority. A daughter who strove toward academic achievement to win approval of her parents.
   The book unnecessarily documents the affair of the author with a married man.The author includes her lengthy and boring suspicions of her husband's infidelity as well as lots of filler on her troubled marriage.
   
   Although the author writes deep feelings and thoughts, the book fails to fill in the entire picture. It leaves the reader frustrated that so many very pertinent issues are not addressed substantially. She provides psychiatric assessments of the child by a few psychiatrists, but all fails and it needn't have. And here's why...
   
   The child is put on Thorazine by a qualified psychiatrist. The author takes the child off of it. Not giving psyche drugs a fair trial. The possibility of benefiting from this one medication is taken away from the child. I wondered how and why would a parent unjustifiably halt a very possible cure for her own child! She says it's because she found her daughter sleepy and groggy. "This wasn't my Nancy".
   
   Initially all medications of this type have a very, very sedating effect, and the child wasn't on it long enough for the prescribing doctor to titrate the medication to the ideal dosage. This was a chance to live more normal life for the child and it was taken away from her by her own mother.
   Enter Dr. Spungeon. Exit hope for the sick child.
   
   I found this book irritating.
   
   There's hope for us all. For Nancy too, had she been allowed medical treatment. I don't believe Ms. Spungeon had studied medicine or psychiatry, she discontinued Thorazine at the expense of the child's life.The psychiatric and medical providers did not fail the child.Her mother did !
   
   This is a very morbid book, weakly written and very contradicting.
   
   What could have been a story with a happy ending is a story which concludes in the murder of her ill child.



3. I love this book. I had a copy several years ago but lost it in a move. I was in college during the time period of Nancy Spungeon's death & remember wondering what happened to her. Mrs. Spungeon was honest with what life had been like with & for Nancy. I applaud her courage to write about her family's life & their pain.



4. This book is very sad.The way the girl really had no one who understood her exept Sid Vicious is sad.He could not help her.
   I have a friend in school like this and she is doing well.She has a good foster home with parents who take an interest in her and keep her on her medicine.
   This book can't help anyone with a family member whose disturbed.I cant recomend it for anybody as a help book because they never figured out whats wrong with Nancy and it's just real painful to read.



5. This book about a very disturbed girl and the pressure and toils on her family is very interesting.It is also extremly sad because there is no cure for the girl and as the tittle lets you know,she eventually dies.Murdered by an equaly disturbed boyfriend and member of the Sex Pistols.I recomend this book especially for schizophrenec awareness.

No comments about Laughing in the Dark: A Comedian's Journey through Depression.

5 comments about Lessons I Learned in the Dark: Steps to Walking by Faith, Not by Sight.

1. I loved this book. As it teaches us how people with vision problems have to go though. I have worked with the visual handicap and believe me they can do alot of things you think they cant. A big thanks to the author Jennifer Rothschild. Everyone should read this book.



2. Loved the book! Inspiring! Unique "look" at the lessons learned from loss of sight! I loved the "play" on words!



3. Jennifer Rothchild touches our very souls with her encounters with God and his majesty. We begin to "see" for the first time just how powerful and mighty our Heavenly Father can be to his children. While we listen to her stories dealing with her family and her life as a vibrant mother and lecturer, we often forget she is doing all these wonderful things under the cover of darkness. We forget because there is no darkness in Jennifer's soul. Each chapter, enriched by a personal poem or song, introduces us to the holy love and power of Jesus Christ. Uplifting and encouraging, this book begins a journey for us, and we want to walk alongside this amazing woman for the rest of our days. There is no doubt how much she loves the Lord, and this love enables her to make some wonderful connections to his power and light. I loved this book and would definitely recommend it to anyone who wants to "see" the big picture when it comes to religion, overcoming handicap, emotional triumph, and even awkward moments of victory. As Jennifer runs across a busy street, our thoughts go along with her. Jennifer may have learned lessons in the dark, but she walks in the light of the love of the lamb. That light touches the souls of her readers and transmutes us all to her own special way of seeing. I cannot wait to read more books by this wonderful author.



4. Jennifer Rothschild writes to make us SEE! She is a wonder and a role model for anyone and everyone. Courage is her badge and the word NEVER enters her life. I honor her and hope to have as much courage and endurance in my life as she does.



5. I had been looking forward to reading about the Lessons learned by a blind person but I was not prepared for Sunday School lessons with each learning experience. I feel the book would have been much better with a little less preaching.

5 comments about The Nazi Officer's Wife: How One Jewish Woman Survived the Holocaust.

1. While the focus of the story is how one woman survived the holocaust, the title sensationalizes a small part of the story (in fact, her husband wasn't a Nazi Officer until the German's were losing the war and drafting anyone left).
   
   This is a book about one individual's survival, in large part due to some amazing luck and some good people. It is NOT a book of how the author used her fortune or took extraordinary risks to help others. Not that there's anything wrong about that. It was a time where no one should be judged for doing what they had to do to survive...and you have to admire anyone who did. Its jut different than the books on the true heroes of this time. The kindness and the weak moments is the human norm and we see both extremes in many of the principle characters, including both of the men who loved the author was well. So its a different story and any documented history of this horrible time is one we should all remember.
   
   Its not the best writing but it gets better and is easily readable. I wanted to give this 4 stars because any true story from this time is recommended reading; however its far from the best I've read. If you want to read an uplifting story about a woman who risks her luck to help others, I'd highly recommend "In My Hands" but Irena Opdyke.



2. I would give 2 and a half stars. This is a good read in that any account of human experiences is important to remind us of the evils in the world, and human resilience nevertheless. The writing, however, is too rudimentary, and one dimensional.



3. This book wasn't horrible, but it wasn't great either. This woman was smart, but the tale could have been told better so that there was a bit more profoundness in it.



4. Edith Hahn Beer was a law student in Austria when the Nazis moved in. In this books she relates the abuses she endured in a work camp. This novel focuses on how she spent the whole time in sort of a denial. While her family spent money to help her sisters and family leave Edith and her mother stayed, due to lack of money and the fact that edith didn't want to leave her boyfriend Pepi.
   
   When Edith realized that Pepi wasn't going to marry her or help her and her mother was missing, Edith decides to go underground. She gets a set of papers from a friend and flees to Munich. There she meets a man named Werner who is a nazi party member. He is very insistent that Edith marry him, even after Edith confesses she is jewish.
   
   Edith spends the rest of the war as a robotic nazi wife. You feel sorry for her and wonder how she could have survived the daily fear and anxiety she faced at being found out. She doesn't really talk much about Werner. She mentions his crazy outburst and supposes that his twistedness is what made him marry her. Edith managed to survive the war and got back her identity when the war ended although it lost her her husband Werner.
   
   I applaud Edith's courage and resourcefulness. It is interesting to read about a jewish person who not only lived among the nazi's during the war but actually married one! However the majority of the book does focus on her life before she married Werner. It more of how one Jewish woman survived the war and had married a nazi to do it.



5. This was a great book. For non-fiction it read a lot like a novel and was very interesting. The author is honest in her story and displays her emotions very well. This book shows an in-depth and vivid look at how U-boats survived during the Holocaust and World War Two.

No comments about The Glitter and the Gold.

5 comments about Composing a Life.

1. I really wanted to love this book. It came highly recommended. The first 15 pages were great--I thought this would be a seminal read. But then things took a nosedive. Ultimately, this book felt to me like a self-indulgent intellectual ramble, and excuse for author to vent her bitterness toward Amherst College and get even by airing her story. (Which she has every right to do, but I thought I was reading a different book.) In the end, my only takeaway is that wearing multiple hats, perhaps in succession, can be a positive thing. I still don't understand what the plight of the homeless has to do with figurative improvisation. Perhaps I'm just not smart enough to appreciate the nuances--but I definitely didn't. Original? Yes. Uplifting/inspiring? Nope. I really tried!



2. I agree with the previous reviewers that mentioned the scope of the book is narrow focused, in that it certainly deals with the life of 5 successful women all middle to upper class. Still, if you are in the situation of dealing with multiple tasks at the same time - and so many women nowadays are, independent of the country where they live or how they came into it - this book is really helpful in giving a different and flexible approach to the way we ought to view our career and marriage choices, and what not to think when faced with adversity.
   The novelty for me (and the help in it) was the author's approach in the fluidity of our choices, and how deleterious the idea that we should always be doing the same thing (job, marriages, etc.) might be. The main point of the book is that change and fluidity are the normal standards for a succesfull and fulfilling life in the 20 (21) century, and how the idea of always doing the same thing for the rest of one's life is generally doomed to failure. So, the author focuses on the changes these women have made to come to terms with their (very succesfull)lifes. Very interesting read.



3. This book was, I'm sure, timely 20 years ago, but you will struggle to get anything out of it this day in age. Plus, the author states in the introduction that she is not bitter about her time at Amherst, but the text of the book makes her seem extremely bitter.



4. This book examines the lives of five of the author's friends, all highly educated, high-achieveing women from the East Coast who went through the normal ups and downs of life that the rest of us share. It is well written, but the focus is so tight--how many of us get entangled with academic politics at elite Eastern colleges?--that is tells more about the writer and her choice of similar friends than about the rest of us. It does a fine job of focusing on issues of gender and race of 20 years ago.



5. How refreshing - a book about 5 entrepreneurial women who had 'normal' lives - marriages, children, divorce, earning an advanced degree in their 40's! This is real life - and each of the stars in this book invited life to get in the way rather than lamenting how life's events prohibited achievement of dreams, goals and aspirations.
   
   A great read for every woman contemplating her future!
   
   Susan Bock
   Business Coach
   Susan Bock Solutions
   [...]

No comments about No Man's Land.

5 comments about My Life as a Traitor.

1. This is a story of a woman's ordeal of humiliation and torture for no reason other than she desired some small freedoms in her life and the lives of her people.
   With much of what we see in the news daily, it is easy to see Iran and its entire people as our enemy. This is not the case and we should never forget the people there who long to just be allowed to wear pink shoes and feel the sun on their hair.
   Well done Zarah, great book, I hope everyone reads it and I am happy to know that you have found freedom and peace. I pray that the country of Iran will also find freedom and that it's people will know the joy of pink shoes and sunshine.



2. This is an excellent, touching and mesmerizing story of courage and suffering. Ghahramani reveals her innemorst feelings throughout in a disarming way. Well written and interesting from the first to the last page. Brutality and torture are described vividly, yet not in a crude or brutal way. A good read and a must for everyone.



3. There are a number of good books out there on the atrocities that have gone on in the prisons of Iran and Iraq. What makes this book unique is that it explores in a very personal way the mind set of the tortured prisoner. The author does an excellent job of explaining her thoughts and feelings while incarcerated. She gives the torture she endured a very personal quality by explaining how even the smallest of psychological details were used to advantage by her captors, e.g., endless waiting and uncertainty, use of details about family to extract confessions, restricted personal hygiene, appeals to her vanity, etc. While the physical torture that she was subjected to was not as severe as that chronicled in some other books, it is clear that the psychogical component was inescapably devastating. A very open and honest recounting of human fraility and exploration of self. It will have you asking "What indeed is courage?"



4. The book is well-written and its a story that needs to be told---to help us understand oppression and the violation of human rights in today's Iran, and the dangerous conclusions arrived at by religious extremists who cause a inordinate amount of suffering in the world. However, it troubles me to know that this author, now safe in Australia, told details that could result in suffering for family and friends remaining in Iran. Zarah Ghahraman knows that the current regime tortures perceived ideological "enemies".
   
   Meanwhile, the Iranian government goes after adolescents who engage in age-appropriate teenage rebellions against authority. This is both ridiculous and dangerous and shows they are not fit to lead! The government's abuse is a far greater threat to their leadership than any student protests.



5. I could not put this down. I finished in a day and can't wait to pass this one to a friend. The human spirt is stronger than we can imagine.

5 comments about Dijiste Que Me Queras: Como Sobrellevar lo Impensable.

1. Este es un gran libro basado en la realidad de los hechos, y que nos hace reflexionar profundamente sobre nuestras relaciones de pareja.
   Se lo recomiendo a todos.



2. I have been watching Maria Antonieta Collins on Spanish television for a long time now--first as an anchorwoman for Univision and now as the presenter on Cada Dia, a popular morning variety show on Telemundo. She seems like a very nice person, all smiles and joviality in front of the camera. But no one knew what was hiding behind her smiles and perkiness. As her career skyrocketed, her personal life got worse and worse. She finally revealed everything during a very emotional interview with Maria Celeste Arraras on Telemundo. (Collins, who considers Arraras her friend, reported that she was "hurt" and "dismayed" with some of MC's questions. As a fellow journalist, she should understand that Arraras had to put friendship aside and ask the hard-hitting questions.) She talked about her husband's battle with cancer, and how she'd been his rock and strength throughout his illness. But that was the least of it. She revealed that her husband had been unfaithful and committed bigamy. He was married to a woman in Colombia while he was married to her! In Dijistes Que Me Querías: Como Sobrellevar lo Impensable (You Told Me You Loved Me: How to Survive the Unthinkable), she writes in detail the entire thing she had to go through after she found out, and about her decision to stay with him after he discovered he had cancer. This is one of the most heartbreaking memoirs I have read, but it ends with a hopeful tone. Collins gives advice on what to do after you discover your spouse has been cheating and how to pick up signs of deceit. This is a self-help book as well as a memoir, and it pulls at the heartstrings. I have nothing but respect for this Emmy-award winning journalist, and I wish her the very best. She deserves it.



3. Nunce crei que leer este libro me hubiera abierto los ojos a lo que puede vivir cualquier mujer. El libro esta escrito con tanto dolor que termina uno odiando a tipo y hechandole porras a una excelente mujer. Es de mucho aprendizaje. yo solo lo habia comprado para que mi mama tuviera algo para leer durante su recuperacion y terminamos leyendo mi tia y prima y yo. Bravo por la senora Collins y su leccion a la fortaleza y el perdon. La pregunta que me hago es que si yo me hubiera dado cuenta de una infidelidad Perdonaria?



4. The product arrived before the time that I expected even though it was during the holidays and I thought it would be delayed. The product also arrived in excellent condition. Thank You.



5. La verdad no esperaba aprender mucho de este libro cuando me lo regalo una amistad. Pero, una vez que comenze a leerlo no pude parar hasta llegar al final. Parece sacado de una telenovela, pero es la realidad. Admito que aprendi muchisimo de el, porque cada tragedia incluye lecciones de como sobrevivirlas.
   Encontre varias faltas de cuidado en la edicion, que aunque no quita de la calidad del libro, si se ve feo.