5 comments about Edith Wharton (Vintage).

1. This biography of Edith Wharton features lots of detail, some newly presented, but not as much organization or insight as one would hope for. I wonder if Lee not being American was one reason for this: she can be excellent in some of her analyses--of some of Wharton's novels, especially of "Ethen Frome," for example--but doesn't seem to come to an overall understanding of Wharton that satisfies me. This is like some other biographies that are touted as "major" in that the biographer is piling up the details, but perhaps getting lost in them. Lee is a talented biographer, and she questions the accepted wisdom regarding some of the phases of Wharton's life, but this is not her best work. Still, she makes a good case for Wharton's strength of character and ability to deal with her life's difficulties while continuing to produce first rate work. Wharton's greatness as a writer is what we don't entirely see in Lee's account.



2. I recommend this book to anyone with an interest in E.W.'s fiction. I have read the previous reviews, which together give a very good idea of the scope of the book. In short, reading this will help the student of literature become better acquainted with the context of Wharton's work. Hermione Lee does a masterful job of weaving her analysis of Wharton's fiction into the biographical montage. I say montage because this book is not a chronological synopsis of E.W.'s life; rather, one has to wade through the chapters and sometimes backtrack to figure out where in time, exactly, Lee is pulling the reader. I relied on other sources to help with chronology in this case.



3. Edith Newbold "Pussy" Jones was born into a wealthy and socially prominent New York family in 1862. Her father was cold and distant. He was involved in real estate transactions. Her mother Lucretia was not a good mentor for her precocious bookworm daughter. Edith had two older brothers. Her childhood was lonesome punctuated by long trips to the cities of Europe (her father died in Cannes). Edith received no formal schooling but fed her retentive mind by study in her father's library. Wharton was a passionate reader and author from a very early age. She received no encouragement from her parents being married off to the much older Edward "Teddy" Wharton in 1885. Teddy was bipolar loving horses, drinkiing and playing cards with his buddies. Their marriage was a disaster ending in divorce after 25 years of life together. The couple were childless.
   Edith had a passionate affair at 45 with Morton Fullerton a newspaperman in Paris who had countless affairs. The couple never married but remained friendly until Edith's death in 1937.
   Edith was a Francophile who did a good deal of relief work during the first world war winning several honors from the French government. In politics she was conservative. Wharton was antisemitic, snobbish and looked down upon persons of color. She was a control freak who demanded excellence in her writing and life. Edith traveled widely for over 50 years staying in the best hotels; eating in great restaurants and exploring art museums, libraries and concerts. What a life of privilege!!!
   Wharton never married following the divorce from Teddy. Mrs. Wharton did have several lifelong male friends most notably Walter Barry the President of the Paris version of the US Chamber of Commerce. She was also friendly with novelist Aldous Huxley, art historian Bernard Bernson and several lady friends. The great novelist Henry James was her most famous literary pal. She is often compared to James in her writing style. Hermione Lee says as far as we know all of these friendships were platonic. Wharton's friendships were with the wealthy and artistic elite. The novelist was a consummate snob who was, nevertheless, viewed as being kind and loyal by her friends.
   Edith Wharton wrote many novels among the most famous being "The Custom of the Country"; "Ethan Frome"; "The Age of Innocence"; "Glimpses of the Moon" and "Summer". Wharton was a prolific short story author selling her tales to magazines. Her focus was on the wealthy. She dealt with marriage. incest, New York society and the the sexual mores of the well to do. She was disdained by the younger authors of the 1920s for being old fashioned. She wrote in an elegant style noted for its daring subject matter.
   Hermione Lee is the author of Virginia Woolf as well as this biography on Wharton. The book is 800 pages long dealing in incredible detail with such topics as:
   a. Wharton's love life and divorce from Teddy.
   b. Wharton's many gardens and her books on gardening.
   c. Close descriptions of all the fabulous homes Edith owned which are shown in several pictures included in the book.
   d A description of the most important travels Wharton made in her life.
   e. Short but well informed synopses and critical comments on her novels and short stories. We also get a glimpse of her poetry.
   f. Discussions of the lives of her closest friends.
   g. A loving review of Edith Wharton's World War I volunteer service to France.
   After finishing this book I admire Wharton for her dedication to the craft of novel authorship. Wharton was a woman of high standards and loyalty to her friends. She could be frosty but was kind. Her love for animals, friends in need and loving care for aging servants is commendable. Her snobbish disdain for those of different races or religions is not appreciated (She converted to Roman Catholicism in her last few years.). Wharton was a born storyteller who can still hold the interest of the modern reader.
   Hermione Lee is an excellent biographer who knows literature. Her biography of Edith Wharton is a wonderful book for those willing to devote the hours needed to read the lengthy text.



4. I just finished Hermione Lee's biography, which took me roughly a month to finish (I usually don't spend more than a few days on a book.), and its girth occasionally hurt my back. (That's a joke...) I have not read other biographies Lee has written (though I do own "Virginia Woolf", and was impressed with Lee's insight of Woolf on the DVD of "The Hours"), so I can't compare, but I gather the Virginia Woolf biography is very good. I have read other biographies of Edith Wharton; R.W.B. Lewis', and Cynthia Griffin Woolf's excellent "A Feast of Words", and Lee's is an exhaustive reiteration of much that has come before, with some subtle additions and revisions of thought. I have a new vision of Wharton during her "Neurasthenic" period, which struck her early in marriage. She gardened, wrote and traveled extensively, whereas I had the impression she was bed-ridden and slightly invalid. The life force of Edith Wharton appears to have been astonishing and exhausting. Very few of us would pass her formidable "muster", and I understand completely why Henry James labeled her "The Angel of Devastation" (Disappointing discovery that James was virulently anti-suffrage).
   
   The book is at times, dispassionately academic. It has moments, and at its best one has the sense that Lee is weaving, or knitting, a complete picture of who Edith Wharton might actually have been. Yes, there are some things we will never know, but I get the idea. Some chapters moved along briskly, other didn't (for me). The chapter called "Italian Backgrounds" is loaded with minute detail about those kinds of gardens and Wharton's interest in them (as you would guess from the title). I'm not a gardener, however, and found myself losing interest - there is A LOT of description of Italian Gardens. Illustrations would have helped (me). I did enjoy HL's analysis of EW's Italian novel "The Valley of Decision" (the book is completely worth it for the analysis of the Wharton's writings. I wish Penguin, or N.Y.R.B, or Vintage would publish an affordable and attractive edition of "The Valley of Decision") As another reviewer observed, the book does get bogged down with detail from time to time. While I certainly couldn't write such a book (I disagree with the assertion that it was not well researched, on the contrary, the research seems dizzying and at the very least thorough: nothing is perfect.), I'm impressed that Hermione Lee did.
   
   Wharton comes across as delightfully bitchy with the upper classes. The Breakers is described as a "Thermopylae of Bad Taste". Mrs. Wharton, on a tour of a wealthy acquaintances' home, was informed that this was the woman's "Louis Quinze Room", to which Mrs. Wharton replied, looking about through her lorgnette, "Why, my dear?" (Her knowledge of architecture and historical interiors was encyclopedic, and would currently entitle her to a Masters Degree. She would have several, in fact... and a Doctorate or two.) In a letter she stated that an unnamed party "...decided to have books in their library." Her story "The Line of Least Resistance" borrowed too closely from an angered Emily Sloane's personal life, and Ogden Codman may have summed up Edith best saying, " Poor Pussy is of course very unpopular... she goes out of her way to be rude to people."
   
   Most familiar with EW know how involved she was with the building and all details of each new Wharton residence, and there were many. One of the virtues of Lee's book is that we get a complete view of events; the timelines, the day-to-day occurrences in the process (es), also the transgressions (notably with Ogden Codman and the building of the Mount.) It is clear that Edith (or "Puss") wore the pants in the family. Teddy comes across as an affable, but slightly bumbling, "Club" man of the "Old Chap" sportsman type. He was not intellectually inclined, and hopelessly mismatched with the polar opposite Edith Jones.
   
   The latter half of the book is dedicated to Wharton's life in France; her affair with Morton Fullerton, homes in the Rue De Varenne (and social place in The Faubourg.), and of course her valiant, tireless war work, all covered in great detail. Interesting that Proust may have been a translator of "The House of Mirth", and though she and Proust were many times over connected socially, they never met. The pairing is a no-brainer, and bearing in mind Wharton's conscious or unconscious predilection for homosexual companions (Henry James, Andre Gide to name a few - even her passionate mid-life love affair was with the prodigiously bi-sexual Fullerton), it's possible that Proust and Wharton would have been great friends, though Lee points out that Proust was primarily interested in Countesses. When read together "The House of Mirth", "The Custom of the Country" (read it if you haven't - it's one of EW's most satisfying, ruthless, and well-written novels.), and "The Age of Innocence" (more sublime with every reading), could be compared to Wharton's miniature version of Proust. Have your French dictionary ready though, as there is much quotation of letters written in French with minimal translation - another category (like architecture, and gardening) in which Lee assumes her reader has a working knowledge.
   
   I had hoped there might be more information about Wharton's frosty mother Lucretia, and Edith's relationship with her. Lee points out that little written material relating to her parents has survived. However, Lee suggests that Wharton's own haughty nature may have been an inherited trait of Mama, and that "Lu" is front and center in many, many instances of Wharton's writing. Wharton was candid in her version of her mother. I wonder if it ever occured to her that she may have been more similar to Lucretia than different. (Perhaps Lily's mother in "The House of Mirth", who expresses distaste at people who "live like pigs" is a sketch of Lucretia Jones) It's been commonly thought that Lucretia had Edith's young poetry published in a volume titled "Verses" in Newport, but it was more likely her more intellectually sympathetic fathers's doing. Which makes more sense, as one pictures the exasperation Mother must have felt with the bafflingly intelligent Edith - forcing Mama to entertain her friends while the child is seized with the urge to "Make-Up" (write stories)
   
   All in all, "Edith Wharton" is an exhaustively researched biography of considerable merit. There were sections that moved ahead with full steam, and some that sort of drag (for me) and need to be plowed through in order to finish, but I certainly don't resent the information. For the most part it has beautifully "woven" quality about it. It does seem that it would benefit with more editing; the amount of smaller (I hesitate to say lesser) detail is mind numbing. Her great friendship with Henry James is beautifully documented. Included is the account of the elaborate hoax she and James New York publisher orchestrated in order to give James a generous advance on a future book (meant to bolster his flagging self-esteem), which was really just a very generous monetary gift from Edith. The analysis of stories and novels is excellent, and well worth the price of admission. I read in an interview of Hermione Lee that she felt she would not be thought "smart enough" if she were actually able to meet Edith Wharton. Perhaps the length and breadth stems from that thought, that she is writing to prove herself worthy of her subject. I think Ms. Lee may rest easy with her next subject: she is a perfectly capable biographer.
   
   Also recommended: Cynthia Griffin Wolff's "A Feast of Words", a tightly written compellingly analyzed study of Mrs. Wharton



5. I plowed through the first fifty pages or so before putting this book aside in digust. Topics are introduced, dropped, revisited, then dropped again at random, adding to both the page count and the reader's confusion. Simple facts are wrong -- Lee states that The Breakers, the Vanderbilt home in Newport, cost $200 million to build, when in fact the estimates for the cost are closer to $7 million. ( If Lee can make a whopper like that, I start to question every other statement of fact.) Her aunt Elizabeth's Hudson River home is Wyndeclife, not Wyndeliffe. And as a long-time New Yorker familiar with all the geography of Manhattan, I also started to wonder if Lee ever actually walked the sites she talks about. West 14th Street isn't now, nor was it ever, considered Gramercy Park!

5 comments about Child Of The Dark: The Diary Of Carolina Maria De Jesus.

1. Not the best book about Brazil in general, probably a well not the best book about Favelas (though it does have a lot of stark, references about the social and corrupt political institutions bringing down the country).
   
   For starters the writer or author Carolina Maria De Jesus is a very ignorant, bitter, arrogant and hard woman exclamation on the bitter part. While she raises many question about what is causing the misery in the Favela and the country in general her messages gets lost amidst her constant complaining, and torrid gossip about her neighbors, townspeople, the rich upper class and other people. I mean part of this book is no doubt her attempt at trying to get back at a lot of people who mistreated her but stuff like telling the reader "such and such couple fought", and "this guy stole this", or any another needless gossip (which takes up most of the book) is just tabloid trash that she was willing to sell the highest bidder. It's no wonder when the Diary was finally published a lot of people hated her and why not? She seems to have brought that all on herself.
   
   I mean from an objective point of view certainly Maria could see that such idiotic details as what couple broke up and robbery took place would be needless details in a book that is supposed to be bringing in themes about the lousy politicians Brazil has had, the way the police do nothing about crime and the way certain social institutions who are there to serve the poor only spit on them.
   
   She does both but she ends doing more of the sordid tabloid dirty stuff that you would on the eleven o'clock news. It also seems at times that she thinks she is better than the Favelas around her even though she herself can be looked as a tramp (having sex with a man who never gave her anything), then using obscene and even racist speech in her diary.
   
   When I finally got to the end of the book, I was disappointed expecting more but getting nothing. All in all it's an ok read but there certainly much better books out there about the Favela and Brazil itself.



2. The autobiographies of poor people from places far from the middle class worlds of rich countries never used to appear in book stores. It was indeed rare that such lives, however interesting, difficult, inspiring or depressing would ever show up on the shelves. But such is the modern world that nowadays we do get occasional chances to glimpse other lives, hear other voices. In "From the Land of Green Ghosts" we could read of the life of a member of the Padaung tribe in Burma; in "Notes from the Hyena's Belly", we read about a small town Ethiopian. Both these men were not poor in their own societies, but went through the traumas of war and revolution before escaping to the calmer West. The adventures of Tete-Michel Kpomassie, a Togolese villager who made it all the way to Greenland, provide another type of narrative. CHILD OF THE DARK, a book written by a Brazilian woman from the very bottom of society, is yet another kind of these rare narrations, and moreover, was one of the first to appear. Carolina Maria de Jesus, a black mother of three with a second grade education, abandoned by all the men in her life, raised her kids in one of the worst slums of Sao Paulo. She picked trash and paper to sell to junk dealers, cadged bones from a slaughterhouse to make soup, collected squashed tomatoes from behind a cannery, and scavenged thrown away food items from the garbage of richer streets. Writing a diary every day helped her to persevere through years of hardship, to escape for a few moments, her hunger, misery, and constant worry. Through a chance encounter with a journalist, her diary was eventually published and she became a celebrity in Brazil back in the early 1960s. She left her hand-to-mouth existence and moved out of the favela forever. Her book is the only one of its kind from that time. [She had a hard time coping with her new life, though, and died in poverty in 1977.]
   
   It's not all sweetness and light, not all a goody goody, morally uplifting Cinderella tale. She sometimes beat her kids, she slept with various suitors, abused "substances", and reported to the police on her neighbors (not that they didn't deserve it). She also has bad things to say about Portuguese, gypsies, and Jews. But OK, most all this is a story of human survival. De Jesus eked out a meagre living amidst squalor and constant quarreling, drunkenness and the sexual antics of the poorest members of Brazilian society, yet she bore up, kept writing, and made many observations about the society that produced such misery, the politicians who came around to ask for votes and then never appeared again. Brazil has no doubt changed in the last half century, but I believe this most human life story is still extremely relevant, both for Brazil and the rest of the world. How many Carolinas is it going to take ?



3. Caroline Maria de Jusus was born a[...] in poverty and went to only the second grade. She lived most of her adult life in poverty and her children were labeled [...]. She wanted to write and did. She became a writer of international reputation. Her book has been read by people around the world and in the United States. Her work stands with that of Victor Frankl in "MAN'S SEARCH FOR MEANING," and "BLACK ELK SPEAKS" an American Sioux, and with Frederick Douglass' NARRATIVE LIFE.
   
   CHILD OF THE DARK, is a must read for anyone who wants to understand and to challenge the values and standards of a civilization (ours) that degrades human life for fun and profit.



4. This book is great in the respect that it captures the experiences of someone living in extreme poverty and how she deals with the daily struggle of survival.



5. This book is truly an eye opener as to what it really means to be poor and hungry. I can't believe that someone with only two years of schooling could churn out such a masterpiece, the language and thought processes involved will leave you wondering with amazement. What suprises you is that in and amongst all the squalor, deprivation, fights and hunger she still admires the night sky, the birds, the stars, the beautiful weather. What a woman ! Most people in her position wouldn't have time to be thankful for these "free" beautiful things and that is what I found so touching. Her dedication to her children and indeed her neighbours will teach all us other mortals in the devleoped world what being humble really means. At times this woman cannot find a meal but when she has money and food she shares it with her friends and neighbours, wondering little if she will have a meal the next day. Her ability to keep going despite her adversities will shock you. Please read this book, you will aspire to be a better person afterwards.

5 comments about One Writer's Beginnings (The William E. Massey Sr. Lectures in the History of American Civilization).

1. I just recently read this again--each time it grows on me even more. It's a deceptively simple memoir that grows more complex in its structure and style with each re-reading. It's subjective memory at its best, and W's style is just a joy. I'm just back from Jackson, the best place to go after reading the book.



2. I spent my vacation absorbing this book. I had heard of Eudora Welty, but this was my first opportunity to read her writing. I sat in Kentucky, listened to the cicadas singing, and read the words of Miss. Welty. Glorious!



3. "Listening," "Learning to See" and "Finding a Voice," Eudora Welty entitled the three chapters of her autobiography "One Writer's Beginnings." And while these may be steps that most writers will undergo at some point, Welty's compact memoir is notable both because it allows a rare glimpse into the celebrated writer's otherwise fiercely protected private life and it illustrates the roots from which sprang such extraordinary protagonists as "The Ponder Heart"'s Edna Earle and Daniel Ponder, Miss Eckhart and the Morgana families in "The Golden Apples" and, of course, the anti-heroes of her Pulitzer Prize winning novel "The Optimist's Daughter," Judge McKelva, his second wife Fay and (most importantly) his daughter Laurel.
   
   A native and -- with minimal exceptions -- lifelong resident of Jackson, Mississippi, Welty received her first introduction to storytelling as a listener; and early on, learned to sharpen her ears not only to a story's contents but also to its narrator and its protagonists' individual nature: "[T]here [never was] a line read that I didn't hear," and "any room ... at any time of day, was there to read in, or to be read to," she notes in "One Writer's Beginnings," adding that the discovery that all those stories had been written by someone, not come into existence of their own, not only surprised but also severely disappointed her. Equally importantly, family visits to relatives brought out the born observer in her; each trip providing its own lessons and revelations, each a story onto itself -- the seed from which later grew her manifold unforgettable literary creations. At the same time, her father's interest in technology introduced her to photography as a means of capturing visual impressions, one moment at a time; and when traveling around Mississippi as an agent for a state agency (her first job) she learned to use that camera as "a hand-held auxiliary of wanting-to-know" and discovered that "to be able to capture transience, by being ready to click the shutter at the crucial moment, was [then] the greatest need I had." Not surprisingly, her photography was published in several collections which have found much acclaim in their own right.
   
   Thus, from early childhood on, Eudora Welty not only had a keen sense of the world around her but also, of words as such: of their existence as much as the interrelation between their sound, physical appearance and the things they stand for. Encouraged by her mother, a teacher, and over her father's worries (he considered fiction writing an occupation of dubitable financial promise and, worse, inferior to fact because it was "not true"), Welty embarked on a writer's path which would lead her to award-winning heights and to a reputation as one of the South's finest writers, with as abounding as obvious comparisons to fellow Mississippian William Faulkner in particular; a literary debt she acknowledged when she wrote that "his work, though it can't increase in itself, increases us" and "[w]hat is written in the South from now on is going to be taken into account by Faulkner's work" ("Must the Novelist Crusade?", 1965).
   
   An approach that Welty herself developed early on was to consider the publication of her short stories in periodicals merely a step towards each story's final shape, and she generally revised her stories before including them in their various collections. -- Not only a keen observer, she was also a writer endowed with a sharp sense of humor and satire, and with the gift to brilliantly use location, localisms, accents, patterns of speech and customs to make a point.
   
   Yet, "[t]here is no explanation outside fiction for what its writer is learning to do," Eudora Welty maintained in "Writing and Analyzing a Story;" explaining that each story references only the writer's vision at the moment of the creation of that very story, and the creative process itself: nothing that can be "mapped and plotted" but a product taking shape within the process of its creation as such, thus giving each story a unique identity of its own. And considering her reluctance to comment on, or to explain her own fiction writing, the insights into that creative process's origins she allowed her readers in "One Writer's Beginnings" are all the more to be treasured.
   
   Also recommended:
   Eudora Welty : Stories, Essays & Memoir (Library of America, 102)
   Eudora Welty : Complete Novels: The Robber Bridegroom, Delta Wedding, The Ponder Heart, Losing Battles, The Optimist's Daughter (Library of America)
   Flannery O'Connor : Collected Works : Wise Blood / A Good Man Is Hard to Find / The Violent Bear It Away / Everything that Rises Must Converge / Essays & Letters (Library of America)
   The Heart is a Lonely Hunter/Reflections in a Golden Eye/The Ballad of the Sad Cafe/The Member of the Wedding/The Clock Without Hands (Library of America)
   To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Perennial Modern Classics)
   To Kill a Mockingbird (Universal Legacy Series)



4. For someone like myself, who is fascinated by the writing process, there is no book I value more than this book by Eudora Welty. The book, beautifully illustrated with family photographs, consists of three lectures delivered by Miss Welty at Harvard University in April 1983. A paragraph written by Miss Welty and inserted at the beginning of the book, in my view, perfectly illustrates the eloquence and subtleties of biography:
   
   "When I was young enough to still spend a long time buttoning my shoes in the morning, I'd listen toward the hall: Daddy upstairs was shaving in the bathroom and Mother downstairs was frying the bacon. They would begin whistling back and forth to each other up and down the stairwell. My father would whistle his phrase, my mother would try to whistle, then hum hers back. It was their duet. I drew my buttonhook in and out and listened to it - I knew it was 'The Merry Widow.' The difference was, their song almost floated with laughter: how different from the record, which growled from the beginning, as if the Victrola were only slowly being wound up. They kept it running between them, up and down the stairs where I was now just about ready to run clattering down and show them my shoes."
   
   One Writer's Beginnings is divided into three sections, representing the three individual lectures: Listening, Learning to See, and Finding a Voice. As I read "Listening," I felt another good title for it would be "Observing." Miss Welty knows her two parents as, I believe, few children know their parents. Her acute powers of observation--the differences and similarities between these two important people in her life, their separate tastes and talents, the daily habits of their household--are insightful and fascinating to read. This section makes clear how reading and being read to were as regular a ritual in her life as eating three meals a day. I love her observation that "It had been startling and disappointing to me to find out that story books had been written by people, that books were not natural wonders, coming up of themselves like grass." The author's observations about her life and the people around her are both sensitive and incisive. I quickly realized her reason for calling this chapter "Listening." She does not merely take in the literal content of words. Since childhood, apparently, she heard the cadences of words and the less obvious message of their inner meanings. This has been a particularly helpful revelation for me. With my strict German background, I tend to respond literally to what I hear and see, to what I read and write. Even journalism today does not limit itself to mere reporting, and I gained enormously from reading Miss Welty describe this aspect of her writing. What she does so well is to convey her own feelings inherent in words rather than merely their factual content. In short, she trusts what she hears, she trusts her inner voice that listens... and this is the source of all her writing.
   
   Thus, it is not surprising to learn that Miss Welty was unable to feel comfortable with organized religion, that her reverence for the holiness and mystery of life was found in the great churches she visited and her contemplation of the King James Version of the Bible with its beginning offering: "In the beginning was the Word."
   
   In the section "Learning to See," Miss Welty describes her love of traveling--road trips in the car for shopping sprees, to visit grandparents. She writes of how Ohio (where her father grew up) had her father "around the heart" as her mother adored West Virginia from whence she came...before her parents settled in Jackson, Mississippi, where Miss Welty lived her entire life. She observes and gives examples illustrating that her father, the optimist, was the one prepared for the worst, and her mother, the pessimist, was the daredevil. How many children see their parents that clearly? In this chapter, we learn a bit about the personalities of Miss Welty's grandparents. Her observations are replete with her love of them...not merely factual recountings of their backgrounds.
   
   Perhaps it is here that another of Miss Welty's distinctions lies--her love of the people about whom she writes. Her love and respect for them is as plain between the lines as it is in the words she uses to define herself and her family in this revealing biography. My heart opens as I read her memories on the page, so filled with love are they.
   
   It is clear I love every page of this small book, but I confess that my favorite chapter is the last one--"Finding a Voice." I love it best perhaps because it tells of one particular rail trip Miss Welty took with her father and reveals how the support for her becoming a writer came from her mother. She shares her feelings about her college experience, her discovery of poetry, and a host of helpful comments to do with her writing. I love that she writes: "I was always my own teacher." She shares her belief that a writer should remain "invisble," not "effaced" but invisible. A good example of this is her description of a soldier who had unexpectedly stepped off a halted train and was walking across a field into the distance. Rather than describe what she felt in watching him disappear, Miss Welty writes from the soldier's point of view: "...I felt us going out of sight for him, diminishing and soon to be forgotten." Another helpful reminder for me was her discovery that "...all begins with the particular, never the general."
   
   There is too much of value in this book for any review to convey it adequately. However, I cannot end before quoting her last brief paragraph: "...I am a writer who came of a sheltered life. A sheltered life can be a daring life as well. For all serious daring starts from within."
   
   There could be no better ending to this treasure of a book.
   
   by Duffie Bart
   for Story Circle Book Reviews
   reviewing books by, for, and about women



5. I was assigned this book twice in college, when it first came out, and I still don't know why. It's a very nice memoir of growing up in the south, but there's little that has to do with actual writing. The same can be said for a documentary I saw of the same title - Welty is a very intelligent and charming lady, and the book and documentary tell a good deal about her early life, but that's about it.
   
   If you wish to learn how someone actually became a writer, and all the challenges of living such a life, you'd be much more rewarded by Somerset Maugham's "The Summing Up," Louis L'Amour's "Autobiography of a Wandering Man," the letters of Keats, Irving Stone's biography of Jack London, and "Women Writers at Work," in which there's a twenty-two page interview with Welty. (In fact, you can find it in the Interview archives of the Paris Review website.)
   
   So again, nothing against the author or this book as a memoir, and if you love her stories, then definitely go for it, but if you're thinking of assigning it for a writing class, or simply looking to see how someone became a writer, there are better books to learn from.

5 comments about Cuando Era Puertorriqueña.

1. This is a rich and evocative memoir of the author's chaotic childhood. Growing up in rural Puerto Rico, while often living in primitive conditions, the author's lush and lyrical prose paints a vivid picture her early life. The flavor and rythms of her island home come alive under her expert hand, creating an unforgettable picture of her early childhood.
   
   The author grew up in a poor family. During her childhood, she lived in Puerto Rico with her unmarried parents, who were always at war with each other, as her father was a somewhat irresponsible philanderer. It was her mother who centered the family and who always sought a better life for all of her children. When an irrevocable break occurred between her parents, her mother moved to New York during the nineteen sixties, eventually settling with her seven children in the mean streets of Williamsburg, Brooklyn in New York City.
   
   The author details her life's journey from rural Puerto Rico to Brooklyn. The author was transplanted to Brooklyn at the age of thirteen, and her description of her life in Brooklyn is every bit as interesting as that of her life in Puerto Rico. Her oftentimes bewildering transition from her native, Spanish speaking Puerto Rico to an English speaking environment is engagingly chronicled. The author takes the reader on her journey through Brooklyn's public school system to the prestigious High School of Performing Arts, where she graduated and went on to attend Harvard University on a scholarship.
   
   This coming of age memoir is so engagingly written that I was left with the desire of wanting to know more about the life of this remarkable woman. I was also very taken with her writing style. So, I went ahead and bought every book that this author has ever written and look forward to reading each and every one.



2. En este excelente libro Esmeralda Santiago nos introduce a sus recuerdos de la infancia en Puerto Rico como se desarrolla hasta su adultes. Utilizando su especial manera de escribir Santiago relata la dura vida que sufrieron miles de puertoriquenos a mediados de siglo, y los eventuales cambios y transformaciones sociales que le precedieron a este periodo. Cualquiera que lea este libro podra imaginarse a Negui y su familia en sus que haceres y ocurrencias. Puerto Rican or not you can read this book. It's excellent. A must read.



3. This is the Spanish text edition of "When I was Puerto Rican", a rich and evocative memoir of the author's chaotic childhood. Growing up in rural Puerto Rico, while often living in primitive conditions, the author's lush and lyrical prose paints a vivid picture her early life. The flavor and rythms of her island home come alive under her expert hand, creating an unforgettable picture of her early childhood.
   
   The author grew up in a poor family. During her childhood, she lived in Puerto Rico with her unmarried parents, who were always at war with each other, as her father was a somewhat irresponsible philanderer. It was her mother who centered the family and who always sought a better life for all of her children. When an irrevocable break occurred between her parents, her mother moved to New York during the nineteen sixties, eventually settling with her seven children in the mean streets of Williamsburg, Brooklyn in New York City.
   
   The author details her life's journey from rural Puerto Rico to Brooklyn. The author was transplanted to Brooklyn at the age of thirteen, and her description of her life in Brooklyn is every bit as interesting as that of her life in Puerto Rico. Her oftentimes bewildering transition from her native, Spanish speaking Puerto Rico to an English speaking environment is engagingly chronicled. The author takes the reader on her journey through Brooklyn's public school system to the prestigious High School of Performing Arts, where she graduated and went on to attend Harvard University on a scholarship.
   
   This coming of age memoir is so engagingly written that I was left with the desire of wanting to know more about the life of this remarkable woman. I was also very taken with her writing style. So, I went ahead and bought every book that this author has ever written and look forward to reading each and every one.



4. I bought this book at a fair. There was a "Spanish Only" book stand and I started a conversation with the lady about how homesick I was and she said this is what I needed to read. I'm a younger generation, but I loved it because my Grandmother was not from the city so I read a lof of things that reminded me of her. But there were even some expressions and cultural aspects that have obviously remained the same. The book was extremely interesting and I cried and laughed (and I tend to read in public so I got a couple of weird looks). It really hits home and gives a very accurate view of life in "el campo" in Puerto Rico during the times of depression, but does it in a way that still allows you to notice the beauty of our culture, our people. I am reading the sequel right now and already ordered the last of the three. She's an amazing narrator. Enjoy!
   
   [...]



5. este libro esta escrito en una sinplesa que cualquiera lo puede leer lo que esta muy bien, me gusto mucho este libro lo compre en espanol y lo lei en una semana, me parecio un libro muy entretenido y lo recomiendo

5 comments about Leave the Building Quickly: True Stories (P.S.).

1. I loved this book. I thought it was witty and funny and a great read to relax with and just enjoy. I wish it were longer.. I didn't want to finish it.



2. I bought this book after reading a good review. It was terrible! One chapter explains how a close friend and mentor told her that the book wasn't ready for publication. She made fun of him for being so foolish - she should have listened!



3. This is a book of essays (unlike a novel, which I thought it was when I bought it). But, I read it as I had already bought it. As essays, they are amusing; not hilarious or funny as is described elsewhere, but just amusing. They do not have much substance; they did not make me think, or change my mind, or do anything except amuse me. If that's all you want, by all means, buy this. But do not expect to be greatly enlightened or have your thinking changed; Plato or Machiavelli are much better authors for those purposes.
   
   In short, if you like essays about nothing in particular, you might want to consider this book. If you're expecting something else, forget it.



4. Very easy and quick read. I was laughing out loud the whole time. All the things you thought only you were thinking, wrong- Cynthia Kaplan is too!



5. I read many titles steeped in humor but this just failed to impress me. I didn't get very far into it before I made my decision to discontinue my time with it. I've never read Kaplan before and doubt I will again. She attempts to write in a self-deprecating manner like other humor authors, but for me, it failed to have the same effect. I just didn't think she was that likable. Her stories failed to capture my interest. There were a few notable points, but they didn't arouse laughter in me as I was expecting.
   I suppose if you're in the mood for a few stories from a mostly negative-minded Mother, then this book is for you.

5 comments about The Sexual Life of Catherine M..

1. I thought this was an interesting read, though it gets a little dry and to be honest I read it in parts. The narrative structure is loose and that makes it a little bit difficult to read, as she just tends to skip around and some of the wording is hard to wade through, but I think that has a lot to do with the translation and not how she writes. I hope. I took a star off for the poor editing.
   
   I liked her cool impersonal style. She doesn't proselytize and pretty much tells it like it is giving a rundown on the men she was with and some of the ways. I don't believe she was trying to be titillating and that shows. I also think that's what a lot of people expected and are put off by the book cause it runs a little too sterile for their tastes.
   
   I do think she gave a pretty good explanation for her philosophical approach to sex, contrary to what other reviewers here stated. I just think they are used to the typical angst towards sex and sexuality that you find a lot in American books. None of that here and how refreshing it is!
   
   There is a lot of repetition though and I have to warn you that it does get a little boring reading about one orgy after another done in such a detached style. But again I loved the unapologetic, free approach to men and her sexuality that she had and her philosophy towards sex was interesting in and of itself.



2. 
   Book-length accounts of one's real-life sexual exploits always run the risk of being insipid, monotonous, and just plain boring. After all, how many times can you describe the act circumscribed by the limitations of a non-fictional human body, especially when you confine yourself primarily to describing yourself as the focal point of the action.
   
   For the most part, Catherine Millet avoids the peril of this sort of writing not so much by the variety of her sexual proclivities--aside from a stupendous and indiscriminate promiscuity bordering, if not altogether crossing over into nymphomania, she's pretty vanilla--as by the super-lucid intellectual precision with which she analyses the physical, mental, and emotional ramifications of her sexuality.
   
   Despite its subject, this is not a titillating read; the matter-of-fact nature of the writing matches what strikes me as the author's straightforward, almost typically "masculine" approach to getting it on. ((Millet is, by her own admission, relatively uninterested in seduction and prefers to move straight to the main event.)) That being so, one might suppose that, if not erotic, the primary value of this book would reside in how it illuminates some general truths about human sexuality--in this case, female sexuality. But how much can a woman--or a human being, for that matter--who lays on a car hood in an empty parking lot in the middle of the night and allows herself to be taken by ten, twenty, thirty, she loses track of the number, of guys have in common with even the most uncommon of common women? As a work of human sexual archaeology, *The Sexual Life of Catherine M.* thus fails to enlighten us very much about human sexuality in general; it becomes, instead, a sort of believe-it-or-not account of what might reasonably be called one particular woman's sexual pathology.
   
   And yet, one might still, and easily, find something of oneself in these pages for Millet is so brutally, clinically honest and so unsparing of detail that she doesn't flinch from even the most hushed-over aspects of monkeying around. There are also passages and reflections of a philosophical depth and subtlety, such as when Millet writes of wishing she could wake in a strange bed every morning to revel in the novelty of a new perspective on life. Behind Millet's compulsive and voracious carnal appetite, there is a drive to experience everything--and everyone--a desire as admirable as it is unfulfillable given the limitations of our mortal flesh.
   
   Reflections such as these raise *The Sexual Life of Catherine M.* above the level of the merely lurid into the realm of soul-searching mediation on life in general and our finitude in the face of infinity.
   
   While many will no doubt file this book under "Way Too Much Information," Millet is actually talking about a good deal more than what she seems to be at first glance--she is using sexuality the way the artists she chronicles as an art critic use art: as a means to understand self and world. We don't complain, but rather admire, an artist who takes risks and their art to extremes: perhaps we should likewise admire a woman like Millet.
   
   *The Sexual Life of Catherine M.* is probably one of those books that someone had to write. If nothing else, Millet has done us this service.



3. Catherine Millet's sexual development autobiography is a must-read for all women in the United States who've ever had "dirty thoughts" but failed to act on them for fear of society's labels. This is Millet's true life account of her self discovery, pains and many pleasures that may not ring kosher with US audiences, but should be read by all women as an honest account of a woman's sexual desires and dreams. Tp hell with chopra and "venus and mars" books! This is the real deal! Vive La France!!!



4. this book is divided into 4 sections. the first section, entitled numbers,describes the numerous, numberless, men with whom catherine has sexual activities in groups, small groups at first, later orgies, the largest about 150 participants.
   
   the aggregates done with she moves on to her second section, space, sexual activities outdoors, often while positioned to scan bucolic landscapes. millet writes of pictorial works and how they are 'said to inhabit the cusp between imaginary space and the space we live in, be they barnett newman's vast colored expanses (newman himself said: i declare space), the radiant blues in the work of yves klein (who called himself the 'painter of space') or even alain jacquet's topological surfaces and objects which juxtapose paradoxical abysses. what characterizes these works is not the fact that they open space up, but that they both open and seal it again'.
   
   from her inner and outer open space, she proceeds to her third section, confined space. confined space isn't just a room or an elevator or a place, confined space, for millet, is having sexual activities while ill, sexual activities in dirty places, with unclean persons, and acts considered taboo, a few of them, but not many, she would not do.
   
   in confined space, jacques, catherine's husband, makes his entrance with his camera, and it's back to open spaces where he frames her in the confined space framed by the camera.
   
   in the concluding section, details, millet reflects on forms of objectivism, with observations of her shyness, rigidity after orgasm, her body as willing surface as represented in memory and filmed by a video camera.
   
   so there it is, her sexual life through number to canvas to camera to video camera. these days her sexual experiences are reflected by a steady stream of women attracted, for whatever reasons, to act in porn, and women who use online chatrooms. with objectification there is no voice. that's the difference with millet, she voices her interior world, her mental activity, as well as describing in detail, sexual acts and the female orgasm.
   
   a good book, a very good book.



5. ...I made a decision to make myself available at all times, because it made me feel free." Catherine Millet
   
   One of my amazon.com friends whose opinion I value a lot, says in his review on Catherine Millet's memoir that if it "is truly as bad as others suggest in their negative reviews below, why then did it sell over 300,000 copies when it was first published in France?" Well, I have a counter question, how many of 300,000 returned it back? I first learned about "The Sexual Life of Catherine M." from a review in "Entertainment Weekly" back in 2002 and I instantly became very interested in reading Millet's book. It was written by obviously intelligent educated woman, editor of the French art magazine Art Press by day and insatiable Messalina who doesn't make any secret of her 30 years history of orgy-loving by night. I was not afraid of the multiple (I just could not guess how multiple) explicit sexual encounters and their shocking descriptions. I am an adult and I can accept and appreciate any honest, open, no matter how shocking and controversial book (or movie) as long as it is well written, interesting to me, touches me deeply, even makes me angry but certainly makes me feel, makes me to identify with its author, to understand at least their motivations...Well, I felt nothing of these when I began reading my copy of English translation of the memoir that I bought from my local book store. I became bored very soon. The endless line of faceless men having sex with the strangely passive author, or rather her alter ego, Catherine M. in all possible and impossible Paris locations for hours and hours; one all-night party after another and another and yet another simply could not hold my interest for 209 pages of the rather short book and I never finished it. I returned it to the store and received the full refund. I would not say that "The Sexual Life of Catherine M." is the worst book ever written and I am sure it's got the loyal fans and admirers but I did not enjoy it and at some point I realized that I was wasting my time. I expect from a memoir something more than monotonous descriptions of endless anonymous sex acts with every man who happened just pass by Mlle. M. The book has been compared often to "The Story of O" by Pauline Reage and I disagree with it. "The Story of O" which was written by a French mistress for her married lover is the love letter and the statement on how far a woman in love was ready to go for her beloved. "The Story of O" is sad and beautiful, erotic and strangely innocent, cruel and elegiac. It is a fine work of literature which "The Sexual Life of Catherine M." in my opinion is not.

5 comments about Cancer Is a Bitch: (Or, I'd Rather Be Having a Midlife Crisis).

1. This memoir, based on Gail's wonderful Literary Mama column, Bare- Breasted Mama, is funny, frank, and poignant. It's a terrific, uplifting story, that will speak to anyone who's ever been a mother, or a wife, or a writer, not to mention its relevance to anyone who's been touched by cancer.



2. I started this book intending only to read for a few moments before dashing away to the next thing in my datebook and was immediately pulled in, instead. By page twenty-one, I'd already cried three times, in the way that only the perfect mix of humor, author self-awareness and heartbreak can bring; not because I was sad for the author, but because the story is so beautifully written and so identifiable from any place in life, so real, so balanced and so thought-provoking. I found myself thinking, "You know, that's how I would react, too; that's what I think, too. I didn't realize I thought that until right now, but I do, so very much."



3. Somehow, Gail manages to take this incredibly trying personal story and turn it into a deep, funny, thoughtful examination of, essentially, life itself. Bravo!



4. Cancer is a Bitch. Doesn't the title just grab you and make you want to read this book?
   
   I have to say, I really enjoyed Cancer is a Bitch. I was a little apprehensive when the author sent me a copy to review because what was I supposed to say if I didn't like it? "I'm sorry, but your experience with a deadly illness just wasn't interesting enough for a positive review on my blog." Thankfully, Gail Konop Baker didn't put me in that position in the slightest.
   
   Most reviews you will read of this book will probably tell you that the best quality of this book is its humor. And yes, the humor is wonderfully sarcastic and heartbreaking at the same time. But I would argue that its best aspect is its sheer humanity. Gail is just a regular person with a horrible diagnosis. She's at a place in her life where she is questioning everything: her life, her body, her husband, her choices. The full title of this book is Cancer Is a Bitch: (Or, I'd Rather Be Having a Midlife Crisis). But Baker is having a midlife crisis - unfortunately, she just has to include cancer along with everything else. She is completely relatable and loveable; she isn't that person who accepts her diagnosis graciously with a serene smile on her face. She does what any of the rest of us would do: she freaks out.
   
   I have to go back to the humor in the book. I mentioned it earlier, but it is such an integral component of the book that I want to elaborate on it. I avoid books about cancer and disease a lot of the time for the simple reason that they depress me. A lot of times, I end up empathizing way too much with a character and their story haunts me for months. If any of you are anxious about that, don't be. Cancer is a Bitch is many things, but it isn't depressing. It's funny, witty, sarcastic and will have you laughing out loud.
   
   Read this book. That's all I really have left to say. Gail Konop Baker is one of the 2008 Debutantes (if you haven't checked out The Debutante Ball, drop what you're doing and go there now). I see that as a positive and a negative for an author: it guarantees publicity and an audience, but at the same time, there is a pressure to live up to the works of the other authors, especially for Baker, whose book is coming out later in 2008. But it's not a problem for Cancer is a Bitch. It's wonderfully written, smart, funny, and a great read. Enough said. Go read it!



5. Gail Konop Baker brings readers a heart-felt, gut-wrenching beautiful story in her debut book. Cancer is a Bitch is Gail's own personal story. I commend Mrs. Konop Baker on sharing her story as it takes a lot of strength and guts to turn your life into a book and not just any books but an outstanding, wonderful, incredible book. I picked up this book and started reading; before you know it I was done.
   
   One thing that made this book really enjoyable was Gail's sense of humor through the whole situation. There was evidence of this from things like the titles of each chapter to the comments Gail made. I have only one comment to make and that is I will never look at a chicken breast the same way again. I just feel in love with Mrs. Konop Baker and her family. Gail Konop Baker is one author to be on the look-out for as she will blow you away but in a good way. I look forward to many, many more books to come from Mrs. Konop Baker.

4 comments about Not Just the Levees Broke: My Story During and After Hurricane Katrina.

1. NOLA has a special place in my heart and I swear to this day I won't go back because of how Katrina all went down. When I saw Phyllis Montana Leblanc on Spike Lee's "When the Levees Broke" I knew there was something about this woman. She spoke with power and the pain of someone who survived a great ordeal. And she didn't mind expressing herself with a curse word or two, which reinforces the BS the survivors went through.
   
   I heard about the book when she was being interviewed on the Tom Joyner show. I rushed out and got it. Let me tell you, this book takes you where the TV did not. I can't imagine how they did made it. Sticking around vs. leaving town. Taking the chance to go out beyond their "safe haven" through murky waters. Going from place to place until they ended up in San Antonio. Going for a week in the clothes on their backs and no baths.
   
   Phyllis Montana Leblanc is no seasoned writer, nor did the editor correct every pargraph or sentence. I don't think that is what this book is about or meant to be presented as. Keep in mind this is her personal account, just as if you were reading her journal or sitting out on the porch listening to her tell it to you - minute by minute. I finished the book on a lazy afternoon, it's only a couple hundred pages but makes you feel like you endured the entire week.



2. Here is a true American hero. She survived one of the biggest tragedies of the modern age and carried herself forward through the aftermath to dazzle us all with her wit, her charm, her intelligence - and the beautiful, selfless example of her spirit of forgiveness.
   
   The example Montana-LeBlanc sets is gift to all of us. Would that I could live up to her example in the face of adversity... She is a model of positive and constructive energy that every parent can hold up to their children as a lesson in resilience and good.



3. This is how author closes the last chapter of her story. It made me laugh. It is one of the few things to laugh about in this book.
   
   If you have ever wanted to sit down and have a one-on-one conversation with a survivor of the Katrina disaster, then this is the book for you. The author and her husband did what they felt they needed to do in order to prepare for the storm. They had their cell phones fully charged; filled their tubs with water; cooked plenty of food which they sealed in ziplock bags; set aside water, and secured the windows. But when the roof started to fall in, and they had to make an emergency evacuation, they were forced to leave these things behind and become what the television pundits called "refugees". What happened next makes for a gripping first hand account of their struggle to survive not just during the storm but during the aftermath.
   
   Something she says in her book sums it up: "To say that Hurricane Katrina traumatized me would be a flat-out lie. I was traumatized by being left behind for so long without my family. We were left to die."
   
   This was a hard book to rate. While the author's story is worthy of 5 stars, the presentation, as the Newsweek reviewer noted, is raw. It is unpolished, tends to ramble and could have used better editing. I'd rate it 3 stars. So I averaged the two out and gave it 4 stars.
   
   At times a painful story to read, I learned a lot by doing so. I wish the author and her family the best, as I wish the best for others who also suffered through Katrina.



4. i watched and followed the whole katrina storm, have family and friends who dealt with it and the whole aftermath, but when you read this book you getr a up close and direct day by day account of just what went down and the many obstacles faced during and after it's devasting effect on all people involved.Phyllis Montana Leblanc pulls no punches and speaks on her and Her Husbands situation through this brutal and unfair storm. it forever changed lives. this is a powerful must read Book ASAP and a reminder of natural disasters and how to be prepared for and what to do. very detailed and a strong,strong book.

5 comments about Living My Life (Penguin Classics).

1. I'm happy with the purchase, just typing on the keyboard in the privacy of my own home, selecting a book, clicking on it, easy, quick, effecient. Book arrived quickly, new book. All was well in my world. Only complaint would be that 2 of the 3 books I ordered simultaneously came packaged together in an excessive amount of packaging. Overboard on the plastic wrap followed by extra cardboard for protection, followed by a box. Don't need all that for books. Need to think about the environment Amazon.



2. This is the best autobiography I've ever read, because her life was lived with such commitment & independence. Certainly, she was hugely influential in her time, but her success was scratched out of nothing, with no support, and huge opposition. The difficulties and the times are conveyed amazingly well. The book will make you look carefully at your own life ... in ways that can only change it for the better.



3. NOTE: THIS IS VOLUME ONE ONLY! It's a great book but it is not labeled as just the first half of the memoir.



4. I could not disagree more with Goldman's ultimate philosophical conclusions, but I enjoyed this book, and volume II as well. Her essential humanity emerges, and it is a good case study and an interesting read, historically, philosophically and personally. She is no Mark Twain or Billy Faulkner, but her life was interesting and her prose adequately conveys the milieu she became enmeshed in. A fair degree of antecedent historical knowledge is necessary to fully enjoy this book, but you most likely have that or you wouldn't be reading about Emma to begin with. If you don't, or find that you are getting lost in the history and sequence, it would pay to do a little research to better understand what she lived through. It will also help you spot bias on Goldman's part. I heartily recommend this book. It is informative, enlightening and entertaining to boot.



5. In her autobiography Emma Goldman explains her life, narrating the experience of marching to her own drummer. Depending on the reader's political expectations, Emma's life is either inspiring or downright terrifying. Those who believe in social conformity would probably be more comfortable moving on to other fodder.

   Nevertheless, this eyewitness account of American and Russian history, ought not to be trivially dismissed. Emma fought for things we have taken for granted in modern life, such as birth-control and the eight-hour work day; she went to jail in the struggle to obtain these for us. This book explains how she lived her commitment to individual liberty, choosing who she would love, advocating revolution, and harrassing those of her "allies" who compromised on these principles.

   Perhaps the most interesting portion of the book is her years in Russia. Here she describes arriving at the "Promised Land" of the peoples' revolution and how that mutated into a sense of disillusionment and horror at what she saw as the betrayal of that revolution by the "dictatorship of the proletariat."

   Her writing style is nothing exceptional, but the story she weaves from the material of her life is nothing short of fascinating. Another reviewer suggested taking a break between volumes--I couldn't! I had to know what happened next.

   Although there are a lot of pages to wade through, I will give this book as a gift to the young women in my life. I believe that Emma can serve as a role model for living one's own life, not living out the expectations of friends, family, or society. In a dysfunctional world, we have too few people who model this.

   Emma gets three stars for writing style, but the powerful and plentiful content bring the rating up to five stars. Not to be missed.

   (If you'd like to discuss this book or review, click on the "about me" link above & drop me an email. Thanks!)

5 comments about Hungry Ocean, The: A Swordboat Captain's Journey.

1. In her refreshingly frank, casual but confidential memoir of a longline swordfishing trip, fisherman and captain Linda Greenlaw shares a voyage that is a metaphor of her life in the harsh, demanding environment of the open ocean deep-water fisheries. Greenlaw, who one immediately senses is private and closed - as befits her station as captain - opens her thoughts, doubts, and concerns to the readers. It is am impressive revelation of the woman's character and courage.
   
   Written in a flowing, conversational style, the reader has the sense of sharing the wheelhouse with a sword boat captain whose physical and moral courage is matched by technical skill.
   
   Greenlaw shows a wide range of writing talent as she describes sea conditions, fisherman's Golden Horseshoes, crew disaffection, losses of loved ones, attention to detail, and the inherent loneliness of her chosen profession - a captain hundreds of miles from shore responsible for business success and human life.
   
   I highly recommend this book, especially for those who enjoyed Junger's Perfect Storm, this is a required companion. She brings to those of us who are strangers to the sea a deep appreciation for the brave few who tempt the elements to eke out a living in an amazingly wonderful, but unforgiving element.



2. I'm a longline fisherman in Italy.
   The book is very interesting and well written (my english is not so good but it was a pleasure to read it).
   As a commercial fisherman fishing the mediterranean, thousand miles from the north atlantic banks, after readed this book I could tell you that commercial fishing is the same in every part of the world, the same the people and the same the hard work.
   Read this book, it's a really good one.



3. I love the way Linda writes. I will read anything she publishes. I have learned so much and am reading this book again. If you read Perfect Storm you will understand it much better having read this book. Sebastian Junger did a masterful job writing 'Storm but Linda was on an identical boat owned by the same person. She also has many years experience. I can't recommend this book enough and all others as well. She has a cookbook too "Recipies From a Very Small Island" which she wrote with her mother. Super good.



4. If you are a fan of the hit TV series Deadliest Catch and just can't wait until late March to see new episodes than I suggest that you do read this book, it a very quick and easy read for the fans of that show. This publisher is trying to cash on the popularity of this series, by reprinting the book with a different type of cover art on it, which is clearly showing not a longliner type of fishing vessel, with this book is all about, but quite possibly a Bering Sea crab boat. While the cover art is a little bit of a misnomer, don't let that stop you from buying this book or reading it if somebody you know has it, for your time will be rewarded, and you will learn a few things in the course of reading the novel.
   
   This book tells the story of Linda Greenlaw, the captain of the fishing vessel, Hannah Boden, which would be her last trip fishing for swordfish. Now, Linda, gain some popularity with the novel and the movie "The Perfect Storm", so she cashing in her new found fame to tell her own story and her own personal experiences in this industry.
   
   While, this might sound like this could be a boring novel it not because of the style that Linda writes in this novel, very down to earth like you are having a conversation with her over a meal at a roadside dinner. Explaining a good majority of what it takes to get these boats prep and ready for a fishing trip, or what they call "Turing the Boat Around", the gear that they used, and the terms that they used to describe that type of swordfish that they are out there. Also in the course of the 31 day fishing trip, she take some time to tell some of the stories of her childhood, pervious trips, and there is also a section of the novel that tell the reader some of the superstitions that fishermen have.
   
   While, I did enjoy this book, I found out that her explanation of the gear that they use and the electronics were a little hard to put into picture without the visual aid. Also reading this novel I gain a new respect to the Captains of all of the fishing vessels that out there, because you have a lot tougher job then I first thought.



5. Linda Greenlaw achieved some measure of fame as a supporting character in the nonfiction book "The Perfect Storm" (and the more fictional movie that followed). Now, Greenlaw tells her own story in "The Hungry Ocean," a less thrilling but equally fascinating tale of a four-week swordfishing run over the Grand Banks.
   
   Writing with the casual, conversational style of a story told over coffee and breakfast, Greenlaw describes the details of preparing for and executing a swordfishing expedition. She describes at length the supplies needed and the work that must be done to prepare for the water. She explains the crew dynamics, worries about the persistent illness of one crewman and wrangles over the racist attitudes of another. She frets over the readings as she steams northeast in the ocean and fills in the logistics on temperatures, currents and competing boats. She admits to occasional lies regarding fishing conditions in her wake.
   
   She also recalls yarns from her earlier days, before she captained her own ship and sailed with others. She conveys the feeling of complete, utter exhaustion that is par for the course on a cruise of this nature. By the end of this book, you'll know how to clean a fish, whether you want to or not.
   
   by Tom Knapp, Rambles.NET editor