1 comments about Being in Pictures: An Intimate Photo Memoir.

1. Library Journal Review
   
   Leonard, Joanne. Being in Pictures: An Intimate Photo Memoir. Univ. of
   Michigan. May 2008. 252p. photogs. ISBN 978-0-472-11402-3. $35. FINE
   ARTS
   Leonard's (art history & women's studies, Univ. of Michigan)
   autobiographical photographs and photo collages, evocatively and
   eloquently reproduced here, explore the themes of family, childhood,
   life stages, and woman as nurturer. This photographic and textual
   journal covers 40 years of Leonard's life, from early photos she took in
   West Oakland, CA, in the 1960s to her family and friends, relationships
   and separations, a chance encounter with Diane Arbus, the 1972 Sapporo
   Olympics, motherhood, feminist influences and tendencies, and the 9/11
   terrorist attacks. Imagery ranges from cozy familial scenes to harrowing
   and violent series on sex, male domination, and miscarriage. The text
   carries Leonard's story along and helpfully comments on the images. An
   artist's chronology, with exhibitions and publications, concludes the
   work. Leonard is a leading artist, scholar, and educator, and this first
   book-length examination of her life and work resonates both poignantly
   and artistically. Recommended for contemporary photography and women's
   studies collections; at $35, a real bargain.-Russell T. Clement,
   Northwestern Univ. Lib., Evanston, IL

No comments about Know Your Power: A Message to America's Daughters.

5 comments about Catherine the Great.

1. i hard to believe a little german priness would become the most powerful woman in europe.but that catherine story .married to a stupid czravish who had no sense. he was determine to stay greman in russian,but katherina made show she learn langauge ,religion and people.she learn the art of policital when the time was right she took over.brought a new age not seen since peter the great.i would had like more about here early life in german but this book was well done.



2. This is one of the very best biographies I have ever read. Troyat has taken a very interesting but not particularly palatable historical figure ( My mother-in law referred to Catherine as "that awful person")and brought her to life with all of her fascinatingly complex character in a well wrought historical background.



3. Bad translation of a mediocre and sappy history. I couldn't stand it and have gone looking for a different biography of Catherin the Great.



4. Prior to reading this book, the only information that I had on Catherine the Great, Empress of Russia, was that she was an 18th century Czarina of some repute and that she was essentially a nymphomaniac. While the author disputes my clinical characterization of Catherine's sexual prowess, he certainly does take great pains to point out her long list of conquests, right up until her death at a then advanced age.
   
   This book is very informative and quite enlightening as it relates to the political and social mores of Eastern European and Asian aristocracy during the period of Catherine's reign. The tangled webs of shifting alliances during the roughly 50 years covered by the book are many times fascinating and at times hung by the thread of whether a 16 year old heir to a throne was enchanted at first site by a 13 year old princess. Entire nations hung in the balance.
   
   Especially interesting was the author's repeated juxtaposition between Catherine's espoused liberal "enlightened monarch" ideals and her actual rule over, and disposal of millions of enslaved serfs. Her fascination and financial support of many liberal French and Swiss political reformers and philosophers and then her horror when such philosophies actual came to fruition in the French Revolution.
   
   Ultimately, Catherine was a woman of her times and indisputably proved to be a most able successor to the earlier Peter the Great inasmuch as she made Russia a major player on the European stage and greatly expanded the territory under her control. The personalities involved make for a highly entertaining read.
   
   I've seen some of the comments labeling the prose as dry or tedious and tend to disagree. Certainly, writing style of non-fiction historical biographies differs from that seen in fictionalized accounts. In addition, this is a translation which perhaps hinders certain elements of style that others might prefer. All in all, I was not dissatified with the writing or the content. I recommend this book to any seeking an understanding of Russian or Eastern European history and/or culture during the mid to late 18th century.



5. Troyat needs no bolstering from me: his credentials as a well-known documenter of Russian monarchic history are legion. I relished every page of Troyat's documentaries on Ivan IV, Pjotr I, and Aleksandr I (ranking in strict chronologic order). However, his bio of Yekaterina II--while unquestionably meticulously researched--is dry. For one thing, it is quite overlong, which one must question right out of the starting gate insofar as Henri Troyat's book on Pjotr I--also a fabulous monarch of critical importance to the emergence of the empire, arguably even more so than Yekaterina II--was brief and swift. (Indeed, every paragraph literally burst with fascinating facts and characterizations.) Troyat goes on and on and on about every minor detail to the point where the essential message is basically lost amid the sheer volume: a crystalline example of forest-amid-trees overpowering. As a basis for research, for high school papers, etc., "Catherine the Great" is to be most highly commended. However, as an armchair read for the history devote [only one 'e': I can't render accent aigu through this medium, and devotee is the feminine form--Ed.], it plays marked second fiddle to Henri's Ivan, Peter, and Alex.

No comments about Perfect Hostage: A Life of Aung San Suu Kyi, Burma's Prisoner of Conscience.

3 comments about Eudora Welty : Stories, Essays & Memoir (Library of America, 102).

1. Each new volume from The Library of America, the non-profit publisher that has become the de facto literary hall of fame, is a cause for celebration. Its goal of preserving in an enduring format the best fiction and non-fiction is a significant bulwark against the encroaching tides of cultural relativism that attempts to render any value judgments meaningless, as well as a consumer society that insists that if it ain't new, it ain't good.
   
   In the case of Eudora Welty, we're given two volumes: a collection of five novels ("The Robber Bridegroom," "Delta Wedding," "The Ponder Heart," "Losing Battles" and the Pulitzer-winning "The Optimist's Daughter"), and another of her essays, her memoir "One Writer's Beginnings" and her short stories. From her first published short stories, "Lily Daw and the Three Ladies" in 1937, to her last novel in 1972, Welty captures with her highly readable style and sharp eye and ear the varieties and eccentricities of Southern life.
   
   But while the South claims Welty as one of its own, she may not necessarily return the favor. Teh cause is both geographic and a matter of choice. Although she was born in Jackson, Miss., in 1909 and lived there all her life, her father was from Ohio and her mother from West Virginia, a state created by the Civil War that went for the Union. This isn't Margaret Mitchell we're talking about here.
   
   Then, in her essay "Place in Fiction," she stresses that while it is important for a writer to capture the feeling of an area, it is not the paramount goal in fiction:
   
   "It is through place that we put out roots ... but where those roots reach toward ... is the deep and running vein, eternal and consistent and everywhere purely itself, that feeds and is fed by the human understanding."
   
   But what pedigree does not provide, her environment probably did, for her work contains those elements poularly associated with Southern fiction. "Delta Wedding" celebrates the Southern family through the sprawling Fairchild clan and its passel of sons, daughters, cousins, aunts, great-aunts, nieces and nephews, all involved in each others' lives to a degree rarely seen today.
   
   Many of her stories revolve around characters marginalized by society, struggling to exist and reach out to others: the simple Lily Daw who tries to evade the determination of the town's ladies to either marry her off or send her to the asylum; the generous, slightly retarded Daniel Ponder who would give away everything he has at the drop of a hat; the demented Clytie in "A Curtain of Green," who rushes about looking in people's faces until, seeing her reflection in a barrel of rainwater, dives in and drowns.
   
   Eudora Welty was a sharp, perceptive writer, and her enshrinement by the Library of America is most welcome.



2. "Listening," "Learning to See" and "Finding a Voice," Eudora Welty entitled the three chapters of her autobiography "One Writer's Beginnings," the concluding entry in this collection, one of the two Library of America compilations dedicated to her work. And while these may be steps that most writers will undergo at some point, Welty's compact autobiography 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 the literary creations collected in this compilation and its companion volume. 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" ("One Writer's Beginnings:" Not surprisingly, her photography was published in several collections which have found much acclaim of their own.)

   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). The Library of America dedicated two volumes to her work; one containing her novels, the other - this one - her short stories, essays (some, like her autobiography, based on a series of lectures) and her autobiography.

   An approach that Welty developed early on was to consider the publication of her stories in periodicals merely a step towards each story's final shape, and she generally revised her stories before including them in collections. This compilation brings together all her short stories in the versions intended to be final by Welty herself: the 1941 edition of "A Curtain of Green and Other Stories" (her first short story collection), the 1943 edition of "The Wide Net and Other Stories" and the 1949 edition of "The Golden Apples" - each collection suffered substantial editorial revisions in subsequent publications. Included are also two stand-alone short stories ("Where is This Voice Coming From?" and "The Demonstrators"), the first one inspired by the 1963 murder of Mississippi NAACP leader Medgar Evers and revised by Welty over the telephone after having been accepted by "The New Yorker," to avoid a potentially prejudicial effect of its original ending on the then-impending trial.

   A keen observer, Welty 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. Not a single word is wasted: "Marrying must have been some of his showing off - like man never married at all till *he* flung in," we're told about King MacLain in the opening story of "The Golden Apples," "Shower of Gold." And you don't have to learn anything more about the man, do you? Equally as instructive on Welty's writing are the eight essays included in this collection, all taken from the 1978 compilation "The Eye of the Story" and dealing with particular aspects of her own fiction as much as, more generally, with "Place in Fiction" (1954) and the fiction writer's role ("Writing and Analyzing a Story," originally published in 1955 under the title "How I Write" and substantially revised for its inclusion in "The Eye of the Story" and "Must the Novelist Crusade?").

   "There 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 story, and the creative process itself: nothing that can be "mapped and plotted" but a product taking shape in the process of creation itself, giving each story a unique identity of its own. And while her fiction, alas, can no longer grow any more than Faulkner's, she has left us enough of those unique creations to cherish for a long time to come.




3. At the time of her death, Eudora Welty was widely regarded as America's single greatest living author. Although she produced several critically acclaimed novels, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning THE OPTIMIST'S DAUGHTER, Welty achieved her greatest fame through mastery of that most difficult of all literary forms, the short story.

   Welty's skill with short stories is amazing, for she possessed a talent that combined a remarkable ear for the spoken word, meticulous observation of physical world, and the truly mysterious ability to slip almost effortlessly into the very marrow of the characters she depicts. Her comic stories are perhaps best known to the public in general, but she is equally at home with provocative and unsettling material, and although her tales are most often firmly rooted in America's deep south they have a sense of humanity that transcends the limitations of purely regional literature.

   In addition to stories previously collected under the titles A CURTAIN OF GREEN, THE WIDE NET, THE GOLDEN APPLES, and THE BRIDE OF THE INNISFALLEN, this Library of America publication also includes the independently published stories "Where Is the Voice Coming From?" and "The Demonstrators," nine selected essays, and Welty's memoir ONE WRITER'S BEGINNINGS. A chronology of Welty's life up to 1996, textual notes, and general notes (including Katherine Anne Porter's introduction for A CURTAIN OF GREEN) are also included. This book (and its Library of America) companion, EUDORA WELTY: COMPLETE NOVELS) are essentials for any one who admires Welty's work and wishes to possess it in handy, collected form; those who have had limited exposure to Welty's work, however, might be better served by smaller collections.

5 comments about A Buffalo in the House: The True Story About a Man, an Animal, and the American West.

1. If you love reading about animals along with historical facts, this book will not disappoint you. What an amazing story. I finished reading "A Buffalo in the House" just three days ago and I am still emotional and wondering why I didn't purchase this book a lot sooner. Charlie, the Buffalo, bonded with his caretaker/owner, Roger, in such a way that you will want that kind of bond with your beloved pet. The author easily combined the story of Charlie with historical facts about Buffalo. His artist wife, Veryl, sculpted Charlie from the time he was less than a month old amid bottle-feeding and the playful antics of a baby Buffalo. You'll laugh, you'll cry and you'll really enjoy this wonderful story.



2. Great story about the bond between a man and a buffalo, but the author scatters his liberal politics throughout which detracts from the story and is offensive to those who may have a different view.



3. This is one I will keep on my shelf forever! This book is wonderful from the first sentence to the last. Roger and Charlie's relationship is magnificent and they bring you right into the center of it. My husband finished this book in an airport and unashamedly cried like a baby. It is a love story, a history lesson, and a rally cry to protect our precious american heritage in the magnificence of our buffalo.
   The cover says it all - a beautifully written love between a man and his adoring buffalo. Read it!



4. I was in the mood for a heartwarming story about man's relationship to wildlife, but I expected the narrative to include reliable factual information. When, on page 21, the author referred to the "several giant North American mammals" that became extinct and then listed as examples "fifty-foot-long alligators, ten-foot-high carnivorous birds, and 1,500-pound guinea pigs," I threw the book down in disgust and haven't picked it up again. If this guy doesn't know the difference between mammal, reptile, and avian, why should I believe anything he says about the natural history of the buffalo, or anything else for that matter?



5. I purchased this book for my mother for Christmas and she has only just managed to get it back to because everyone else has been stealing it. As soon as one person finishes it someone else grabs it. Even my father thought it was delightful. The story is beautifully told and obviously told with a great deal of love. The little side stories - especially the one about the coyote is endearing and brings a smile to the lips and a tear to the eye. This is a lovely book for anyone aged from 15 to 115.

No comments about Great Lives: Esther: A Woman of Strength and Dignity (Great Lives from God's Word).

5 comments about I'll Carry the Fork! Recovering a Life After Brain Injury.

1. My son received a severe brain injury in a car accident almost two years ago. He has made a remarkable recovery. However although I ask him how he feels he can't always tell me, says " I just want to be back to normal" I have really wanted to know exactly what goes on in their brain during the recovery -which of course is on going. This book was just delightful. I loved Kara's honest comments and the way she expressed her feelings. My son does not want to read it but my daughter-in-law does.
   I have to say though, for all of you parents out there who's child has been diagnosed with a severe brain injury, don't despair, Kara's mild brain injury seems a lot more severe in her recovery than my son's!
   Thank you Kara for a wonderful insight into the feelings of a brain injured person. Best of luck for a continued recovery.
   Judy Knott
   Auckland
   New Zealand



2. A great read for a survivor or family member of TBI. Slightly larger print and easy to follow story line. This book puts you in touch with the TRUELY important things in life. Showing some of possitive and humorious bumps in her new learning curve keeps this book from reading like a text book. Wow does it feel better knowing that others share similar experincies.
   I have purchased several of these, one for my daughter, and a couple for friends to help them understand me now.
   If you ever get the chance to meet Kara DO IT, she is uplifting to speak with.



3. A delightful book which takes the author from a tragedy and life change to making her new life the best it can be. A wonderful message for those of us having a family member who is a recent traumatic brain injury survivor. It is written with humor but with a valuable message. The chapters are short and written in a manner our TBI survivor is able to read and comprehend it. Thank you for this book.



4. A delightful book which takes the author from a tragedy and life change to making her new life the best it can be. A wonderful message for those of us having a family member who is a recent traumatic brain injury survivor. It is written with humor but with a valuable message. The chapters are short and written in a manner our TBI survivor is able to read and comprehend it. Thank you for this book.



5. I never fully understood my dad's head injury, but after reading this humorous story of Kara it made me realize the frustrating effects of brain injury. Just a great book over-all and written on the level of a sixth grader, so it makes it an easy read.

5 comments about Self-Made Man: One Woman's Journey into Manhood and Back.

1. I greatly enjoyed this book, although parts of it (specifically the strip-club chapter) were hard for me to get through. Every chapter had some surprising insight into what life is like for men in western culture. Norah is one brave person, and she's a terrific writer.



2. Norah Vincent had a not very unusual desire, a desire to know what it was really like to be a man - they have it made, right? Being a lesbian, and having been considered rather tomboy-ish since childhood, she figured that she was the perfect woman to actually penetrate the male world. And so, with the help of a great makeup artist and a voice coach, she transformed herself from Norah to Ned, complete with crew cut, facial stubble, and size 11-1/2 shoes! So disguised, she set out into the male world, went to strip clubs and a monetary, went bowling with the guys, and even dated some heterosexual women. And what she found...well, you'll just have to read the book!
   
   Overall, I found this to be a very interesting book. The author showed herself to be remarkably free from ax-grinding, simply learning from the people around her, and seeing the world from a man's point of view without trying to force it to fit her preconceived notions. Indeed, what Norah learned about men surprised her, as did what she learned about herself.
   
   I have read many books about men over the years (Iron John, The Hazards of Being Male, Naked Nomads, and many more), and found this one to be very revealing and informative. If you are a woman and want to get a real inside-look at men, then I highly recommend that you get this book. Indeed, if you are a man, and want to see an outsider's compassionate yet frank look at men, then I highly recommend that you get this book as well.



3. Norah Vincent wants to learn more about the opposite sex; that is, what it's like to think, feel, act, and be treated like a man. In order to do this, she does what any cultural anthropologist would do - she embedded herself within the culture and subjected herself to several "guy" activities and experiences. She realizes that, yes, there are culturally defined differences between men and women. It is not a judgmental book; it doesn't bash men - it seeks understanding of what is considered "male" in our society. This is a wonderful experiment. My key drawback is how she tends to make a point and overly "beat it to death".



4. As someone who has made social science their life, I'd have to say that this was an interesting read. To look at the social dynamics at play and how we define roles in society...however, the book is anecdotal at best. My suggestion of a more in-depth gender study would be something like "Stiffed" by Susan Faludi.



5. The premise of this book is a good one, however, the author's inability to look past the obvious and superfluous make this book predictable, boring, and even offensive at times. Vincent states the obvious, rarely finding insight into masculinity or what it means to be a man that hasn't already been stated by other people in a much more intelligent way. Instead of breaking stereotypes that women hold about men, it seems to perpetuate them, and all of Vincent's observations seem shallow and simply skim the surface of gender identity.
   
   She does not create sympathy for men, and she creates even less for women. I'm not sure where she found the women that she dated, but they seem like some of the most closed-minded, grudge harboring women with so many pent up issues they should be looking for a therapist instead of a date.
   
   Any other book on gender in our society would be a more insightful, riveting, and intelligent read. Skip this one.

5 comments about Love Sick: One Woman's Journey through Sexual Addiction.

1. Love Sick: One Woman's Journey through Sexual Addiction is a beautifully written account of one woman's journey through sex addiction. It's not meant to be a clinical self-help book, but it does encourage intraspection. It also helps readers understand exactly what sex addiction is about. It's not about the sex. Sex is more like a drug of choice to numb the pain. Sue makes this clear in a riveting manner in this great book. I highly recommend it!



2. I read lots of books on addiction and recovery.
   
   All I kept thinking about when reading this book was - what the heck was the point of writing this book? In most cases, these types of memoirs are usually written as part of the recovery - however, this book read more like a manifesto of all the men this person has gone through.
   
   There is no warmth, no explanations, no sympathy and NO honest attempt at recovery or even of really finding out what is happening to this woman.
   
   Also, this book is sooooo slow - every once in a while, an intersting tidbit, then back to boring again.
   
   The only saving grace is a look at the 12 steps.
   
   Skip this one.



3. I loved this book. i couldnt put it down and got so attacthed to Sue. Shes a great writer. Supposdly a lifetime movie is coming out on the book sometime in April



4. 
   Sue William Silverman's LOVE SICK is the author's first person account of her experience as a sex addict. This book written by an amateur writer wanting to share her experiences could have been excruciating. Silverman, however, is clearly a professional author, and the book is written professionally. She presents her work in segments which alternate between the retelling of episodes from her years of sexual addiction and her rehab hospitalization, in her early 40s, as she finally makes an attempt to overcome her addiction and at the same time to save her life. I feel there are both positives and negatives in the book.
   
   On the positive side, Silverman presents herself in an honest and open manner. This is commendable as it must have been very difficult to provide to a readership of strangers the truly painful details of most of her life; although it also seems to be a part of her recovery program.
   Also, I gained a lot of understanding about sexual addiction, one of the most intersting points being that, according to Silverman, she and apparently many other addicts do not actually enjoy sex; rather the addiction seems to be more about the feeling that being able to attract someone sexually validates to the addict that he or she is attractive and worthwhile. And, I confess to some personal ignorance. I was never really sure that sexual addiction was actually a real phenomenon, having believed to a great extent that it was merely a convenient excuse used by people caught cheating on their significant others. After having read LOVE SICK I no longer doubt the reality of sexual addiction.
   
   On the negative side, the writing, though professional as I mentioned, seems somewhat histrionic. I realize that this subject is highly and painfully emotional to Silverman, but from a reader's perspective I would have preferred a little less drama and more straight reporting, particularly in the segments dealing with the author's month in rehab. The parts of the book (probably two-thirds of it) which deal with Silverman's hospital experience become repetitive. I imagine that the days themselves of her stay were quite repetitve, but that does not translate particularly interestingly to a written account.
   
   To summarize,I found this book, while informative and intersting at times, to be somewhat dramatically overblown at others; and it became repetitive enough that I skimmed the hospital scenes over the last half of the book. Not bad, not real good, 3 stars.



5. I usually do not write book reviews, but I thought it was important to add a review of this book so that other people don't waste their money. This is the worst book I have ever read on addiction. Basically, the author describes her pain regarding her sexual addiction and describes scenerios she encountered in detail. The book reads more like [...] than a self-help manual. If you are looking for a self-help text or a text to assist patients with this problem, this is definitely not the right text!!!!!