No comments about Elizabeth: A Biography of Britain's Queen (Unabridged).

No comments about Lindbergh - Part II, Unabridged on 9 cassettes.

No comments about Diana, Princess of Wales (BBC Radio Collection).

1 comments about Vanna Speaks.

1. You've seen the TV show and read the book. Now get the book on tape. Vanna underestimates her own talent. "You have to know the alphabet", she says. If you have always wondered - what is Vanna really like (see answer number 3, below), this is the tape for you. It is fifty minutes of pure Vanna.

   Do not get this tape because you are looking for a literary masterpiece. Buy this tape because you are a Wheel of Fortune fan! How many of us can say that we are the best in the world at what we do? There is no question, Vanna is the world's best letter turner (now letter presser). She performs her job with a fluidity of motion that no other letter turner can approach. Yes, there are others who do this. I have seen substitutes for Vanna on Wheel of Fortune, and Wheel of Fortune equivalent shows in other countries. (The most amusing is the Hungarian version where there are more vowels than consonants.) Vanna is the best.

   I have to admit to some level of prejudice. I met Vanna when I appeared on WOF as a contestant. The answers to your three questions are: (1) $55,618, (2) the money is taxed as income, (3) Vanna is very nice, but we do not keep in touch.

No comments about The Last Marlin: Library Edition.

1 comments about Character Above All Volume 7 Robert Dallek on Lyndon Johnson and Hendrik Hertzbe.

1. This product features two audio tapes. One each on Johnson and Carter. Robert Dallek and Hendrik Hertzberg are the speakers. Their speeches from 1995 show great knowledge and insight into their respective Presidents.

   Hendrik Hertzberg was a speech writer for President Carter during his last two years in office. Hertzberg is a good speaker and often used humor to describe Carter and his administration. Hendrik describes Carter well. He portrays him as a loner and someone opposed to pomp and glitter. He also stated that Carter was no idealogue. Rather he handled issues one by one as they arose. And he spread himself too thin. Hendrik descibes some of the major events of the Carter Administration. The Panama Canal Treaty, the Israeli/Egyptian peace talks and the failed Iranian hostage rescue mission. Hertzberg portrays Carter as a courageous moral leader. But he also shows that Carter was not a great political leader.

   Robert Dallek is a successful author and he shows here that he is also a good speaker. Dallek studied Lyndon Johnson thoroughly and clearly understood him. He states accurately that Lyndon Johnson was a complex man with a seemingly contradictory personality. Dallek quotes several stories about Johnson to show his sense of humor and his temperament.

   Dallek provides data about Johnson's popularity over the years. As President, his approval ratings were good. As an ex President he's less popular. Dallek gives three reasons why he thinks LBJ's popularity has fallen. His assessment is probably correct.

   Dallek then proceeds to rate Johnson as a President. He gives LBJ high marks in the realms of vision, pragmatism and consensus building on domestic issues. And he states that Johnson was very successful in passing his bills through Congress. Dallek provides a whole list of good bills which Johnson pushed through. In summary, Robert Dallek's assessment of Lyndon Johnson and his Presidency is very accurate and well informed.

No comments about The Road South.

No comments about God a Biography Unabridged.

5 comments about Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife.

1. I think that one of the best things you can say about a book is that it's entertaining and this one sure is. The author is very, very funny and makes learning about the various topics enjoyable. I'm going to have to get her other books as well.



2. I think Mary Roach is a hilarious writer. Ever since I read Stiff, I've been waiting in anticipation for her next book. In Spook Roach jumps from the physical to the metaphysical. Whereas Stiff examined the ultimate fate of cadavers, Spook looks to the soul. In particular, the book examines scientists' efforts to to offer measurable proof of the existence of the soul, and their attempts to understand what happens to immaterial parts of personhood after death. To give a full picture of these efforts Roach's research takes her across cultures and continents. She brings us the story of the woman who could vomit large quantities of fabric on demand in the name of talking to the dead. She writes of doctors who attached dying consumptives to giant scales. As with her other work, Spook is infused with Roach's sense of humor and her clear fascination with the bizarre. The stranger it gets, the happier Roach seems to be. This book is, without question, a rollicking good read. Beyond pure enjoyment, Roach book also shows just how enmeshed certain sectors of the scientific community have become, in the past two centuries, in matters of belief. The very premise of this book, and what unifies these stories, is an attempt to merge seemingly incompatible thought systems. Ever since the arguments in Kansas and the Dover, PA school board case, the ability, and the desirability of merging these two thought systems in the name of education has become an issue of political significance. Roach's study suggests that scientists and lay people have been involved in efforts to merge the physical and metaphysical arts. It shows that at significant points in the past, large numbers of people have been drawn to efforts to apply science to faith; see, for example, her chapter on spiritualism. The experts involved, however, (scientists, doctors, etc.) have ususally been marginal figures, on the fringes of their fields, or at least respected only in their work outside of the supernatural. Obviously, the scientific question of the afterlife is never going to create the firestorm generated by evolution/creationism/intelligent design. The general consensus remains that afterlife is a matter of faith, not science. Public schools have little need or desire to teach about the fate of the soul. That is the work of clerics and philosophers. But here lies the great irony. It is precisely because there is such widespread agreement in the western world on the division of body and soul, that attempts to bring science to bear of matters of the spirit and the immortal may be able to proceed without the criticism and argument generated by by similar battles in which the divisions seem less clear.



3. what a waste of time reading this book...poorly researched, and certainly not even close to a serious look at the 'afterlife'....the author attempts to use humor to get her points across, with little success....what a disappointing book!!



4. It wouldn't be truly fair to say that Mary Roach has the sense of humor, maturity level and research skills of a fourteen-year-old boy - fair to a fourteen-year-old boy that is. Because I assume many of them are forced by their teachers to look beyond Google searches for their information. And surely many of them don't see the necessity of finding toilet humor in every odd name or tangential topic they happen to uncover in that research. (Consider this gem on page 73, when discussing phrenology, she suddenly finds reason to diverge into one of the subject's inventions, a "portable hydrogen gas generator [which she proudly references Google for, no less], and goes on at length to describe the machine's use to detect flatulence...I mean...is this really relevant information? And I'm being gentle. This is actually a fairly mild example of her constant and unnecessary deviation into detailed discussions of bodily functions.) This is how Mary Roach and fourteen-year-old boys are best distinguished; I'd be less worried about the 14-year-old embarrassing me in public.
   
   I can't rightfully rate a book lower than 3 stars if I actually *finished* it - which I did in this case. But it sure feels like a 2-star bomb thinking back on it. From such an intriguing title comes an awkward, displaced, meaningless and utterly irrelevant collection of chapters that are each just a quick editor's glance away from taking their rightful place as B-rate magazine articles. And, most poignantly, none contain the slightest bit of the actual intrigue so latent within the title. It's as though she wants to be a satirical writer rather than present any actual information on the alleged subject, and there isn't the slightest hint of a journalistic mind present in the writing. Here. Imagine David Sedaris had the "talent" part of his brain removed, and then tried to write a book on a random topic he had little or no previous knowledge of. Essentially, you would have "Spook."
   
   What Roach has done is simply recounted the most obvious hoaxes in the history of supernatural studies, and in other cases she's dabbled in some variety of modern science attempting to discover actual paranormal activity, all the while admitting how little she actually knows about what the experts at hand are talking about. In one case she mentions asking a researcher to respond to her by "pretend[ing] you are talking to a seventh-grader,"(p.105). Is this the level of authorship and topical knowledge that we've come to accept as publishable material? Apparently so, judging by Roach's high sales.
   
   Ultimately, this book is complete and utter fluff with not the slightest bit of substantial information that an average person with a laptop and internet connection could not find out for themselves in about an hour and a half on Wikipedia. The only sense of awe the reader of "science tackling the afterlife" is left with, is that an average college graduate with a B.A. in psychology convinced a publisher to fund a book on a topic that said author may as well have picked out of a hat of a hundred other subjects about which she admittedly knew next to nothing.



5. The is the first of Mary's books that I read so I had no expectations. It is fun and funny and informative. Though not exhaustive, her research was pretty inclusive. The book has been called "anecdotal" but what else could you possibly call stories about this subject????? All they can possibly be is anecdotes. Questions aren't all answered but there are some pretty good explanations that themselves bring up more question.
   If you don't expect this to be the definitive book with a definitive answer waiting in the pages but more informative with humor about the biggest question that we all have then you will enjoy it. Any book that can make one laugh about dying is good in my simple mind.

5 comments about Home Town.

1. I had high expectations for this book. However, I found myself skipping pages and feeling very disappointed. Kidder did not engage me at all, his writing was prosaic in the worse sense, and the pace of the book was plodding. Read "The Shipping News", "The Kite Runner", "Three Junes", "The Complete Short Stories of Flannery O'Connor". While I realize that these books are fiction and Kidder's book is non-fiction, I still felt that I was reading a bad "Dragnet" script.



2. Northampton has been transformed within my lifetime. As a high schooler, looking for a college, the town was so sleepy it appeared to me as a "has-been" sort of place. I went to Boston instead. That was 30 years ago! Now I am lucky enough to live within a half hour of N'hampton and I love to visit there on a weekly basis. It is the center of culture and art for this area. Yes, it has problems, like all cities do. Thank you to Tracy Kidder for describing this special place so well and with such care. I only wish that I had read it sooner. He gives us a sense of the rich local history without dwelling on the past. He is truly acomplished in his non-fiction style, and I am inspired by this work! I recommend this to all locals and anyone who wants to be filled with hope.



3. I kept waiting for something to happen. The book contains a few good descriptions but overall is quite tedious. May be interesting if one knows Northampton and can relate to the vignettes. Dull.



4. This book follows the style of many of Tracy Kidder's works, and uses a specific person to help form the supporting structure of the book, which allows the reader to become involved in the text as they would in a novel. Home Town follows the career of a police officer in the small Massachusetts town of Northampton. O'Connor grew up in the town, and now serves the community by helping reduce drug trafficking and other crimes. Each of the people that intersect Tommy O'Connor's life is explored in some detail during the book: Alan, who becomes trapped by his obsessive need to stay clean; Laura, an Ada Comstock Scholar at Smith College who managed to make it even though many would prefer she be kept down; Rick, an old childhood friend & police officer who goes through divorce and jail time for child molestation, and the various drug informants. Mr. Kidder's writing allows you to join each of the characters as they follow a path through life in Northampton. It is highly recommended, as are other works by this author.



5. Kidder does here what he does best: put the reader in the mind and world of the people you pass on the street every day. Nuanced characters exist in real-life situations and work through the same tough decisions that we all face each day. There's real artistry in this simplicity.
   
   I don't imagine that the book is a perfectly accurate depiction of the town or the people in it. Nonetheless, it is an engaging one that perhaps can teach us about the people we pass every day on the sidewalk and in the grocery aisle.
   
   Certainly, this isn't Kidder's top work. It does have its place, though, among Kidder's efforts to help us understand the communities we live in.