No comments about A Life in the Twentieth Century : Innocent Beginnings, 1917-1950.

5 comments about Point Last Seen: A Woman Tracker's Story.

1. Female trackers are rarer than female hunters and Hannah Nyala is a master female tracker. Her book reveals the painful side of her life as she takes us down the battered trail of "a woman who stayed with a husband that beat her". And she opens up the tasks and thinking of a professional tracker. She shows how the act of following footprints on the ground leeds to a philosophy of life. For example these tracker truths are worth pondering:

   1) As we hurry towards our goals in life we miss the subtleties of life itself.

   2) Details mater enormously as you track...evidence of life, of movement, is what a tracker must find first.... Pattern are crucial.

   3) Retracing steps requires getting alarmingly close to what is most unknown in ourselves

   4) It is the little things, the tiny decision or non-decisions, that contribute most to losing one's way.

   5) Part of the process of getting lost is losing sight of your reference point without noticing that it has disappeared.

   Point last seen ...for a tracker is vitally important, getting to that location before all signs of the lost are destroyed is the trackers first priority. This is an enterating and engaging book. Recommended




2. POINT LAST SEEN is a fascinating autobiography not because it provides an insightful look at a female tracker rising above an abusive relationship, but because the nonfiction book lacks the polished skills of a professional co-author sanitizing any feelings out of the account. Instead this time the reader obtains the heart-felt inner soul of an individual seeking to better herself and her children through a skill learned from her grandmother that brings the author in harmony with herself, her family (except the ex) and nature. Hannah Nyala describes the duality of her life. Her anecdotes of locating individuals lost in the wilds are incredible, as these stories read more like strong fiction similar in a sense to her wonderful novel, LEAVE NO TRACE. She also describes her personal life starting as a Mississippi dropout to becoming a teenage battered spouse with two children to her escape to freedom and finally to tracking her abducted children when her husband and his goons kidnap them. Though lacking a professional sheen, biography fans will want to track down this strong account of a woman survivor.

   Harriet Klausner




3. I loved this book immensely. Loved how she wove her two tales into one, loved how she unflinchingly followed her heart, loved that she had the courage to finish her journey despite the immensity of the obstacles. The most important point this book brought out was how the legal system adresses domestic violence. Hannah and her children received little or no protection from the law. When women tell the truth about their lives it may increase our awareness to the point where women and children will no longer have to fight such lengthy, grueling and lonely battles. Hannah was fortunate and strong, were it not so her story would not have such a successful outcome. As she says, "As we track we too are being tracked. Every action, every inaction, every word and every silence leaves clear signs for the next generation....By learning to really see and listen to one another...we can overcome what would destroy us"



4. Hannah Nyala's life is of duality and parallels, where a childhood skills of tracking is her saving grace in her family and professional life. I was far more interested in learning how people track and how they see the world compared to the rest of us who generally have heads in the clouds, where as trackers are literally grounded. Nyala skillfully applies the tracker skills to narrating why women such as she stay in abusive marriages and how she would eventually find the confidence and strength to search for a different and better life, which parallels her growing skill as a tracker of lost hikers and frightened children. She would even journey to Africa to better her tracking skills and there she would realize domestic violence crosses culture, race, and class. Her writing style is calm and lacks self-pity. Nyala has a clear eye for those around her even when the future (goal) is yet to be found.



5. Hunted or hunter? Hannah Nyala has been both as she relates in her sometimes chilling frequently hopeful autobiography.

   "Nothing can adequately prepare a human being for becoming another's prey," she writes. Yet for 19 years Nyala has been the quarry in a twisted game of cat and mouse.

   She has also been the hunter, saving lives as part of a National Park Service search-and-rescue team.

   Little in a bucolic childhood spent in southern Mississippi prepared her to contend with violence. The simple evangelistic Christianity embraced by her family taught her meekness, obedience, to turn the other cheek - even when it will be beaten bloody.

   Kevin seemed quiet and sensitive when they met at a religious camp meeting. They married several weeks shy of her high school graduation. She had entered purgatory.

   He beat her. Even when her waist was thick with child. Why? Because there were not exactly six ice cubes in his glass of tea. The cycle of bludgeoning accelerated, later laced with threats to kill their children, Jon and Ruthie, before dismembering her body.

   If hand towels were perfectly folded but the space between them was incorrect, Kevin might choke her until she lost
   consciousness.

   "So after leaving him," Nyala writes, "no matter where my children and I lived, we deliberately hung our towels sloppily - not out of proposed rebellion, but as a marker: If we ever came in and found two hand towels folded precisely in thirds and hung on the towel bar with exactly one inch of space between them, it meant that he had been in the house. And might still be there."

   Knowing that Kevin is pursuing them, Nyala and her family live in terror. Her worst fear is realized when Kevin kidnaps their children. Numb with grief she can only put one foot in front of the other, turning to the mountains for spiritual solace and survival.

   The slow solitary process of studying footprints, tracking was her salvation. She learns to read broken twigs, bent grass, pebbles pressed into the earth, as well as to discern "The almost imperceptible trail a scorpion leaves behind."

   Eventually she met Frank, a park ranger who became her second husband. They move to Joshua Tree National Park in southern California's Mojave Desert.

   In graceful prose the author describes nature's world, the lush unexpectedness of desert flowers, animals scurrying to shade between rocks. She learns patience in the desert, and that "Tracking means learning to walk alongside, caring enough to reach out to other people."

   After being largely responsible for finding a lost child and the subject of attendant publicity, Nyala finds that her team mates regard her as competitor rather than comrade. Uncomfortable in this situation, she decides to pursue a college degree in anthropology.

   Being reunited with her children should provide the anticipated happy ending. But Nyala's life isn't written by the Brothers Grimm.

   Her marriage to Frank ends in an amicable divorce. While she is at last awarded custody of her children, Kevin is allowed to post bail. Her home is broken into sixteen times. She and the children find towels precisely folded in thirds hanging on the towel bar. Today Kevin is a free man.

   "Tracking marks my continued search for a safe place, while violence marks my repeated encounters with fear," she tells us. "Neither has yet canceled the other out."

   Nonetheless, Nyala's story is ultimately one of empowerment, growing strength, and survival. Point Last Seen is the compelling account of a family's courage, which speaks to all who love and seek to protect each other.

   - Gail Cooke

1 comments about MY NAME IS MARY A MEMOIR BY MARY FISHER.

1. This audio book was fantastic. It is included on my short list of audio books that I've listened to more than once. But the book was published in 1996, can anyone tell me what has happened to Mary Fischer since then?

   Why did I like the book so much? It was well-written. Read by the author, it was sincere and heartfelt. Mary Fischer's life has been filled with many challenges. The listener may have experienced some of these challenges: life with an alcoholic parent, marital problems and divorce, lack of recognition at work, dealing with a deadly disease. But whether the listener has first-hand experience with a particular problem or not, Mary's narrative will pull at your heart, put you in her shoes, make your heart beat a little quicker at the tense moments, bring a lump to your throat at others.

   I listened to this book during a week that I was particularly down about my long commute and work situation. I couldn't have made a better choice. I wish Mary Fischer well and thank her for sharing her story.

3 comments about The Passions of Howard Hughes.

1. OK, I didn't read the real book. I got the abridged cassette out of the library because I thought it might be fun. Who isn't interested in learning more about the "real" Howard Hughes, he of the legendary germ phobia and foot long fingernails. His ex-wife, Terry Moore, has teamed up with Jerry Rivers,more than likely a reject from The Star or National Enquirer, to come up with a trashy expose that belongs in the annals of the truly tasteless. Do we really need to hear repeatedly about Howard's throbbing member (I'm using these words because I don't know if reviewers are allowed to use the slang vulgarities used by Moore routinely), or starlets doing things to him that Monica did to Bill behind closed White House doors. Not to mention how she describes the wiles Bette Davis and Katherine Hepburn employed to keep Hughes interested. Thank God Davis is gone, and Hepburn too old to care. All of this squalor is delivered by Moore in a peppy (and loud) harangue reminiscent of a high school cheerleader. What was anyone thinking when they released this lemon? And how does Moore know enough about what went on behind closed doors to quote dialogue? Was she in Bette Davis' bathroom when the great Davis emerged from the bath like Venus on the half shell to unbuckle Hughes pants and ...? You get the idea. Save your money and cling to your own image of Howard Hughes. It has to be less demeaning than the one presented here.



2. After suffering through this book, I am questioning the credibility of the Author's claim to be married to Howard Hughes. It was not a poignant story of a wife about her husband as I thought it should have been. Instead, it was a sordid expose of his sexual conquests mixed in with his last days on this earth. Although Hughes made many problems, I felt that this book gave a low blow to our memory of the man. In addition, a question kept repeating over and over in my head?
   
   How would she know all of this stuff? She wasn't even there.



3. I liked this book. Yes, Howard Hughes did some great things and they are mentioned in the book. But he also had a human side which was also shown in the book. A real page turner and well written.

5 comments about The Trust: The Private and Powerful Family Behind the New York Times.

1. Tifft and Jones rip the gown off the old Gray Lady to reveal the hidden secrets of the family that made the New York Times the respected powerhouse it is today. The story of the Ochs/Sulzburger clan appeals on two levels. First, it is the story of the making of the newspaper, the ethical and financial decisions required to make the Times both reputable and profitable. And second, it is a good old scandal story, filled with affairs and family altercations, and Times Square palace intrigues. While the book remains superficial about the journalism, it delves deeply into the characters, who are of course the most fun part of the tale.



2. The only positive comment one can make about this sorely disappointing excavation of the Sulzbergers and their newspaper is that it's written in fluid, clear prose. That's it! This is quite surprising given the credentials of these two supposedly fine journalists; they did a wonderful job excavating another newspaper dynasty -- the Binghams. But this time, little insight is offered; instead, the reader is loaded down with gratuitious gossip. Historic and psychological contexts are shabbily rendered. One can't help but wonder if Mr. Jones, who comes from a newspaper dynasty himself, albeit of a much smaller scale, was not dealing -- negatively dealing -- with his own issues in this book. The Sulzbergers, particularly, Arthur jr, a brilliant, progressive, and humane publisher, and deserve better.



3. This massive chronicle of the Ochs-Sulzbergers and their stewardship of the New York Times gets off to a fascinating start, dramatizing Adolph Ochs' purchase of the then nothing New-York Times and detailing his wildly successful efforts to build a paper of note.

   But once Ochs vanishes from the narrative, bequeathing the editorship to son-in-law Arthur Sulzberger, the book slowly loses steam. Focus shifts from the newsroom to the myriad Ochs-Sulzberger relatives and their beside-the-Times activities, in response to which a reader can only offer a heartfelt shrug.

   In defense of The Trust it has been pointed out that the authors set out to write about the family rather than the paper, but apparently there's little of inherent interest in the Ochs-Sulzbergers outside the Times. Down the backstretch, the authors seem as bored as the reader, dutifully recounting the gossipy infighting among far-flung cousins.

   The Trust, excellent as much of it is, comes to seem unfortunately conceived -- the newsroom coverage is exemplary, but the beside the Times gossip grows quickly tiresome.




4. This is a monumental work of multiple biography and institutional history.

   It is cumpulsively readable, like a good novel. This book became my trusted companion during many relaxing evening hours and solitary restaurant meals.

   It is also admirably crafted. As in their previous book The Patriarch (about the Bingham family of the Louisville Courier-Journal), Tifft and Jones write beautifully and with great skill for handling detail and narrative.

   They also have the ability to balance candor and fairness, steering a sober, high-minded course between warts-and-all skepticism and obsequious hagiography. As a reader you sense you are getting a careful portrait of each major character's personality, strengths, foibles, fond traits, and character flaws, while never getting the feeling the authors are doing either a flack job or a hatchet job.

   That's not to say certain characters don't come off better than others. For example, the authors seem consistently sympathetic toward the modestly talented, often hapless but usually wise "Punch" Sulzberger, the dominant figure at the Times from the mid 60s through the mid 90s, while casting his wife Carol as a shallow, cold-hearted Nancy Reagan type. But the book rings of truth and authority, and so one generally trusts the authors' assessments.

   While this book overwhelmingly is concerned with people, not events, it provides a valuable account of the internal debates over whether and how to publish the Pentagon Papers. It also illustrates the paper's vigorous post-war anti-communism, its cozy relationship with the Eisenhower administration, its internal battles over editorial voice during the political and cultural upheavals of the 1970s, and its generational differences over homosexuality (contrasting Punch's bigotry with his son and successor Arthur Jr.'s determination to make the Times a progressive place for gays to work). Two consistent threads run throughout the book: the Sulzbergers' ambivalence over their Jewish heritage, and their determination to place journalistic excellence and family control of the paper over the business strategems and high profits necessary to please Wall Street.

   This book will be of great interest to journalism junkies. But it also commends itself to all lovers of serious biography.




5. It is not surprising that this book's major revelations have not had greater circulation given the nature of family ownership of the vast majority of the biggest media conglomerates in the country, including the massive Gannett holdings of all forms of media all over the world, the enormous Newhouse "out-of-the-shtetl" holdings of not only papers, but magazines, book publishers and electronic media, the Washington Post, and its TV stations, etc., but you would think that some of them would be discussed a bit more than zero. Unknown in the US is any coverage of what the rest of the world classifies as the "Jewish conspiracy" of media dominance in the US. It appears daily in the major media in the Islamic world as the reason for US support of Israel and the reason for jihad against the infidels. It also explains much of French, German and British hatred of the US, long before GW Bush showed up. This book covers some of this, but not much, and is one of the reasons it does not get more stars. But the book has some great insights such as the following.
   Did you know that Punch Sulzberger viewed the current publisher, his son "Pinch" Sulzberger's positions on the Vietnam War to be treasonous because his son said he would cheer on the death of an American soldier over a Viet Cong in Vietnam in a face to face fight? Do you know that the majority of the editorial positions at the Times are held by militant homosexuals, and that one of the editorial writers at the Times is married to a member of the Massachusetts Supreme court who cast the deciding vote on the issue of legalizing gay marriage in that state but never revealed his affiliation in his many columns on the issue? (The Times' own ombudsman, Daniel Okrent, recently said that the Times' coverage of homosexual issues has crossed the line from reportage to advocacy.) Do you know that the Times is a "publicly held" company, but the family has prevented any kind of modern corporate governance with its stranglehold on its preferred stock while at the same time the paper screams about corporate transparency at every other corporation in the US? And that is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to "The Trust" that guarantees the succession of the male heir to the throne. A corrupt American version of British primogeniture in kingly succession to the Time's monarchy.
   But this book also shows why the Times has become a shadow of its former self, is beset by scandal after scandal such as the Jason Blair forgeries (which occurred after the publication of this book) and has resulted in the gradual decline of a formerly great paper. While newspapers are probably doomed in this century, just as the town criers before them, as they are replaced by the internet and cable television news, you can find out why The New York Times is in its death spiral by reading this book. Unfortunately the authors were reluctant to get into the business consequences of the loss of credibility of publications such as the Times with mainstream Americans, but this is still a very worthwhile book. Unfortunately the billions of dollars sucked out of the unsuspecting shareholder of the Times never gets to read about the corruption and moral bankruptcy of current Times management, but this book would be a good place to start.

No comments about Mosaic.

No comments about Yami: The Autobiography.

No comments about Seeing Things.

2 comments about A Hero All His Life: A Memoir by the Mantle Family.

1. After reading this book on Mickey Mantle, it showed all of us what a true hero he really was. Yes there were the incidents of alcohol and unfaithfulness with his wife, but the ability to see his wrongs and his struggle to correct those earlier problems would make anyone root for this midwest small town icon.



2. If you are looking for a book on the baseball exploits of Mickey Mantle try another book. Mickey, his wife, and sons reveal the difficulties they endured as they each battled alcohol addiction which led to numerous other problems in their lives. It may seem like a depressing book, but the story is told in a way that other families might avoid the pitfalls the Mantle family suffered. They are to be commended for their candidness.

2 comments about Michael Jordan ....In His Own Words.

1. I like a lot this book,please,please,please... I dont know what to say,I just like this greate book.



2. I accidentally bought this tape instead of an excellent book of Jordan quotes by Janet Lowe. The book was so good I'd pass copies out to kids that I thought could use some mentoring or role modeling. This tape, however, is hardly worth the time to listen to it, and absolutely not worth the price. A verbal 'People' magazine piece at best. In disgust, I am throwing away the 3 copies I bought so that no one else should be victimized. Please do the same.