3 comments about If I Live to be 100.

1. Though Ellis intended to write about the centenarians' memories of the past, she found that these insightful and wise men and women preferred to talk about the present and the future. Their words contain the formula for living well. This is a must-read for anyone who wishes to live fully or wishes to become a better journalist.



2. If you are an NPR fan you probably recall the Neenah Ellis series on centenarians, and if you liked that then you'll love this audio book. (You can listen to samples at NPR or the "If I Live to Be 100" website.) You won't find many tips on how to cope with aging except for possibly the most important clue - there are no 100-year-old pessimists. This is mostly a "slice of life" study of several people at or above 100 years old, with intriguing glimpses into the author's own life and interview process. The parts that really came alive for me were the centenarians speaking of how life was different "in the old days". I listened to this in the car over several days, and often sat at my destination with the car running because I didn't want to stop listening. After enjoying this audio version, check out the book's website for photos of the people interviewed.



3. I have decided which of these beautiful people I want to be when I turn 100.

5 comments about Green River, Running Red: The Real Story of the Green River Killer--Americas Deadliest Serial Murderer.

1. I decided to read this book after seeing the TV movie based on Ann Rule's book. However, I believe another book written in the late 80s/early 90s, The Search For the Green River Killer, was better.
   
   Rule's book goes a bit overboard in giving backgrounds to the many women who disappeared. After reading 40+ mini bio's on each of the girls, the book starts to become a bit boring. However, she does give the reader enough information to know that these girls were real people and that they all had mothers, boyfriends, and family. However, these bios continue for at least 250 pages (paperback). Once the bios are finished, the book begins to take off.
   
   One irritating factor is how Rule stops the flow of narration to interject comments about herself, or what she was doing during the course of the killings, or how she passed on certain information to the police, blah blah blah. I believe one should write objectively about the subject without personal interjection.
   
   Another facet of the book I found unusual was how the book skipped from circa 1988/89 to 2001. Rule gives basically no information as to what was happening on the case during the 90s. She starts section III with 2001 and the capture of Ridgway. Well...what happened during the 90s? How did the police slowly hone in on Ridgway?
   
   The last section of the book starts with "We've caught the GRK" and then goes into his capture, his trial and so on.
   
   I've read other Ann Rule books. I know she writes well but this book was a bit self-serving.



2. It took Ms Rule over 20 yrs to write this book , and as you will tell it is very well written . It tells us the story of the 49 victims and a little of what their life was like as most of them lived on the streets .
   The Green River Killer (GRK) didn't have a preference , He didn't care about the age or race of the girls , He just patroled the strip for his victims . SOme of them being easy targets as they were prositutes and others that weren't . This book shows us how anyone can fall victim to this type of crime when there is a serial killer loose .
   
   You never know your neighbor or friend as Ms Rule says in here as she worked along side of Ted Bundy prior to his killing spree .
   
   Was the GRK ever caught and what happened , you have to read the book to find out .



3. I could not get past the first 100 pages. The topic is interesting but the style of the writing is boring and unbearable. Hard to stay interested with all the off topic tangents the author goes on.



4. Accurately and graphically covering details of horrific murders, Ann Rule does so with compassion and sympathy. This is not any easy task considering the horror of the crimes against more than 50 young women in the Pacific Northwest during the 1980's. Rule gives the reader insight into the both the killer's and the victim's motivations and life's story. This story is well-presented and conclusive. Recommended.



5. This book is more of a yearbook of the victims than it is an account of the crimes or the mind of the GRK. It just went on and on about each girl and her miserable life and how that led her into the world of prostitution and eventually to becoming a GRK victim. I read about 3/4 of the book and then just gave up. It just went on and on and on and jumped all over the place. Only Ann Rule book I did not enjoy. And the first book I have ever not bothered to finish reading.

5 comments about Man Who Stayed Behind.

1. Anyone who has made seeking truth his or her quest should read this book. With a painful honesty, Rittenberg accounts a sincere believer's failed efforts in pursuing idealism. He does not shun away from the truth that idealism and stupidity were often twins in human history. In fact, "faith" can make one blind and an involuntarily contributor to harm. It took the author a lifetime - including 16 years in the prisons of the system he believed in - to realize this simple truth. An ordinary person might have woken up a lot earlier, but not a believer. Is this faith or stupidity? The reader should draw his or her own conclusion. Nonetheless, what I really want to say is: although his effort in pursing ideals has failed, his life experience is not a waste; we can all learn from his lessons. In this sense he is still a hero, or in classic Chinese terms, a "hero by failure". To the reviewer below who called Rittenberg a "coward" with the "integrity of a worm" I want to ask, could you do better than him in those circumstances - in the bombing and in the prisons? That is a very pointed question.
   
   Rittenberg's Chinese name Li Dunbai has been known to me since my childhood during the Cultural Revolution in China, though I never knew him personally, and still don't know him now. In this book it is his candid and thorough accounts of the personal experiences of the familiar history that grab me, from the opening page to the last. Unlike some other bestseller memoirs on the same period of China, such as "Wild Swans," which emphasize the virtue while downplaying the deficits of the protagonists, Rittenberg hides nothing about his own personal weakness and mistakes. Anyone who has gone through the same period knows that we were all participants, no matter how noble or gaudy our motives were, no matter you admit it or not. To deny this and dress up as a pure victim or even a hero is truly a shame. Only by facing our mistakes and failures honestly we can help ourselves.



2. Sydney Rittenberg was one of a tiny handful of misguided utopia seekers who escaped from America to the Workers' Paradise, Mao's China. Rittenberg spends decades of his life in China championing a supposedly idealistic movement that was rife with intrigue from its inception. I cite Mao's "Let a 100 Flowers Bloom" campaign as one of many examples. It was a call for a dialog with the country's intellectuals. After getting them to air their true feelings he launched his "Uprooting Poisonous Weeds" campaign in which those who's views didn't spout the official party line were sent to the laogai, the Chinese gulag. I won't get into Mao's manufactured famine (read The Hungry Ghosts and Scarlet Memorial) or the Cultural Revolution. He was imprisoned twice for a period of 16 years. He didn't commit any criminal offense he was simply an international pawn for the Communist Party. What is so frustrating about this autobiography is that he never wavers in his so called "faith". For whatever reasons he just can't contemplate the reality that the intensity of his obsequiousness and fanaticism or political correctness (we got that term from the communists) is irrelevant to the Chinese. Perhaps that realization would have totally destroyed his persona. At the end he decides that the Communist Party has deviated from its "pure and humble" origins and moves back to the capitalist United States where his wife makes a windfall from an import deal. The United States is hardly perfect but I think it speaks to our generosity that after Rittenberg's dream of a totalitarian utopia failed, after he spent decades denouncing the "yellow dog imperialists" he was allowed to return along with his Chinese wife and Chinese born adult children.
   
   I was more impressed with Army Private James George Veneris, the man who stayed behind until the end. Veneris was one of 21 POWs during the Korean War, between America and China, who chose not to be repatriated. Eventually all but Veneris returned to the US in disgrace. I realize that a lot of Americans would consider Veneris a traitor, but at least he stayed true to his principles to the end. I was quite intrigued by the adaptability of this man and what motivated him to sever all aspects of his former life. I spent the academic year of 1999/2000 in China and had many difficulties adjusting, even with access to the Internet, English TV, and Hong Kong nearby. I wanted to write his biography. Unfortunately, he died a few years ago. In the process of searching for Virginia Pasley's book, 21 Stayed: The story of the American GI's who chose Communist China: who they were and why they stayed, I came across Rittenberg's book.
   
   The book is worth reading for the fact that Rittenberg had a unique experience during an interesting period of history. I would also recommend Jan Wong's Red China Blues. Wong is a Canadian born Chinese who was a college student during the Cultural Revolution. She decided that revolution was the way to paradise and was allowed to go to China to participate in the process. She became an ardent fanatic, but it only took a few years for her to wise up.



3. Sidney Rittenberg is a truly amazing character, and you must read his story to believe it. It's also one of the most insightful and thorough evaluations of Maoism and the Cultural Revolution, written by someone who believed firmly in those ideals at the time, but came to reexamine and question them as he saw their darker sides. This book is highly recommended for anyone even remotely interested in China, Chinese history, Communism, or just a really well-written autobiography of someone with an extraordinary life.



4. Few books written about Communist China are pleasant to read because of the experiences related, this is certainly one of them. Mr. Rittenberg's quixotic adventure in China was tragic-comic to an unbelievable proportion but still his undying idealism commands one's respect.
   
   I have googled and read his speeches about China on internet and I think he is one of the wiser guys in matters of China. He knows China inside out.



5. Lots of people have derided Rittenberg in this space, most seemingly because of Rittenberg's religious-level belief in communism in his earlier years. Read this book not as a defense of communism (it isn't, at all), but as an intensely personal journal of one life, lived at the core of the PRC, from 1946 to the late 1970s. Rittenberg, now in his mid 80s, gives a unique perspective on the early leaders of the Chinese Communist Party, and the vision, plus the folly, that intertwined with the early years. Whether one believes that he earned his 15+ years of imprisonment or not, no feeling human can fail to empathize with those, including him, who were jailed by the regime.
   In recent years, the PRC has admitted that the Cultural Revolution was a mistake, and therefore these years have seen a flurry of what's called 'scar literature' in China. Rittenberg's work cover much more than just his years in jail during the Revolution--it provides a remarkably close-up look at the emergent PRC in its first 25 years. Read it without fail if you seek to understand the roots of China today.

5 comments about Swimming Across: A Memoir.

1. When I finished this book, I was rather disappointed at its incompleteness. No doubt Andy Grove must be an extraordinary person after immigrating to America with almost nothing and then moving to become the CEO of Intel Corporation. His book gives some insight into his personality through his childhood experiences and his dedication to hard work can easily been seen through his striving for an education.
   
   The most disappointing aspect of "Swimming Across" is that it does not explain how he became such a successful person after moving to America. The story ends after his college education from City College in New York. It does not describe any part of his involvement in the development of Intel Corporation. Rather than a biography, it is more of a complication of his childhood reflections.
   
   A good portion of the story revolves around his childhood experiences as a Jew during the Holocaust, followed the Soviet occupation of Hungary. It is interesting to read from a historical perspective. Much of the book also deals with his interest in chemistry and his quests for girls during his gymnasium (high school) years.
   
   The writing is easy to read and not very intricate. While it offers an interesting tale of his personal experiences as an American immigrant, it does not have very much on how to climb the corporate ladder. It has a very good glimpse into the real Andy Grove's personality from a first person perspective, but not the details on what made him stand out as a successful individual among other Americans.



2. Never would I have expected a man behind Intel could have such a childhood.I picked this book because it was written by Andrew Grove and mostly because it sets in the the times of World War II. Although I could not get much from a Jews perspective during the war time, however the book has captured some of the essence of tension during the period.
   
   I was intrigued by his childhood story and found it hard to put the book down one I started reading it (Yes, it is cliche to say that..) The title of the book "Swimming Across" could not have been more appropriate with his escape from Hungary to the United States - that made such an outstanding person in man's history!



3. The reason we should read biographies, to my mind, is clear - to find out what drives other people towards success, towards failure, towards redemption, towards evil, even to find out how the Mansons, Stalins, Hitlers and Husseins grew up. The pursuit of a clue towards a person's later decisions is a delicious game, to find the key events in childhood that makes that person later go down in the history books.
   
   However, there is one problem in an autobiography: the person is himself writing it, therefore editting out consciously and unconsciously factors that may well have been much more critical, omitted due to personal embarassment or because the family members and friend are still alive.
   
   Reading the life of Andrew Grove, according to Andrew Grove (born Andras Grof), is to have a feeling that his whole childhood was drawn through a cheesecloth with small holes. If he did write it all himself, without outside editting, it reads in a very simplistic way, for a very complex man. It seems as if the "big words" were taken out, the more complex self-examination of his soul was either never set to paper, or deleted.
   
   Nevertheless, you will find this book a good read, like a suspense story, as young Andris, only child of a Jewish comfortable family in pre-WWII Budapest, grows up with a strong sense of separation from others.
   
   He has several marks against him from the start - he is Jewish, and all around him know it, and for the most part, in Europe, that was no plus. He rejects his own religion and remains fiercely secular, so he has no religious morality on which he hangs his decisions. He is a pudgy boy, whom others tease, whom girls reject. He turns to books, to study, to the English language, and finally to science, in his loneliness. His own father is taken away during the war, hence his mother loses her social life and is isolated along with her son. The situation is restored to prosperity and popularity after the war, when the father miraculously survives a dreadful work camp, returning home a filthy skeleton.
   
   When the father is in clover, getting top level positions in the post-war economy, by means unclear to readers, all seems well, and people come in a steady flow to the house. Later, the father is accused of illegal activity, and loses his position and 75% of his salary, along with the pretty secretary and the car. The sensitive son, Andris, notices how popularity depends on the income and position of the father. NO doubt that this is driven deep into his consciousness more than anything else.
   
   When a chance to leave Hungary arises in 1956 with the 17 days of fighting the Russian Communists, his parents do not hesitate to encourage him, for at least he has a fighting chance with relatives in New York City, and years of English lessons under his belt. These two factors hasten his journey by ship to America, where his relatives adopt him and support his way through college, until he has a degree in chemical engineering. His attachment to Hungary is weak to this day, and he has not returned since his mudcaked trudge over the border to Vienna. He never voices a strong hatred of Communists, perhaps because his own father must have been one to have been appointed an inspector in an area in which he was not qualified. Yet it is the Communist mentality which has hung over his country and threatened the Western world for decades. It is a strange omission in a man who celebrates America's open doors and willlingness to give immigrants a chance at great capitalistic success, something that could never have happened in a Russian-dominated nation.
   
   I am impressed with this older man's willingness to write about his painful and persecuted youth, but any experienced reader can feel that there is a stiffness in the writing, especially in dealing with any of the women who did not mother him (i.e. his own mother and the aunt in NYC), as if the human elements in his life were not so critical for him. He seems to be a very tough nut, although he may have underneath some sentimentality, i.e. when the grandchildren were born, he wrote this book. He admits in the closing chapter that he himself is not sure why he does not return to the country of his youth, but I have my own suspicion - that he felt himself an outsider and a social failure throughout all those years, both as a Jew and a "nerd", and that his father's ups and downs with the economy and with the Communist affiliation made a much bigger impact than he will dare delve into. He perhaps underestimated the English-speaking world's understanding of this kind of dictatorship and decided not to go deeply into that part of everyday life.
   
   Most refugees from Communism and Nazism are willing to go on for chapters about the restrictions and mind control of their homeland's dictatorships, but you will find that these are only briefly touched upon. I see the young Andris a boy of self-conscious, sensitive and rationally intelligence, who refuses to let external factors push him down, what the Finns call SISU. Whether it is outside takeovers like the fall of Hungary to COmmunism, the rape of his mother by the Russians, the imprisonment of his father, and other extremely horrid life situations, he shut his emotions down and plowed ahead. Yes, he is very much like the Finns, especially their men.
   
   We can all admire Andrew Grove as a great leader of Intel, as a driven and highly intelligent man, but the person underneath, as revealed in this story, is a damaged and isolated person from his youth. No wonder that he did not want to write it down until so much later in life, when material success and a family of his own could prove that he was great.



4. Andy is a wonderful person and a genius - but not a writer. This book is simply childish.Sorry Andy.



5. This is an inspiring story of Andy Grove's extraordinary life. As a contemoprary, I do not relish thinking about how well I would have fared against the dangers and adversities Grove faced, including Nazi invasion of his native city of Budapest, Soviet takeover, Communist Hungarian government, persecution as a Jew, physical illness. This book could be titled "Only the hard-headed, determined, and confident survive". On a small negative note, it is not realistic to think that he could remember many years later the degree of detail he includes in the book, although I have no doubt that the essential events happened as reported.

2 comments about Older the Fiddle, the Better the Tune, The: THE JOYS OF REACHING A CERTAIN AGE.

1. 6/3/03 The amazon editorial review listing of the celebrities , (plus the celebrities listed on the back jacket which they did not include(Wally Amos,Pat Boone,Soupy Sales, The Amazing Kreskin, Fred Rogers ,plus about 10 others (incl of Dick Martin)make it a book that many will purchase without even browsing(I borrowed it based on the well illustrated jacket)....The ordinary people give "much food for thought"(although I could not find the one written by the former mayor of Pittsburg...,many have stopped to 'smell the roses'..many have become the workholic that they felt retirement's funds and funs would rid them the addiction of...then there's Sofia Gelman(Pg 152)a retired neurologist 's whose poem begins "Don't laugh at me,I'm taking classes at the police academy,Imagine me in my 70's, Still eager to fulfill my life motto'Not to miss' ,which was the next profile after a quote from Mark Twain: "Wrinkles should merely indicate where the smiles have been".



2. As a member of A.A., I simply will not buy a book written by another member that so flagrantly breaks the most important tradition of the society he purports to embrace. I hope Willard Scott will reconsider his decision to break his anonymity at the public level. Not only will any future slip of his hurt A.A., but he has set a precedent for any future celebrity, not all of whom will remain sober after they disclose their membership. I heard Scott's C-SPAN interview, and he seems to claim a disingenuous ignorance about this important A.A. tradition, a tradition that all newcomers to A.A. are immediately and thoroughly taught. Scott says he wants to help others; he may want to. But A.A. will help more people than any individual can, and he jeopardizes A.A. by publicly announcing his membership.

5 comments about A Promise Is a Promise: An Almost Unbelievable Story a Mother's Unconditional Love and What It Can Teach Us.

1. There are so many good things I can say about this book, but what I have been thinking about since I read it, is when I see the news talking about Mrs. Schiavo's ordeal...After reading about Edwarda and her mother, Kaye, I was truly overwhelmed at the thought of what one person would do for another. I am a mother of 3 boys and I would do anything for them. Maybe after reading about Kaye doing what she has done for her daughter, only reassures me that beautiful, very selfless miracles do exist and I am more sure I could draw strength from this.

   At first, with the Schiavo case, I thought it was rather selfish to keep someone alive who really didn't want to be...Then after reading Wayne Dyer's book about Edwarda & her mother, I re-thought my options, mainly determining that nobody on this earth has the right to declare someone's life over, unless it is written out somewhere by that person, and even that is questionable at this point. I think God is the only One who has this say in such a manner.

   I'm so glad that Kaye had not given up on her daughter and that she has basically told the rest of the world that she is here to do this for her, at whatever cost, and without concern of what other people think about how she's going about doing so.

   I only wish there was a way to find out the current status on this story...How do I find out where things stand? If someone knows, please update me...I would appreciate that.




2. I noticed someone below who was curious as how one could keep tabs on the story of Edwarda O'Bara..
   There is a website dedicated to them at www.edwardaobara.com
   with pictures and messages from the mother.This is the only thing I can really add to the reviews below.



3. I so wish I were rich, so I could buy more copies of this book and give away. I buy as many as I can from the used bin. I don't think the money gets back to Kaye and Edwarda when I buy the used books, but at least the message is getting out.
   I give the books to friends. send them to those indivisuals in positions's of authority, ie: mayors, politicians, civic leaders, friends and relatives. I highly encourage everyone to buy as many copies as you can and give away. new or used, the money and message gets spread. if you have any doubts as to whether or not this book is this good, at least buy one copy for yourself and read it.
   Dr. Dyer has much good info for everyone, above and beyond "A Promise is A Promise"
   thank you so much Kaye and Edwarda !!
   cowboy bob !!



4. I, like I am sure everyone else who read this book was deeply touched. My respect for Kaye was imeasurable thinking of all the sacrifices she made. I can honestly say the only other mother who may surpass her is Jean Ellison. (One mother, One Daughter, One Journey by Jean and Brook Ellison)Jean Ellison not only does what Kaye does, but her daughter, unlike Edwarda is paralyzed from the neck down since she was 11 years old.You may have heard that her mother attented ALL HER CLASSES from 7th grade to senior year in Havard. I was a little troubled by reviewer Patricia had stated. The first being a very valid question, if Wayne Dyer is such a good friend and a multimillionare then why not set up a trust? It is a valid question. Yes I know that the proceeds from the book go to Kaye Obara, but after books are read they are resold and that money goes to the original buyer, Kaye Obara does not receive that money.Secondly, what I found troubling was the statement that she (the reviewer Patricia ) had lunch with Kaye and indicated she was not a sweet, soft spoken person.She further states she will not elabarate, but I wished she had. Is this kind of scam? Did Patricia mean that she was just a stronger person than she thought, but then states not is always as it seems. I now hesitate to donate anything as this has me wondering. The book was beautiful, but this review troubled me as this person actually met someone from the story and did not seemed impressed.



5. After Wayne Dyer (of whom I am a big fan!) wrote about this woman and indeed, wrote this book with his wife, I was curious to read it. Even though after reading the summary of it, and looking at Edwarda O'bara's website, I had some questions.
   
   Anyway, I did not find this inspirational at all, and quite honestly, I think that Kaye O'Bara has made herself into a martyr. Having worked as a nurse, and done homecare with patients, I cannot for the life of me figure out why she has had to sacrifice so much to keep her daughter alive. Never leave the house? Feed her every two hours? Please, give me a break.
   
   There are these very commonly used devices called feeding pumps, and they are very sensitive, and can deliver as much or as little food as you want per hour--they are used on premature babies and can deliver as little as 1 cc an hour for heaven's sakes. So why isn't Edwarda on a feeding pump at night? Why is Kaye sleeping only 90 minutes at a time and feeding her daughter every two hours? Sorry, but even the most brittle diabetics do not have to be fed that often. And with a feeding pump, she can sleep all night and keep her daughter fed.
   
   Now, she feeds Edwarda every two hours round the clock. Why? What person, even a diabetic in a coma, needs to eat that often? Again, if Edwarda's metabolism is that unstable, the feeding pump would work wonders. And why does she need to check her blood sugar and give insulin every 4 hours? Diabetics generally don't set their alarm clocks in the middle of the night to check their blood sugar. You would think that after all this time, and with the same routine, Edwarda's schedule would become routine and she could go through the night without insulin. And there are also insulin pumps which can keep blood sugar stable. Sorry, Kaye, but you know that it is quite possible for you to sleep through the night--or at least, 4-6 hours at a stretch.
   
   And her visions of Mary? Well, I am a believer in apparitions and I do believe that saints, Jesus, Mary, etc, have appeared before people. However, I think that Kaye is hallucinating from exhaustion, and has in her mind that Edwarda is somehow "blessed" and that she has a divine mission.
   
   Kaye's decision to keep Edwarda at home is certainly noble, and she says that is because she made a "promise" to her daughter never to leave her. Uh, I highly doubt that this is what her daughter had in mind. When she fell ill, she was undoubtedly frightened and made her mother promise that she wouldn't leave her alone, probably referring to leaving her in the hospital by herself! I think Edwarda would be horrified to see how her mother has martyred herself on her behalf, on the basis of words uttered by a frightened teenager. Kaye has taken these words to mean that she is supposed to sacrifice her life so that her daughter (who I believe has long gone from this realm)will not be "alone."
   
   Kaye keeps insisting the Edwarda is going to wake up, but its been 37 years. I think it's time to face reality, and maybe enjoy what time she has left in her own life. Sorry, but I found this book extremely depressing and Kaye to be a little unbalanced and she needs to let go. I'm not talking about allowing Edwarda to die, but to place her in a hospice or long term care facility, and maybe spend some time with her other child who she has grossly neglected for the past 37 years. Take a walk on the beach, go to church, sleep all night. She can visit Edwarda everyday and make sure she is being taken care of, she has sacrificed enough of her life, and as I said previously, I am sure that this is not what any daughter would expect from her mother.
   
   I'm glad that I took this out of the library, as I would not recommend it to anyone.

5 comments about Lines and Shadows.

1. Mr. Wambaugh as always, is able to catch the true flavor of what it was really like to be a cop and be a man. How hard is/was to "keep" a marriage, capture the essence of another culture and still tell a story as if we were all sitting in a bar listening to the ones who saw it all. The Seventies were ripe with blurried lines of two countries, two cultures forever linked in land of sometimes chaos. Those guys were the cowboys of the Seventies. It wasn't just a "Mexican" thing,... it was a Cop thing.



2. The philosophical setting of this book is littered with "ifs." If the United States government would protect the US from invaders, as it is charged to do, this book never would have been written. If other nations were governed by constitutions conceptually similar to that of the United States, establishing freedom and individual rights everywhere -- such that people would not feel it necessary to flee their home governments, and seek freedom in the United States -- this book never would have come into being. If, if, if.

   This excellent book is a well-written tragedy about good law enforcement people who took the initiative to overlook one crime (illegal immigration) and proactively fight other crimes -- robbery, assault, battery etc. The story is compelling and riveting. It is good guys versus bad guys.

   Unfortunately, both sides lost.




3. I'm both in awe and suspicious of this book. It purports to tell the true-life story of a group of undercover police officers, most of Mexican descent, who work steathily to entice robbers preying on the heavy illegal alien traffic flowing into San Diego County from Baja California into attacking them, then turning the tables on their would-be victimizers.

   I'm in awe because it reads like fiction, with deep insights into the professional and personal lives of each of the policemen who are part of the BARF (Border Alien Robbery Force) team. We find out how they spend their off-hours, drinking and cheating on their wives with the sort of abandon of the cheerfully doomed. We discover how much they come to dislike one another, and particularly their leader, a hotshot in disco chains named Manny Lopez. The action sequences are riveting, and you get a real flavor for the desolate highlands these officers probe, and the desperate characters, both deadly and vulnerable, that they come across.

   But it reads too much like fiction. These guys either opened up to Wambaugh to a degree few ever do, not even to a very good, empathetic writer who asks all the right questions, or else the writer went the New Journalism route and extrapolated a lot of the inner monologues each of these officers have from time to time. I wonder about the former approach (cops are notoriously taciturn, even with each other or someone like Wambaugh who's obviously skilled at drawing them out) and question the validity of the latter, if used.

   Despite the numerous offenses against man, society, and God cataloged here, Wambaugh apparently didn't leave these guys so much out to dry that they got angry. It wouldn't be a good idea angering these guys, but how did he manage it, given the story we have here? I just wish there was some Author's Note explaining the access issue. All we have is the firm statement at the outset "This Is A True Story." Yes, sure, but are these the real characters? Did he do one of those magazine-writer tricks of folding in multiple characters to create fictional hybrids? Did he use pseudonyms? I'd love to know.

   The dialogue is brilliant, the writerly asides masterful and witty, and a crisp narrative pulls you through quickly while asking the question of when a good impulse (protecting aliens who are being savaged by gangsters while trying to illegally enter your country) become a really bad practice. By the final third of the book, the cops are strung-out adrenaline junkies probing into Mexican territory and looking for conflict, not the sort of characters you want representing your country in a sensitive border region.

   Was this really what they were like? And what happened to them after the book was published in 1984? I'd love to know.




4. because it DOESN'T read like fiction; it's a true story with Wambaugh applying his direct understanding of how cops behave & what happens when they act out because of stress that returns night after night & can't be eased. There's the usual Wambaugh mix of booze, women, blurs between right & law. As usual, there's no insight or development for female characters, who are cardboard cutouts. But this time, instead of playing with character & language, as in other books, he projects his insights into those he depicts, without modifying their character. It's docudrama, despite its gunslinger theme, like Truman Capote's "In Cold Blood," a form Wambaugh is good at, maybe because it relieves him of tense necessity of creating a plot. Oddly, this book isn't cynical, even when describing disappointed moral objectives; but it does prove what Aristotle said, "We become what we do repeatingly." A police department that sends men to work in Hell shouldn't be surprised if they turn into devils.



5. I have read this book over and over again. It combines drama, humor, and enough social commentary that you won't feel it is frivolous. Based on fact, it is a great read. Presently, I am trying to follow up on what happened to the "characters" after the book ended. Can't go wrong with this book.
   
   Sabes que, Wambaugh at his best!

5 comments about Crazy Horse (Penguin Lives).

1. Crazy Horse has been one of my American heroes ever since I read about him in "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West" by Dee Brown back in the 1970's. When I discovered that Larry McMurtry, a favorite author of mine, had written a biography of Crazy Horse, the book immediately made the top of my TBR list! And glad I am that I did immerse myself in this brief but rich biography. As usual, McMurtry does not disappoint - nor does his subject.
   
   Despite extensive writings about the great Sioux warrior Crazy Horse, there is actually a dearth of hard facts about his life. The man was born around 1840, at a time when the nomadic way of life of the Plains Indians was dying....or to be more accurate, at a time when the traditional way of life was stomped out though the US government's broken promises, lies, ineptitude, and the sheer number of US soldiers with rifles and their seemingly never-ending supply of ammunition. Manifest Destiny was very much a reality and it could not be fulfilled while nomadic tribes roamed the Great Plains hunting buffalo, "impeding progress," the westward march of settlers, the building of the railroads.
   
   What kind of written historical record would there be of a man who lived the life of a Sioux warrior, "raiding and hunting on the central plains?" He rarely had contact with whites until the end of his life. And what translations exist are appalling.
   
   Worm, his father was an Oglala healer; his mother was thought to be the sister of Spotted Tail, the Brule leader. From the first, Crazy Horse, called Curly as a boy, marched to the beat of his own drum. He was a loner and although he lived in the traditional way, he was not interested in the usual rituals of purification, like the sundance rite. "He took his manhood as a given and proved it in battle at an early age."
   
   He went on a journey as a young man, to seek a vision. Never orthodox in his beliefs or behavior, Curly did not purify himself in the ancient ways nor did he speak with a holy man, such as his own father, before making the trip. The vision or dream he achieved on this quest, and the interpretation, were to prove very significant throughout his life. There are enough consistent reports about this episode to prove its authenticity.
   
   The author takes the known facts about the period, as well as material garnered from documented interviews with Native Americans and whites who knew Crazy Horse, and recreates here a vivid portrait of the warrior, the human being who cared first and foremost for his people - for the very young, the sick and elderly - the man of such moral authority that he sparked deadly jealousy amongst some of his own men. "Among a broken people an unbroken man can only rarely be tolerated." Crazy Horse "became a too-painful reminder of what the people as a whole had once been."
   
   McMurtry, also paints a clear and accurate picture of the place, the times, the large Native American councils, of the Ghost Dance, the battles, the parlays, the betrayals. He recounts a much reported conversation Crazy Horse, near the end of his life, had with his old friend He Dog. General George Cook wanted all the Sioux at Red Creek "to move across the creek, nearer to White Butte, so he would have them handy for a big council. He Dog thought it might be best to do as he was told." Crazy Horse did not want to make the move for his own reasons. He Dog, concerned about what the move might mean for their friendship asked Crazy Horse if "such a move on his part would mean they were enemies now. Crazy Horse laughed, perhaps for the last time; then he reminded He Dog that he was not speaking to a white man. Whites were the only ones, he said, who made rules for other people. Camp where you please."
   
   Larry Mc Murtry invites the reader to camp where we please amid the recountings and recollections of the life of the legend who was Crazy Horse. This is a brief but beautifully written story of a life...and of a death. It is also a tribute to a great man.
   
   Apparently Penguin has published a series of brief biographies called "Penguin Lives." James Atlas, the editor, plans for six volumes a year from "celebrated writers on famous individuals who have shaped our thinking." The list includes the Buddha, St. Augustine, Joan of Arc, Dante, Mozart, Jane Austen, Dickens and Chekhov. Unfortunately I only see two women on his list. I sincerely hope this grave omission is corrected.
   JANA



2. I don't generally go for books on tape,but decided to give this a try. I was exceptionally pleased with it. I guess just about anyone who has read anything of the West covering the period from the 1830's to the end of the century;knows something about Crazy Horse. There are so many references and they vary so much,one has difficulty in trying to separate fact from legend.
   Mc Murtry puts on his historian hat for this one and tries ,and I might add very suscessfully,to sort it all out. To attempt such a thing,could result in a very long book with reams of details and references;but McMurtry has managed to avoid that;and comes up with a concise,easy to follow book that covers the whole Western Indian experience centered around one of the most prominent Indian leaders at the time.On top of that he builds into it references of other books where the "story" may differ;and where there is differences or actual unknown details;he addresses them. He also refrains from "making up" details and introducing them;which would do nothing but add to the confusion.
   When you finish this book ,you will be left with the impression that you now know the story about as well as one can possibly know it,particularly at this stage of the game.



3. Larry McMurtry (Telegraph Days, Lonesome Dove) brings his clean and concise writing style to this brief but illuminating life of Crazy Horse.
   
   This compact little biography is one of the Penguin Lives series that features what Penguin Books web site describes as an "innovative series of biographies pairing celebrated writers with famous individuals who have shaped our thinking." The series is worth looking into for its other biographies of Churchill by John Keegan, Buddha by Karen Armstrong, and Saint Augustine by Garry Wills among others.
   
   In the case of Crazy Horse not a heck of lot is really known about the man. As McMurtry points out, most of what we know about Crazy Horse and most Indians derives from their contact with whites and Crazy Horse generally avoided whites to the fullest extent possible. He was a brave warrior, a leader of his people at times, but not truly a chief, a loner, an iconoclast within a tribe of iconoclasts.
   
   Crazy Horse is an iconic figure who captures the imagination. His life of some 35 or so years spanned the rapid transformation of the West from the free days of the nomadic Plains tribes and limitless buffalo herds to the confinement of those peoples on poor reservations and the destruction of the herds. Crazy Horse never really yielded to the whites unlike nearly all other Indian leaders, not that it mattered much in the grand scheme of things because no strategy was going to change the ultimate outcome. Crazy Horse declined to go to Washington, resisted any restraints, refused to attend the parleys with the whites.
   
   He did ultimately sacrifice his own freedom when he brought his 900 or so followers after the brutal winter of 1876-1877 - just months after the twin victories over Crook at Rosebud and Custer at Little Bighorn. Crazy Horse was killed, probably by the bayonet of a white soldier as he resisted his final arrest. His death was a blessing as the whites planned to ship him to Fort Jefferson in the Dry Tortugas, a tiny prison atoll in Florida.
   
   Unlike other popular authors, notably Stephen Ambrose, McMurtry resists the temptation to let his imagination roam too freely and sticks mostly to the known facts and reasonable deductions to be drawn from them. Those facts however immutably established Crazy Horse as perhaps the single most romantic and heroic figure of the great American Western epic. He lived free, defeated Custer, the great white romantic figure, and then died young "in the last moments when the Sioux could think of themselves as free. By an accident of fate, the man and the way of life died together...he came to be the symbol of Sioux freedom, Sioux courage, and Sioux dignity." (Page 17, hardcover edition)
   
   Highly recommended for any reader with an interest in the American West.



4. As he states in this volume, it's less a biography than a testament to the impact Crazy Horse had on his own people during and after his life and what he means to Americans today. Illusive yes, but Crazy Horse is a symbol of all that could've been for natives of the plains. He was an Indian who never capitulated, who never gave up on his way of life or on his dreams and those dreams, both figurative and actual, guided him through life and into the walk with the spirits. What does this man mean to us all? He's more than a simple representation. He's an embodiment to self-determination. He's an example of charity and caring of a leader who placed his own people ahead of all else.
   
   Unlike Geronimo, who spent time in prison and then ended up selling autographed photos of himself for a dollar apiece to the very white people he'd sworn to kill, Crazy Horse avoided contact with Whites until his last days and never accepted their systems or their ideas of justice. He only came to the reservation because his people were starving. He only talked to the Fort's doctor because his wife had tuberculosis. He never allowed his photograph to be taken and wasn't known for talking much.
   
   He took his responsibilities very seriously as a shirt wearer and did everything he could to provide for the poor of his tribe despite preferring to be alone and preferring the open prairie to population centers.
   
   I can't help but draw parallels between another mythical figure after reading this tightly told tale. Jesus was said to express great concern for the poor and Crazy Horse was told in a vision that this was his mission in life. Jesus was a symbol for his people of a spiritual life outside the realm of Rome. Crazy Horse was a symbol of a way of life on the plains, free to pursue the Sioux ceremonies and religious observation. Jesus was killed through the betrayal of a friend and stabbed in the side by a Roman spear while hanging from a cross. Crazy Horse was restrained by his friend, the tribal policeman Little Big Man, when he was bayoneted by a soldier. In death, both Christ and Crazy Horse are rallying points for more than just their own people, but for people everywhere.
   
   CV Rick



5. While musing over what to write for a review of this atrocious attempt at literature, one of my students said, "just say it sucked." IT SUCKED!

5 comments about Fields and Pastures New: My First Year as a Country Vet.

1. I really enjoyed this book. It had good detail, and you really felt like you were going on the rounds with Dr. McCormack. I have read it several times since I bought it, and it is hard to put down each time, even though I know the outcome!

   I enjoyed reading how tough it was to convert some of the farmers to the methods of modern veterinary medicine, and it was interesting to read the different methods the farmers had preferred to treat the illnesses in their livestock and pets until their was more modern help available.




2. My people are not from Choctaw County, but we're from "around there." This is not only a sympathetic and heartfelt account of a rural vet practice in the sixties; it's a very accurate look at the folks you were likely to meet then and there, both the good and the bad. I have met most of the folks he talks about, or at least their near relations. Dr. McCormack's extended meditation on the verbal mangling of his job description by his neighbors is alone worth the price of admission, although the account of his visit to the Governor's Mansion driving the "rounds vehicle" and a too-long-delayed boar cutting run it very close. Excellent book.



3. I own the hardback copy of this book...actually I have owned it for a few years now. It is one of those books that become a literary treasure in your bookcase. I was so hooked on this book when I first got it, I read it from cover to cover in one day...I just couldn't put it down!

   Dr. McCormack in the US can be likened to James Herriott of England. His stories of animals that he treated and the start of his career in the 1960's makes the reader feel they are right along side him assisting in whatever procedure needs to be done to his animal patient.

   I am a person of great compassion for animals and as a reader, I was truly appreciative that the love and compassion that Dr. McCormack has for his animal patients shines through to the reader's soul. I laughed with this book..I have cried with this book...I have pulled for the sick animal in this book...I have rooted Dr. McCormack through as he treated tough cases in this book.

   There are books about animals and then there are the special books about animals because the respect, compassion from the writer is there and the animal patients become real as one reads along the journey in the book.

   If you are a James Herriott fan or an animal lover who is a reader, I highly, and I stress highly, suggest getting this book and reading it!




4. I really enjoyed this book. It was well written and entertaining. I loved the Herriot stories so much, this is another great book about vet stories. It will definately be worth your time.



5. This book relates some of McCormack's adventures as the new vet in a southern country town during the early 1960s. McCormack grew up on a farm in Tennessee. His college roommate, a pre-vet major, interested him in veterinary science. Once he earned his veterinary degree and had a few years of experience under his belt, he set off in search of a town where he could hang up his shingle with an independent veterinary practice. At the time, Butler, Alabama had no licensed vet, so it seemed like a reasonable place for a new vet to make a start. In this book, McCormack describes the characters he met, both human and bovine, during that first year in Butler.
   
   McCormack is a master storyteller. With his careful choice of words, he conveys the character of the place with all its color. While chatting with some locals at a general store, McCormack quipped he went into veterinary rather than human medicine because he didn't like dealing with people. But he tells us that this is absolutely not true-if there's one skill that a vet must have above all others, it's the ability to deal with people, to understand their needs and character. In this book, McCormack regales us with tales of how he came to learn this lesson.

5 comments about Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance : An Inquiry Into Values.

1. Reading it is like catching a bug between your teeth at 70 miles an hour. Surprise at first, then comprehension. A belated thanks to Mr. Pirsig for weaving philosophy, science, engineering, and fatherhood, into an insightful and compelling read.



2. I agree with many of the other one-star reviews, this is actually the worst book I have ever read, out of thousands read, in my entire life. The worst book designation goes to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance because it is extremely, extremely, over-rated. I found it to be one of the most self-absorbed, self-pitying, whining complaints I had ever been exposed to - and I know about those, because I'm a former junior high school teacher.
   
   Not only did it not contain any philosophical insights whatsoever, the book is just plain boring and badly written. The only book I have ever thrown in the garbage can - it's just rubbish, and that's where it belongs. I'm sure the author is a fine human being. I just think he wrote a very, very, bad book. Please don't waste your time on this book.



3. Despite the high brow reviews by self proclaiming philosophers and intellectuals who think this is a book about philosophy, it is not. It is also not a "how to" manual on maintaining a motorcycles.
   This is a book about overcoming intellectualism and becoming whole. If you are contemplating reading this book please disregard the reviewers who flex their imaginary philosophical and intellectual muscle and just read it. Yes, there will be parts that seem to endlessly pursue some thought or idea but by the end of this book you will be very glad and satisfied you read it.
   ...of course if you have ever ridden a motorcycle, experienced the landscapes temperature changes, sounds and elements and/or struggled with and beat mental illness this book will take on a special dimension.



4. I re-read this book after about 15 years and enjoyed it just as much as the first time, but I got something different out of it this time too.
   
   This book has a great calming effect on me. It's so interesting on so many subjects, and so accesssible. This is such a relevent read.



5. This was a thought provocing and very enjoyable read. Although it isn't "action packed" or anything, that isn't the point. The author's naration tells the tale of his philosophical journey cross country with his son on his motorcyle. Not only was this book inspirational, but provides new insight in terms of how one sees the world around them. A must read!