5 comments about Medal of Honor: Portraits of Valor Beyond the Call of Duty.

1. Should be must reading in all the schools. Lest we forget what the great sacrifice was all about.



2. I enjoyed the book but I thought there would be more current info. such as Iraq. Also, I had hoped to read about Audie Murphy.



3. My husband is hard to buy for, but, as a veteran and military retiree, I knew he'd love this book. I heard it reviewed on National Public Radio and ordered it on line. He loved it and read every biography.



4. We got this book for Father's Day. My dad is retired Air Force after 20 years. And we knew he would enjoy see all the people who have given to this country. Plus over the years some of the men in the book are friends of his.



5. i heard col. jack jacobs discussing this book on imus about 2 years ago and immediately wanted it, but couldn't justify paying the initial price. last year, i saw a copy in the bargain rack at a large retail bookstore and snapped it up.
   
   of all the books i have regarding Medal of Honor recipients, this is the most impressive. no, it does cover every recipient ... mainly because it focuses on those who were still alive at the time the book was being written (although several men had passed away before final publishing).
   
   the presentation of these men is somber and most importantly, honorable ... not a cheap over-the-top glorification. ordinary men and average citizens who thought of others before themselves. the photography is beautiful, the passages are well-written ... an tasteful and artful presentation that i am proud to own.

5 comments about Flyboys: A True Story of Courage.

1. Bradley hit a grand slam home run with "Flags of Our Fathers" but with "Flyboys" he ran a triple into a double. Reviewer Starzec does a fine job of detailing and addressing some of the odd commentary and analysis by Mr. Bradley that marginally taints an otherwise great book so I will not go into detail here. Bradley's writing style engages and flows easily and takes the reader on an emotional course right to the end of the book. This is a heretofore little known story but certainly an important one. This is one for the personal bookshelf. Good read.
   Steven Bustin, Author: Humble Heroes, How The USS Nashville CL43 Fought WWII
   Humble Heroes: How the USS Nashville Fought WWII



2. I purchased this book for the aviation story, but received the most unbiased history lesson about the two fighting cultures. We recommend it to all our friends and fellow history buffs.



3. Absolutely marvelous jobl! Every high school student should be required to read this book. I am about to order seven of the books to give to friends and family members. My father died after being shot down while a gunner on a B-24 bomber in March of 1944. As I read the book, I realized - even though he must have experienced some terrible minutes going to his death - how fortunate he was to not have been captured. I also spent some two plus years in Japan as a member of the occupation forces and found the Japanese people to be, like most Americans, sensitive,kind and ashamed of any military personnel and the political leaders who tolerated atrocities of any kind.
   
   Michael Dunne Healy



4. Definitely a good story of bravery, Flyboys by James Bradley, is a true story with interviews and facts about World War 2 that could change what people used to think about the war in the Pacific.
   It is a story about some Navy pilots that were sent in to attack a Japanese radio station on the island of Chichi Jima. It tells of how they were captured and treated on the island, but it is also more than stories of World War 2. It tells the history of the Japanese Empire and how they came to be the warring country that they were.
   This book delves deep into the most sinister parts of the Second World War. On one side, it describes how the Japanese treated the Chinese citizens and the American soldiers in some of the most horrific ways such as: killing, mutilating, and even eating their prisoners. Then again, this book describes how the American bombers firebombed the Japanese cities packed full of civilians.
   If I had to change something about this book, I would have written less about the trials at the end. The trials seemed to be too repetitive. The author discussed the same facts about the trial repeatedly. This seemed to drag out the trial and this part of the book lacked in interesting facts. Even though this book was choking with unnecessary facts, it was still interesting to read because of the more important details.
   I sincerely loved the amount of information in this book. Even the gruesome parts of the book add to the big picture of warfare; not just the bombs and bullets, but the emotional part of it as well. It also has some interesting comparisons such as: the chart that shows some of the Japanese cities that were bombed, which American city they were closest to in population, and how much of the city was destroyed. The whole book really makes you think what might have happened if the situation had been swapped between the Americans and Japanese.



5. Can't criticize this book strongly enough. It's viciously anti-American and very often at odds with the facts. It tries to draw moral equivalency between the US and Imperial Japan despite the enormous and obvious differences between the two. For example, the book tris to equate the American fire bombing of Japan with the horrific atrocities wantonly committed throughout Asia (particularly in China, Korea, and the PIs) by the Imperial Japanese Army and completely overlooks the obvious difference that the allied civilians who had been so brutally abused had SURRENDERED, while the Japanese civilians killed in the US air raids had not. Another striking difference was the Flyboys -at great risks to their own lives - dropped leaflets before the attacks warning the Japanese civilians to evacuate their cities or face the consequences, while the Imperial Japanese Army did just the opposite and lied to Chinese, Korean and PI civilians in order to concentrate them in a place where their exterminations could be more readily facilitated.
   The book also claims that the US bombed defenseless civilians - a flat denial of fact. In fact, the those civilians had radar to tell them of the incoming raids, a formidable array of anti-aircraft batteries, and as well as fighter protection.
   As for the claim that it was immoral to bomb Japanese cities independent of the issue of civilian casualities, and that Americans were therefore a being highly hyprocritical, it must be pointed out not only were they valid military targets, but also that their destruction would serve as a warning to future aggressors that such atrocities against US allies would breed retaliation and would not be cost free.
   Eqally outrageous is the large number of glaring historical errors the book contains. At one point the book quotes a source who remembered the smell of jet fuel on a US aircraft carrier in WWII?!!!!! FYI: The US had no operational jets in WWII. Similarly, the book quotes a supposed eyewitness to the DoLittle Raid, a British diplomat who was supposedly stationed in Tokyo at the time, despite the fact that Britian would have been at war with Japan for several months by that time.
   A far better title for this book would have been FLIGHTS OF FANCY.

5 comments about Speak, Memory (Everyman's Library (Cloth)).

1. In Speak, Memory, Nabokov, who is known for crafting memorable sentences in his novels, attempts to apply his abilities to a story that mirrors all the elegance of the New York telephone directory. And he comes up short.
   
   If you open the book to any page, you are likely to recognize his rich writing style:
   
   "This final dachshund followed us into exile, and as late as 1930, in a suburb of Prague (where my widowed mother spent her last years on a small pension provided by the Czech government), he could still be seen going for reluctant walks with his mistress, waddling far behind in a huff, tremendously old and furious with his long Czech muzzle of wire - an émigré dog in a patched and ill-fitting coat."
   
   But you cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. Two stars for effort.



2. I avoid reading autobiographies because so many authors fall on their faces when describing the defining qualities of their lives, in a manner that is interesting to an outsider. Nabokov is an exception: Everything he wrote about felt seemed so close and warm in the memory. He captured both the quintessence of the innocence of youth and the trials of growing up in a turbulent nation. This is one of the only books that I ever read where I was not sated in the end: Just a few more Nabokovian pages of literary richness, please.
   
   As an aside, I loved his description of the "salvo" a chair would make when his zaftig governess (or was it his tutor?) sat down. It forever changed the way I perceive people, myself included, when they sit down. But anyway.



3. Reading this literary whirlwind is somewhat of a harsh inside joke, one that I happen to get and enjoy. He follows some of his motifs and images that he uses in his other novels (the window pencil, cyclical time, etcetera) to make the reader realize that by reading this memoir, the reader has come to know Nabokov less on page 310 than before on page 1! You have to find Nabokov in this book, and those who complain about tediousness and fortress enigmas--those should sigh and let Nabokov set and collect dust on their bookshelf.



4. 3 starts for "I liked it" --
   
   Thought not the best of the stories I've read (literary-autobiography-wise, nothing I've read surpasses Bruno Schulz's The Street of Crocodiles), this charming, rather haphazardly collated collection of Nabokov's autobiographical episodes is certainly worth reading for its breathtaking prose, unique and incisive ruminations on various subjects, and revealing, behind-the-scenes vignettes and thoughts of one of the most fascinating writers of the 20th century.
   
   The only major misgiving I had was the bland, woolgathering reveries I had to trudge through. But then there are these passages that soar into the Unreal and leave me gasping for breath. From the very first sentence ( "The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness"), Nabokov proves himself again and again to be the master prose stylist that he was. Just read this description of the moon:
   
   So there it comes, steering out of a flock of small dappled clouds, which it tinges with a vague iridescence; and, as it sails higher, it glazes the runner tracks left on the road, where every sparkling lump of snow is emphasized by a swollen shadow (p.99).
   
   In these instances, I simply must surrender, prostrate, to Nabokov with my humble hat off. I was also pleasantly surprised to find myself laughing over some of the vignettes (esp. in Chapter 6). Take, for example, this one:
   
   One summer afternoon, in 1911, Mademoiselle [my favorite along with Nabokov's father] came into my room, book in hand, started to say she wanted to show me how wittily Rousseau denounced zoology (in favor of botany), and by then was too far gone in the gravitational process of lowering her bulk into an armchair to be stopped by my howl of anguish: on that seat I had happened to leave a glass-lidded cabinet tray with long, lovely series of the Large White. Her first reaction was one of stung vanity: her weight, surely, could not be accused of damaging what in fact it had demolished; her second was to console me: Allons donc, ce ne sont que des papillons de potager! - which only made matters worse. (127)
   
   Funny, incisive, and lyrical, the book is a great read especially if you're a writer. Like some reviewer has written, "time with Nabokov is invariably time well spent." And it is true. He shows us the secret passageways and hidden nooks of the English language that other writers have completely overlooked. Although the book lacks unity and there are episodes I couldn't care less about, it is simply delightful to follow his prose, stumble over obscure charming words, and be surprised, accompanied by that guttural groan of awe and satisfaction at witnessing the magician of words at work.



5. I read "Speak Memory" over a series of sun-shiny days, sitting in my back yard garden with twenty-six species of flowers blooming around me, in a neighborhood of Victorian houses with 100-year old back yard gardens. My flowers include mallows, zinnias, beebalm, cosmos, snapdragons, and other nectar producers. Over the whole week, I saw just one butterfly, a simple Cabbage White.
   
   I don't think Vladimir Nabokov would write so approvingly of America today as he did of America in the 40s and 50s. I think he'd be disappointed. He'd find it barren and ugly, a casualty of the artless modernism he raged against all his life. Nabokov was a fervid conservative in most things, a man committed to his own memories of a more gracious past, his own childhood in pre-Bolshevik Russia. But don't get the idea that Nabokov was the ultra-capitalist curmudgeonly ranting style of conservative that one hears all too often today; here's what he wrote about that sort of conservative, who "rallied close to my side but did so from such crude reactionary motivation that I was only embarrassed by their despicable support. Indeed, I pride myself with having discerned even then the symptoms of waht is so clear today, when a kind of family circle has gradually formed, linking representatives of all nations, jolly empire builders in the jungle clearings, french policemen, the unmentionable German product, the good old churchgoinf Russian or Polish Pogromshchik, the lean American lyncher, the man with bad teeth who squirts antiminority stories in the bar or the lavatory..."
   
   Like almost everything Nabokov wrote, these memoirs pivot around the Bolshekiv Revolution. Talking about the spiral as a clearer signifier than the circle, he explicitly describes his own life as consisting of a first curl of the spiral, his childhood, ending with his family's flight from the Revolution; a second curl, his twenty years as an emigre in Europe, a grim and self-enclosed time; and his later life in America, a relaxed time of blooming friendships.
   
   More than half the book recaptures the fluttering beauties of his highly privileged and cultured childhood. These chapters are essentially just like the childhood chapters of any memoirist who had a happy youth; they depict his growing self-discovery, his awareness of life in its larval and pupal stages, his acquisition of a sense of having a life cycle to fulfill. "All of this is as it should be according to the theory of recapitulation; the beginning of reflexive consciousness in the brain of our remotest ancestor must surely have coincided with the dawning of the sense of time," he meditates, and in another passage, speaking of coincidences and chance encounters, he declares; "The following of such thematic designs through one's life should be, I think, the true purpose of autobiography." But what distinguishes Nabokov's clearly nostalgic memoirs from those of other writers is the splendor of his language. The moths and butterflies in his display cases are so beautiful and rare that the reader scarcely dares breathe on them. One can read Nabokov's tales of his Tsarist playland for simple verbal pleasure, without much bothering over their significance or reality.
   
   Alas, I find the reality dubious. Tsarist Russia was not that cultured, that gradually progressive, that tolerant and susceptible to self-regeneration. Vlady is mythologizing, friends, painting his lost childhood idyll with acrylics in primary colors! There WERE serfs. There were pogroms, racial barriers and supressions of customs, grinding poverty, and rural neglect tempered only with exploitation. The Bolsheviks were thugs, yes indeed, but they couldn't have triumphed without the mastication of the masses by the upper classes.
   
   The shorter and less lovely chapters of Speak Memory that retell Nabokov's years as an emigre also reveal a kind of display case glass between the author and reality: "As I look back at those years of exile, I see myself, and thousands of other Russians, leading an odd but by no means unpleasant existence, in material indigence and intellectual luxury, among perfectly unimportant strangers, spectral Germans and Frenchmen in whose more or less illusory cities we, emigres, happened to dwell. ...no real communication, of the rich human sort so widespread in our own midst, existed between us and them." Well, well! Having been an emigre myself, on both sides of the Atlantic, I can certainly recognize this state of things. Old Vlad is certainly being honest and implicitly self-derogatory. Once again, however, he mythologizes: following the Bolshevik calamity, he says "With very few exceptions, all liberal-minded creative forces -- poets, novelists, critics, historians, philosophers and so on -- had left Lenin's and Satlin's Russia. Those who had not were either withering away there or adulterating their gifts by complying with the political demands of the state." Thereafter he continues through a full chapter discussing the works of his fellow emigres, all but his own justly forgotten or repudiated by now, while however tenuously and in whatever peril, the writers and composers who stood their ground under Lenin, Stalin, and their troll-hearted successors -- Shostakovich, Prokofieff, Schnittke, Mayakovsky, Yevtushenko, Vosnezhensky, Ahkmatova, Solzhentitsyn, and others -- have bequeathed post-communist Russia a heritage of masterpieces.
   
   What saved Nabokov, I think, was his passage from the pupa stage of an emigre to the winged maturity of being an immigrant. That metamorphosis is not recounted in Speak Memory, which ends cleanly in 1939 with the Nabokov family's departure for America.
   
   Such beautiful language! Such wit! Nabokov is a show-off, no doubt, an exotic hand-sized tropical moth of a writer, the only author whose books ever send me to a dictionary. Hey, that's what I enjoy about him.

5 comments about Sundays in America: A Yearlong Road Trip in Search of Christian Faith.

1. "Sundays in America" is not only a wonderful book, it is a soulful pilgrimage that lifts you up, causes you reflect, makes you laugh, moves you to tears, even leads you to pray. In the end, I felt as though my life was transformed in the same way Suzanne Shea's was as she traveled the country in search of heartfelt faith. Treat yourself and those you love to a heartwarming journey that will change your life and bring joy to your world. Buy this book.



2. The best spiritual stories are the stories of people all around us -- what journalists like to call "real people," as if media professionals normally exist in a realm of plastic replicas. And, perhaps that's the problem with a lot of what passes for American media, these days, isn't it?
   
   Writing as a journalist for more than 30 years, as someone who has circled the globe and also poked around America's most obscure corners -- I understand how rare this kind of book project truly is. As much of American media shrinks, resources to undertake major projects like this year-long pilgrimage through our quirky religious landscape are growing scarcer with each passing year.
   
   And yet -- this kind of pursuit is what defined our greatest writers.
   
   I'm not arguing that Suzanne Strempek Shea claims Mark Twain, Walt Whitman or Jack Kerouac status with this book -- but she's a fascinating memoirist in that noble tradition. This book takes us from New York to Hawaii -- and from Texas to the last holdout of Shaker worship in Maine.
   
   Truth be told -- I didn't have time for this book, but I opened the morning mail and was lost for the next 2 hours! I kept coming back to this book, again and again, as a first choice among a stack of urgent reading.
   
   Here's an easy way to make your choice about this book. If you're a fan of NPR, enjoy Bill Moyers, occasionally chuckle along with Garrison Keillor -- and, especially, if you recall Charles Kuralt with a smile -- then buy this book.
   
   A final tip: It's a great spring read as you're planning your summer, because you may find yourself jotting down details about some of her more intriguing stops.



3. This was a book I had to keep reminding myself to slow down and savor - it's so engaging and so delicious - yet I kept wanting to read on and discover more. After all, this could not be a more timely topic. At a point in history when we are surrounded by spiritual starvation - people leaving churches in droves - and faced again and again with religious fundamentalism at home and abroad, Suzanne Strempek Shea's response is a personal one - she goes out and actively samples church services around the country, experiencing what they have to offer and asking herself if this is what it is all about, truly.
   
   By the end of this book I felt I had not only traveled roads to outlandish and inspiring places, but I also felt I had reached a personal revelation of what spirituality could be, whether or not it was tied to a religion, a creed, or a parcel of dogma. As I read I was amused, astonished, and sometimes shocked by the types of worship she observed, and ultimately I had to admit I was profoundly moved by what she showed me about faith and belief. For when we witness others' faith, we allow our own to grow.
   
   I cannot think of a book that is more relevant to spirituality today in the USA. I shall be giving copies to those friends I know who are sampling churches and chapels, looking for something that feels genuine.
   
   We should be profoundly thankful for this book.
   
   Allan Hunter
   Author of "Stories We Need To Know: Reading Your Life Path in Literature'
   www.allanhunter.net



4. Mormons and mennonites; Quakers and Shakers; Baptists and Spiritualists. A Fifty-two week journey featuring a different religion every Sunday. This was quite a task to undertake, but Suzanne Strempek Shea stays right on course and takes the reader on a yearlong journey across the country as she seeks to understand both the similarities and differences between the ways Christians worship. Attending both megachurches and places of worship where most of the congregation consists of ghostly presences, lapsed-Catholic Strempek Shea also rediscovers what is important to her in a spiritual sense. The book is witty and passionate, and Strempek Shea doesn't shy away from what turns her off and why, and what fills her with the spirit. It took me a bit of time to read this book, as too many religions in one sitting is a bit overwhelming, but each chapter contains both personal and public observations that clue the reader in to what the author was feeling on the day she walked into each church. I like this writer's energy and commitment to her task. I've never read anything quite like it, and I enjoyed it very much.



5. Suzanne Strempek Shea is a master storyteller whose non-fiction is as creative and imaginative as her novels. I was eagerly looking forward to reading this book and it lived up to my expectations.
   
   The idea of visiting one church a week for a year is daunting, considering the preparation and travel involved. However, the author walked into every one with an open mind and a photographer's eye, gifting us with minute descriptions of everything from the church's building and decor, demographic profile and attire of the congregation, scripture readings, liturgy, music, sermons, bulletins, the weather, and the intangible --- without wasting a word. Each chapter is prefaced with a brief history of the particular denomination, in itself very educational. There is humor and introspection throughout.
   
   Politicization of religion, both on the right AND the left, has probably alienated enough Americans to explain why church attendance is down. Even so, several of Suzanne's spotlighted houses of worship were inviting. SUNDAYS IN AMERICA is both thought-provoking and entertaining. Amen.

5 comments about Dream Golf: The Making of Bandon Dunes.

1. We purchased this book for our son for Christmas, and it was a big hit!! He's already finished it and is loaning it out to friends and family. It's a wonderful book for any golfer with a love of the game, whether he/she has been to Bandon Dunes already or is perhaps dreaming of the day....



2. This book is the perfect gift for your favorite golfer. Even non-golfers and golfers who don't normally read will enjoy this story of dream golf.



3. Fantastic story, very well written. A must read for not only golfers, but for environmentalist and landscape architects also.



4. I have not read this book, but my Dad is raving about it. He is reading it prior to his trip to Bandon Dunes and he has never thanked me more for a gift. For the golfer in your life who is impossible to shop for--this is the gift for them.



5. If you play golf and want to get a flavor for the vision of how a destination like Bandon Dunes became a reality, this is a must read. Bandon is one, if not, the most special golf location in the world. I have played in Scotland and Ireland and Bandon has a purity that few other locations can replicate. It feels like it has been there for hundreds of years and the book explains how it came to be. You will not be disappointed.

5 comments about Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare.

1. I'm not familiar with the bard--
   my reading doesn't tend that way.
   Here and there I've read a word
   of sonnet brief or some long play.
   Awhile back, though, a book review
   in the New Yorker mentioned that
   a biography of sorts was new
   and deserved praise for S. Greenblatt.
   A Common Reader, I was piqued
   with curiosity so the book I bought
   and feverish page turning had me hooked
   by the picture Greenblatt's pen has wrought.
   Will in the World gives us all a feel
   for the inner space of the World in Will.
   
   Okay, I'm not a poet either, but this book is amazing and I'm sorry to be done with it!



2. After reading "Will in the World," Stephen Greenblatt's wonderful meditation on the life of William Shakespeare, I did something that I'd previously never done after reading a book purely for pleasure: I turned the volume over and started to re-read it -- almost all the way through. I think that says something about how riveting "Will in the World" is.
   
   Of course, Shakespeare's life remains something of a speculative detective story, and Greenblatt keeps the reader intrigued by layering the large gaps in the playwright's personal record with what is known about his era, and then making plausible, reasonable conjectures about how the missing pieces could fit together.
   
   But more importantly, Greenblatt's writing shares Shakespeare's zestful fascination with the English language, and it demonstrates this in ways both lucid and unpretentious. While his writing is never less than clear, Greenblatt will occasionally, and unexpectedly, thrown in an uncommon word or two that either evokes Elizabethan England or reminds the reader of the infinite treasures of written English. Also, Greenblatt discretely gives into his own way with wordplay. For example, describing the young rustic Shakespeare settling into urban London, Greenblatt writes, "He discovered what it was to pine for open country" -- "pine" not only meaning "yearn" but also evoking the rural sensation of a fresh-scented tree.
   
   As all Shakespeare enthusiasts know, the fact that one of the world's most celebrated authors -- perhaps *the* most celebrated -- left so small a written record, outside his published works, remains one of history's great ironies. Consequently, several cottage industries have sprung up dedicated to the idea that this bumpkin businessman from backwater England, this yokel with little evidence of formal education, could not have written his language's most glorious works. Such searing insights into the human psyche and its political machinations, such a resplendent command of the English language, had to have been written by a nobleman, a university wit, a philosopher-scientist, or even Queen Elizabeth herself, anyone -- just not the land-owner from Stratford who willed his wife the second-best bed. Or so the doubters say.
   
   I disagree. The doubters' arguments sound elitist to me. You might as well say that a boy born to a middle-class widow in Hope, Arkansas, couldn't possibly grow up to become President of the United States. Anyone as intellectually driven and self-motivated as the author of "Hamlet" and "Othello" clearly was could have honed his talents regardless of circumstances. Doubters point to the gaps in Shakespeare's historical record as "proof" that William of Stratford was not the playwright. I think those gaps are adequately explained by Shakespeare being a Catholic in a country where Protestantism was compulsory. Why should he put his innermost thoughts down on precious paper if the authorities could use those thoughts against him? Why write love letters to a wife who couldn't read, and whom he possibly didn't love? Why would Warwickshire regionalisms pop up in the poetry of a playwright born and raised elsewhere? To the Stratfordian school of authorship, the answers are obvious. The doubters respond with grandiose conspiracy theories -- ripping yarns, but about as substantial as ripped yarn.
   
   True, Shakespeare's life-story can never be completely told, and on occasion, Greenblatt has to extrapolate enormously upon the documentary record. But his guesses are educated ones. I can imagine a new scrap of evidence complicating the picture he draws, but not erasing it entirely. And maybe new evidence will indeed emerge saying that the plays of Shakespeare are more collaborative than we now think. But "Will in the World" is more about Will's world than about the man himself. As such, the book won't be discredited anytime soon.
   
   "Will in the World" is the kind of book that you don't want to stop reading. For me, its worst moment came when I turned the last page and Greenblatt's revels were ended.



3. Stephen Greenblatt has done an outstanding job with this biography of William Shakespeare.
   
   Writing a biography about someone who has been dead for nearly five hundred year must be a challenging goal. Especially since Shakespeare left little in his own hand, other than his published works.
   
   Greenblatt in this book says that, "There is no way of achieving any certainty. After generations of feverish research, no one has been able to offer more than guesses, careful or wild, which are immediately countered (often with accompanying snorts of derision) by other guesses."
   
   I appreciated Greenblatt's attrition to other researchers for their ideas and his explanations of the logic behind his own guesses. He often presents alternative arguments and lets the reader decide--after giving his own opinion. In all, I found Greenblatt's conclusions credible.
   
   I enjoyed reading this book and I would recommend it to anyone that wants to learn about William Shakespeare.
   The Shut Mouth Society
   The Shopkeeper



4. An excellent update on Shakespeare scholarship that wasn't boring. I found myself ready to grab up my complete works once again and this finally read all the sonnets!



5. The book is well-written overall. My main disappointment arose when trying to sort out fact from fiction and fiction from conjecture. The author makes a lot of inferences based off of the little information about Shakespeare's life. It seems a lot like PCR (polymerse chain reaction), where a little DNA is taken and amplified so that there is more to work with. This is not a great way to write about a person's life. Unfortunately, it does not end there. He will go on for pages about what may or may not be true. At the end of chapter two, the conclusion was that Shakespeare may have been either Roman Catholic or Protestant. I do not feel that 20+ pages is necessary for a subject with no real known answer. Overall, if one has the time to spend sorting through fact, fiction, and conjecture, there is some good information that can be found.

1 comments about The Red Prince: The Secret Lives of a Habsburg Archduke.

1. The Red Prince is subtitled The Secret Lives of a Habsburg Archduke, but this is a biography of far more than one individual. This able work by Timothy Snyder does much to illuminate the history of Ukraine and Central and Eastern Europe during the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.
   
   When Wilhelm von Habsburg was born in 1895 he was a minor member of a minor branch of the Habsburg Dynasty, which had been a dominating force in European politics for 500 years. Wilhelm's immediate family were not in the main line of succession and thus lived out of the public eye as much as was possible for people known as Imperial and Royal Archdukes and Archduchesses. Wilhelm's father seems to have originated a family streak of rebelliousness, when he apparently began to make plans to establish himself as King of Poland before that country had even regained its independence. Wilhelm, as his father's youngest son, had to go further afield to rebel, and he chose the province of Ukraine, a region divided between Russia and Austria-Hungary. Before and during World War I Wilhelm was an advocate for Ukrainian independence and for some surprisingly left wing politics, and during the tumultuous period after World War I at one point seemed poised to become the country's King. Conflict between Poland and the Soviet Union put an end to hopes for Ukrainian independence, and Wilhelm was relegated to the life of a playboy in Paris, enjoying love affairs with both sexes until a financial scandal forced him to return to Austria. Then during the 1930s and 1940s Wilhelm dabbled in right wing politics, switched to anti-Nazi activities during World War II, and then in the early years of the Cold War apparently worked with Western countries spying on the Soviet Union. This led to his arrest and imprisonment by the Soviets, and he died in prison in 1948.
   
   However colorful his life, Wilhelm von Hapsburg would not have merited a biography solely on his own account. He apparently left few letters or other written records, and there seem to be very few photographs as well. What makes The Red Prince so important is the good coverage Snyder provides of the complicated history of Ukraine. The region slipped back and forth between Austria-Hungary, Poland, and the Soviet Union until finally gaining independence in 1991. Snyder draws many excellent parallels between the nationalist politics pre- and post- World Wars I and II, the political turmoil that has plagued the former Soviet Union and its satellites since the end of the Cold War, and the kind of universal supra-nationalistic politics practiced by the Habsburgs and now by the European Union. The coverage of the Orange Revolution of 2004, when Ukraine took a decisive turn away from dictatorship towards democracy, is especially interesting.
   
   Although Wilhelm himself seems to have left few written records, so that readers will not feel they know much about him personally, Snyder was able to recreate the lives of his parents, siblings, nieces and nephews and other relations. He reveals them to have been interesting and intelligent people with independent views, a far cry from the habitual stereotype of the Habsburgs as insufferably inbred mediocrities. Snyder also gives some fascinating portraits of some of Wilhelm's associates like Trebitsch Lincoln, who deserves a biography of his own, though it would probably be considered too bizarre to be true.

5 comments about Lincoln Unmasked: What You're Not Supposed to Know About Dishonest Abe.

1. Overall, this book is exciting and fast paced. I received my masters in American History at Georgetown and I thought his account of Abe was spot on. This book repeats at time but Thomas Dilorenzo makes up for it in posterity and style. This book should be required at every school! I enjoyed it so much I read the rest of his books the same week. 5 Stars



2. This is a historical polemic in that it attacks other historians and the official Lincon standards. There is no other way to present an alternative to accepted scholarship than to try to debunk it. I work in DC and pass the Lincoln Memorial frequently. It is a temple. It is the stone deification of a man, not unlike the Roman deification of Augustus. They did the same to Jefferson. It is a human tendency. No one will say it - but they are temples seeking public worship. Very odd, not just today, but when built. The US has no state religion. That is the first amendment - but we do. One is the Lincoln religion. Lincoln's actual feelings about slavery, racial equality and the nature of total war have been glossed over in favor of the temple. All historians know it. Some of the contents of this book are rather shocking. Extensive footnotes. Your kids will probably get in trouble if they take this to public schools where the temple is strong. I recommend the book as one of many about Lincoln, but mostly because it will cause you to rethink Lincoln, read more about Lincoln and come to a decision on your own - which may disagree with the author. You may end up accepting the temple theory, but Lincoln should be reconsidered rather than just worshipped. This is one of those think-for-yourself books that gives you some concepts to reconsider. Personally, I don't think it goes far enough as I have studied Lincoln for years and am amazed at the amount of material the general public does not know. Why the civil rightds movement associates with the Lincoln temple and not with Harper's Ferry is beyond me. Also read up on John Brown, Harper's Ferry and Lincoln's plans for life after the presidency. But I give this book five stars for its daring, brevity, footnotes and polemical style that makes for lively reading. As for the temple, I would rather see a copy of the magna carta, the constitution and a large, running mirror where people saw themselves and their personal responsibility. Lincoln's statute reminds me of the descriptions of Jupiter Optimus in his temple in anceint Rome. One day, people will claim miracles...



3. Lincoln Unmasked: What You're Not Supposed to Know About Dishonest Abe
   
   Good readying if you like history and want to know when and where the downfall of our country began.



4. DiLorenzo offers nothing new: no new facts; no new argument. Rather he regurates poorly reasoned attacks on Lincoln that have been advanced by the Lost Causers for years and that have be soundly discredited by every serious scholar.



5. Very good reading. It reiterates much of what I had learned in school many years ago, before society, as a whole, changed history books in order to become more "politically correct."

5 comments about The Lord God Made Them All (All Creatures Great & Small).

1. In this fourth edition you will have everything you are use to in a James Herriot book. Eccentric pet owners, nutty business partners, fun loving animals, and the author who reveals his heartfelt love and admiration for the animals he cares so deeply for. Only the souless few won't be touched by these humorous stories of animal and human interactions. Mr. Herriot shows just how much better the world is because of the animals who inhabit our daily lives.



2. As an animal lover, if I were to be restricted to a single author on my bookshelves, it would be James Herriot, hands down. All four books by James Herriot, The English Country Veterinarian, comprise a collection of stories that remain unsurpassed in all animal literature.



3. I was verey satisfied with the whole process of ordering
   on-line and I will continue buying books this way.



4. I read his books as a teen and loved them. Bought the whole set for my grandsons, [teens]. They laughed until they cried. [so did I].



5. I think we've all heard of ALL CREATURES GREAT AND SMALL. The book was brilliantly written in every way, and I thought that was that. But then he wrote a sequel, and I marveled that it was at least as great as the original. Then he did it to me again with a third book. The titles come from a famous poem or hymn, by the way. He used the second verse, for the creatures, then the first, then the third, and now we're at the fourth.
   
   I'm going to say it again. I believe I'm enjoying this one most of all. All the humor, all the spot-on accurate observation of animals, of both the four-legged and the two-legged variety. And, I'm feeling this time, a maturity in the veterinarian, the author, and the person. He still has the ability to write a chapter so touching or sad that I stop and wipe my eyes, and then read a few more so I can laugh before I put the book away for the evening.
   
   So I've read four in a row by this guy, and they all get five stars. I ordered all of mine from Amazon, but you in "the west" can probably just swing by your local library. Do so.

5 comments about Here, There and Everywhere: My Life Recording the Music of the Beatles.

1. Geoff Emerick has written a fascinating book on how he and George Martin helped the Beatles achieve some of the more unusual engineering feats that fans have grown so used to hearing but which in actuality required ingenuity and play-it-on-the-fly audio engineering techniques. Lennon's distant voice on "Tomorrow Never Knows," for example," was achieved when Emerick decided (on his own) to channel John's voice through the speaker of a Hammond organ.
   
   But the book is far from a simple list of engineering techniques. The author reveals the atmosphere of various recording sessions, giving valuable insights as to how the group went from rough idea to finished song. He also provides valuable insights as to the personality of each Beatle while also filling in gaps in Beatles history that only an insider like himself would know.
   
   This is a fantastic book and highly recommended.



2. Geoff Emerick was the recording engineer behind such seminal works as Revolver and Sgt. Pepper. He was also privy to most of the innerworkings of the Beatles' recording sessions even if he wasn't the chief engineer on all their albums. Through careful observations of the Beatles' compositional styles and perceptive insights into the dynamics of their personalities, Emerick brings a welcome clarity to the subject of how the Beatles worked in the studio and how their vision of rock evolved. The early days are evoked with particular charm, especially the memories of recording "She Loves You" at the same time that frantic fans were invading EMI studios. Emerick's comments on the raw energy of "She Loves You" versus the more contained power of "I Want to Hold Your Hand," are more than worth the price for any serious Beatles historian. Interesting, detailed, and very readable. A gem in the ongoing treatises upon Beatle-ology.
   
   Donald Gallinger is author of the novel, The Master Planets



3. Emerick and co-author Massey can't seem to get out of their own way in delivering the story of Emerick's days recording the Beatles. Their awkward, uneven account reads like a 300-page high school writing assignment.
   
   This book desperately needs a talented co-author. Even more, it cries for an editor to give the book strong direction, eliminating diversion and self congratulation while focusing on the kind of detail and anecdote that could truly shed new light on the greatest musical story of a generation.
   
   The story might have been compelling, except for the ego, cliche, pettiness, and sycophancy leaking through nearly every page. I will say that this book does reveal a few insights, but must also caution that the effort required to find them will require a thorough cleaning of shoes afterward.
   
   The book is destined for the Dollar Bin here, there, and everywhere.



4. This book is very imformative for Beatles fans and audio philes alike. The author does not get caught up in the personal dramas of the Beatles, but chronicles his approach to problem solving in the day when multi-track recording technology was just starting to evolve. He does give some unique observations regarding the Fab 4, but does not seem to be awestruck, having been with them from the very beginning. Even though recording the Beatles was not always fun it was always eventful. This is a very special glimpse behind the magic curtain. I recommend it highly.



5. This book is essential to anyone who is curious about the technical aspects of the Beatles music from Revolver through Abby Road. With some added insight on Let It Be. Mr. Emerick does a great job of sticking to what was happening in the studio and not giving his version of Beatle's history. I disagree with some of the reviews I have read stating that Mr. Emerick gives Ringo and George a bad rap while painting John as moody and Paul as some kind of saint. Mr. Emerick is merely describing his interaction with the Beatles in the studio. He does an excellent job of explaining the recording process at that time and gives some insight on just how far we've come in today's recording studio. The book was easy to get into and hard to put down.