5 comments about Everything I Needed to Know About Being a Girl I Learned from Judy Blume.

1. Judy Blume is one of the most beloved and well-known authors of our time. She has written countless stories for pre-teens, teens, and adults alike, and millions of readers have been charmed by her lovable characters and easy-to-relate-to storylines.
   
   In EVERYTHING I NEEDED TO KNOW ABOUT BEING A GIRL I LEARNED FROM JUDY BLUME, twenty-four of the most popular female authors today, including Megan McCafferty, Jennifer O'Connell, Megan Crane, Cara Lockwood, and Meg Cabot, contribute essays relating their own experiences with Judy Blume.
   
   Covering everything from their own "Judy Blume moments" to hiding under the covers with Forever . . ., these stories are intensely personal recollections that offer an insight into the influence that Judy Blume's works have had on everyone who reads them.
   
   As a Judy Blume fan myself, I really loved reading this book, and it brought to mind my own memories of reading her novels. Whether you just want to know more about some of your favorite authors today, or, like me, you grew up with Blume and her characters, this book is well worth reading and you definitely don't want to miss it.
   
   Reviewed by: Andie Z.



2. This book features a wide variety of young adult and chick lit authors paying tribute to Judy Blume in different ways. The authors range in age from late 20's to late 40's, and each of the 24 essays is unique. The idea was to write something along the theme of the book's title, but surprisingly, many different approaches were taken. Some of the contributers wrote about incidents in their lives and compared them to events in Judy Blume books. Others described how reading a particular JB book had made a difference in their lives, or helped them in some adolescent situation. Still others analyzed elements of JB books heavily and only briefly compared them to their own childhoods or lives.
   
   Among the essays, JB's novels "Are You There, God? It's Me Margaret", "Forever", and "Deenie" seem to be discussed more often than others. Some get only a few mentions, and others, such as "Otherwise Known as Sheila the Great" are virtually overlooked. JB fans of my generation will be pleased to know "Just as Long as We're Together" is featured in several essays.
   
   This collection of essays is sure to please fans of chick lit and/or fans of Judy Blume. I enjoyed some of the essays more than others, and have found myself wanting to read the published novels of several of these ladies, since I enjoyed their writing so much. Overall, it is almost like reading a JB book in and of itself. It'll take you right back to adolescence. You'll relate, you'll remember, you'll laugh, and best of all, you'll be immersed in some high-quality, honest writing.



3. I am a huge Judy Blume fan and came of age reading her books. This anthology is such a treat to read, I read it on a recent business trip and it made the hours at the airport fly by!



4. When I felt that wave of nostalgia that hit me when I spotted Judy Blume's name scripted in girly letters in on the front cover, I knew this book was a must read. And, reading the essays written by the 20-to-40-something female authors in this book, I remembered just how much Judy Blume's own books were must reads for navigating the perpetual perplexities of puberty.
   
   More than just a trip down memory lane, these essays depict how Judy's fictional stories comforted so many of us during the real-life struggles of adolescence. A common thread in these essays is that reading Judy's books as teens allowed the authors to feel less alone in their overwhelming confusion surrounding their changing bodies, friendships, family dynamics, identities, and overall place in their ever-changing worlds. Returning to these books decades later, these authors can appreciate Judy's wisdom, advice, and insight at a completely different level. It turns out that "Judy's Blume moments" are Forever...



5. This book did something surprising to me---it made me feel very old! I am not really VERY old yet, although my teenager might think so, but I guess I am old enough so the Chick Lit style of writing doesn't really appeal to me. Most of the essays here are written in that style---they are very centered on the feelings and experiences of the writer, and most of the writers seem convinced that their own thoughts and feelings and childhood family are quite fascinating. Almost every essay follows the same path---telling about a childhood experience and then telling how they read a Judy Blume book and it made them realize they weren't alone in what they were feeling.
   
   My friends and I read plenty of Judy Blume growing up too, and I admire her as a writer. However, we didn't really read her because she mirrored our own lives. Her characters live in a pretty small world, really---suburban,fairly well-to-do families. It's the world she herself knows, and she writes about it very, very well. It didn't really interact much with the world we lived in, in rural Maine, mostly in families that struggled with money. Although of course some issues of childhood are universal, I think the book would have been more powerful if we heard from some authors who lived a life UNLIKE those of the characters in Blume's books. Maybe that is what I find I don't like about chick lit type books also. Although they probably don't think so, the writers and the characters usually share membership in a pretty exclusive club---suburban or urban professionals or the children of such!
   
   I don't meant to knock this book. I think if I had lived that life or if I lived it now, and if a Judy Blume book had been a real guide to life for me, I would love reading about others like myself. And if you did, you probably will enjoy this book a great deal.

5 comments about It's No Secret: From Nas to Jay-Z, from Seduction to Scandal--a Hip-Hop Helen of Troy Tells All.

1. This book was pretty interesting, but I couldnt believe she could have done some of the things she did. Thats not the life a woman with a daughter should be living.Overall if a good book if you are into gossips.



2. I never did get through this book. It was poorly written and seemed as though she just wanted to "speak out" because I guess she saw how much attention and fame it generated for Karrine Stefans. This was a poor attempt especially when you don't have much to tell..



3. The book was good enough to read and pretty much get an insight of how her relationships with Nas and Jay Z really went . I enjoyed the book not the best book i have ever read but it will do if you are a die hard Jay Z or hip hop fan like me. It was a look inside their personal lives that you very rarely get to seeas far as african american celebrities lives go.



4. Waste of time. It's like re-reading a book by Karin Steffans B.K.A "superhead". This isn't no hip-hop Helen of Troy as the title states. She got her 15 minutes of fame. Now it's time to get a real life and move on.



5. I bought this book because I was tired & bored of reading "serious" literature. It took 6 months for me to finally pick it up and read it and all I can tell you is that it's a waste of time. If you have graduated from high school or have even obtained a GED - don't read it. Its an insult even to a mentally challenged persons intelligence. This chick is nothing but a bird. Three quarters of the book made me angry at her. One that she is a woman and two she is black. She is no Helen of Troy - she's not even a Flavor of Love chick.

5 comments about The Mascot: Unraveling the Mystery of My Jewish Father's Nazi Boyhood.

1. After reading a highly favorable review in the New York Times, I rushed down to the bookstore where a friend works to see if they had this book, and was shocked to find that they did not have it and that no one had been asking about it.
   
   It's such an amazing story--a young boy escapes death in just the first of an unusual set of circumstances and developments, twists and turns, leading to events that cripple him later as a husband and father until he feels compelled to reveal his story to his son, the author of this book.
   
   I have read a number of "survival" books about the Holocaust. Surely this is the most unusual. It reminded me in some ways of Martin Gilbert's THE BOYS, but this is a completely different story. This is a Jewish boy who was adopted by Latvian troops collaborating with the Nazis, and as an adult, he has clearly suffered from guilt and confusion such that the reader experiences the journey as well. As I read on, I found myself wondering if the truth would turn out to be different from what the boy's memories were, just as the author clearly did as he listened to his father's story, a tale slowly revealed over the course of a few years in the late '90s, almost fifty years after the original events in Russia and Latvia in 1941-45.
   
   And there are several levels on which this story works. In the WWII period, you get a feeling for village, or shtetl, life in Russia through the initial memories of the boy as well as later when he and his son do further investigations. You get what seems to be a likely accurate picture of the soldiers, higher officials, and collaborating civilians the boy came to know. There are vivid depictions of the later war years.
   
   Later on, after the author begins to find out the fuller story, father and son confront mixed reactions from scholars and Jewish organizations as well as the Latvian community in Australia, where the author grew up not knowing he was Jewish until his father felt compelled to find out who he really was and where he came from.
   
   I really liked the way the book was organized, mostly short chapters, and here, the author or his editors really did well in observing that sometimes "less is more". Thus, there is not an extensive discussion of some minor characters, colleagues, friends, and others whom the author consults and confronts as the story of his father unfolds, yet we understand pretty well where these characters are coming from.
   
   Finally, I commend the book for its helpful index, maps, and of course the fascinating photos that are reproduced showing the young "Alex" in his SS uniform. It's a little puzzling that the modern photos are rendered in the same grainy way as the old ones, but that is a minor complaint.



2. I could not put the book down. It's amazing what a 5-6 y. old can remember after hiding it away and not talking to anyone about his past for 50 years. Written very well, thought provoking, and makes you wonder how one should define a "Holocaust Survivor."



3. Our author, Mr. Kurzem, Australian-born, of Latvian Jewish descent, finds out in his late adolescent that his father has been hiding his true childhood story for over 50 years. The son had been raised to consider himself a Latvian, as were others who emigrated to Australia via the German DP camps at the end of WWII. His father had been a reluctant Latvian, who married an Irish Catholic woman, but still, our author did consider himself to be Latvian until he got a call from his father. He was doing research at Oxford, so he was no slouch academically.
   
   AS this very absorbing book progresses, we learn through the son that the father is himself unsure of who he really was, as he stumbled through the Latvian forest until adopted as a "mascot" (age 6) with a Latvian troop. He quickly learned Latvian, and later GErman, as these troops were working with the Nazis in expunging Soviet Communists, i.e. Partisans, from their country, after Germany came to liberate them from the Soviets. The remarkable story unfolds slowly, but with a wonderfully satisfying ending, as the son and his father go back to Latvia in post-Soviet 1990's, to see if the few clues can lead to his village.
   
   Sure enough, through hard pushing and some sheer amazing lucky coincidences, they finally determine that the father is a shtetl Jew, who was spared death in a mass shooting by escaping in the night into a forest behind the village. The photographs in the book are very interesting, showing the details of clothing, houses, people's faces in those terrible times.
   
   The final chapter condemns the Latvians for cooperating with the Germans, which is a slap in the face to anyone who knows the Latvians' miserable history. When they lost their independence to the Soviets, had their farms collectivized, their property stolen, their families shipped to Siberia and so on, most Latvians knew who controlled the Kremlin: the Jews, a fact none can deny. They appointed their own brethren in Riga to bring Communism with an iron fist, forming councils to destroy everyday Latvians' lives. When German soldiers arrived to destroy Communist control, there was no Latvian hesitation in wreaking revenge on the perpetrators, including the women and children. Jews became Partisans, running through the forest to escape arrest, often fleeing to Communist Russia. Many were innocent of any political involvement, as is true in any country.
   
   However, our author, an educated man, omits this critical part of Latvian history, wipes them all with one "brown" brush, yet the Latvians did exactly that: call all Jews "reds", regardless of their true allegiances. Many were true Latvian nationalists and complete capitalists, who would never tamper with the rights to property against anyone. Too bad for these, it seemed; the devastation was too great.
   
   I highly recommend this book for serving up a very exciting page-turner, as one wishes to see exactly how this young boy survived such a strange experience. You can understand how he waited until very late in life to reveal his story to anyone, including his children, because he could be persecuted by both Latvians and Jews, and above all, those millions who suffered at the hands of Communists. Their descendants are still angry!
   
   Poor man! What a terrible time and place he was born into! But he was lucky to get down to Dresden, survived its bombing, get into a DP camp, and achieve an emigration visa to Australia. Imagine if he, like so many of the troop he'd joined, had been stuck back in the Communist land! His son would never have been born, for he would have been shot by Commies.
   
   The son shows bitterness, but the father knows himself to be VERY LUCKY!!!



4. Every story of survival from the Holocaust is incredibly unique and Mark Kurzem's The Mascot is no exception. I must say that once the author's father, Alex Kurzem, begins to unlock the memories--after over 60 years of silence--of escape from near certain death, his nurturing by would-be executioners, and ultimate search for his true identity, the book is nearly impossible to put down. The basic reservation I had about the book--which is presented in narrative form--is that whenever the story drifts away from its riveting father/son dialogue, the telling become a bit wordy and almost extraneously repetitive. I found myself doing a lot of skimming so as to get back to the meat of the story--the father's cathartic-like revelations. But, that said, the book is very worthwhile reading.



5. In the United States most of the time when one reads World War II history it tends to focus on the Normandy Landings and lightning dash to Berlin the Pacific theater is generally ignored and so is the Italian campaign. The Soviets also had to do a large amount of the fighting they were both defenders of their homeland and agents of a tyrannical regime.
   
   Then there were those people who were caught in the middle of it all like one Jewish Latvian survivor who was only 5 years old. Plucked from a firing line by a sympathetic sergeant and warned never to be seen naked this little boy resolves to survive in any way he can. He survived the war and had a family but he was racked by guilt at the manner in which he was saved for many years.
   
   While there are some funny accounts over the course of the novel it is by no means meant to be humorous the two stories that stick with me the most is the account of the time Alex Kurzem (the mascot) went to the train station and was assigned to pass out chocolates to an unruly crowd to claim them; later he reasoned that all or most of those people were killed in an extermination camp. Then there was the time that the soliders he was traveling with used him as bait to attract village women with unpleasant results for the little mascot and the women.
   
   One also admire the author Mark Kurzem who tracked down all of these loose ends partially out of a sense of curiosity and to give his family a sense of closure about the whole issue. It is a truly remarkable effort especially when you consider the unlikelihood that there would be enough people alive to put the sometimes spotty recollections of the father into any context.
   
   Overall-A truly remarkable account and evidence of tremendous courage on the part of the father both as a child to survive all of that and to level with his family years later about what he had gone through.

5 comments about Inside the Kingdom: My Life in Saudi Arabia.

1. Interesting and fast read. Carmen goes over what it was like to live in Saudi Arabia and how opressive it is for women to live there. She tells it like it is neither overdoing it or glamourizing it. In a way, she tells it like an outside observer might without playing herself to be a victim.
   
   I definitely reccomend this book. It is not too in depth and is suitable for teenagers to read.



2. This is a very interesting, well written book that will give you a lot of insight into what it's like be a female living in Saudi Arabia. In spite of wealth, it is definitely not much fun to be a woman in that society. This is the story of an attractive, intelligent young woman who was raised in Western Europe, who then met, fell in love with and married one of Bin Laden's many brothers who was also living in Western Europe. This of course happened before 9-11. At first they lived in Europe and then the US and all went well until he took her back to his home in Saudi Arabia to live. As it turns out, the Saudis are almost as repressive as the Taliban. Very revealing! I recommend it.



3. Carmen Bin Laben's book is an insightful look at life for women in Saudi Arabia. The book provides an insider's view of life in this Arab nation beyond what the news media or other reports might disclose. Carmen narrates just how much in conflict the thoughts, traditions, and religious life of Saudi Arabia are with those held in Europe or the United States. As a male reader, the book was slow in parts because of the ongoing references to her motherhood and attachment to her children. The book also enticed the reader with a glimpse of her infamous brother-in-law, Osama, but never fully delivered any insights beyond what might be gleaned from other writing about him. Overall, a worthwhile read for understanding the life of women in this Arab nation. The reader will find Bin Laden's book of more value if they have read an Introduction to Islam prior to undertaking her story.



4. In this book, Osama Bin Laden's sister-in-law Carmen Bin Laden gets a final word in edgewise, and it is quite a word indeed. It exposes what she describes as the crude opulence, emotionally shallow, debauched, harsh and often ignorance, overly rich Saudi royal family. According to her description, the desert kingdom drips in waste, gaudiness, opaqueness, mean-spiritedness, internecine snipping and betrayal, and is grounded in utter and base religious hypocrisy. In short, Saudi Arabia, like the Taliban, is a cult-like religiously based state -- only richer.
   
   The book is about the author's plight to save her three daughters from a life of a slow "death by religious constriction." She succeeds in painting a graphic picture of a society that values appearances over its own pious beliefs, one still rooted in the nomadic desert tribal mentalities and still driven by primordial desert tribal fears.
   
   As one would expect, there is very little here about Osama that we did not already know: For instance, that he is a very tall, not particularly intelligent, but very pious, a very wealthy religious warrior and the "nth" son of one of the richest and most powerful construction company magnates in Saudi Arabia. During the Russian occupation of Afghanistan, the U.S supported him and his cause, and a large majority of Saudis still support his extremist views. Even in the post-911 world, he remains an iconic, a very much revered and protected religious hero in a nation where being a successful religious warrior amounts to a lot.
   
   The book shows that Osama Bin Laden and those like him do not spring, fully formed, from the desert sand. But that they are carefully nurtured by the workings of an opaque and intolerant medieval society, that, until this day remains very much closed to the outside world.
   
   In its essential outline it is not unlike Harsi Ali's "The Caged Virgin," for it too is as much an exposé on how religion becomes a self-enforcing form of mental enslavement on women, even as it is used as the foundation for a decadent, oppressive and a rigidly inhuman social order. Saudi women never become legal adults in Saudi society. They have few meaningful legal rights. The Bin Laden women were kept shut in their homes like pets kept by their husbands. The certainty of their inferiority and subservient status is bred into their bones as it is done to blacks in America.
   
   The intelligence and energy of women in Saudi Arabia can only be expressed through religion. They live only through, and for, their faith, which as it turns out is also the primary instrument of their oppression. Yet, most lack the courage or the will to resist the oppressive social order religion imposes upon them. The result is that their personalities are completely annihilated. They become dependent for their survival on their ability to manipulate their husbands. A disobedient woman dishonors her family and can be killed legally. Yet, because Islam is their way of life, these women do not chafe at the restrictions they live under: They embrace them. It is a willing form of self-enslavement. While there is little new here, it does come with a personal touch and much passion. Four stars
   
   Four Stars



5. I was drawn to Carmen Bin Laden's memoir, Inside the Kingdom: My Life in Saudi Arabia when I was doing research about the country of Saudi Arabia. I was pleased to find a fascinating story of a woman trying to protect her children from the fall-out after the tragic events of September 11, 2001 and raise them to be educated free-thinkers instead of grooming them to become chattel in a severe culture.
   
   Young and deeply in love, this half-Swiss and half-Persian girl married into the vast Bin Laden family. With her European upbringing, she was not prepared for her several years of married life in the male-dominated Muslim world, where "women are no more than house pets." The harsh treatment of Saudi women seems almost criminal, and Carmen doesn't hide the fact that money, status, and location all play an important role in determining how a woman is treated treated. In Saudi Arabia, sequestered Muslim wives are oppressed and treated like second class citizens. It's not only the men who expect women to stay "under wraps," uneducated, and out of the public eye; the older Saudi women often force young women to adopt codes of behavior that turn them into pieces of property. Money, on the other hand, can buy a woman a temporary reprieve, a trip to Europe and America, where an almost unfettered life can be led, but when she returns behind the veil, life becomes frightening.
   
   Not wanting her three young children to be subjected to this upbringing, Carmen fights her way out of a painful marriage and makes a life for her family in Europe and America. Just when things seem to be leveling out, the horror of 9/11 occurs and Carmen has to fight the stigma attached to her married name of Bin Laden.
   
   This painful memoir will be quick to read and difficult to put down, but you may find yourself returning to read again about life Inside the Kingdom.
   
   by Rhonda Esakov
   for Story Circle Book Reviews
   reviewing books by, for, and about women

5 comments about The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game.

1. The Blind Side, by Michael Lewis, is primarily a biography of projected future NFL first-round draft pick Michael Oher and secondarily a history of the evolution of the left tackle position in the NFL.
   
   Lewis chronicles how Oher, who bounced around as a child and never learned to learn, was taken in by the wealthy Tuohy family, how they helped him to learn and to play football, and how he went on to start at Ole Miss. Lewis does an excellent job communicating the characters' personalities to the reader, particularly Oher's.
   
   Interspersed throughout the book are historical anecdotes about the evolution of the left tackle position. Lewis gives particular attention to Lawrence Taylor and the shift to fast, destructive pass rushers, and to Bill Walsh, who was one of the first coaches to emphasize protection of the quarterback's blind side.
   
   While Lewis tells a very interesting story, his writing style has its flaws. He jumps around quite a bit, which is almost as distracting (he just does it one too many times) as the sentence fragments he loves to sprinkle in. Lewis also uses the wrong word a few times. He mixes up "insure" and "ensure". He calls linemen "ectomorphs" (ectomorphs have slender builds). The copy editor for this book was asleep at the switch.
   
   On the whole, this is an interesting and entertaining book about a likable young man, and a good recap of a major strategic shift in the NFL.



2. If you liked Moneyball and are hoping this will be its spiritual successor, it's not. It's much more a story of one player, Michael Oher, and his travels through high school and college football (as of July 2008 he's still in college so no pro career to speak of).
   
   I used to work as a lawyer for a pro football team so I read these kinds of stories with some personal interest, but if you're looking for a pure sports book buy Moneyball. If you like Lewis' writing style and his ability to tell a story you won't be disappointed at all. It's a great story and does contain an interesting analysis of the development of college and pro football and especially the role of the left tackle in the new offence. But it's much more personal than Moneyball - much more in the style of Liar's Poker, which becomes explained in the afterword when you discover that he knows the family described in the book personally and so he had significantly more insight into their private lives than an ordinary author.



3. On the surface, this is a book about Michael Oher, a poor teenager in Memphis, whose size and speed turn him into one of the country's top football prospects. Michael Lewis, one of the greats at mapping the intersection between sports and economics, expands the story to include much more. He demonstates why the frenzy occured over someone like Michael Oher (the Left Tackle covers the Quarterback's blind side, a huge gap after Lawrence Taylor showed exactly how fragile the multimillion dollar QB investments can be) as well as how people try to jump on the bandwagon.
   
   The book is at it's finest when it shows the conflicting loyalties of people "helping" Michael Oher improve his life. What are the true intentions of the coach who also is looking for a ticket to a college coaching career? A mentor looking to assist his alma mater? Or even the unwritten - an author looking for a topical subject.
   
   The book is a very easy read, and hard to put down. And you won't ever look at those offensive lineman the same.



4. My husband made me read this book. I wasn't looking forward to it. After about 10 pages I was hooked. I knew nothing about football going into this book and absolutely loved it. I got it for my brother for his birthday and he was obsessed. He got it for our father...he's hooked.
   Great story of overcoming odds while teaching about the sport of football.
   
   Everyone will enjoy this one!



5. I saw the author interviewed by Barry Kibrick on the local community college television station. They disgussed the issue of the prohibition against organizations cultivating young potential college-ball recruits with gifts and aid and ["perhaps"] whether this was the motivation in adopting a child from the inner city, it was left unclear, of course BECAUSE IT WOULD BE A MONSTROUS THING TO ADOPT A CHILD SPECIFICALLY TO SERVE YOUR ALMA-MATERS FOOTBALL TEAM!!! This issue is deftly dealt with as an unconfronted secondary matter which really doesn't require that much attention--RIGHT!? This book delibrately avoids a hard look at a real manifestation of SLAVE CULTURE! The act itself renders secondary the childs life to a brief time on a college football team. It is saying that it is less important that a child has a history that is his own, that of his parents and grand parents, and not the history of the rich people who lived across town and were so proud of their third rate college team they just had to have a player--some kind of pet-mascot hybrid whose training program and life perspective and system of values can be molded in any way to suit that end enforcable by law--like a slave. Why? Because in their heart of hearts they believe in slavery. Like Milton Freidman says in "Capitalism and Freedom," [Robinson Crusoe, without his man Friday is not free, because he must fend for his own survival.] It becomes clearer as your read what Freidman means by this... it isn't the freedom of the wage earner that is of value protecting, nor those tied to a salary, or even the freedoms of those with a modicum of wealth, but those who've really created freedom like say in the tens and hundreds of millions of dollars, or even better, billions of dollars worth of wealth. What Freidman shares with most other economists in this regard is this... he chooses to empathize with those most likely to offer him a career and not those who comprise the bulk of humanity. Like this book, "The Blind Side," which acknowldges social strife in the inner city just so far as it hinders a couple of ghoulish gnomes and the recruiting hinderances of their favorite college team! Screw this book, screw Michael Lewis and Barry Kibrick!

5 comments about Carry a Big Stick: The Uncommon Heroism of Theodore Roosevelt (Leaders in Action Series).

1. George Grant has written a delightful book about a delightful man.



2. I've read 40+ plus books by or about TR and this is the worst, one-sided view of this complex, multi-facted man. This is as bad as the radical-left "Howard Zinn-ism" revisionist history of TR's foreign policies.

   There are too many "blatant" errors to list in this mini-review, but just for starters:

   1). TR did not, as the author claims, visit his mother's Georgia plantation "10 or more times". It is well documented that TR only visited Bulloch Hall twice -once as president and once post-White House. He did not have a very high opinion of most Southerners, despite the author's claims to the contrary. His wife abhorred most Southerners.

   2). TR did not force his children, particulary Alice, to attend church every Sunday. Edith was the religious task master of the family and in her quiet manner usually rounded up all kids, except for Alice. Alice was a well-known, open atheist from her teen years until she died. TR and Edith had accepted the teenager's refusal to be confirmed in the Episcopal church or any other church. Their son Archie also grew up to be an agnostic.

   3). TR most certainly did NOT shower Edith with flowers and jewels. He never even remembered her birthday (though he never forgot the date of their engagement and wedding anniversay). Edith hated receiving extravagent gifts from anyone, especially her husband. They did have a very happy marriage and home life but he also known for taking off on 3-month hunting trips soon after Edith would deliver another baby.

   4). TR most certainly did like to attend parties and was a professional social butterfly because he knew he would probably end up as the main attraction - just what his ego needed. The author paints TR as a man who shunned social gatherings to be with his family 24/7. Definitely not true. He LOVED being around people of all and any type, though his wife certainly like to stoke the home fires more than making the social rounds.

   5). TR never made any speeches about abortion. Abortion was not on the radar screen in his time. The author uses quotes that TR said about women not wanting to get married and raise families to make it seem as though TR were speaking direcly on the subject of abortion.

   6). TR believed in and preached on the separation of Church and State. He wanted to remove "In God We Trust" from the US coinnage and even pushed one of the leading artists of that time, Grant LaFarge, to create a new design. The "religious right" of his time went ballistic over this decision and he later backed down. He made many speeches proclaiming that the Church stay out of the affairs of the State. Indeed, he was a strong, "old school" Christian who did preach to the citizens the value of religion, a happy home life, and following the morals one teaches to his/her children. However, he also thought a country would head down the dangerous path if a certain religion or belief were forced upon its citizens.

   I would not recommend this book on TR to ANYONE.




3. This is an incredible book, that truly gives you the insight of one of the greatest men that ever lived. Filled with many incredible principles to live by, you WILL enjoy this book and the excitement it brings to your life!



4. I just wanted a simple biography on Theodore Roosevelt, but this was pretty openly and obviously a book with an agenda. True, the basics about Theodore Roosevelt are here, but the emphasis is on spiritual faith and values. Since I read this book, I read Roosevlet's autobiography and came to realize that he is much more complex than this book suggests.



5. What a wonderful book! Teddy Roosevelt was brilliantly ressurected for us by George Grant in this comprehensive, yet easy-to-read work (because of the chapter lengths). Section 1 is a biography of his life; Section 2 contains short chapters on his character, and many sides to his life; Section 3 deals with his legacy.
   
   This book gives the reader a good look a life in the U.S. during the last half of the 19th century, as well as one of the period's most beloved of heroes.

5 comments about Paul: A Man of Grace and Grit (Great Lives from God's Word, Volume 6).

1. The author is probably a great guy personally, but his writing falls very short. The book does not even address Paul's views on the role of women, or on homosexuality--two areas where people of our times need guidance. It seems as if the author wanted to be "politically correct" and not offend anyone.
   He doesn't even address, with any authority, the conflict between Paul and Barnabas over John Mark. He just basically says they should have worked it out. I was completely disappointed in the book.



2. oh yeah, this book is wonderfull. Turned me into something like a Pauline. It gives great illustrations and its quite a good read; what I really got out of it was how Swindoll shows you a real person. Not just Paul the Apostle, not just him as one of the sons of judaism of that time, no beyond that. The man that we read about that filled his letters with so much understanding and knowledge, to be flesh. You read this book and I guarantee you, it will change how you look at him and Christ, and especially what kind of peoples Christ uses. from a man you read of in Acts through Philemon as a character into a man that struggled with his faith and had to take a shower at the end of the day just like all of us. Oh yes, it is really great, I encourage anyone to tear into this mug, and I hear its one of many books- so I really am encouraged to pick up one of Swindoll's other books. Hes a magnificent writer. 5 starsies all the way.



3. Chuck Swindoll is one of my favorite writers, though I am not in agreement with all of his theology. But this work on Paul is outstanding.
   
   Before reading this work on Paul, I had read several other volumes on Paul, and Swindoll gave me another perspective on Paul that I have greatly appreciated--the devotional touch to this work. As a pastor, I find this work to be encouraging. Swindoll writes with a pastor's pen. And I love that.
   
   I especially recommend this work to all conscientious pastors.



4. Charles Swindoll, gives an exellent expose' of the man Saul of Tarsus. His conversion and the affect it had on him, that lasted for the rest of his life. The continual conflicts, trials, and troubles he endured.
   Swindoll, also does a great job of filling in between the lines, from other text, and how we can learn from the examples of Pauls great, faith, strength and courage.



5. It was in excellent condition. The paper cover around it was also in excellent shape.

5 comments about Who Do You Think You Are?: A Memoir.

1. This totally honest memoir allows the reader to enter the life of Alyse Meyers when she was a child. It is not a pretty life. It is not a life many would want to change places with, yet it sparks a chord in us all. I read this book recently as a book club choice and it couldn't have been a better one. Not only did I find myself completely absorbed in the story and the characters, but it brought about fantastic discussion in a group. After all, we all come from a family and everyone has a story! A very worthwhile read.



2. Alyse Myers, if I recall correctly, is a marketing executive with The New York Times, and this is her first book. I recommend it highly!
   
   This memoir makes me want to aspire to write my own. Alas, I doubt I could reach the simplicity of Myers' writing coupled with the profundity of it.
   
   Maybe it's because the book relates closely to my poor, poor relationship with my mother, but that's not all of it, I think. It is simply a great read.
   
   Why can't more books use the simplicity of writing to such powerful effect as Myers does? I sure wish I could.
   
   WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE? was, like other reviewers have said, a very fast read. So fast I didn't want it to end at times.
   
   Five unequivocal stars!



3. It was an easy read. I enjoyed it so much. I'm obviously around the same age as the writer so the backdrops really got me into it. It was as if i was there with her in her neighborhood, watching the same TV shows, etc. It really brought me back. Although my relationship with my Mom is different, the book still kept my attention all along the way. It actually made me appreciate her more.



4. This is a truly inspiring book. Not only is the writing flawless and captivating, but Myers tells a story that is real and original. She connects the story of her past to her current life in a manner that reminds us all how we come to be the people we are. This book will force you to examine the relationships in your life and what they mean to you, and in the process is a wonderful read. I could not put it down, and even woke up in the middle of the night just to read what was going to happen next. I am looking forward to reading it again and discovering new things about life, love, and myself. I hope to read another book by Alyse Myers in the near future.



5. This book drew me in from the start, and a combination of the writing and the story kept me hooked. People might wonder why someone with a mother who was so frequently awful to them would want to stay connected to that parent. But as is made clear in this book -- it's still your mom. And it's human nature to want it to turn out o.k. Myers doesn't try to find excuses for her mother or psychoanalyze her. There's an acceptance here; not approval of her behavior, and not wishing it wasn't different. But a realization that her mother was a very flawed human being -- and she still wanted a relationship with her. It was a great read.

5 comments about Asimov's Guide to the Bible: A Historical Look at the Old and New Testaments.

1. Asimov's book gives a very good secular view of the Bible and puts the events occuring in the Bible into historical perspective. It also provides an understanding of the the structure of the Bible, e.g., what is considered canonical (by Jews, Catholics, Protestants), who likely wrote what (although the scholarship may be dated), what was occuring in history when the various books were written, etc. Consider this a book for Bible 101 to teach basic Bible literacy.



2. Isaac Asimov was widely considered the best science writer of the 20th century, because of his outstanding ability to make his subject matter interesting and understandable to the layman. This book gives the reader the historical background of the writing of the Bible and of the events recounted therein. Knowing this background material makes the Bible more readable and more understandable. Having been written by Isaac Asimov, the Guide is so interesting that you may have difficulty putting it down, but it is also a valuable reference work, to be kept handy whenever you read from the Bible.
   
   This is not a scholarly work of biblical criticism, nor does it attempt or pretend to be. If you are looking for such, look to books by such as:
   Marcus Borg (e.g. Reading the Bible Again For the First Time ),
   John Dominic Crossan (e.g. Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography),
   Michael Goulder (e.g. St. Paul Versus St. Peter: A Tale of Two Missions),
   Burton Mack (e.g. The Lost Gospel: The Book of Q and Christian Origins), snd
   John Shelby Spong (e.g. Liberating the Gospels). THIS IS A MUST READ before reading (or rereading) any of the gospels.
   These are all excellent books, well worth reading, but they don't give the reader the background Asimov does.(nor are they to be faulted because they don't, any more than Asimov's guide should be faulted for not being serious biblical criticism).
   
   watziznaym@gmail.com



3. This book can be only described with one word. AMAZING!
   
   The insight and knowledge of the late Isaac Asimov is shown here with such an amazing simplicity. He can explain the mystery of life in laymen's terms with extreme ease.
   
   This book, while vast and detailed, is a must have for all the people that have that itch to understand all the mysteries of the bible and only find books that only confuses them more.



4. This work was published in 2 volumes: OT 1967 and NT 1969 and sadly, the information in this book is outdated because so many new discoveries and evidence about this subject has exploded in the 1990s and 2000s. So, to a student of biblical criticism this book was rather a bore at times but, if you are new to the game I would recommend this book to get you started.
   I am sure this would have been a great read in the 1960s - 1980s.



5. My daughter suggested that I give her a Bible concordance as a Christmas gift. I bought one for her and then looked for Asimov's guide, which I have in my library and consider the best available guide to the Bible. Fortunately, I found it on Amazon. She was fascinated with it. Asimov knew what he was writing about. He wrote 200 books and I consider this among his best. He didn't just "translate the King James version into modern English"; he shared his vast knowledge of ancient history, geography, and languages.

5 comments about On the Way Home: The Diary of a Trip from South Dakota to Mansfield, Missouri, in 1894.

1. This book is written in a much different style than the other Little House books. Laura kept a journal of the trip and these are her day-to-day entries. It can sometimes be dry or confusing. I have been reading the series with my daughter and this one has been a little more difficult. We enjoyed it, but not as much as the others.



2. It's often said in tones of this-is-true-but-it's-also-heresy that Rose Wilder Lane, daughter of Laura and Almanzo Wilder, is the real unsung heroine in the Little House books, because while she let her mother have credit for the famous series, it was Rose, via her careful, invisible editing and re-writes, that turned cheery memoirs into beloved classics. I suspect that's true, but in the case of this book, it is beyond all doubt what happened. Rose took her mother's raw diary and prepared it for publication, and the product is the book On The Way Home, which tells of the journey Rose and her parents made in 1894, from DeSmet, South Dakota, setting for the final half of the Little House books, to the Ozark country, where the family would spend the next sixty years. The description is unsentimental, not glamorized (as it tends to be--for the sake of betterment--in the other books) and it paints a portrait of the difficult traveler's life on the by-then crowded prairie overrun with east-central European immigrants, many of whom being exactly the type portrayed in novels such as My Antonia. The Wilder family completes its draining re-location by covered wagon and arrives in Missouri, a state so much a promised land to them that a reader cannot help but share their relief when they safely arrive.



3. I can see why Laura Ingalls was able to write such good books about her early life on the Prairie. Her diaries were packed full of information and detail which she could later draw on. This is one of her diaries, with notes and a setting by her only child, daughter Rose Wilder Lane who was just a girl during this trip.
   
   Laura Ingalls Wilder is, of course, famous for her little House books describing her childhood growing up at the edge of American settling in the mid Nineteenth century. Constantly pushing to new territories and places Ingalls father lead them west into Indian territory and later to Dakota where they settled. Laura met and Married Almanzo Wilder in de Smet, Dakota (Those happy Golden Years, and First Four Years) however those books left a me feeling a bit downhearted. Especially teh First Four Years, in which Almanzo 'Manly' and Laura seemed to be struck with tragedy (the house burning down) etc.
   
   I found this diary to be hugely uplifting. It is not the detailed stories of her childhood, or living in a wagon as an adult settler, but it is a great tale detail of a family moving, of finding something which they could call their own, but far away in the Ozarks.
   
   The most interesting thing to me about it, was that while they were on the road they were constantly being passed by other settlers, some going north and others going south, but the number of people on the move was amazing. At one point Rose adds a note that she looked back while they were about to cross the 'muddy' and there was a stream of covered wagons behind them.
   
   Little details of what life was like really draw this out - tomatoes 10c a bushel and so they bought 2c worth. Huge watermelons for 5 c, Almanzo selling fire mats (ASBESTOS!) and all those little everyday details about life for Laura.
   
   While she did not put her stories down until many decades later, clearly she was a writer in the making right from the beginning. Rose, her daughter has provided much of the detail necessary in here, but it would be really nice to see an illustrated edition of this showing the place as it was and as it is now. It was interesting to use Google Earth to view some of the trail which you can see right now. It gives it a sense of scale which I will not be able to do myself unless I acutally visit.
   
   The only reason this has four stars is it is not as gripping as Ingalls novels - it is still a great read and highly recommended.



4. The Book, On The Way Home, by Laura Ingalls Wilder, is basically what it says it is. It is a Diary of a Trip from South Dakota to Mansfield, Missouri, in 1894. This book was not that enjoyable just because it was just diary entries, like "today we ate meat." But other wise it was quite intriguing to discover the ways in which people traveled back in the day. In one part of the book it talks about how their covered wagon is not a covered wagon at all but that, "It had been a two-seated hack though now it only had the front seat." I also found it very enjoyable to read about the worth of money back then and compare it to now. It talks about how Laura had earned a whole one hundred dollars which today is like penny cash but back then was a fortune. In the beginning of the book there is a setting by Rose Wilder Lane, Laura's Daughter, which is a great piece of writing, it is like the rest of Laura's books in that it makes you want to read the rest of the book. I found this book interesting but a drag because of the slow pace in the book. If you would like to take a slow dip into history you should definitely read this book.



5. This Laura Ingalls Wilder diary is somewhat dull in parts, but the introduction by her daugher, Rose Wilder Lane, is worth the price of the book. Lane gives a first-hand account of the days before and after the journey that puts Laura in a new light. There are also several good photographs unavailable in other LHOTP books.