5 comments about Confessions of a Pastor: Adventures in Dropping the Pose and Getting Real with God.

1. I loved this book from beginning to end. I can't believe the kind of guts this guy has to admit where he's really at. There's nothing more refreshing in our day and age of often superficial church culture than authenticity. Groeschel is if nothing else definitely honest and authentic in this book. I identified with him page after page on many things I haven't ever fully acknowledged to anyone else before. It's great to know I'm not the only weird guy in the world, and that there's even hope for me as well.
   
   This book was filled with really funny humor, painful honesty, and genuine redemption. The stories and examples Craig uses in this book are fantastic. I still have trouble believing some of those stories are actually real. This book is great for both occupational and non-occupational ministers. I had a great time reading it, as did the rest of my church's staff.



2. This was a refreshing and encouraging book. I enjoyed the author's honesty and insight. It was also a quick, easy read.



3. I was looking for a book to use in my introductory pastoral counselling course. The kind of book I needed was one that would challenge students to be in touch with humanity. One that would help them be authentic people who could have the empathy needed for counselling. I certianly found that in this book and so much more... it ended up challenging me and doing more good for me than I expected. I started reading it and couldn't put it down. It's so down-to-earth and practical. The author is talking to the reader as to a friend. It's a definite book for church leaders today!



4. great book....Craig is hilarious, if you are in ministry or thinking about it this should be the book for you. Craig is really real and open and helps you with a lot of your own ministry issues.



5. The Author/Pastor gets real about life and ministry. It's a good book, I recommend it.

5 comments about Yes Man.

1. Wallace shows the reader that closing oneself off to new experiences can lead to many missed opportunities.
   
   This book is an account of a year in Wallace's life. He has broken up with his girlfriend and is despondent that he has lost touch with so many of his friends during the ensuing depression. He has nothing to do . Thus, he resolves to say yes more and see where life takes him. Like Wallace's other book, Join Me, he becomes a hapless observer while his new directive guides his life for him with hilarious consequences.
   
   Wallace's writing style is crisp and fast paced. Though he makes a few jokes here and there, it is the increasingly outlandish situations he finds himself in that provides so much amusement for the reader. But, between the laughs, it made me see the value in saying yes. Ultimately, Wallace shows that by saying yes, his life became immeasurably better.
   
   Fans of Wallace's books may also want to check out Henry Alford, his gay American counterpart.
   
   This book is a very fun and fast read. Recommended to all.



2. I bought this book for the title and as a gift to someone I once nicknamed a "yes man" after hearing an NPR interview with the author. Once it arrived, I realized that my friend was unlikely to ever read it, so I did before passing it along. I'm a smallish town female U.S. Baby Boomer and much of the book just didn't speak to me; however, there were bits of fun and treasures of stories tucked throughout. I especially loved his response to the ubiquitous scam of "my [insert African country here] father died and left a fortune that he scammed from government, I just need your help to get it out of the country."



3. I read this book a few months ago, and hardly a day goes by that I don't think about it. A man decides to say yes to everything -- to every invitation, to every opportunity, to every solicitation. EVERYTHING. What a simple idea. But, that one resolution leads to many adventures and relationships that are so hystericallly funny and beyond belief; I found myself gut-bursting laughing through the entire book (good thing I was at home by myself because when I start to giggle, there ain't no stopping me!).
   
   This book goes far beyond being a funny, silly book, however. It really makes you think. What if you decide to say yes more -- how would that change the way you see the world and what opportunities would present themselves if you utter that one little word? It's worth saying yes to more things just to find out, which is why I've made Danny's mantra my own, as well.



4. This book affected me in a strange way, but a positive way. It really makes you analyze your own life. How many opportunities do you pass up because it is just so easy to say "no"? After reading the book, I find myself being motivated to "say yes more", and I am capitalizing on a lot more opportunies.
   
   It is a good, quick, entertaining read. I also got a kick out of the UK dialect. It is one of the few book I've read that I try to force my friends to read.



5. i've read some funny stuff in my day. i'd heard a lot about this book; a friend of mine wouldn't stop talking about how great it was and i was like, "yeah sure." it was a hundred times better than even i thought it would be. get this book. not only will you not be able to put it down, but you won't stop laughing the entire time.

5 comments about The Beggar King and the Secret of Happiness: A True Story.

1. This book found me the day I was attending the wake of a good friend. I was feeling miserable of course and decided to start this book minutes before I got out of the car at the funeral home to take my mind of off my grief. I read the prologue and was hooked to this story. It has changed my outlook on life and on the death of my friend. It is great how the author takes each folktale and applies it to his life. This book is full of many life lessons and I am truly inspired to look through the curses in my life to find the blessings like Joel ben Izzy did. I have just bought this book and plan to read it to my High School World History classes this fall. I think this is a must read book for everyone. Give yourself a gift and read this book!



2. This book intersperses short stories from around the world with the author's struggles coping with partial muteness. Rather than being preachy or sentimental, the author entertains us by providing international tales that foretell lessons he learns in his own life. The author's advice re: happiness reminds me of Theodore Roethke's beautiful lines:
   
   "I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
   I learn by going where I have to go."
   
   I did not provide this book with five stars, only because I felt the author's relationship with his friend Lenny was co-dependent and deserved less attention. Of course, that relationship leads the author to a large part of his self-actualization, but I would have liked to hear more about his wife--she shines in every small aside about her. If you want to be entertained and read a story about an author coping with an illness (that affects his ability to speak) in his own unique, admirable way, this is the book for you.



3. I had picked up this book at a book fair a while back and it sat on my book self for months. One afternoon I started reading it and I was completely capitivated by the beauty, insight and inspiration contained in this bright treasure. The book speaks to your soul. It is also funny, wise and instructive. Ben Izzy gives us an opportunity to learn from his strength and challenges. When life hands you lemons you have options on what to do with them. Ben Izzy explores and discovers the ability to make lots of lemonade. This book was so moving that I wanted several special people in my life to have it and be able to read it again and again. Everyone that recieved a copy was equally knocked out. All I can say is do not pass this one up. This book will warm your soul and inspire you.



4. I did not at all like this book. The author tries way, way too hard to come across as folksy yet profound, and in the end his tone is possibly the most annoying I've ever read. Which makes it even less forgivable that he constantly uses the tritest of clichés both in characterization (he compares meeting his wife to a Joan Baez pop song) and in metaphor (he really actually uses "like grit on sandpaper").
   
   There's a number of short included stories. These stories are mildly interesting on their own, and definitely provide a welcome break from having to hear the author, but lose effect when they're forced into such a corny, played-out "illustrative text" format.



5. This is the best book I have read in a long time. I loved the author's technique of prefacing each chapter / theme with an ancient folk tale. This connected the wisdom of the past with the challenges of today. I found the author's style engaging and attractive (there are not many books I have trouble putting down). The teachings about life and God were profound. My only grateful regret is that I did not make notes while reading. I will now have to do that upon reading the book a second time - after I get it back from the people to which I have loaned it. My advice is don't borrow this book but buy your own copy. Then, when you read it, have a pencil nearby. There are many statements that are so life enhancing, that the reader will want to remember those passages and refer to them, when, in their turn, life grants a portion of challenge and sorrow.

5 comments about A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam.

1. If you want to understand Iraq, or war in the modern age in general, I think you must read this book. Most wars are simply unwinnable -- as that term is commonly misunderstood in Hollywood terms. WWI and WWII were the exceptions not the rule. Where an when you must fight an unwinnable war, it must be by necessity and with a clearly defined objective and exit strategy. This book illustrates these lessons vividly through the life, courage and devotion of a little known and less understood and altogether mystifying and facinating true American hero. Even if you are not so interested in the politics and the present day relevance, it's still one great read.



2. As a student of history with a passion for military history (especially of the Vietnam War), I was very excited about reading this book and very satisfied overall.
   
   To tell the story of John Paul Vann, from both the good and bad sides, requires that the book explore the Vietnam War history as well. Sheehan carefully balances depth of material with a general theme of a historical overview. It makes for a compulsive story, as the "big picture" historical events unravel and de-tangle as Vann's life and role is explored.
   
   The story of Vann is as compelling as any run-of-the-mill Vietnam War service memoire and the historical overview is compelling without being dry or cumbersome. Most refreshing is Sheehan's point of reference, being neither politican nor soldier, it makes this history worth reading if only for the different point of view.
   
   The story of Vann itself is very interesting for any student of the Vietnam War, but I'd also highly recommended this book for anyone who wants to read a good history of the Vietnam War from a non-military/non-politician point of view. Those who are serving or have served would do well to check this out, especially in light of current events. There are some great lessons in here. For the non-military, it's a great overview of the Vietnam War and gives a window of insight on reporting and political ideas during a war such as Vietnam with disturbing parallels to the present.



3. ~A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam~ is an avid account of the Vietnam War centers on U.S. Army officer Lt. Col. John Paul Vann, whose life story illuminates failures and disillusionment of the United States with its intervention in Indochina which escalated incrementally in the decades between the 1950s and the 1970s, under the guise of a police action.
   
   Vann was of humble origins. A smalltown Virginia boy born in the slums of Norfolk, Virginia, and raised in Roanoke, VA. He joined the U.S. Army after reaching adulthood, and became decorated Korean War veteran, following his heroism at the battle of Inchon. He eventually earned his wings, and flew Boeing B-29 bombers to bases across the Pacific. Following the post-WWII restructuring of the War Department, the U.S. Army Air Corps was spun off as the U.S. Air Force, and Vann faced an option of choosing which service branch he would belong to; but Vann stayed in the Army.
   
   John Paul Vann became an American adviser to the South Vietnamese in the early 1960s. He fought right in the trenches with the South Vietnamese, and slept in their barracks. During the Tet Offensive, he single-handedly piloted a helicopter to repel an attack, and saved American lines from being overrun.
   
   Vann was an ardent critic of how the war was fought, both on the part of the Saigon regime, which he viewed as corrupt and incompetent, and, as time went by, increasingly, on the part of the U.S. military. John Adams had said of the 1776 Revolution: "[It] was effected before the War commenced. The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people.... This radical change in the principles, opinions, sentiments, and affections of the people, was the real American Revolution." That phraseology "hearts and minds" was used by the British during the Malaysian Emergency from 1948 to 1960, as the British employed conciliatory practices to keep the Malayans' trust and reduce a tendency to side with the Chinese communists. John Paul Vann advocate a programme for winning the "hearts and minds" of the Vietnamese people. Vann protested that armchair generals and strategists in Washington, D.C., did not have an accurate picture of Vietnam, and they wrongly reduced the struggle to simply one of military might. For Vann, propaganda and lies concealed the failures and harsh realities of American policy in Vietnam, and how it reinforced the bad policies of the `free government' in South Vietnam. "If it were not for the fact that Vietnam is but a pawn in the larger East-West confrontation," remarked Vann, "and that our presence here is essential to deny the resources of this area to Communist China, then it would be damned hard to justify our support of the existing government." Vann was realistic about the corruption that afflicted the Republic of Vietnam, and it undermined the effort to maintain a stable anti-communist political front.
   
   Vann was privately briefing the American press, when the brass refused to heed his exhortation, and make sensible changes. Vann was a complex figure in his own right: he truly believed that it was possible to win the Vietnamese conflict against the communists.
   
   In particular, Vann was very critical of the U.S. military command under William Westmoreland. Westmoreland succinctly summed up the failure of the U.S. policy in the 1970s, when he declared the objective was to "rack up the body count." It became a futile war of attrition against a guerrilla army that was swelling astronomically in sympathizers by the early 1970s. In the realm of psy-ops, the U.S. government suffered an inability to recognize they were facing a popular guerrilla movement while simultaneously backing a corrupt regime. In the mid-1950s, the northern Roman Catholics were compelled to flee to the South, and were assisted by the U.S. Seventh Fleet. This Roman Catholic ruling class constituted the intelligentsia that dominated RVN politics, but they were always viewed with suspicion by the southern populace. Vann argued persuasively that many of the tactics employed by the U.S. and their RVN allies, such as strategic relocation of peasants, further alienated the Vietnamese people. Vann's tough assessment of Washington politicians was realistic and resonated with civilian advisors and low-level military brass on the ground in Vietnam. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, (who served from 1961 to 1968) was an absolute jackass, and ill-qualified for the job. One only has to read his book In Retrospect to see how supercilious he was, and how endowed he was at making excuses for his own ineptness. The policies of MacNamara and his so called `Whiz Kids' were the policies Vann so ardently opposed. He compelled a untimely across-the-board adoption of the untested M16 rifle and this was catastrophic when those rifles malfunctioned in combat.
   
   By the time of his death in Vietnam in June 1972 in a helicopter crash, Vann had challenged the highest military brass in Washington to reevaluate their Vietnam policy. He had earned the admiration and confidence of journalists whose reporting of the war began a general public inquiry of how and why the conflict was being fought. Had Pentagon policymakers heeded Vann's prescient warnings in the early 1970s, and actually made a concerted effort to implement his policy recommendations could, perhaps history would have boded better for the survival of the RVN. It wouldn't be untenable to say that anti-communist victory would have been impossible. But such policy changes would have required diplomatic strong-arm tactics compelling serious political and social reforms in the backward and repressive Republic of Vietnam (RVN).
   
   The author Niel Sheehan was a UPI correspondent in Southeast Asia during the time of the Vietnam war, and chronicled much of Vann's life into a book posthumous. He isn't immune from criticism of Vann, and the book is not entirely hagiographic, as he points out frequent accusations and evidences of Vann's marital infidelity. Sheehan is the master storyteller, and this is arguably one of the best written biographical accounts of the late Vietnamese conflict because it is so realistic about its achievements and failures.
   
   This book is indispensable to coming to terms with the tragedy of the Vietnam conflict, and understanding it. Hindsight is 20/20.



4. Neil Sheehan is a journalist. As such, any historical undertaking at which he throws himself should be approached with a hint of enthusiasm and a barrage of skepticism. The journalist can provide the prose and penmanship that the historian too often lacks. The journalist is oftentimes eye-witness to historical episodes and is thus in a position to pass along a unique perspective that can provide a rich historical understanding. However, the journalist is not trained in the historical methodologies and is thus prone to fatuous errors and crude generalisations that will likely frustrate the historian. Such is this case with the present work. Poor methodology in the form of metaphorical mysticism deals it a critical blow.
   
   A Bright Shining Lie is a memoir, a biography and a political statement entwined into a single work. It follows the life of John Paul Vann, a soldier during the Vietnam War and an old friend of the author. Sheehan paints Vann as an archetypical American soldier, jingoistic and unwilling to admit defeat. Vann's faith in the ability of the United States as a global parent, disciplining and caring for foreign nations as a mother or father shelters and provides for their child, is a testament to his belief in America's ability to police the world. `He saw the United States as a stern yet benevolent authority that enforced peace and brought prosperity to the peoples of the non-Communist nations, sharing the bounty of its enterprise and technology with those who had been denied a fruitful life by poverty and social injustice and bad government.' To Vann, it was only natural that other nations grovel at the wonder-working power of the United States of America. To Sheehan, this faith in this vision of the United States had `come to personify the American endeavor in Vietnam.' This analogy is the salient center of A Bright Shining Lie but also its most obtrusive historical shortcoming. Sheehan places far too much weight on the character flaws of Vann when condemning the Vietnam War and appears to believe that every err in Vann's life must coincide with some flaw in the war or in the American foreign policy apparatus at large. The most glaring misstep occurs during the narrative of Vann's funeral, when Sheehan writes, `They wondered if they were also burying with him this vision and this faith in an ever-innocent America.' Sheehan has on a number of occasions repeated this sentiment that the death of John Paul Vann was, in some mystical way, analogous to the burial of an imperialistic U.S. foreign policy. The historical investigation from which this idea arose is unclear. But clear as crystal is the plain fact that the American empire was not buried with the passing of a pawn in the game. It was rampant in the form of military interventions in the immediate years prior to the publication of A Bright Shining Lie. Sheehan is not blind to the history of American imperial policy. He likely became absorbed by his undertaking and failed to properly analyse the limits of his method.
   
   Sheehan makes known a number of the United States' logistic, strategic and military blunders in Vietnam. In this effort he is decent. However, he once again commits a methodological gaffe. He chronicles in detail the delusions of Vann's superior officers and argues that such delusion occurred at all levels of command, including the Presidency, but does not actually offer any evidence as to how such high level delusion occurred. He simply asks the reader to accept his analogy and be on his way, which brings the reader back to square one and the problems that abound in Sheehan's method.
   
   The analogy is an explanatory device. Its purpose is to further the understanding of an audience. The analogy does not in and of itself prove anything at all. It is a supplement to proof, not a replacement. Had Sheehan used his analogy appropriately and included evidence where fitting he could have avoided his methodological problems.
   
   A Bright Shining Lie is a respectable endeavor when seen for what it literally is, a biography of John Paul Vann. If read as such, its thoroughness, its depth and its personal touch shine through the pages. However, if it is read as a political manifesto it becomes a dense swamp of details with little analysis and conclusions hidden within a tricky metaphorical vista. If it is viewed as a history the majority of it may simply be tossed onto a pile of gasoline and matches.
   
   Brandon Harnish
   April 1, 2008



5. this book was a long read. The wrighting was on the wall. No one paid attention.

5 comments about Country of My Skull: Guilt, Sorrow, and the Limits of Forgiveness in the New South Africa.

1. As a British engineer living in South Africa for 15 years I obviously lived on another planet compared to this lady. Maybe because I worked in black townships and saw things as an outside observer I was not burdened by self loathing and idealistic fantasy that make up much of this work. Sure bad things happen in old wars in Africa or new ones like Iraq, but I can't help feeling that we have been here before. Atrocities happened in Rhodesia but despite the false dawn and liberal accolades that welcomed Mugabe in the same way them as they welcomed Mandela now, we ended up with worse country not a better one. I think that when we all look back on this period in years to come and unburdened by the current plague of political correctness that blights our times, we will realise that those who should ask for forgiveness are the liberal media elites who destroyed South Africa and the hopes of all its people both black and white.



2. A great book, telling a part of a nation's history, that must never been forgotten



3. Antjie Krog writes with a poet's power of observation both with inner feelings as well as to witness the outer complexities of people's pain and truth. Whose truth, which truth, and at what time? The Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings which she followed along with many other reporters, becomes a focal point for the process of hearing these complexities as well as offering the possibilityes for healing in a country struggling to understand the tensions between global change and the bonds of tribal and cultural loyalties and traditions. Krog offers us a chance to participate in this as well as to reflect on our own healing processes and sort out the complexities of many truths we live with.



4. A. Krog writes an amazing piece revolving around the events pertinent to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the emergence of the African National Congress in the politics of South Africa. Graphic descriptions of militant and counterinsurgent armed activity in the apartheid government, and first person testimony to the TRC of human rights violations from many parties. Krog's recollections are necessarily emotionally derived and sometimes difficult for this reason to follow analytically, particularly to one not immersed in South African history and cultures. Extensive use of indigenous languages with helpful translations and a glossary of common local parlance included, which makes the reading much more interpretable. The book is written assuming the reader is familiar with the political events immediately prior to the institution of the TRC and the dissolution of apartheid politics. An excellent piece for any world history or political science student.



5. Antjie Krog is a South African writer and poet who covered the South African Truth and Reconciliation commission hearings. She wrote this book about the experience, from the particular point of view of a South African of Afrikaner background.
   
   I found this book both difficult to read, and difficult to put down. Krog chooses extremely compelling stories to highlight, and the impact is visceral. She asks some very smart and difficult questions about what truth and reconciliation can possibly mean in a country burdened with such a history. The Country of My Skull does an excellent job in providing possible answers to these hard questions, while acknowledging that she may not be the person to either have an opinion or have an answer. She seems to continually ask who are judges and who are victims, given the situation.
   
   While I liked that she shared her own experience of the Commission honestly, there were times when I felt that the focus on her personal life weakened the book. Made it overly poetic, somehow. When she discusses the Death Fugue of Celan, she makes the point that there are some subjects that poetry cannot and perhaps should not touch. I sympathize with the desire to use that kind of precise and metaphoric language, but it increases the distance.
   
   This seems to me an important book. Four and a half stars.

5 comments about Lessons from a Sheep Dog.

1. This was the first book I chose for the Christian women's book club at my church. It offers a wonderful array of lessons from which we can all learn.



2. A beautiful allegory that clearly illustrates our growth as Christians. We start as lost and disobedient, then through the gift of the Holy Spirit and the process of sanctification we become eager obedient servants of our God. I want to be the sheepdog.



3. I've read this book, and found it delightful. I've given it, along with the "Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23" to pastors for their ordinations. This particular book is a great analogy to our growth learning to trust, listen and obey Christ, and let go of the distractions of the world. It was deeply and practically insightful, yet simple enough I could read it for worship with children and they enjoy it as well as understand the deeper lessons as well. Very well done. Highly recommended.



4. Reading this book helps you to understand about our caring Master thru' the eyes of a shepherd and his sheep dog. We sometimes have the perspective that God made a bunch of rules to make our lives miserable, when really He is a loving God who desires only the best for us, just as the shepherd did for his sheep dog. He sets guidelines for our safety, our happiness, our ability to serve others in a better way, to have a close relationship to our creator, etc. This perspective of a loving shepherd, while viewing and guiding his dog, can be compared to our Shepherd caring for us. I highly recommend this book! We had great discussions while reading this book together. (w/ my teens)



5. Halfway through this book I flipped to the back cover to see whether the author's email was there... and was disappointed to find out that he's no longer around! I wanted to tell him what a wonderful book this was.
   
   Being a dog lover, I've always learnt much from my own dogs. This book expresses what I feel in my heart - that dogs are a great example of how we can be good followers of Christ and please Him in the things that we do. The author talks about discovering the sheep dog in shackles when he first sets eyes on him, just like how we are when God comes to rescue us.
   
   Very simple yet powerful. These days we are very busy doing big things for God, and this book reminds us that our faithfulness in the small things is often more important.

5 comments about Journeys to the Mythical Past (Earth Chronicles Expeditions).

1. Unless you want to become a card carrying memeber of the "Zach Sitchin saves the universe club" or you have plenty of money and just want to waste it buying hard cover books because you know the author is going to die soon save your money.



2. Sitchen doesn't back up any of his info. I found the book lacking of any substance. If you are an avid reader/researcher of history and religion(s) this book offers nothing which might further your search.



3. Zecharia Sitchin's JOURNEYS TO THE MYTHICAL PAST blends archaeology with new age insights and comes from a researcher of antiquity who reveals the existence of a secret chamber in Egypt's Great Pyramid. The author nearly lost his life in the process of exposing a long-kept secret: his firsthand accounts of his exploration range from Egypt to the Vatican and provides a range of excellent insights.



4. Sitchen has some interesting notations on Egypt and relations within Mesopatomia, however, I found this book to be below average in terms of Egyptian history and evolution. I enjoyed his previous books more...



5. This book is a must read for anyone interested in the "alternative" history record of our planet. It is clearly and concisely written.
   Superbly exciting reading. Truly informative and thought provoking.
   As always, Dr.Sitchin has produced another winner, and we thank him for it.

5 comments about Drug Lord: The Life & Death of a Mexican Kingpin - A True Story.

1. I've read the book and it is everything my friends told me it was. In the book Comandante Oscar Prieto is one of my friend's dad. The author gives good detail of the story of Pablo because i've heard a lot of true stories which are in the book, and of course a lot that aren't. I have family in Ojinaga and you still have the same business going on, but a lot of people from the town don't worry about it. I've seen pictures where Pablo just looks like a normal rancher from town. He always helped the people in need for food or money. He always remembered where he came from. That's why people don't remember him as a drug lord but as a person who helped the community and the poor. You will be surprised by how Pablo did his deals to cross the drugs over the border. When you read the book you will picture in your mind everything that is going on just like I did. Believe me, you will visualize.



2. In Drug Lord, Terrence Poppa manages to capture all the elements that a book about America's War on Drugs should have: engrossing, multidimensional heroes and villains, clearly-defined connections between the men and women who move oceans of narcotics across the Rio Grande and the larger governmental interests on both sides of the border that profit, one way or the other, from the trade, and guns, guns, guns. Drug Lord was an engrossing read, which I happened to read while touring the Big Bend area of West Texas. The book had such an impact on me that I made a 100-mile detour to visit Ojinaga, the stage where Pablo Acosta made his rise from dirt-poor campesino to mafia kingpin. Although Ojinaga today does its best to disassociate itself, at least to outsiders, from Acosta's legacy (even this pinche gringo knew better than to walk into a cantina and start asking questions), many of the tangible remnants of the bad old days Poppa describes, such as the smuggler's trucks with questionable propane tanks in the bed and houses surrounded by 12 foot-high cinderblock walls, are still readily visible. Although the book succeeds as narrative and will satisfy anyone interested in the drug war, the conclusion that Poppa comes to can be summed up in one sentence: it is all Mexico's fault. True, the Mexican government is rotten to the core, and six years under Vicente Fox doesn't seem to have changed much. But any honest examination of the War on Drugs must acknowledge the fact that Acosta and those who have come before and after him are only supplying a demand created by Americans; if the Mexicans don't sate that demand, then the Colombians will, and if the Colombians don't sate it, then the Cosa Nostra, or the Russians, and so on and so forth. I found Poppa's willingness to foster the blame for an unwinnable war on the shoulders of a country that has lost so much fighting a conflict whose victory will primarily benefit Americans to be a sad and myopic conclusion to an otherwise great book. Readers wanting an equally-engrossing but more balanced read should try Charles Bowden's Down By The River, about the Amado-Fuentes organization.



3. After serving in the Border Patrol in the west Texas area for the last ten years, Poppa's book is the most realistic I have read to date. I get frustrated reading many books, especially when they start blaming the US for Mexico's problems. This books explains clearly corruption in the Mexican system, how it came about, and why it will probably never go away. It also demonstrates how ridiculious our politicians can be in attempting to deal with a government built on and run by corruption.
   
   The story of Pablo is great, but you could just change the name and it would fit many of the other King Pins out there and their lives too. Mexico relishes and charishes Drug Lords as heroes, and that is a fact.
   
   Question? When you have that many millions of people crossing into the United States illegally that have accepted corruption as the way things are done, what will that eventually do to our society?



4. quisiera referirme al epilogo la pagina 357 para ser exactos en esta pagina el escritor le llama a mexico un pais que tiene envidia a EEUU por sus logros.... y que por eso los mexicanos traficamos droga.
   para el escritor:
   By now everyone has accepted that the fact that as long as there's demand,there will always be supply, and that whenever one supplier goes down, another inevitably rises up to fill the void.
   SUPPLY AND DEMAND-the bedrock principle of economics- thus ensures that the endless war on drugs will continue until EEUU stop using drugs...
   si sabes tanto escritor porque ocultas la verdad?????. benjamin(sinaloense)



5. It is interesting to me very informative. In candle wax traffic to other illicit products. I like the cover as well as the whole story. This book has the lord of the skies, Mr.Fuentes in his coffin as well. For me it is a very special book.

4 comments about Mary Martin, Broadway Legend.

1. I enjoyed reading this account of Mary Martin's life and career. I am a big fan of her son, Larry Hagman, and in the process of reading everything I could get my hands on about him, became familiar with much of the written source material used here. I was happy to find that there is much more to this book than a compilation of existing work. Davis' use of his interviews with Martin and many who knew her, including her childhood best friend Bessie Mae Sue Ella Yeager, which were part of his SMU Oral History Project, make this volume valuable. Information from personal letters are also used effectively throughout.
   
   One item in particular intrigued me, that Mary had an older brother who died in childhood. I have never read anything of the sort, but if true it explains why Mary's mother, Juanita, became so attached to Larry Hagman. I had always assumed that her strong desire for a son was simple sexism. I'd love to know more - too bad the boy's name, age and cause of death were not included.
   
   I have a few minor complaints. Larry Hagman was married in 1954, not 1955 as reported in this book. Some of the implied time-lines seemed wrong to me, even though specific dates were not given. For example, Mary and Larry made a record together, not "shortly before Larry went into the service," which was after Larry appeared in South Pacific in London with his mother, but over a year before that, while Mary was still in South Pacific in New York.
   
   Overall, I found "Mary Martin, Broadway Legend" to be a fair and balanced account of Martin's life, well written, informative and entertaining. I recommend it to anyone interested in Mary Martin, her family and colleagues, theater history, or a good biography.



2. First of all, let me tell you that I've loved Mary Martin since a child. I've avidly read everything I could get my hands on about her and this book is a gem I shall treasure,
   
   I hope that younger people will read this book - that it will inspire them as I was to dream big, be big and not be afraid of anything and that if you believe this you can do it all.
   
   It's a shame that there are few left on Broadway to inspire us, so I am even more grateful for this marvelous book. Thank you!



3. I was very disappointed in this book. I was hoping for a major biographical treatment of the life of the legendary Mary Martin -- but this doesn't begin to fill the bill.
   
   A first reading indicates lots of errors. To list only a few:
   
   Mary Martin didn't study with Dino Borgioli in New York as the author claims, but in London.
   Cinderella with Julie Andrews was 1957 and not 1958.
   The Song "When You're Far Away From New York Town" was not taken from the character who originally sings it and given to Mary Martin to sing during "Jennie". The singer Jack DeLeon sings it on the OBC recording and sang it in the show.
   The companion show for NBC that preceeded "Music with Mary Martin" was called "Magic with Mary Martin" and not "Three to Make Music" as the author claims.
   One of the most important television shows she did, the "General Foods 25th Anniversary Show -- A Salute to Rodgers and Hammerstein" gets no mention in the list of "major television performances"
   There was no "Jazz Version of 'Tit Willow'" in the tv special with Noel Coward.
   The 1985 "Our Hearts Belong to Mary" special in which Miss Martin made her final New York Broadway stage appearance gets no mention at all. This was a great night of tribute to Mary Martin and there is nothing in the book about it.
   It is Dolores Gray, not Delores Gray.
   
   Additionally, some incidents in Mary Martin's life are told out of the chronological order in which they happened, making them appear to have happened at a different point in time.
   
   With so many errors found in a first casual reading of the book, one has to worry about the accuracy of other information.
   
   The author, Ronald Davis, relied very heavily on his oral interviews with close friends of Mary Martin and with the great star herself. Somehow the focus shifts too often to the interviews with these other individuals. Much of the author's research comes from materials at SMU where he was a professor. This is good material, however there is a wealth of other material out there that wasn't tapped for this book.
   Basically there is still another fascinating story to be told about this great performer.
   
   Better attribution for a lot of the source material would be welcome. There is so much material borrowed from other sources that the lack of footnotes is frustrating. Sources are discussed in the back of the book but it is difficult to cross-reference them, and the source material section is quite hard to follow. This is amazing considering the book was published by a university press.
   
   The accompanying back matter, the list of her Broadway shows is very sketchy and incomplete. Only major performers are listed. There is only an incomplete list of television appearances, and there is no discography.
   
   If you are waiting for a major and in-depth biography of this wonderful performer -- this book isn't it. There are some nice photographs which are rarely seen and they were enjoyable to look at.



4. This is an okay book for someone who knows very little about Mary Martin.
   
   It is not for anyone who knew Martin (as a friend or acquaintance) or even followed her career on Broadway or television. The author relies heavily on interviews with Martin herself and others, especially life-long friend Besse Mae Sue Ella Austin. Austin and her husband are primary sources and their many comments do fill in some of the blanks, especially about Martin's childhood and family.
   
   However, I learned nothing new about the most important people in Martin's life: husband Richard Halliday, best friend Janet Gaynor or her children Larry Hagman & Heller Halliday. Did the author even try to search out people who could have talked opened about Halliday and Gaynor?
   
   I assume the Austins did provide useful information. If so, Davis made the choice not to include it here. That is one of the problems. Davis has written other books and the narrative flows well. But, Davis wrote this book as a huge fan of Mary Martin, from the days of seeing her in "Annie Get Your Gun" in Texas. Martin, one of Broadway's biggest musical stars, deserves a well researched book by an objective author.

5 comments about Eudora Welty: A Biography.

1. There seems to be something provincial about any writer that lives in Mississippi. They cannot be viewed as normal people. When they are female, far from beautiful, remain unmarried, somewhat sequestered, a name like Eudora, and live with their mother, the image comes unbidden of a demure Southern Lady, incapable of expressing emotion, if they have any. Eudora Welty fit this image perfectly, and because she did it is too easy to dismiss her writing as worthless.
   
   Then you look at the prizes:Pulitzer, National Book, eight (yes 8) O. Henry's, National Medal of Literature, Medal of Freedom. There had to be something more behind the image, something of life to give the understanding for such insight.
   
   Ms. Marrs biography does an excellent job of giving life to Eudora Welty. That she considered New York her alternate home. That she was for integration in a segregationist South. That the loves in her life happened to be unavailable, but that they indeed were there.
   
   Ms. Marrs book provides a view of Eudora Welty that rounds out her life in a most plesant way.



2. Eudora Welty was born in Jackson, Mississippi on April 13, 1909 and died July 23, 2001. She was a Southern woman and that simple fact was what initially brought her to my attention so many years ago. I so enjoy the Southern writer. And Eudora Welty is no exception. Welty is a critically acclaimed writer of essays, short stories and novels. Hers are the stories that I return to every so often, always finding something new in them.
   
   Welty's 1984 memoir One Writer's Beginning was her own personal life account. And while that was interesting it is this biography that seems to fill in the blanks with substance; probably because the author had a distance Welty didn't. What I found most interesting is the author's ability to humanize this icon of literature. Welty was first and foremost a woman who though she had an extreme talent, enjoyed humor, loved deeply (even though she never married), had numerous friends (many who were writers), loved her mother (whom people thought dominated Welty) and thought of New York as her second home.
   
   Welty was definitely not the "old maid" some thought she was. She fell in love with a man who cared for her but also was interested in men. She then lost in love with a married man who was stricken with Alzheimer's. But it was the long-term relationship with Kenneth Millar (detective fiction writer Ross Macdonald) that will make your heart skip a beat. They met at the Algonquin Hotel and corresponded with each other twice each month. They only spent a total of six weeks together over the years but they always believed that fate brought them together.
   
   I enjoyed the small items in this book: that Welty admired Langston Hughes's poetry and that osteoporosis took six inches from her five-foot-ten height. Especially touching are the memories of the relationship with Ken Millar.
   
   Marrs book is a complete, considerate and grand account of the life of an important American literary icon. It is a book that I will revisit just like her body of work. Armchair Interviews says her work, like her biography is something to be read, reread and savored.



3. Solid research by a top Eudora Welty scholar is coupled here with close friendship in the last 15 years of Welty's long life. Suzanne Marrs friendship with Welty gave her unparalleled access to papers and a wide circle of Eudora Welty's friends.
   
   In addition to the text there is a delightful section of 16 pages of photos ranging from Welty's childhood through old age--including a few she took herself.
   
   Welty emerges from the pages of Marrs' biography as a woman engaged in the world--not sheltered from it as the popular myth of her life suggested. Even during the years of her so-called Writer's Block, she traveled widely and worked hard to craft and deliver speeches at colleges and universities that are later gathered into essays.
   
   I was particularly touched by the passages relating to her involvement in taking care of her mother in old age and of how she strove--ultimately not for publication--to transform her pain at Ken Millar's (aka Ross Macdonald) Alzheimer's.
   
   Although she grieved as close friends died, Eudora Welty also seems a wonderful model for vigorous aging as she kept active, involved, tried new things, and kept a cadre of acquaintances of all ages in her orbit.
   
   --Janet Grace Riehl, author Sightlines: A Poet's Diary



4. I like Suzanne Marrs' book but it is less a conventional biography than an annotated account of every social visit and trip abroad taken by Eudora Welty during her eighty plus years of living.
   
   Welty seemed to enjoy her reputation as an outsider artist, and from her Mississippi roots she took strength, but she sure was connected to the bigtime power brokers of New York and London. No wonder her career took off so early. If your best friends were Mary Lou Aswell, the premiere fiction editor of the day, and oh, William and Emmy Maxwell, the NEW YORKER fiction editor and his wealthy wife, your career would skyrocket too. She won them all over with a winning combination of direct honesty, Southern charm, a real curiosity about the lives of others, and a nose for showing up all the right parties. Marrs shows us a Welty obsessed as Paris Hilton with making the rounds and being seen everywhere, and if you took out all the parties, dinners, and chic foreign travel, this giant biography would be about 80 pages. Elizabeth Bowen told British readers that DELTA WEDDING was "new" and "great," didn't mention their deep friendship. As one reads the book the spectacle of one hand washing the other, of sheer log rolling, is a living thing, frightening in its implications. First Welty created her own career, then it seemed to take over
   
   And sad, sad, sad! If you credit Marrs' reading of Welty's life, she spent years pining after a man who turned out to be gay, and then when she was an old lady she fell in love with a fellow novelist, one married to yet a third. Pining away after Ross Macdonald (Ken Millar), she didn't care what people thought. She would give his books favorable reviews in the NEW YORK TIMES, why not? They dedicated books to each other and played out their celebrity romance in public, a mutual admiration society people enjoyed observing the way they liked to see Agatha Christie married to the archaeologist Max Mallowan, as two orders of celebrity drawn to each other like iron filings to a magnet. Was Millar in love with Welty? He told Reynolds Price he was. However, Marrs is big on "perhaps" (a word used over two hundred forty times in her biography) and it's hard to pin her down. The thrust of Marr's biography is to utterly destroy what's left of the reputation on Margaret Millar, the brilliant crime writer Ross Macdonald stayed married to. It's as if I was writing a biography of Angelina Jolie and felt compelled to obliterate poor Jennifer Aniston by concentrating solely on her bad habits and not on her possibly hurt feelings. When Welty hears the news that Margaret Millar has finally died, her response is terse and grim. "'Thank you for the information,' was Eudora's only reply."
   
   Marrs, an academic working in Mississippi loved Eudora herself and by her own admission became one of her best young friend. And hence she might be chary of saying anything analytical or remotely critical about Welty. Unseemly is the number of pages she spends demolishing a previous biographer who had the temerity to call Welty "homely." It's pathetic that Marrs should have found it necessary to insist on Welty's good looks. I'm sorry, but if Ann Waldron's book may have suffered from a lack of cooperation from Welty's friends, at least it tried to penetrate the surface of America's best loved author. Too many friends will obscure the real subject of a biography, as well as too little. The one place where Marrs' book is compelling is in the slow, detailed analysis of Welty's last 30 years and how she wound up in a nightmare of being unable to write fiction. Surrounded by sycophants and scholars who, by the 1970s, had established a Eudora Welty industry, she lived in a state of denial, accepting by Marrs' count 39 honorary degrees in part, or so it seems, to reassure herself that she was universally adored. She had trouble saying no, and she'd go to the opening of an envelope. It was a terrible waste, and yet, what else could she do to find a scrap of happiness? She had to know people loved her. Scholars and helpers wound up keeping her name in the public eye by compiling new books of her own writings, publishing limited editions of her juvenilia, having her sign limited edition copies, and arranging for numerous TV interviews.
   
   Occasionally Marrs lets the "beloved" mask slip and shows us glimpses of what might have been the real Welty. Her unexplained hatred of Martha Gellhorn--that "phony"--is one such opening. Or when Bill Maxwell, exasperated by Welty's whining, asks her how she could possibly be "broke" when she has a musical running on Broadway. Marrs has an empathic, eccentric style of her own, given to oratorical repetition. "This is not to say that Eudora had become a pacifist. She had not." Sometimes she seems to have an axe to grind herself. What's the point in demonizing the late Norma Brickell, for example, referring to her offhandedly, without a single citation, as a "notoriously dominating personality"? Could it be that Eudora resented Norma for having married Herschel Brickell, one of Welty's platonic boyfriends? If so, why not say so? Norma Brickell is unjustly maligned here and no one is going to speak up on her behalf. It wasn't Norma who voted against Eudora getting her nth Guggenheim--no, it was Herschel, "because, as he put it, "Them as has gits."
   
   I hope that Marrs will devote her energies on Welty's behalf to the extent of preparing editions of the two abandoned novel projects that caused her idol so much suffering, the novel called "Nicotiana" or "The Last of the Figs," and the 70s rape revenge tale she refers to as "The Shadow Club." It would be a shame indeed if none of this material was made available to Welty's vast public. Look how Hemingway's estate authorized the publication of novel after novel, after Hemingway's suicide. Spruced up and with forewords by Richard Ford or Reynolds Price, we'd have a new couple of Welty bestsellers on our hands.



5. There are terrific reviews already on this site, and I can add little to what has already been said. I've been a Welty fan since discovering her work 40 years ago, and have a reply from her from many, many years ago when I wrote her a rather gushing fan letter in grade school.
   
   I suppose that, like many Welty fans, I concentrated on her work. I'd read peripherally about her friendship with Porter and others, and I've enjoyed her photographic work. I'd also read One Writer's Beginnings. However, this work goes much deeper into Miss Welty's personal life than I'd been exposed to before. Who can say what's tragic or sad in another's life? We all create our existence to different muses.
   
   I was delighted to find this book, and appreciate Ms. Marrs's scholarship.