1 comments about Don't Let The Lipstick Fool You: The Making of a Champion.

1. Anyone who's a WNBA fan of any team other than the LA Sparks knows that the Sparks have gained the reputation of being the team you "love to hate"! But also, as a WNBA fan you have to give credit and your respect to all the women who have been responsible for the love and excitement we have for the league. They have blazed the trail for all the young talents we see today.
   
   Lisa Leslie is definitely one of those women. In her book, "Don't Let The Lipstick Fool You", you will get a better view of Lisa the person as well as the athlete. She shares her life, her beliefs, and her career. I truly enjoyed the book and highly recommend it to any WNBA fan.

5 comments about Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance.

1. This is truly an amzing story that provides much insight into the life of Barack Obama. It was hard to put down for even a moment. His life has been one incredible journey that has led him to where he is today. The details of his life and the impact on him help you better understand what drives him and has given him the strength to pursue his goals. Great read and a must for everyone.



2. I will admit that I was among those Republicans early on who were intrigued, almost swept away, by Obama-mania. His oratory skills, his charisma, his down to earth style had me almost believing that he could join our two warring parties and make everything all right again. Knowing this, my husband nestled Barack's autobiography in with my valentines gifts last February. With great eagerness I began to read and at first I was totally absorbed. I loved Obama's writing style and his honest reflections. But as I turned the pages I began to find myself asking that old commercial question "Where's the beef?". It was an interesting story but, after I got well past the middle of the book I found that he was, in fact, just like thousands of successful social activists, idealistic, self-reflective and magnetic. But what else set him apart? The fact that he is bi-racial? Or that he did not know his father? That he was raised by his grandparents? No, these are common experiences for many Americans. Instead of revealing what kind of leader Obama would be, the book seemed a very long and winding story that never really found its point. I was let down, not by the style of the book (Obama does all his own writing and it is very good), but rather that, in the end, I knew so little of his political views on any subject of importance. On one level I can recommend this book as a well written, easy to read story of a young man finding his way. But if you are looking for guidance as to how to cast your vote, I suggest you skip this book and go on your knees.



3. Barack Obama has a gift of writing. This is my second book from him. I liked this book because it was only speaking on how things were.As I've seen some people have had issues and called him a racist. If you really read the book then I would not know why you would call him that.They obviosly missed the point.
   Because of his backround i believe that he can unite people within the states and he can also unite America with other countries again.GO OBAMA!



4. A great story, made all the more interesting by the political prominence that the author has achieved subsequent to its publication.



5. Just when my faith in America was at an all-time low, along comes Barack Obama and his very human, extraordinary memoir, full of hope, suffering, loss, joy, redemption, and an abiding faith in God. This is an amazing life: born of a white, American mother and a Kenyan father, he embodies the world spirit at its best. If Obama becomes President, I just know that the whole world will praise America and rejoice. Just think about it for a moment. Fathers and mothers all around the globe will know that their grandchild can potentially grow up to become President of the United States of America. The respect and love America will receive shall eclipse anything She has ever known. It will know no bounds. People we never thought would love America will shed tears of joy. Obama is a Godsend. This memoir is quite explicit, describing even his drug use and loneliness. But it's refreshing to see such a forthright, honest account of a politician's life. Barack Obama made me fall in love with America all over again. God bless this wonderful Country! Finally, a politician I can believe in! I'm so excited for the Future. I had first read "The Audacity of Hope," which I enjoyed, but it already reads like somebody writing as a politician. I much prefer "Dreams from My Father" for its candidness. This is truly a man to remember. Here's to hope!

5 comments about Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (Dover Thrift Editions).

1. This book is one of those books that have quite an affect on you. By the time I was done I had a bit more of knowledege of how slavery really was. Clearly I had no idea until I read it. I really wanted to cry so many times during the book.
   
   Everyone should read this book.



2. Some say this isnt true, after reading it seems that some is fiction. Especially extensive quotes years after the events from someone who coulnt read or write at the time the events occured and would have no way of recording them for future use. Somewhat drawn out. Keep looking there may be something better out there on the subject.



3. I used an excerpt from this book included in a women's literary anthology used in my women's literature class. It was one of the many classes' favorite reads. For their final they were allowed to concentrate on one class assignment, write a documented essay, and from it, give an oral presentation with visuals....several successfully replicated, small scale, the yard and house with attic where Jacobs describes as being hidden for years... an incredible true story for everyone of all ages!



4. Harriet Jacobs' Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl is unique in that it is one of the few firsthand accounts written by a woman. The book is a tribute to an extraordinary woman who spent much of her life fighting against slavery. She also provides details into the reality of this dark period of American history, constantly struggling with how a nation can be Christian and yet allow the practice to continue. It is impossible to read this book and not be impressed with the quality of this historical figure.



5. Concerning this edition (the book is a must read)... Dover's thrift editions are just that--thrifty. The text is close together and the overall readability of the edition is fair. It works, but I'd like to see Oxford or Penguin make a "classic" edition with a scholary introduction, footnoting and contextual information like 19th century reviews, etc... A good edition, needs improvement, but then it wouldn't have a "thrifty" price!

5 comments about Catfish and Mandala: A Two-Wheeled Voyage Through the Landscape and Memory of Vietnam.

1. i was travelling alone in Lhasa, Tibet and found this book in Makye Ame restaurant. i started reading and couldn't put it down. it gave me true enjoyable solitude on my lonely journey. loved it. i spent the last two days reading it in that restaurant. ordered a copy from Amazon last week and i can't wait to finish it.
   my heartfelt thanks to Mr Pham!



2. Andrew X. Pham's other works and notables:
   
   * Pham, Andrew X. The Eaves of Heaven: A Life in Three Wars. This title will be released on June 3, 2008.. ISBN 030738120X.
   
   As translator:
   
   * ng Thùy Trâm. Last Night I Dreamed of Peace: The Diary of Dang Thuy Tram. ISBN 0307347370.
   
   Notables: Kiriyama Prize, Whiting Writer Award, QPB Nonfiction Prize, Guardian Shortlist Finalist, NY Times Notable Book of the Year, Oregon Literature Prize.
   
   Andrew X. Pham's website is at www.andrewxpham.com



3. This book is about a Vietnamese-American man looking for his identity in his homeland. Like many Vietnamese who were children when South Viet Nam fell to the communist in 1975, Mr. Pham's family fled to America where he grew up straddling two cultures. While his writing about biking though Viet-Nam is witty, observational, and realistic, I somehow felt sadden for him because of his Viet-kieu's experience, a terminology used for expats. Over all his story made many generalizations about a very complex and exciting country. I am too a Viet-kieu. What I found is a country full of eager young optimistic people wanting a better life for themselves, their families, sometimes - for better or worse - at any price. Yes, there are poverty and corruption, but there also exist the dignity and quiet grace of a peasant woman who gets up at crack of dawn, earning a meager wage for the day to feed her family because it's her duty. Mr. Pham chose to go back to America with his ''privileges'' and his ''opportunity'' still at a lost for his identity. Readers should not accept Mr. Pham's experience as those of the other Viet-kieu's in Viet Nam.
   
   M. Vo



4. This book embraces so many themes, so delicately, wrenchingly and compassionately. The center plot is a return to Vietnam by a young Vietnamese American which his family fled years ago to live in the United States. However, it is far beyond cross-cultural travelogue; it inhabits the American as well as the Asian psyche with such scary acuity, and takes us into an inner landscape where few can go....without this author as guide. The prose is elegant and luminous; the situations tragic, comic, ludicrous; terrifying. The tone I felt was one of battle fatigue but transcended by unrelenting steel: this one was meant to survive and to tell it all.....



5. Catfish and Mandala hit close to home. My mother's family live in Vung Tau. So, when I read passages about it, it intrigued me. And it didn't disappoint.
   
   Despite what readers believe, this memoir isn't about Vietnam. Catfish and Mandala tells a family saga--a Vietnamese family saga. It speaks to you about family tragedy, disaster, and redemption. This includes immediate family, extended family, and the family left behind after the war. Locals called Mr. Pham brother, uncle, etc. The metaphor glares at you, sometimes blinds you to it, but don't miss it.
   
   This work broke my heart, but I recommend it to children born from that land and know little to nothing about it--like myself.
   
   I do have one complaint, though, as a fellow writer: On their/his hams. If I see that phrase ever again, I will scream. I lost count after reading it the sixth time. One pass at an unusual phrase takes notice, but over six jars readers to a halt. Otherwise, I loved this book.
   
   Wolfe

5 comments about Papillon (P.S.).

1. Papillon is the roughest, toughest, rootenist, tootenist, best lover, and most fair, prisoner ever. And these are his adventures trying to escape from prison.
   
   At a certain point, the book had all the believability of a Penthouse forum letter.



2. The thing that Henri Charriere desired most was his freedom. A French prisoner, he never stopped plotting ways to escape. The only time when he didn't have a plan in motion was when he was either in solitary, or upon personal request of the warden (they would request that he didn't escape so that they could finish their term, and not have their record/pension ruined by his escape).
   
   This autobiography spares no details about the violence and horrors that surrounded the prisoners daily. He loses a number of his friends to disease, or murder. Papillon was generally respected by his fellow prisoners, and the administration. He was quick to criticize the administration to their face. Many of the wardens and doctors even agreed with how screwed up the French justice system was.
   
   Henri is very detailed about his experiences and escapes. He remembers well the people who aided him before, during and after an escape. You will find yourself rooting for Henri with each escape attempt!
   
   There has been some criticism that say that Henri took details from other prisoners' accounts or that some of the anecdotes are made up. Regardless, this autobiographical tale of escape is better than any work of prison escape fiction that can ever be written.



3. While I suspect certain elements of Papillon are true, e.g. the conditions in the "bagne" and general state of French penal code when it was written, you would have to be pretty gullible to believe the story itself to be true. The author suffers through a number of escape attempts that could each be the basis of a feature film, and proves to be virtually indestructible in situations that claim the lives of everyone else surrounding him. But even so, it's a good adventure story.
   
   The believability meter for me finally broke when our hero (who is loved by all, including all the guards, wardens, convicts, etc), becomes adopted by Indians who typically hate all outsiders. Not only do they take Papillon in, but they offer him lovely virgins to bear his children and tearfully wave bye-bye when he abandons them! Please.
   
   Research on Papillon confirms the book was originally planned as a novel, which makes a lot more sense. Either way, it is an entertaining read.



4. Sweet Papillon, wondrous butterfly; keep going man freedom's just a head, and you can see it in that sunset.



5. Excellent and quick read, notwithstanding the length (540 pages). Much better than the film, starring Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman released in approximately 1973-74. I felt a stronger than normal sympathy and admiration for the never-give-up, protagonist, Papillon. After reading this book I have a greater respect for the simple freedoms that many of us take for granted.

5 comments about ADHD & Me: What I Learned from Lighting Fires at the Dinner Table.

1. This is a great book! It is very down to earth and informative. I'm a clinical psychologist and also have ADHD, so I'm always on the lookout for books to give people who are trying to understand and deal with this disorder. I will definitely be recommending this one.



2. A powerful story told by an exceptionally bright and thoughtful 17 year old. I gave it to my 17 year old who was recently diagnosed with mild ADHD and he didn't move for two hours he was so engrossed in Blake's journey and lessons learned. I bought 10 copies and gave them to the learning specialists, principal and president at my son's high school. In addition, my entire family read the book. As a result, we have a new vocabulary in which to address the behaviors and issues that come up with this common condition. Thanks for sharing your world Blake! It has made such a positive impact on us and many others.



3. Blake.E.S.Taylor is such a sophisticated young man, isn't he? I wasn't smart enough to tell you my ADHD logically based on my experiences when I was his age, and I am still not! And most of the symptoms written in his book are quite similar to my childhood. I could have clearly shown you the strategies not only on ADHD but also developmental disabilities like him if I had been diagnosed with ADHD and PDD(=Pervasive Developmental Disorder) earlier. I didn't know anything about developmental disabilities when I was younger. Besides, even in my college days, I couldn't eliminate my impulsiveness and hyperactivity, which often stood out in my English classes given by English-speaking teachers. One day I mumbled,"Jesus."during my class so nobody noticed it, because I was very cranky and stressed. However, the teacher recognized and blew up,"If you swear, please leave! I have to be strict on that and I'm pretty serious." I got so stunned that I had no choice but to apologize to him. How embarrassed! He implicitly told me how to learn from such a big mistake, though...
   Anyway, Blake couldn't have written ADHD & Me: What I Learned from Lighting Fires at the Dinner Table, if he was less mature. Even though his ADHD still remains, I'm sure his experiences will reinforce the strategies to tackle ADHD!



4. This book is amazing, so much wisdom from someone so young and with a disability such as ADHD. Blake has become an inspiration to both me and my son who has ADHD and is struggling with social skills in school. I would highly recommend this book to all children, adults, teachers, parents who has someone with ADHD. For we already know what remarkable and speacial people we have.



5. I provide therapy to children with ADHD and their families. This book is extremely helpful in allowing parents to understand why their children sometimes act the ways they do. It is also something that parents can read with their children so they communicate with one another about the symptoms of ADHD. This allows other children with ADHD to see that they are not alone in their experience and to understand that there is a reason why they feel they way they do.

5 comments about Do Travel Writers Go to Hell?: A Swashbuckling Tale of High Adventures, Questionable Ethics, and Professional Hedonism.

1. I read about this book when all the buzz came out about the Lonely Planet writer you didn't actually visit the location. After the buzz ended up being about nothing, I was still interested in the book.
   
   The writer does an excellent job keeping us in his head as he travels and lives a little on the edge. The story moves well and I found myself really looking forward to getting back to the book.
   
   AS someone who really enjoys travel, I was inspired by the adventureness of the writer. I usually restrict myself to high end hotels and the standard tourists destinations. But it's the times that I have moved off the beaten path that I have found myself enjoying the trip most. Thomas is an expert at finding that route.
   
   If you enjoy travel, it's likely that you'll enjoy this book.



2. ...much more than simply throwing stones on his own former glass house, Lonely Planet -- Kohnstamm has committed a grabbing road memoir on travelling through Northwestern Brazil.
   
   One thing is the underload of cash and time and overload of rules and inflexibility his employer set for the (ad)venture into these up and coming tourist destinations, another is the lack of discipline and resistence to the many temptations the same destinations throw in his face. Beautiful and usually not unwilling women, sometimes girls. Cheap alcohol and easy drugs, a less easy drug dealing business, and not at all easy Brazilian policemen. Here a free meal without a deal, there a free night. Kohnstamm's basically just a young man being exposed to choices and often giving in to them. And being honest, and courageous, enough to share them.
   
   True, 'Do Travel Writers Go To Hell?' will certainly make a wannabe travel writer, as well as any potential guidebook buyer -- not only of Lonely Planet but in general! -- think twice. But its first and foremost justification is the journey. A journey which is entertaining but much more so, it is a journey causing the author as well as the reader to reflect on morality, society and even humanity. On a down to earth level, in an almost frighteningly real life universe.
   
   Kohnstamm writes in a slightly philosophical but in no way pretentious language. Behind his inviting style lures a hint of a post-20s male's indignation and self-scepticism. But Kohnstamm also suggests which roads might lead in a more acceptable direction. An absorbing book by a skilled writer with much more to say than simply bashing the standard-setting travel book publisher to earn an easy buck.



3. This travelogue by Thomas Kohnstamm is about his journey and misadventures through Brazil as a first time writer for Lonely Planet travel guidebooks. Thomas spends the first portion of this book getting out of his job, separating from his girlfriend, and spending the night out with his friend which ends disastrously. Thomas then shows up in Brazil, with his purportedly meager wage advance on which he must travel, eat, and lodge. He spends much of the book complaining about being low on funds and time he is but will rent apartments for a month, buy ecstasy and other drugs, and do a lot of partying with other travelers as well as the locales.
   
   He tries to abide by the Lonely Planet creed of 'no freebies or gratuities" from hotels or restaurants for inclusion in their guidebooks. It takes Thomas most of his retelling to come to the conclusion you can only do the whirlwind travel and expenses by informing just such business owners who you are and where you work in which you get comped rooms, food, and meetings with the staff. Also you can't visit all these places and gather the input without using locals and other travelers to tell you about them and using their opinions rather than your own experience. I'm not knocking the author for doing this, I can understand why you need to do so.
   
   The book itself is based on the struggles of an aspiring travel writer and what it takes to be one. Secondary is the attempt to expose the underbelly and tribulations these writers endure and often outright lie about because you can't get paid for negative press. Thomas best writing is in his descriptions of the people he meets as the text is full of flavor and inspiring visions such as finding out what is roommate Inara's actual modeling job consists of or how the unassuming Otto is not to be taken for granted. His random sexual encounters are limited in coverage but his drinking and drug use was a bit much. Maybe cutting down on those could have stretched his money further. It was more like he took the job for the trip and went as a backpacker instead of a guidebook writer only to find out that he needed to do some actual research. Overall, quick read with some amusing misadventures.



4. An excellent read that reminds me of some of my own shenanigans (although not as crazy as the author's) while traveling in Latin America.



5. This book feels like a record; the record that the artist says nearly killed them. The one that almost did them in, despite the critical acclaim or career advancement that it provided. Reading the beginning of Kohnstamm's escape from New York is like the second a paper cut hits - there's no pain, but you know it is i coming and you know it is going to gush. One expensive bottle of alcohol and a fistfight into it, you're on your way through Kohnstamm's journey through travel hell. It's exactly as you'd want it to be; a bit scandalous, a bit egregious, a bit tell-all. Nothing here really shocked me but it did give me a greater appreciation of what it is All About. I'd daydreamed about what a Lonely Planet author would have to go through on a daily basis - it turns out that my daydreams were on point. If you like travel, writing and sordid tales.....I'd recommend this book. I read it from cover-to-cover in one flight across America.

5 comments about Bad Boy: A Memoir.

1. Bad Boy
   By Walter Dean Myers
   Review by Kareem Joey
   
   
   
   Bad Boy .Hoops .Fly jimmy fly, what do all of these great
   Books have in common? They were all written by Walter dean Myers a high school dropout!
   
   Bad you are a thrilling book full of suspense and hard ships. IT starts while Walter was just a little boy. Even though his life was hard he somehow mad it through. The hardest part of waters life was probably his home town. Life in Harlem in the 1940s was rough. There was always crime and fights. The neighborhood was dirty and thee houses were rigtty.But Walter somehow made it thought. His main problem while he was growing up was his love for reading and writing. This is a problem because his bad and friends do not approve of his hobbies they begin to make fun of him and he begins to grow a hard outer shell.
   
   
   He than becomes a bully. Towards the end of the story his anger calms and he starts to not care what people think of him. He then follows and becomes a famous writer. Though his father still doesn't approve his mother tries to keep him inspired. This Book teaches you to follow your dreams no matter what people think about you. They should not a have a say in you're future because only can decide what you do in life



2. This book is a good book for teens to read. It's that kind of book that us as kids can relate to.....Once i read the first chapter i was hooked! I would strongly recommend this book to any of my closest friends! I am glad to give this book a good review.



3. "Bad Boy" the story of Walter Dean Myers life in the streets of Harlem and the challenges he faced from drugs, gangs and the feeling of having no hope to ever succeed. Walter jumps you head first into how the struggle of being a young African American and how you must survive. Walter at a young age was considered very intelligent his only problem that held him back was his speech defect. In which he was teased for and caused him anger in which brought him down the path of violence. Much of Walter's life was something he fought for or strived for, something that really didn't expect with a kid that had so much rage and anger he had such passion for reading and writing. Many times during the book he would talk about how he would lock himself in his room for hours and just read and write poems, stories or just about anything that he could think of. Walter Dean Myers paints a vivid picture of the challenges a young kid in Harlem had to deal with in hopes of finding himself, it is a story that will change the mind of everyone.



4. On the back of this book it says that teens will see them selves in Myers. Well they weren't lying when they said that, I saw myself completely in some of the contents of Myers teenage years. For example the reading, through out the book Myers discovered that he had a very good talent in reading and writing. He also was a class clown who always got into trouble, but why doing so he made the people around him laugh. Anyway Myers didn't want to be made fun of(don't we all) about being able to read and write so he hid it from everybody. Their are things that I am good at that I don't want people to know. Myers also told what it was like being a black boy in an integrated Harlem back in the 1930s and '40s. It was hard for him, and one of his friends in the book, whom was white, got invited to a Party, and the host wouldn't let Myers go because he was black. Myers had a hard bringing up, he didn't go to school often because he did bad and didn't want to do good. Look at him now though, he is an award winning author, and wrote other amazing books like Fallen Angles, Somewhere in the Darkness, and Monster. Myers showed us all how he was brought up and the problems he had, and with his writing he showed us who he is now. This powerful book can help a lot of struggling teens



5. Teens can really get inspired through Myers words. I also think that many teens will be able to relate to the different situations that he went through as well as learn how teens grew up in the 40's and 50's. The best part is learning the culture of Harlem as well as learn a first hand experience about the Harlem Renaissance.

5 comments about Out of Africa and Shadows on the Grass.

1. Underlying Blixen's tale of early 20th century Africa is the presumption that there was such a place; that is, a people or nation of peoples existed to which she went and from which she was forced to depart by economic circumstances. This presumption a priori allows her to reminisce about Africa the way it was or was supposed by her to have been.
   
   As she observed, Africa was, in a sense, leaving her. Peoples were being moved around, new laws restricting tribal behavior were being passed, and the Ngong Hills were being laid out as a suburb of Nairobi. She was there, she professed, before all these changes began.
   
   But was she? Was there a time and place, "Africa", or is this concept mainly her and the European view of the times? Blixen's Africa in fact was not any sort of original. Europeans had already produced vast changes: the tribes were by then being herded into reservations and European ways and goods prevailed. European reporters never reported Africa the way it was or had been. That information remained "dark."
   
   The informational darkness is not entirely their fault. An observer always alters that which he sets out to observe. It is only a presumption that his observations are an approximation of the reality the way it would be without him observing it. That presumption is least justifiable in human affairs. We will never know what the original Masai or Kikuyu were like, or the exact configuration of flora and fauna among which they dwelled, or how they reacted to their environments or each other.
   
   Similarly Blixen's little white light doesn't shine very far. We get some ethnic generalities as the vehicle of which she devises some stock identities, "the Kikuyu", "the Masai" and the like, which, on closer examination, turn out to be of European origin. Blixen manufactures masks and tries to get the Africans to wear them. Sociological and anthropological data are nearly entirely in deficit from these supposed traits. She probably is not alone in this process of inventing peoples. It accounts, perhaps, for why the Mau-mau insurrection caught the Europeans totally by surprise, as though you were to paint doodles on a sleeping man's body and he were to awake suddenly and demand angrily to know what you were doing.



2. I find most autobiographies to be masterbatory exercises in which the authors attempt to explain themselves.
   
   But in Out of Africa, Denison does no explaining, no apologizing. It is love poem to the Africa she knew, and while she does display racist views, it is as she unashamedly shows her heartbreak over a world she loved and was lost.
   
   Denison also wrote some very powerful short stories, most notably the ones in "Winter's Tales." "The Sorrow Acre," is technically one of the most masterly presented short stories I have ever read. Despite her later skills, though, Out of Africa sets itself apart as a masterpiece for its ability to elegantly show an individual's gushing sense of loss.



3. Now eclipsed by the Streep-Redford film presentation that appropriated its title, Karen Blixen's memoir of life on her Kenyan coffee farm speaks movingly of the more benign side of colonialism in Africa and of one European's self-evident love for the land she had made her own.
   
   Sadly, Blixen's lush descriptions of 'her people' are often judged too quickly by modern criteria of racial attitudes, a game that is like asking this early twentieth-century writer to wrestle with one arm tied behind her back. If it can be granted that there was anything good about Europe's colonization of Africa, then Bliksen (Isak Dinesen was her pen name) is its face.
   
   She loved the land and its people, entering about as far as was plausible in her time into the remarkable rhythm of both. What more can be asked of any of us, all children of our moment and enveloped in its limitations?
   
   This is a book for lovers of Africa, no matter whence they come. Blixen not only pushed an eloquent pen, she was herself shaped in the biblical and classical language of educated Europeans in a way that prepared her to bridge Africa and Europe in a day when few were equipped to do so.
   
   Blixen's Africa no longer exists, as she already realized within the window of her writing of OUT OF AFRICA and SHADOWS ON THE GRASS. Yet the Africa Blixen knew has children, not to be disinherited for the generations that have passed and the unsavory disease that a legacy of failed leaders has wrought upon this great continent. Though the primary fruit of reaching behind the celluloid to *read* OUT OF AFRICA is the satisfaction of the read itself, it is also true that today's Africa and today's Africans can be glimpsed in the great-grandparents who knew and lived in proximity to this enigmatic and uniquely gifted Danish colonist in a land she mistreated only by calling it hers.



4. I came to this book expecting to read one woman's personal experience of living in Africa, and that's what I found. There is no sociology here, and very little historical context. She does not illuminate THE African experience. She records HER African experience. Certainly that is all she owes the reader? One woman's experience, one woman's life in a time very different from our own.
   
   Do some of her observations shock the modern reader's sensibility? Oh certainly. There are things one simply does not SAY, and back when she wrote, she did. On the whole, her love and respect shine through when speaking of the people who entered her life as neighbors, employees and friends.
   
   Dinesen brings to life a physical landscape that most of us will never get to see. She takes passionate delight in her work, her companions, and her surroundings. Even her setbacks are embraced, as they compose part of a life she knew was slipping away from her.
   
   I was intrigued by what she didn't write. The book maintains almost complete silence about her husband, her health, and her relationship with Denys Finch Hatten. It is only in writing of his death that we understand how deep her feelings were. She writes around that love. Her discretion made my heart ache.
   
   Very highly recommended.



5. What is Pride ? Is it `Pride' to Review a Classic ?
   
   I've always loved the movie version of `Out of Africa' with Robert Redford and Meryl Streep. Whether it was the character development, or the wild life, or the Mozart throughout the film score, the symbiosis of all of the above consistently moves me & holds my attention. Then there were the excerpted portions of the book I was introduced to in Literature class. Somewhere among the multitude of reviews of this book are plenty of words to describe how I `feel' about the prose and the somewhat dis-similar treatment by the movie.
   
   But who can compete with the authors own words ?
   
   "The discovery of the dark races was to me a magnificent enlargement of all my world."
   
   From the view to promote the perspective of a tribal native, in this country or any other, I'd like to point out that Baroness Karen Blixen/ a.k.a. Isaac Denison has recorded some highly unique perspectives about the Kenya tribal peoples and their respective roles in the predator vs prey aspects of human slavery.
   
   How the Mohammedans played the role of predators in concert with Arab slave traders to capture and sell Africans to the European slave ship masters is treated with pragmatism. The proud people of the Masai game reserve were sometimes assisting the Mohammedans, but if captured and sold themselves were unlikely to survive in captivity. The 'prey' class of social strata, named Kikiyu, who were beneath the 'marriage' qualifications that would suit the upwards-mobility of the Mohammedan women were yet accounted acceptable breeding stock as wives of the Masai, noble and proud.
   
   These variations are irregular to the politically correct assumptions of our society, yet as real as they may be in middle eastern cultures, they were described in pre-World War I central Africa. What the American descendants of Mohammedan Africans might be 'sensitive' to or 'offended' by in our culture were matters of 'pride' to the Kenyans of the post Colonial era leading up to World War II. Some readers might enjoy discovering what praise Baroness Blixen had to report about her Mohammedan servant Farah, or the Holy man from India who visited her farm, or the virtues of the Mohammedan women in obtaining a husband.
   
   Our culture is perfectly content to adopt a presidential canidate for the sake of lauding his skin color, without appreciating any of the virtues of the Kenyan ancestors who brought him to American territory. But this is one author who has uniquely appraised the strengths of the Kenyan people she knew, from living with them and learning to respect and love them. Consider a bit she writes about 'pride',
   
   "...Very proud things were about, and made their presence felt...Pride is faith in the idea that God had, when he made us. A proud man is conscious of the idea, and aspires to realize it. He does not strive towards a happiness, or comfort, which may be irrelevant to God's idea of him. His success is the idea of God, successfully carried through, and he is in love with his destiny...the fulfillment of his fate."
   
   "People who have no pride are not aware of any idea of God in the making of them, and sometimes they make you doubt that there has ever been much of an idea, or else it has been lost, and who shall find it again ? They have got to accept as success what others warrant to be so, and to take their happiness, and even their own selves, at the quotation of the day. They tremble with reason, before their fate."
   
   [she distils a faith like to, but not to be confused as 'Christian' faith, thus]
   
   "Love the pride of God beyond all things, and the pride of your neighbour as your own. The pride of lions: do not shut them up in Zoos. The pride of your dogs: let them not grow fat. Love the pride of your fellow-partisans, and allow them no self-pity."
   
   "Love the pride of the conquered nations, and leave them to honour their father and their mother."
   
   `Out of Africa' is filled with beautiful descriptive prose. But someone also learned from Africa and her people, and was good enough to leave us a chronicle.

5 comments about The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr..

1. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a very brave man, an unyielding pacifist---and a radical leftist who greatly damaged the United States. He literally argued that his own country carried out a racist and imperialist war against the Vietnamese. MLK believed in affirmative action programs and socialism. He pushed the myth that right-wing conservatives assassinated John F. Kennedy instead of the committed Communist, Lee Harvey Oswald (Camelot and the Cultural Revolution: How the Assassination of John F. Kennedy Shattered American Liberalism). And no, you don't have to take my word for it. Clayborne Carson has put together the hard evidence. King was also a plagiarist who didn't hesitate to steal other authors' writings. Nonetheless, we know for sure that these essays were at least approved by him. Many people who read MLK's approved texts for the first time will be appalled. This is especially true for those who reject the morally relativistic notion that a few lies on behalf of a noble cause can ever be justified.
   
   There is another book you should read. Theodore Pappas released his own meticulously researched Plagiarism and The Culture War : The Writings of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Other Prominent Americans only a few months earlier than Carson's. It turns out that MLK's PhD was not earned. At best, he was a pseudointellectual. Hard core left-wingers like Stanley Levinson and Andrew Young took full advantage of his shallowness. Americans need to learn the truth about Rev. King. The fact that these two books were published roughly ten years ago is not relevant. You should put them on your must read list for 2008. Truth is always more valuable than even the most well meaning deceptions.



2. THIS BOOK WILL INSPIRE YOU TO DO GOOD. ITS VERY INSPIRATIONAL. A GREAT MAN WHO DIED TO YOUNG LIKE SO MANY OTHERS. KING NEVER WAS ABLE TO WRITE HIS OWN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. THIS AUTHOR TOOK ALL THE INFO AVAILABLE TO HIM TO CREATE THIS PHENOMENAL BOOK. AFTER THIS BOOK I FELT I COULD DO ANYTHING. ITS JUST SO INSPIRING. I WOULD BUY IT IF I WERE YOU. SEE YA.



3. I haven't quite finished the book yet but I am impressed at how well the book is written. Martin Luther King,jr. is one of the most memorable historic figures in history and this book eloquently accomplishes portraying him as such.



4. It's an inspirational read and clearly establishes King amongst the finest examples of portraying a 'Purpose Driven Life" in recent generations.



5. The Autobiography of Martin Luther King Jr. is a must read, especially for the the youth of the 21st century. I have always appreciated the sacrfices Dr. King made to create a better America, as well as a better economical and social status for African Americans. But after reading this book I have a new respect for Dr. King. His strength through out the entire civil rights movement is without a doubt remarkable. His nonviolent strategy was truly a genious way to fight the hands of racism and evil during the times in which he lived in. He used the media to shame the racist who tried to keep all power for themselves and white America. Dr. King was a very intelligent man and I believe he had a deeper understanding of social behavior that was sharper than most.
   
   I have read many autobiographies on extraordinary people in the world, and prior to reading this book Malcolm X's autobiograpghy was my favorite of many. But I now have to say I have two favorite books. Although Malcolm X and Dr. King had different approaches for fighting racism in America, I believe they were both effective because if nothing else they both brought media attention to the issue that was never there before. In this way they made it impossible for America to sit idlely by and do nothing.
   
   I believe this book should be read be everyone because it truly leaves the reader with a deeper appreciation for the struggles of great leaders who shaped the core values of this country.