5 comments about The Bronfmans: The Rise and Fall of the House of Seagram.

1. This isn't a bad book but Nicholas Faith has a problem acknowledging the gangster beginning of the Bronfman fortune. Pure and simple Sam B et all were thugs and likely murders. Mr. Faith goes to grea great endless endless lengths to explaine how anti-semnitism shaped the Bronfman's. Huh. It never seems to occur to him that the alleged anti- Jewish sentiment could have been whipped up precisely because the Bronfmans made such a big deal of their religion/heritage solely to cover up their ways. That most of the people they dealth with and enriched were also Jewish thugs doesn't help. Mr. Faith's inability to deal with this fact almost ruins the book.
   
   Luckily however he is honest enough to move the story along and present many of the dirty facts even if he does always try to gloss over them There is also a little too much info on whiskey blends. A more detaled analysis of the ethnic root of prohibition and a clearler focus on the political bribery that grew the Bronfman fortune might put some of their alleged present day charitable acts in a clearer focus. Since Edgar is big on reparations how about reparations for the lives ruined by thier crooked empire? You might want to read this book but keep one eye over your shoulder wide ope for the whole truth.



2. Unbelieveably badly written. How can you make this family boring? Also, seemed to "borrow" from a lot of other authors. Don't waste your time.



3. First my biases: I'm a Canadian by birth who once lived just a couple of miles from the Bronfman house in Regina. I now live in the NYC suburbs and stood marvelling at the Seagram bldg on Park Ave only 2 weeks ago. In the interim, I've been a consumer market researcher and Seagram has been a client off and on for more than 10 years. I'm also more than a bit interested in booze.
   
   Given the above, I find this book tremendously interesting with literally hundreds of details that were absolutely new to me... and I probably know more about the Bronfman family & Seagram than the average bear. If you're at all interested in the Bronfmans, Seagram or booze, you'll find this to be a fascinating read.
   
   But there are a lot of stylistic problems here as well. First, as other reviewers noted above, Faith's constant references to other authors / biographers is almost annoying. It's like he's personal friends with the other writers for goodness sake.
   
   Second, for some reason, Faith treats the Richler book (Solomon Gursky Was Here) as a more important reference source than personal interviews, biographies or other non-fiction sources. I read the Richler book and loved it but not sure why Faith needs to keep coming back to it?
   
   Third, the editing in this book is simply a mess - there's just no other word for it. Usually I don't even think about editing but with this book, it was so bad I almost stopped reading after the first 50 pages. In the first 4-5 chapters, Faith not only makes the same point multiple times but sometimes uses the same sentence! It was like deja-vu all over again. It's this last point that is most confusing to me - Faith is a former senior editor of The Economist so if anyone should get the editing right, its him.
   
   Anyway, I'll still give it 4 stars. Its a great story and filled in a lot of blanks for me.



4. I agree with the previous reviewers that Faith brings in too many quotes from other authors. This is strange, because he has really done a lot of "homework" so that he could make the material his own. I was slowed down by his long awkward sentences and unending attributions. I guess it's better to acknowledge your sources rather than plagiarizing, but the book reads like a long term paper.
   Some of his conclusions are just thrown out there, such as this one about Sam's two daughters: "The girls were not even given Hebrew lessons--which makes one wonder if Mr. Sam secretly hoped that they would 'marry out.'" My experience as a young Jewish girl growing up in mid-century America was that it wasn't de rigeur for girls to attend Hebrew School; the boys went because they were preparing for an eventual bar mitzvah. The author previously discussed Mr. Sam's lack of religiosity (he held business meetings on Saturday and had only a nominally kosher kitchen at home). His son Edgar ignored Jewish ritual for a large part of his life, and "married out" several times. So much for the value of Hebrew School!
   An example of the multitude of sentences needing the touch of an editor is this one: "In 1971 his mother, Ann--who remained a staunch supporter--had left his father when he was in his teens after a period in which his father had paid little or no attention to his family."
   Despite my desire to turn the pages a lot faster, I kept with the book and learned a lot about Canadian Jews, bootleggers, Scotch, anti-Semitism, and more. I wish that I had read this before I read "Solomon Gursky Was Here," since that roman a clef would have had a lot more associations for me.



5. Attention aspiring authors! If you have a mediocre book to peddle, get yerself Nicholas Faith's agent to sell the book to St. Martin's Press. That way you'll be assured of glowing reviews in the national periodicals. As best as I can tell, that's what happened with this book.
   
   I had a difficult time getting through this jumble, and I chose to skip many pages. Part of the problem lies in Nicholas Faith's disdain for simple declarative sentences in favor of serpentine sentences with many subordinate clauses (and lengthy parenthetical asides) - so much so that I'd often have to reread a sentence to determine what, exactly, was being said about whom. I've previously seen such tortured prose only in books by economists or psychologists, and I suppose that explains this book, as Nicholas Faith attempts to be a little of both.
   
   As far as I can determine, Nicholas Faith did no original research for this potboiler. Instead, it's a digest of several previous books about the Bronfmans, predominantly Solomon Gursky Was Here by Mordecai Richler, which may or may not actually be about the Bronfman family. My advice is to avoid this book and get Richler's novel which will certainly be less of a chore to read.

No comments about Too Young to Fight: Memories from Our Youth During World War II.

3 comments about Secret Of the Hardy Boys: Leslie Mcfarlane & the Stratemeyer Syndicate.

1. Most readers of mysteries know the author of the 'Hardy Boys' teen mystery series was the elusive Franklin W. Dixon - but he was a man who never existed. The real founder of Hardy Boys was one Edward Stratemeyer, founder of a children's book empire who began as a mere newspaper reporter with dreams of becoming a famous novelist. Between 1927 and 1947 one Leslie McFarlane wrote the first twenty-four Hardy Boys mysteries for $100.00 per book, agreeing to the anonymity demanded by Stratemeyer's syndicate and starting a trend which was to continue in later books. The Secret Of The Hardy Boys exposes the true grit: a syndicate which built a virtual children's book empire, promoting and development of children's literature in North America.



2. This is a plodding biography that has some decent content on MacFarlane's involvement with the Stratmeyer Syndicate and his authoring of the Hardy Boys. However, there's a lot of tedious material to get through for a few interesting parts.



3. For fans of the Hardy Boys, here's an account of the real writer behind the first books of the series. He's Canadian writer Leslie MacFarlane who, in his early struggling years, signed with Edward Stratemeyer's Syndicate to write novels for the juvenile market from outlines provided by the syndicate.
   
   MacFarlane worked on more than one series, but one of them in particular, once his involvement was revealed, has made him famous (however, ambivalent he was about it). That series was THE HARDY BOYS. He wrote most of the first 20 books and therefore laid the foundation for much of its style and texture -- even if the plot wasn't his, nor the author's name, and he only got a small, flat payment in return.
   
   This book details his personal and professional life from childhood to death in 1977. Much seems to come from diaries that he kept as an adult. And some from letters he wrote to his children. While the Hardy Boys is the main motive behind this book, MacFarlane's other work -- his adult stories, his radio and television contributions -- are examined.
   
   Be aware that MacFarlane's life had no excitement to speak of unless you consider the stress of trying to earn income and sustain his family as a freelance writer as exciting. Still, it might be inspiring to those (regardless of their profession) who are currently struggling to get by in their lives.
   
   The writing of this biography is unadorned and a bit repetitive -- sometimes, repeating itself within a couple pages. The chronology is often sacrificed as the author ties together events by theme (a not uncommon technique in biographies). Yes I found every page readable and informative.
   
   (For more on the Stratemeyer Syndicate try the lively GIRL SLEUTH: NANCY DREW AND THE WOMEN WHO CREATED HER (ISBN: 0739467190).)

1 comments about Her Story: Women from Canada's Past.

1. Susan E Merritt's easy-to-read, yet fact-filled book holds a wealth of pleasurable reading about women in Canada. Ms. Merrit relates the stories of 16 women from Canada's past, and allows us to share their lives for a brief moment. These are women with varied lives. Their stories range from tragic to triumphant, but each one leaves us with a sense of wonderment at courage displayed and obstacles overcome.

   The graphics add greatly to the book's enjoyment and Ms. Merritt's short biographies make for fascinating reading. "Her Story" was The Canadian Children's Book Centre Choice and is rated as Juvenile Literature, but the stories are so engrossing and so fact-filled that they can be enjoyed by anyone of any age.

2 comments about Notes From Exile: On Being Acadian.

1. On the surface, Notes from Exile gives a brief overview of the history of the Acadians of Maritime Canada and the difficulties they faced in trying to strike a neutral balance between France and England, resulting in their removal from Nova Scotia in 1755. But wrapped around this history is Doucet's own story as the child of an Acadian father and an English mother who was caught between their two very different worlds.

   Doucet is a radio reporter and his sense of narrative is impeccable, but while he makes Notes from Exile an interesting read is the intertwining tales of Doucet's youth, the 1994 Acadian World Congress and the history of the Acadians. As frustrating as it sometimes can be, this blending of tales helps underscore how the events of 1755 remain relevant to Acadians nearly 250 years later.




2. This past summer I was taking a Bicycle Vacation in Nova Scotia and as part of our trip we went to Grand Pre. Though I am a native New Englander, I had only a cursory idea about the Acadian diaspora in the l8th century and no awareness at all of the l994 reunion in New Brunswick. I was actually looking for another book to increase my knowledge and awareness about this subject, when I stumbled onto a copy of Clive's book. While it does finally run out of steam near it's conclusion, it is an fine work in and of itself. But for anyone who wants a sense of the modern Acadian movement it is invaluable. And if one is an exile of any sort--cultural, political, sexual--this provides amazing insight into what it means to be an exile of any type in the modern world.

5 comments about Bobby Fischer Goes to War: How the Soviets Lost the Most Extraordinary Chess Match of All Time.

1. really wondeful. the appendix chapter his mother is, in my opinion,
   even more interesting than the book. book, of course, is a fantastic read.



2. BOBBY FISHER GOES TO WAR is a well-researched book, using, among other sources, recently opened Soviet files on the match. The authors (Edmonds and Eidinow) fill in the background leading up to the match, including bios of the lives of Fisher and Spassky, the two combatants in "the chess match of all time". However, the story lacks for sustainable drama; things poke along, the authors obviously stretching out a long magazine piece into a book. This is fine for chess fans but the general reader may feel too bogged down. On the other hand, there is little analysis of the games played in the match, which might frustrate a chess buff who has not yet read any of the analytical books on the match. BOBBY FISHER GOES TO WAR is probably more a political book than a sports book as all the negotiations, psychology, and behind the scenes manuvering are spelled out as well as the actions of the Soviet Communist party machinery regarding the match and very little on the games itself. Fisher comes off as brilliant but insane and this reader had little sympathy for his pathological behavior or the chess authorities caving into his ridiculous and nuerotic demands. All of that is covered in detail in the book. Ultimately, this is not the story of an American hero but of a pathetic, spoiled, ungrateful boy in a man's suit.



3. Prior to the match Boris Spassky said that regardless of the results the events in Reykjavik would be a "celebration of chess". Bobby Fischer on the other hand, was going to war and wanted "to crush the Soviets". Two thoughts on Fischer come to mind after reading this book: What a jerk, and what a shame. He pretty much flushed his career down the toilet after this match by refusing to defend his title against Karpov in 1974, and for the most selfish of reasons - he couldn't handle losing - and he went out on top. How convenient. While his chess games are incredible to follow (and I highly recommend you take the time to do so) the fact is that he lost in life; while Spassky, whom he beat over the board, won (some observers even say that Spassky should've won the match based on pure chess skill and preparation; regardless of the results, his best games are as well worth studying as Fischer's). Fischer's absence throughout much of the 70s and all of the 1980s is lamentable, and like so many of his acquaintances, the more I find myself making excuses for his ridiculous behavior. "Bobby Fischer Goes to War" depicts this paradox and phenomenon pretty well and anyone interested in Cold War history might really enjoy the bizarre and intriguing events in this little corner of the wider, global show-down between communism and capitalism. Nevertheless, I have a few reservations about this book.
   
   Despite its being a well-researched, compelling and easy-to-read account of the off-board, behind the scenes battles between Fischer & the Russians, it has several short-comings, the foremost of which is a lack of chess. Sure, the authors make some token efforts to summarize certain highlights of a few games, but the focus is on Fischer's antics rather than his moves (or, if you're a Fischer apologist, his "off the board brinksmanship") and this seems unfortunate to me. By having the games interwoven into the main storyline the peripheral hoopla of the match would have its proper context. Not only this, but it would relieve the tedium of some 300 pages of some rather petty and exasperating behavior, and ultimately, would redeem the man himself. Reading about Bobby Fischer without his chess games is like, well, try imagining Mike Tyson without boxing. Additionally, I'm not sure how this book is any different from "The Russians vs. Fischer" (D. Plisetsky & S. Voronkov, Everyman, 1994, 2005 2nd ed.)? Not having been able to read it I can't say for sure, but from what I can tell it contains more interviews from the Russian side (the authors apparently utilized the same "unpublished U.S. & Soviet records" so prominently advertised on this book's jacket) and the games themselves. These two factors alone make me suspect that I bought the inferior product, and so I recommend you compare the two.
   
   Other criticisms:
   
   A complete absence of reference notes for any of the some 150+ sources for this book make it difficult, if not impossible to locate the sources for a large amount of curious material. Have these guys ever heard of plagiarism?
   
   The authors, who are journalists, write in the typical "play by play" style of their profession, which works well in pithy newspaper or magazine columns (or for John Krakauer & Mark Bowden), but wears thin in a full-length narrative about a chess match without any real chess.
   
   The coverage of the 1992 re-match is given short-shrift and conveniently written off a "a bad sequel".
   
   In the end I wanted to hear more from Spassky and Fischer themselves. There are a lot of secondary viewpoints and great sources of information here, but how much better could the text have been had the authors solicited or used more direct quotes from the participants themselves - especially Spassky since he seemed most willing to talk? Recently I discovered "B. Fischer: The Wandering King" by H. Bohm & K. Jongkind (Batsford, 2005) which looks to be fill this gap.
   
   The one thing that redeems the author's decision to focus on the non-chess related action in my mind is that it does illuminate something important that I don't believe they intended; namely that, despite their extreme differences, both chess masters managed not only to play some great chess, but refused to be manipulated by their respective political systems. That is, regardless of Fischer's obsession with control and the fiasco he made of this match - not to mention the ass he made of himself - it seems to me that the "celebration of chess" Spassky envisioned came about in-spite of all this, and in no small part due to his own tolerance, patience and ability to challenge Fischer on the chess board. For it was these two individual chess-artists who not only enriched and popularized the game worldwide through their immortal play, greatly benefiting their fellow players through larger purses future tournaments, but most importantly, their outmaneuvering of systemic powers that sought to constrain them for narrow-minded political propaganda.



4. As someone with a moderate curiosity in chess, and wanting to be drawn into its world through enlightening analysis, this book is simply atrocious. To my way of thinking, the purpose in reading about this game would be to illuminate the relationship between psychology and complex strategy on the board -- if you're going to write this book than you have to get a handle on making that angle interesting or forget about it. A tabloid study about a irrritating egoist is not what I want. I cannot finish this.



5. "Bobby Fischer Goes to War" revisits the Cold War showdown between Soviet World Chess Champion Boris Spassky and American enfant terrible Bobby Fischer in Reykjavik, Iceland in the summer of 1972. Billed by the press as an ideological duel between Western individualism and the Soviet chess machine, the match inspired an unprecedented interest in the game in the U.S. and ultimately rejuvenated the Soviet chess program as well. BBC journalists David Edmonds and John Eidinow propose that the greatest battle was not on the chessboard. This is a chronicle of the drama behind the scenes, among the American and Soviet teams and their Icelandic hosts, that makes the battle on the board look tame.
   
   Background information about the two competitors, their personalities, how they got to this point, and an attempt by the authors to explain how a chess player's mind works bring us up to the negotiations for the World Championship match. If it seemed that getting everyone there was a feat, matters only got worse once the match started. It was to be two months in constant crisis, due mostly to Fischer's unrelenting, bizarre demands. The authors provide a blow-by-blow account of the confrontations on and off the chessboard, as the organizers tried to deal with Fischer, Spassky dealt with the stress, the Soviets with the prospect of losing, and paranoia on both sides that the players were victims of espionage.
   
   "Bobby Fischer Goes to War" is a snapshot of a symbolic event in a particular political climate which, not surprisingly, does not seem to symbolize what it was made to at the time. Boris Spassky was hardly a Soviet loyalist, and Bobby Fischer was a poor representative of the Free World, hated by the U.S. State Department. Yet, these two men at this juncture in the Cold War fought "the most notorious chess duel in history". This is a very readable, engaging account of that event and its cast. I am puzzled, however, that no one suggests that Bobby Fischer suffered from some degree of autism, which, combined with a domineering and self-important personality, explains his behavior. He is demonized a bit too much considering that he clearly had a neurological disorder.

No comments about Jesuit Missionaries to North America: Spiritual Writings And Biographical Sketches.

5 comments about The Silence of the North.

1. This was a favorite, and it was done with no bad words or violence, other than from nature, I loved it and still wonder what happened to Olive and her second husband after they were married and flew off in the airplane. I watch it everytime it comes on tv. I have taped it and shown it many times to company.



2. A fresh, uncomplicated tale of the people who adventured north in the past. Action packed, engaging and reveling, this book will remain for ever one of my favorite adventure and romance stories. It shows much about how people may face a foreign environment, difficulties, and above all themselves. All comes out in very simple and clear language, with suits the story and the characters divinely.



3. A story of a courageous strong woman. Descriptions of the environment (land & conditions) enticing. I found myself being scared right along side of Olive. A real adventure story.



4. Wow-this book was so fun and sad and interesting to read, all at the same time. Olive's story is piercing and makes one ponder the amazing will to live in the face of such overwhelming odds. A fantastic true adventure story!



5. IF YOU FEEL SORRY FOR YOUR LOT IN LIFE..READ THIS..ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS I EVER READ...

No comments about Canada : Portraits of Faith.

5 comments about The Last Voyage of the Karluk: A Survivor's Memoir of Arctic Disaster.

1. Unliked the other reviewers thus far, I have not read other accounts of polar expeditions, never found the subject intriguing enough when there were so many other histories clamoring for my attention. I'm still not sure what persuaded me to buy this little book, but I am SO glad I did. I found it sufficiently detailed to give me the progressive pictures of ineptitude, boredom, labor, frostbite, incompatibility, isolation, hunger, despair, et al, without becoming bogged down in tedium. By virtue of having waited so many years to pen his account, McKinlay is probably more even-handed in the telling than he would have been otherwise, and makes the book a moving experience rather simply a bitter one. Kudos to the man, he was indeed a canny Scot, and has related a story worthy of being captured on film.



2. I purchased this book to send to my son who teaches history. I decided I would read it, first. The author was a teacher and was honored that he was selected to take this exploration voyage with so many distinguished scientists. This book will show you what the body and spirit can endure when it has the ardent desire to live; among the survivors is the Eskimo family with two children, ages eleven and three, and a cat. This happened in 1913-1914. It will make you wonder if today's people still have the endurance and the will to survive as seen in this era.



3. A totally gripping true-life adventure, written in 1976 by an 88-year old Glasgow schoolmaster who, prior to serving as an officer in WW1, was one of the survivors of a horrifically mismanaged Arctic expedition. The "Karluk" was one of three vessels involved in an exploration of the Canadian Arctic in 1913, master-minded by one Vilhajalmur Stefansson, a monomaniac fixated on the idea of the Arctic as a friendly environment in which abundant food could be soured. In the event however none of the expedition members received any relevant training in survival skills before setting out. The ships' crews did not expect to winter in the Arctic while the scientific staff, of whom McKinlay was one, were almost all young men straight from University, with no previous Arctic experience. Steffanson's callousness in deserting the Karluk once it was ice-bound, and starting an independent five-year exploration journey without making any attempt to arrange rescue of its crew, almost beggars comprehension. McKinlay's story of misery, squalor, sickness, death, cowardice and heroism over the following year is at times depressing reading, but is always gripping. Of the Karluk's complement of twenty five, eleven died following the break-up of the ship in the ice north of Siberia, in the attempts to reach land and during the subsequent struggle to stay alive under conditions of extreme privation. That any survived is due to the heroism of the Karluk's captain, Robert Bartlett, who with one Eskimo companion managed to reach the Siberian mainland to seek help while the other survivors attempted to eke out an existence on the bleak Wrangel Island. The author's account is understated as regard his own role but it was obviously critical in maintaining morale and cohesion in an ill-assorted group with no real basis for camaraderie and discipline. It is the lack of these two factors that McKinlay found the great difference with his later, albeit terrible, experiences in Flanders, making the Wrangel Island episode incomparably worse. The writing is simple, spare and elegant and sweeps the reader along. It is the narrative of a decent, courageous man and it deserves to live on as a classic or adventure and exploration.



4. Geat time reading !
   I still have 2 questions :
   1. What is a Crowbill bird ?
   2. No Mosquitos pested the stranded crew ?



5. The author was a member of Vilhjalmur Stefansson's Arctic Expedition of 1913, and was on board the main expedition ship Karluk when it was frozen into the ice north of Alaska before the expedition was truly begun. The Karluk (abandoned by Stefansson early on) drifted west almost to Wrangell Island before the ship was crushed.
   
   The only ones aboard with Arctic experience were the ship's captain and an Inuit family, including two girls ages five and three. Two men were veterans of Shackleton's 1907 attempt on the South Pole, but land ice and sea ice are two different kettles of lutefisk, and their conviction that they knew more than the ship's Captain just made things worse.
   
   After leading the men to Wrangell Island, the Captain and one Inuk went ahead to Siberia to seek rescue. Without the Captain's leadership the remaining ill-assorted, inexperienced men fought, stole food from one another, became ill, and generally had a dreadful time. Eleven men had died by the time rescue finally arrived.
   
   The author blamed Stefansson's lack of organization and foresight for making the plight of the Karluk worse than it needed to be. In later years he gathered evidence to debunk Stefansson's image as one of the great polar explorers. He twenty-five when he took part in the expedition and was in his eighties when he wrote this memoir.