5 comments about Abandoned and Forgotten: An Orphan Girl's Tale of Survival During World War II.

1. This is a captivating story about WWII told by an adult as she lived through it as a nine year old child in East Prussia, Germany. The author gives vivid pictures of the horrors of war on the innocent. It also gives a history of how countries get involved with demonstrating inhumane behavior. You will become totally enthralled and have a hard time putting the book down.



2. I bought this book having no idea how engaging it would be. I received the book yesterday afternoon, and today, the next day, I have finished it! I could not put this book down. This is an interesting book on a relatively unknown subject for most people. This is a part of history that many don't want to believe and have tried to sweep under the carpet. I would highly recommend this to anyone!



3. Abandoned and Forgotten is an amazing tale of survival during the last years of WWII in East Prussia. Told through a child's eyes, the author Evelyn Tannehill takes us on a journey showing us the horrors of war and the absolute cruelty that humans are capable of doing to fellow human beings, yet the compassion that we're capable of, as well. This book totally gripped me and broke my heart to read what this poor girl went through and survived. I met the author at a book signing and found her to be a lovely, gracious woman, so open to sharing her experiences.......no self-pity here. This book is a gift to us all and I highly recommend it



4. Very good book. Provided enough in the way of historical facts, maps etc to be informative but not dull. I cared about the main character and was always wondering what was going to happen next. I thought I was generally aware of the horrors of WWII but this was an education of how the victimizing and victimazation was dealt and endured back and forth by many different people of many different nationalities and how scary it is that under certain circumstance all human beings are capable of the very best and very worst treatment of one another. Makes me think twice about when I think I'm having a "bad day."



5. Wow, a real surprise. This is a VERY good book. I am really enjoying it.

5 comments about Golden Boy: Memories of a Hong Kong Childhood.

1. I had the pleasure of travelling to Asia in 2004 during Chinese New Year and have been to the places mentioned in this book. What a wonderful account of life in Honk Kong. Speaking with persons who have actually lived in this city and during that time I was assured that the descriptions are right down to the point. What a wonderful book.



2. I read this book because I love Hong Kong and its history. I was totally unprepared for Booth's parents and adored Joyce. How cannot you not like someone so lively, loving, accepting (except of Ken) and adventuresome?
   
   While the family (Ken, Joyce and Martin) are exploring Algiers, Joyce buys some dates from a market stall, and Ken pitches a fit because they are probably unsanitary. He asks, 'How can you tell where they've been?' Joyce replies that they've been up a date tree. 'And they picked themselves I suppose?' 'No,' Joyce rplies, 'I expect they were plucked by a scrofulous urchin and thrown down to his tubercular aunt who wrapped them in her phlegm-stiffened handerchief.' I had a large mouthful of iced tea when I read that and spat the tea I didn't snort up my nose all over the page. I couldn't stop laughing. This was, I learned, pure Joyce.
   
   'Golden Boy' is delightful, insightful and something more - a word or phrase that escapes these old brain cells. This is the first book by Booth I've read, and I'm eager to read more.



3. This book was recommended to me by a friend who said she was sad when it ended. Well, I am recommending it, and also sad when it ended. It is a delightful memoir of a blond 9 year old boy living in Hong Kong in the 1940ties. Blond means "luck" to the Chinese and everyone wanted to pat his head. He learned Chinese and was allowed into areas that no other "white" person could go.



4. Martin Booth had an amazing memory for the details of post-WWII Hong Kong and the times he had there as a seven to ten year-old boy. His civilian father gets transferred by the British to the far-flung colonial outpost. While his father is more of a spoilsport, his mother tries live life to the utmost--wherever that life may be--and she allows Martin the freedom to do the same. He takes her fully up on that offer, befriending hotel staff, local storekeepers and more and tasting practically every Chinese dish and joining in every local festival with eyes wide open. However, there are actually very few stories of his escapades with fellow children, mostly stories with the adults that surround him and the nature and culture of Hong Kong.
   Hong Kong is ruthless with its built history, so a book like this is the only way to get to know the Hong Kong that existed only fifty years ago. It includes one of the few descriptions of a westerner in the `Kowloon walled city.' And from an eight year-old boy too!
   I am grateful that Mr. Booth was able to finish this book before he died. I wish he had lived a few more years for selfish reasons--so that he could have finished a book on his second time around in Hong Kong. I am sure he had just as many adventures as a teen as he did as a young boy.
   Richard Mason's `World of Suzie Wong' takes place at approximately the same time and is a great and recommended look at a decidedly different part of Hong Kong. So it was neat when Booth's world and Wong's world intersected (innocently) in a few of Golden Boy's pages. Mason actually spent very little time in Hong Kong prior to writing the fictional Suzie Wong, so Golden Boy is a more knowing portrait of Hong.



5. GOLDEN BOY, Memories of a Hong Kong Childhood
   By Martin Booth
   Picador Press |(St. Martins) 2004
   ISBN 978-0-312-42626-2 (pbk)
   
   What gave a seven-year-old British boy courage to explore the Hong Kong of 1952 in places where no foreign child belonged? Martin Booth felt safe among unusual friends during his adventures, because Chinese people believed rubbing his golden hair brought them luck.
   Booth's superb prose pictures brothels, opium dens, Chinese drug-lord friends, forbidden temples and also the wild life and flora in both Kowloon and Hong Kong. Often lonely, Martin's independence was encouraged by correspondence and gifts from his grandfather in England. He never told his parents the extent of his explorations into forbidden and dangerous areas.
   The boy also endured the hostilities between his bigoted, bureaucrat father, a man who never quite succeeded, and his out-going mother who was fascinated by Chinese culture.
   The author calls himself a "curious, somewhat devious, adventurous and street-wise child whose heart never left Hong Kong" after his father's job sent them back to England four years later.
   Anyone who likes biography, history, adventure, Chinese culture and beautifully written literature will enjoy this book.

5 comments about Notes from the Hyena's Belly: An Ethiopian Boyhood.

1. My family spent 23 months in Ethiopia during my active duty military service, in a home just a block off the road from His Imperial Majesty's (Haile Selassie I) palace and the Bole airport in Addis Ababa. That was from February of 1970 until January of 1972. The American community was concerned about the stability of the government there when the Emperor would eventually go the way of all mankind. HIM HSI died after we left, probably suffocated by the new rulers after the Dergue took over the country . Many of us wondered what has happened during the intervening years. This book tells the story from the memories of one student who lived and suffered through those perilous times. It's very interesting to anyone who ever lived there, and appears authentic.



2. Why I enjoyed Notes from the Hyena's Belly? The writing, the wisdom, the history, the survival. If you enjoy having a narrarator walk you through a book showing you the real people, places and happenings that were "Once Upon A Time," then you may just find this book to be a treasure. I myself enjoyed the way this author held my inner voice's attention. It was almost as if I were sitting at his home while he spoke of the life experiences that make him the person now sitting before me. Because I'm such an avid reader, I did put this book down a few times to indulge in other reads. I did this knowing that when I'd pick it back up I'd have a great companion to spend time with. I almost hated to see the book conclude. The fact that I'm writing only my second or third amazon review says how much I enjoyed this read. Hope you decide to visit the Hyena's Belly. You won't be disappointed.



3. An enlightening story of a boy growing up in Ethiopia. A world that we Americans cannot relate to, however we certainly are sympathetic. Still, Mezlekia spares us by sprinkling a little humor here and there, and we see that young boys do find time to be a little mischievous even in the worst of situations, like straying too far and being eaten by hyenas. Visited Ethiopia with my wife in the late 80's and witnessed some of the famine and suffering, but also found the people gracious and hospitable to Westerners. Thoroughly enjoyed this book and I highly recommend it.
   
   James Hart Isley
   Author of The Bear Hunter



4. This book provides great insight into the older Ethiopia. It provides interesting cultural perspectives as well as many life experiences of the author. A great read and a recommendation for those preparing to experience Ethiopia first hand.



5. Notes from the Hyena's Belly is a memoir that often reads like a novel. It depicts Nega's relatively calm childhood in sharp contrast to the growing unrest, civil strife and government corruption that dominated his adolescence and early adulthood. The book gives insight into a piece of Ethiopia's history, which is peppered with scenes from Nega's growing up years and folk tales that his mother told. Nega successfully speaks to the impact of civil war, government corruption and the too frequent global indifference to such issues in Africa, while at the same time maintaining a wry sense of humor that makes his story all the more human and real. This combination gives it a unique flavor and certainly makes it memorable.

5 comments about Manhattan Memoir: American Girl; Manhattan, When I Was Young; Speaking with Strangers.

1. The late Mary Cantwell charmingly recounts, in this 3 books in one volume paperback, her years growing up in a small New England seaport town and her youthful foray into the 'glamourous' magazine world of New York City in the 'fities. Sane, sensible and warm nostalgia--without being saccharine. Beautifully written. A must for the literate and for New York lovers-- especially those who remember the days!



2. The late Mary Cantwell charmingly recounts, in this 3 books in one volume paperback, her years growing up in a small New England seaport town and her youthful foray into the 'glamourous' magazine world of New York City in the 'fities. Sane, sensible and warm nostalgia--without being saccharine. Beautifully written. A must for the literate and for New York lovers-- especially those who remember the days!



3. Mary Cantwell bares her triumphs and joys as well as her shortcomings and insecurities in this collection of three memoirs that span her childhood, early adulthood, and middle- to late-adulthood respectively. Cantwell lead a wonderful, if unremarkable, childhood in an enviably Rockwell-esque seaside town - her depiction of her life through high-school is a real joy to read. Upon graduation from college, Cantwell hits the "Big City" appears to have forgotten some of the lessons learned in her idyllic childhood, however, she still manages to snag a plumb job with Mademoiselle Magazine and occasionally interacts with literary legends with her ambitious young husband. In her later life she is given interesting writing assignments and carves out a life for herself in Lower Manhattan, however, I found it discouraging that she wallows in the collapse of her marriage (which never appeared to be very strong), often to the detriment of her two daughters. I kept wondering how a woman with such a strong background could have allowed herself to sink to the depths Cantwell periodically allowed herself to hit. Regardless, she is not ashamed to remember less-than-glamorous moments in her life (which also include being jeered by fellow classmates as an elementary school student and suffering from paralyzing fits of self-doubt as a young career woman) - these are the events that have made her what she is.

   It must have been incredibly therapeutic for Cantwell to write these memoirs. All three books can be seen as a view of the author's life from within her own head. Her message is simple: accept me for what I am. "Manhattan Memoir," in addition to being the story of Mary Cantwell's life, it also about trying to be true to oneself when one isn't always sure what that means. By writing her story, Cantwell examines her life and tries to learn from her experiences - and it can make the reader start to think about his/her own life as well.

   While Cantwell's life is not particularly fascinating or different in itself, her writing style and manner of portraying her experiences are magical and riveting. She describes the joyous and painful events of her life in an easy, engaging manner - it is as if she is talking about the past with old friends. She manages to make the mundane fascinating. She also has a real gift for engaging the reader. I wasn't sure if I liked her writing style at first - Cantwell writes almost as one speaks - but within pages of beginning the book I became used to her rambling style and truly enjoyed it.

   This book provides an added plus for those from or familiar with Rhode Island and/or New York City. It was fun for me to recognize the addresses of Cantwell's Manhattan apartments and know that the places she frequented, I often go to today.




4. The other reviews told what the book was about. I just wanted to add to their comments by saying that I couldn't put the book down and was sad when it ended. Her words flowed so beautifully.



5. Mary Cantwell's Manhattan Memoir is three books in one but you will never tell the difference. The stories flow together as Cantwell's memoir's cover her life. Cantwell takes you through a stroll in Manhattan. The good times, the struggles. The best memoir I have read. This is that book you will tell all of your friends about. Cantwell is a fantastic story teller.

5 comments about Miss American Pie: A Diary of Love, Secrets and Growing Up in the 1970s.

1. This was a good book. It is an actual journal of the author written in the seventies. I graduated from high school and college in the seventies so I could relate to many of the references made in the journal. I think today's girls could also relate, though, because the themes in the journals are the same struggles that today's teens go through.
   
   It starts when Margaret is in the seventh grade and goes through her senior year. At first the entries are brief and some are quite funny. Later they get more poignant.
   
   Margaret is boy crazy, bored, rebellious, and is trying to figure out what she believes. In the seventies, we had many issues involving desegregation, drugs, sex -- it was the era of the sexual revolution, feminism, and the big mega-churches were founded and grew in that decade. I laughed at many of the entries, especially when she would write of some profound event and not elaborate and the next entry would be something very trivial.
   
   For example: November 8 -- Nixon was elected president. November 9 -- Everyone says me and Vernon would make a good couple. (Nixon being elected president was exciting and had worldwide ramifications but her and Vernon being a good couple didn't last more than a week.) Another example: August 8 -- President Nixon resigned; made appointment to get my hair cut.
   
   I love that entry. It is such a teen statement. MISS AMERICAN PIE is realistic and fun to read. Plus, it makes you want to start a journal, too.
   
   Reviewed by: Marta Morrison



2. I suppose in this "reality" obsessed culture we now live in anybody can get their diary published and have it lauded as an important piece of modern literature or a work of brilliance or any of the myriad cliched accolades critics vomit up.
   
   Well I don't get it. Miss American Pie is a dull, dull, dull read. The forward is promising and I thought Sartor's teenage musings would be profound or intriguing or at the least interesting but it's not. Sartor is a spoiled rich kid whose father is a doctor and mother is an artist. She has several horses, equally well off friends and an obviously successful future ahead of her.
   
   Her diary entries, if you can call them that, average two to three sentences at the most. Entries range from "May 20: I feel really bad," to "February 6: BAD headache today," to "April 1: Stella is unhappy at her job". She mopes around because she thinks she's ugly or because her best friend likes a guy she likes or because her hair is frizzy. There isn't anything of substance to make this a worthwhile read or shed some new light on adolescence. I understand it's a diary of a teenage girl but it's still boring.
   
   If a diary is to be published, it should be dynamic, intriguing, shedding new light on the protagonist or a particular situation or a period of time. Miss American Pie fails on all counts. It doesn't help that no one has a clue who Margaret Sartor is either.
   
   Miss American Pie could have been more effective if it was written as an actual memoir instead of the dull, dull, ramblings of a teenage girl's diary.



3. First off, our decade's obsession with blogging has little in common with the art of keeping a diary, and anyone who doubts that might do well to read this book. A diary is normally a private thing, an exercise in personal meditation, a record of a life and those who pass through it, written by one's self, for one's self, and it's not often someone openly invites complete strangers to see something that is by nature so personal, and yet writer Margaret Sartor has bravely done just that, and done it in a way we all can feel guilt free over even as we read what were once some of her innermost thoughts and experiences as she grew up seeking God, love, and self-understanding in the emerging "New South" of the 1970's.
   
   Whereas often because they ARE so personal diaries can be boring and leave a reader feeling simultaneously included and excluded, Margaret Sartor's writings from age twelve in 1972 thru age eighteen in the summer of 1977 are not only welcoming but annotated to the point where we grasp who everyone she interacts with is and feel some enlightenment as to each person's motivations. There is her family, consisting of her father, who along with his brothers is one of the town of Montgomery, Louisiana's most well-known doctors; her mother, a beautiful and complex woman; her two older sisters, younger brother, and late in the diary, a new baby sister, who comes along when her parents are well into middle-age. Margaret Sartor is frank about many things, her feelings for boys among them, but no other subject preoccupies her quite so much as her quest for a relationship with God. Even in the Bible Belt of the deep south of two generations ago I doubt many people Margaret's age were so keenly motivated to seek out God or to do more to grasp something tangible about the nature of this force. Margaret's spirituality takes several forms but most often finds expression in the charismatic brand of the local faith. She tells of prayer meetings and youth revivals, about the casting out of demons and miracles performed that grew attendees legs out to equal length. She seems to be a soul simultaneously in awe of all this and puzzled as to why if she is truly in the Almighty's presence, she feels a lack of perfect contentment.
   
   As Margaret ages, religion is gradually pushed aside and instead we read of her infatuations with one young man or another, her confusions, her worries and very often her dreams, which she records almost nightly and which are almost always interesting in themselves. Margaret gains national recognition for her work with her school's cheerleading squad, and seeks early admission to a college out of state, proving to herself and others that she has the power to achieve her goals. As Margaret's story unwinds installment by installment, the tales of those peripheral to her become almost as interesting as her own life. There is her best friend, who comes out of the closet in small town Louisiana in the `70's; there is the racial integration struggle going on, at times violently, in the background; there is an aunt who kills herself, and another relative who was lobotomized and as a consequence became an obese misfit; and there is the restless shiver felt by all as a region little changed over generations moves toward a modern age much different from the past.
   
   Margaret Sartor's entries are often brief. They are simply quick, easily-read bits of information that say much in a short space. In its entirety her diary is unique, candid, and always fascinating. Maybe it will inspire others to publish similar records of their lives. Till then, Miss American Pie remains a darn good read.



4. What did those song lyrics mean anyway? I didn't find the answer in this book.
   
   Although Margaret went through her adolesence in the 70's and I experienced mine in the 50's, we had some common themes. Every teenage girl sometimes feels others have answers to which we ouselves don't have access.
   
   It was interesting to read of Margaret's search for spirituality and her daily thoughts of how well she was living according to her beliefs.
   
   Margaret longed for a nickname but did not want to be called Peggy. Later when a special boy called her Maggie, she thought that was a good fit. As the book progressed, Maggie became more interested in boys, but she could not make a commitment to any one boy.
   
   I was surprised that Maggie's parents gave her so much freedom and did not punish her for smoking and drinking. I was also surprised that Maggie thought of herself as unpopular although she had dates with a number of boys and was elected homecoming queen.
   
   It was easy for the reader to question Margaret's friend Tommy's sexuality, but Margaret had not even thought that Tommy might be gay until his mother mentioned it to her. The mother's remarks upset Margaret, but she continued to love Tommy dearly even into adulthood.
   
   This book was laugh-out-loud funny in many places. The incident I remember as the funniest was when Maggie popped into Tommy's kitchen following her jogging one day, ran upstairs to use his bathroom, took a swig of water from a glass in the bathroom while she was there - and got a bonus with her mouthful of water.
   
   Because this book was compiled from the author's actual teenage diaries, we are treated to the actual daily thoughts of a teenager in the 70's - rather than the way the author remembers her teen years from the perspective of an adult.



5. I'm only giving it a two because I actually finished it. This book is not literary genius. It is just a diary and that's all. The topic was exciting to me - reason I ordered the book - and I was so totally dissapointed by the writing style. A better idea for the author would have been to use the diary to create a novel. It was simplistic, but as I said I did finish it and know it could have been a better novel if written as such.

5 comments about The Language of Baklava: A Memoir.

1. I just finished "The Language of Baklava" and loved the style, the honesty, the capture of nuances and details, and sense of humor. Having read many excellent food, travel, immigrant or multiethnic memoirists, this surpasses them all.
   As an Arab immigrant, I laughed out loud at the precise and non judgmental accounts contrasting Arab and American ways. I will strongly recommend this book to my American wife who is incessantly befuddled by my family's behavior when they visit or we visit them.
   This book is beyond food memories, it should be a classic of growing up as an immigrant's offspring. Diana Abu Jaber has a wonderful gift of making us feel with her and for her; of making us laugh and cry with her.



2. I loved Diana's humor and writing style. She made me very hungry but most importantly, she made me want to visit Jordan and be with Bedouins! She was very candid in criticizing what is wrong with the Arabic culture. I thought she did a great job and I recommend this book to all Americans but you'd better have an Arabic restaurant near you!



3. This is a miserable book. A few minutes in, it has a description of meat running with blood, then shortly later a detailed description of a botched, brutal slaughter of a baby lamb. That's when I tossed the book into the rubbish pile. I'd give it negative stars if that were possible, it certainly doesn't deserve even one star.



4. Viscerally satisfying, moving, poetic...I can't get it out of my head...I wish it could have gone on and on and on....I want more....I want to cook with Ghasan...be fed rice from his hand...I want to hear more about how her Arab family loved Diana, and about her grown up love hinted at near the end of the book...how her sister's perceived the same world...I want to eat and sleep with Bedouin's in the desert by firelight...Please feed me more...



5. A delightful book, filled with interesting stories about a larger-than-life bunch of characters and enhanced by recipes for the foods they eat. Meet a family pulled between Jordan and America, experience their tumuluous activities and sample (at least in imagination) the wonderful foods they are always eating.

5 comments about The Horizontal World: Growing Up In the Middle of Nowhere: A Memoir.

1. This book sounds quite poetic in some chapters. I really enjoyed the last section of the book titled "signs and wonders" I do believe what the writer says in that part of the book. :) Quite a moving memoir..she credits various books that I now what to get a hold of to read as well.



2. This book is simply lovely. Now that I'm done I find myself thinking of it, dwelling in it, savoring its sweetness. This is the very best kind of memoir, as I learned not just about Marquart's experience, but about the land and its history as well. Really, I learned about my history. I thought of my own father when I read of hers, wonder what earth and sky my own grandmothers worked to their graves. If I wrote a memoir, I'd like it to feel like this one, to leave the reader bronzed as this book has left me.



3. I heard the author being interviewed on NPR and thought "I want to meet this person - and I HAVE to read this book." I've recommended it to all my friends who went out and purchased it and also loved it. This is a GREAT book. She opens her soul to the reader in disarming and guileless ways.



4. Recommended by a parishioner as a good first book to read during a period of time off, this memoir rings true and Debra Marquart is a real -- really real -- person. From the dramatic photograph on the jacket to Ms Marquart's family's assessment of North Dakotan Lawrence Welk's having "made it," from the impulse to bolt the past to the stronger impulse drawing one back again, I walked with the author almost every step of the way.



5. Like most of the other reviewers, I simply loved this book. The author has a wonderful sense of place and clear descriptions that made her story so compelling. I felt strong kinship to Ms. Marquart's background as a girl of German-Russian parents who had made their living farming. In my case, it was my grandparents who farmed and in California rather than North Dakota, but my German Mennonite mom instilled in me the importance of knowing where one's food came from and the hard work that went with this way of making a living. Thank you for writing about your life and family. I love your voice. By the way, actually the book's jacket captured my attention while browsing through the library. The photograph is perfectly suited to the book. Can't think of a better package.

5 comments about Josephine: A Life of the Empress.

1. This was my first read of Carolly Erickson, and I was enthralled by her writing style. Yes, the book reads like a novel, but I don't find this detrimental. One of the biggest problems with historical biographies are they are often heavy and dull, and I don't think this should be the case when describing extraordinary times and events. I felt like I was transplanted "into the period;" and while Josephine had qualities pro and con, I found her to be accessible and human. A lot of times with biographies, I ended hating the subject by the time I am done, because the author relishes revealing the subject's tarnished persona in such an unflattering light. Ms. Erickson's Josephine I liked, despite her evident flaws.

   My only complaint would be overindulgence in trivial detail, e.g., her "rotten teeth" and "fading beauty." No one really likes aging, do they?




2. This was my first read of Carolly Erickson, and I was enthralled by her writing style. Yes, the book reads like a novel, but I don't find this detrimental. One of the biggest problems with historical biographies are they are often heavy and dull, and I don't think this should be the case when describing extraordinary times and events. I felt like I was transplanted "into the period;" and while Josephine had qualities pro and con, I found her to be accessible and human. A lot of times with biographies, I ended hating the subject by the time I am done, because the author relishes revealing the subject's tarnished persona in such an unflattering light. Ms. Erickson's Josephine I liked, despite her evident flaws.

   My only complaint would be overindulgence in trivial detail, e.g., her "rotten teeth" and "fading beauty." No one really likes aging, do they?




3. This was my first read of Carolly Erickson, and I was enthralled by her writing style. Yes, the book reads like a novel, but I don't find this detrimental. One of the biggest problems with historical biographies are they are often heavy and dull, and I don't think this should be the case when describing extraordinary times and events. I felt like I was transplanted "into the period;" and while Josephine had qualities pro and con, I found her to be accessible and human. A lot of times with biographies, I ended hating the subject by the time I am done, because the author relishes revealing the subject's tarnished persona in such an unflattering light. Ms. Erickson's Josephine I liked, despite her evident flaws.

   My only complaint would be overindulgence in trivial detail, e.g., her "rotten teeth" and "fading beauty." No one really likes aging, do they?




4. This is a very well written book, and the author keeps the reader captivated as she tells the life story of Josephine, better known as Napoleon's first wife.
   
   For avid history buffs of the Napoleonic era, this book will offer scant new insights. If, however, you are only beginning to learn about the movers and shakers in imperial France, this may be a good jumping off point for you. Bear in mind that everyone is a secondary player to Josephine, so every one presented is colored by how they interacted with her-- and the author's mostly sympathetic portrayal of the woman.
   
   Josephine is not presented as a saint by anymeans in this book. She is, however, given a back story that allows us to have a greater understanding at how she could be both kind and charming while attempting to amass a fortune as a war profiteer.
   
   Ultimately this book is like cotton candy. Sweet and charming but leaving the reader wanting for more. I find that to be a good thing in this case, I'll be reading more about Josephine and her contemporaries in an attempt to gain an even larger understanding of her and the times she lived in.



5. Josephine (1763-1814) was born Rose Tascher on the French colonial island of Dominique. Her father raised her on a failing sugar plantation she wed a disssolute French aristocrat (who wa
   executed during the Reign of Terror in the French Revolution)
   and had two children by him: Hortense and Eugene.
   Josephine met the young Corsican Napoleon and wed him. Napoleon knew she had connections in the government and married her for politcal reasons as well as to satisfy his lustful longings for the fetching Creole.
   Josephine was five feet tall, had rotting teeth and was unfaithful to Napoleon (as he was as well!). She could not produce a male heir and the Emperor divorced her to marry Marie Louise of Austria.
   Her life was one of glamour, love, rejection by her husband and dissolute living. Josephine was no saint but she was known
   for her loving kindness.
   Erickson has written a good biography of Josephine which introduces the reader to a fascinating woman living in amazing times.

5 comments about Toast.

1. `toast, the story of a young boy's hunger' is a memoir by noted British culinary writer, Nigel Slater, described in his flyleaf biographical blurb as `a national treasure'. Foremost among his accolades for this book is a blurb at the top of the front cover by his nibs, Jamie Oliver. Since I have not read any of Slater's other books, I cannot offer any opinion on the `national treasure' label, which I would tend to reserve for only those culinary figures of the very highest order, such as Elizabeth David and Julia Child. Regarding Sir Jamie's comment, I will attribute that to the fact that Mr. Slater is, in fact, a very good writer who does not, like Oliver, dictate his books into a tape recorder and have all the writing done by a copy editor. But I'm getting too far afield.
   
   This particular book is a personal memoir covering a lot more than simply his food preferences as he was growing up. The flyleaf accurately compares the book to Tony Bourdain's `Kitchen Confidential' and Ruth Reichl's two memoir volumes, `Comfort Me With Apples' and `Tender at the Bone', but I think neither of these comparisons quite captures the tone of these memoirs. Like Bourdain, there are some later chapters recounting life in the back of the house of some major English restaurants, but the book is really not `about' these things. Like Reichl, Slater has a mother who is simply not a very good cook, although she does manage to avoid risking the poisoning of her guests by using spoiled food.
   
   Oddly, the writing which comes to mind when I read this book is the pieces by Jean Shepherd in, among other books, `In God I Trust, All Others Pay Cash'. There is one huge difference, however, in that Shepherd's writing is not memoir, but satire. His stories are simply not true. The purpose of the comparison is to point out how entertaining Slater's writing can be, in spite of the fact that he is recounting incidents from his own life from the age of about 8 years to the age of about 20, after leaving catering school (English version of the CIA or Johnson and Wales).
   
   Practically all mini-essays are given the title of a type of food. Among these one to three page long recollections are three essays, including the first, entitled `toast'. One thing few culinary memoirs do well (Reichl's books are a notable exception) is to give a thorough understanding of what it is in the person's life which drove them to take up cooking. This book does an excellent job on that point, even though Master Slater has some very odd gastronomic aversions as a child to expect him to become a major culinary journalist. For example, he seems to physically unable to eat eggs or drink milk. There is nothing said about an allergy, and Master Slater has no problem with ice cream or custards, so it must just be a psychological thing.
   
   Slater's family life in this period is such that it is simply impossible for him to ignore the fact that his mother dies of respiratory disease when he is in his early teens and his father dies when he is near his twenties. It is amazing to me that he can write of his parents with such equanimity when they were not very demonstratively loving toward young Nigel and seemed to have a typical non-intellectual obtuseness toward their child's more adventurous or inquisitive instincts.
   
   That is not to say that Master Nigel was a model of intellectual sensitivity. He was quite capable of being quite selfish, sometimes at the most regrettable times, as when he wished that his mother would die for having forgotten a mince pie ingredient, and actually being but two weeks away from her long expected death, just before Christmas.
   
   As culinary memoirs go, this may rival those from Ms. Reichl, just a cut below the great memoirs by M.F.K. Fisher. It is to be read for pleasure; there is no significant culinary wisdom to be gleaned from these pages!



2. Food writer Nigel Slater is a man after my own heart, as he, like me, relates episodes of his childhood, through the food he ate at the time. I am not familiar with many of the foods he references since they are Brit-specific, for example, oddities such as grilled grapefruit, space dust, angel delight, cheese-and-onion crisps, arctic roll, and heinz tinned puddings. At the same time, I feel his descriptions are so illustrative that it is easy to sense what these concoctions taste like. He also captures the ambivalent feelings consumers had in the 1950's and 60's about accepting modern convenience foods, especially with his mother's culinary pride and his own fastidious palette on the line. Even more personally, Slater shows how he used food as an emotional substitute for a mother who died early and a distant father, who vented his frustration through abuse and ultimately remarried the family cleaning lady as if to destroy the family nucleus intentionally. However, the author does not dwell on the emotional impact of these events but rather uses his edible memories as the catharsis to which we could all relate.
   
   The author can be a cipher as he is hesitant to incur the risk of sharing too much of his personal history. The wider significance of the people in his life is never explained, and as a reader, I don't miss this dimension since Slater is so engaging in his narrative, the focus of which is almost entirely on himself - through breakfasts, lunches and dinners. He is full of hilarious anecdotes such as his overachieving stepmother who sounds like she would put Martha Stewart to shame or taking nightly walks with the dog and a candy bar to observe couples making out in the back of cars. Slater eventually finds a substitute family working after school in the kitchen of a hotel restaurant, and he describes the mundane tasks as if they are pioneering adventures, whether it amounts to preparing prawns for a cocktail or defrosting ready-made meals. The timeline of his story is thankfully limited. It begins with burnt toast and ends as the author, just out of school, finds employment in a restaurant in London. Slater converts the recollections in between into precise sensory memories that attain emotional resonance. This is not sentimental writing by any means, as he evokes time, people and place with a palpable realism in his energetic prose. Like Ruth Reichl and Anthony Boudrain, Slater makes his own idiosyncratic exercise in culinary history a winning childhood memoir.



3. Food memoirs crowd the shelves these days. This one really takes the cake. It's not so much about food as a in-depth psychological portrait of a child, and ranks with the best of that genre. It's traumatic, chilling, heartwarming, and uses the barebones, elliptical writing style of a young child to create dramatic effect. It's a quick, easy read and very moving. The last bit is not so good, when he covers his adult life and talks more about being a chef (it starts to sound like Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential - which is a tired genre). But the first 3/4 is fantastic as a piece of writing.



4. I'd read about this book on someone's blog, and from their description of it, thought that it would be an interesting read. I'm sorry to say that I was greatly disappointed, and couldn't even get more than 30 pages into it before I just had to stop.
   
   The book is made up of random and rather repetitive anecdotes about this food or that, tying into some event from the author's life. Skimming through the book, it seemed like most focused on his childhood, with the continuous theme of how awful a cook his mother was. After the first few pieces like this, I just wanted to say "ok, I get it already, she was horrible at cooking!"
   
   Maybe I came to this book with too much expectation, having read all the glowing reviews about it. Unfortunately, I just couldn't go on reading this book. It was such a drag, and so down about everything that I found it hard to find interest in any part of the stories, especially the food themes. The stories all became so repetitive, without any real cohesiveness to them all.



5. Toast is a memoir told through food-related anecdotes. Covering his childhood years through his culinary school years, the book revisits the foods, dishes, and meals that defined Nigel Slater's youth. In the process, we learn what Slater associates with each particular meal, and a story is weaved. We learn how food played a role in his everyday life, his family, his sexual discovery, and his path to becoming a chef; in turn, we learn how each of these affected his views on food.
   
   Toast is an especially entertaining read because it is food nostalgia, something we can all understand. The book is written in light prose and is easy to read, even for those that may not relate to every food Slater describes. Not only is it easy to share in Slater's stories but it is possible to trace how different foods affected Slater's life (and, by extension, how food affects each of ours). On the whole, the anecdotes are funny, which helps to balance out some of the serious issues Slater tackles.
   
   At points, however, the book treats certain events rather casually and without enough closure or explanation. Some dark incidents that surely had a great effect on Slater's life are hinted at or dealt with in passing, but with little detail about why they were included or how they related to the overall theme of the book. In addition, as an American reader with only limited exposure to English cuisine, I had to look up many dishes to understand exactly what Slater was discussing. My edition included a very short glossary of some of the terms in the book, but did not explain many of the recurring items especially various puddings, candies, stews, and snacks.
   
   Overall, an entertaining read recommended for anybody who enjoys reading about food.

5 comments about An Hour Before Daylight : Memoirs of a Rural Boyhood.

1. Why is it that ex-presidents make poor writers? Is it that they have had to hide their feeing so long they are afraid to loosen up afterward because we might think less of them? I was looking forward to reading about a boy growing up in Georgia while I was growing up in Iowa, but his writing is so stiff and lifeless that I quit halfway through.



2. After reading this book it is easy to understand why Jimmy Carter was denigrated as a weak Leader who let America's enemies walk all over him. As he looks back with affection & describes his childhood in a strict, hardworking, but loving family on a farm in back country Depression-Era Georgia, Mr Carter comes across as a genuinely kind and good man who respects his fellow-men & women - regardless of color or creed; who is tolerant of - though not entirely blind to -- the shortcomings & foibles of others, and truly incapable of seeing evil in anyone. In short, he is the Ideal Christian. This also goes a long way to explain why subsequently he became so widely respected on the International stage in his second career as Humanitarian & Fixer of the World's Problems.
   
   Mr Carter paints a colourful word-picture of his boyhood home, the close-knit community, the Carter farm, the livestock, the hunting dogs, his family, and his neighbours, the black tenant farmers and their children with whom he worked and played. There is nostalgia for a time and way of life that largely disappeared from this continent half a century ago, when children worked harder & shouldered more responsibility than today's young people can even imagine, but which was the making of them as responsible adults. Yet his writing style is innocent & light-hearted, and occasionally down-right laughable as, for example, when he gives us some examples of his rural childhood diction. It is hard to imagine the urbane, educated Mr Carter uttering the words "We et a bait of plums" or, having travelled 30 miles to see the flooding Flint River, "Wheh de ribber, Daddy? Is it down in dat creek?"
   
   This book touched me on a more personal level as well. I was not far into it before I realised it reminded me so much of the spell-binding stories my mother used to tell us children around the dinner table, stories of her life growing up on a 240 acre Clay Belt farm as one of 15 children of Ukrainian immigrants. The climate, the geography and the neighbours' ethnicity may have been worlds away from the Carters, but her life and her experiences could just as well have happened down the dusty road from Plains, Georgia.
   
   Attention Jimmy Carter: If you read this - I asked my mother about the sound made by the metal clicker on the handle of the milk separator. She is an expert: one of her chores was to operate the milk separator; and afterward to disassemble, clean & reassemble all its the component parts, which she could perform as rapidly as a soldier does with his rifle.
   Mother says you have to turn the handle faster & faster until it reaches the speed necessary for the cream to separate from the milk inside the machine. The change in the tone of the "clicker" is determined by the speed of the turning handle & occurs when the required speed has been reached for the separation to occur.
   
   Mr Carter is one of only a handful of public figures with whom I would care to be acquainted. Such an interesting Life; such an interesting man!



3. I've been wanting to read one or more of President Carter's books for a long time and decided to begin with this one. While I agree that it is well-executed in the main, it doesn't score higher with me on a few grounds.
   
   One: I felt there was a need for more fastidious editing. The book was by no means too long, but there was repetition and disordered content.
   
   Two: Way too much detail in some of the more mundane and unpleasant sections, in particular discussions of minutiae of small-town agribusiness dealings as well as graphic detail of livestock issues including slaughtering and castrating. TMI.
   
   Three: This is a half-hearted complaint, for I realize this isn't the book where these matters would likely be discussed considering the author has several other memoirs addressing other periods of his life (doesn't he?) In any case, I felt like the President did not discuss enough how his upbringing resulted in his being the man he is today as far as race relations are concerned. Lots of discussion about the relatively tolerant household in which he was raised, but lots of apology at the same time about how racism was ubiquitous at the time and not really perceived by his family or by others as a wrong to be righted. I don't know, I guess I'm rambling here, but I would have liked to have read content along the lines of "and these boyhood experiences shaped my perceptions in such a way that I wanted to make a difference in my public service career" and also I woulda liked to have read about how he connects his religious beliefs with his liberal leanings. Flesh out that relationship a bit more.
   
   Just my 2 cents.
   
   In any event, the book was a quick read and I am very glad I got around to reading it.



4. AN HOUR BEFORE DAYLIGHT by Jimmy Carter
   October 29, 2007
   
   
   Rating: 4/5 Stars
   
   I've now read several books written by President Jimmy Carter and I've enjoyed them all. What I love about his books is his personal touch he lends to them. AN HOUR BEFORE DAYLIGHT however is the first full memoir that I've read by Jimmy Carter (the other books were books on Faith), and seeing the world of his childhood, depression era Georgia, has been insightful. This childhood he had is what shaped him into the giving person he is today.
   
   Living in the South during this time meant that blacks were separate from whites, and whites were superior to blacks. And while some of these attitudes may have prevailed even in the Carter household, he was also taught to treat blacks with respect, and most of his childhood friends were the black children of the hired hands they had on their farm. The Carters, compared to many of their neighbors at the time, did well in farming and were very resourceful in all they endeavored. Hard work was the ethic they lived by, but Jimmy Carter also had stories to tell about childhood antics and enjoying life on the farm. Carter also talks about his siblings, mostly referring to his sisters Ruth and Gloria (Billy came along much later, but he is mentioned in the book, in particular in regards to his tragic early death). He looked up to his father, and greatly admired his mother, a woman who did so much in her later years and became famous in her own right (some of the stories Jimmy relates are quite humorous, including her love of the Brooklyn Dodgers, later the LA dodgers and her friendship with the team).
   
   AN HOUR BEFORE DAYLIGHT is not the perfect book. I found a lot of it to be rather dry reading, but I still enjoyed the anecdotes and stories that Jimmy Carter wrote about his growing up years. He's seen a lot in his life and has used what he learned to enrich others and help those who need it. I am slowly going through Carter's library of books and look forward to the next one.



5. This is a very enjoyable book. I love to read about the true
   South. Jimmy Carter is a man to be admired. He grew up learning
   to work for what he wanted. He shows great respect for others.
   A very good read.