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1 comments about Beerinsky.

1. How fortunate we are when blessed with parents to love & raise us! Reading this book made me realize how hard life was in the early 1900's. Illness causing parents to give their children up to orphanages in the hopes that there would be someone to save them.I could feel this little boys pain as he longed to have a family of his own, but was treated as an outcast. What a difficult road one must travel without the love and guidance from ones parents. The stories shared by Mr. Besker ranged from humorous to very sad. I found it hard to put the book down because I wanted to know what life would hand this young man next. Through hard work and a very obvious determination he found success. This book reminded me of the importance of treating others with kindness and respect because we never truly know where one has come from, how they got there or the struggles endured!

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1 comments about The Family Jewels.

1. The Family Jewels, by Deirdre Rice, is the funniest book I have ever read. Stories from the childhood of Deirdre and her two sisters are so humorous that I couldn't put it down, laughing all the way through. My favorite of these short excerpts, well I would be hard pressed to choose just one. A friend of mine borrowed my copy and said, "This book is hysterical!" A bright red cover should tell us to expect something cheery inside and this one does. Everyone needs a good laugh... get this book and you'll have a lot of them!

5 comments about Confessions of a Hero-Worshiper (P.S.).

1. After reading Stephen Dubner's first book, Turbulent Souls, I couldn't wait to read his latest work. I thoroughly enjoyed Confessions of a Hero Worshiper. It is a poignant, beautifully-written story about Dubner, who as a ten-year-old boy, grasped on to his football hero to help him survive his loneliness and insecurity after his father died. Dubner's childhood hero was Franco Harris of the Pittsburgh Steelers and the "man of steel" becomes much more to the young, fatherless boy than anyone would ever imagine. In school Dubner even wrote his name as "Franco Dubner" on his papers. For the next 4 years, Dubner has the same dream every night of meeting Franco Harris, inviting him over to his house for dinner, and playing a game of football in the backyard with him afterwards. Every night in the dream, Franco breaks his ankle just as he's about to score a touchdown. He hands the ball to Dubner and tells him, "You gotta take it from here yourself, kid." The words end up being prophetic.

   Fast forward about twenty-five years. Dubner is now a successful writer and former editor of the NY Times Magazine. When he spies a magazine cover sporting Franco Harris's picture, his long-buried feelings are rekindled. Dubner is overcome by a deep desire to meet his hero and let him know what an important part he played in Dubner's young life.

   When Dubner finally gets to rubs elbows with Franco Harris, the time spent with him and his athlete buddies is both exhilerating and frustrating. What transpires between them over the next months enables Dubner to finally shed his childhood ghosts when he comes to an epiphany of sorts. The story is both a heartfelt and at times hilarious account of Dubner's trip back into his past as he comes to grips with the present and discovers the secret to his future.

   The story is so engaging and well-written that I couldn't put it down...and me, a sports fan...NOT!




2. This book compares the Jewish view to that of Christians. With the Jewish ban on idolatry, there are no people -- only things and places in pictures. That's strange, as my photos are full of views, beautiful or unusual scenes and things of the past, but very few people. In the Bible, there are prophets in abundance, but in the New Testament, the pictures are most always a glorified Jesus and his apostles. A messiah is less a person than an idea, a hope, and the yearning for the world to have a happy ending.
   
   Thomas Carlyle, a pious Scottish Presbyterian, who died in 1881, wrote that hero worship is a human condition that "cannot cease till man himself ceases." I've had many heroes in my time. One of them is listed below.
   
   A hero is someone we admire for who he is, but not so much because he is someone special to us when we need someone to love, a person who can take the place of a busy family, someone you don't come home to and have to listen to their complaints. A hero is perfect, he's an image we conjure up in our minds as being the person we would like to be.
   
   Lincoln was shot five days after Lee's surrender at Appomattox on Good Friday; Booth was a crazed hero-worshipper and had to die for his mistake. Each era in America has its hero. Charles Lindbergh in 1927 because he did what no one else had done. General MacArthur in WWII because of his determination and defiance to do what his heart dictated. A Civil War hero, Abner Doubleday, was dubbed "father of baseball" after his death.
   
   We all know that politicians say one thing behind closed doors and another in public. Movie stars and pop singers were "images" created for a purpose, to give us an imaginary world to enter in the theaters. The superheroes of the comics were Jewish American creations.
   
   All of this history to establish his hero-worship for a ball player because of his will to win, mainly the will to survive. His father had been a newspaperman. He became a writer, thus subconsciously was emulating his dead father who was the real hero in his mind. A Mother is a Mother is a Mother...how can she be a hero? This book is "especially for those who read about others to find the truth in themselves."



3. Dubner's book had a special meaning to me when I read it. I had just come back from a trip where I met a childhood idol of mine. While the meeting was great, somehow I came home feeling a bit of emptiness.
   Dubner's tale eventually delves into this emptiness. First, he relates the story of his childhood fascination with Franco Harris, a great running back with the Pittsburgh Steelers in the 1970's. It is the tale of a typical boy's love of a sports hero. Then, Dubner goes through school and leaves most of this behind. Later, as an adult when he has the chance to meet Harris, the book really hits a high note.
   Dubner explores his feelings and Franco's feelings as the two meet several times. In the end, it is nothing like he expected or wanted, yet in the end it is exactly that.
   Anyone who ever called himself a fan of a celebrity should read Dubner's story.



4. It's easy to get caught up in the little details of our lives, getting kids off to school, getting the car (or dog) fixed, paying the mortgage, raking the leaves, and doing the thousand other things that we do, so much that we forget or never get the big picture.
   
   But it's impossible to get through even a chapter of Confessions of a Hero Worshipper, by Stephen J. Dubner, without stepping back taking a longer look at our own trajectories.
   
   In fact, the book, which details a psychic journey of mythic proportions conducted by shuttle between New York and Pittsburgh, is nothing but a long look back at the childhood of the author, carefree until his father's unexpected death at 57 years of age. Dubner proceeded to do what any 10 year old kid would have done, set about to replace that figure, and he promptly selected a football player, Franco Harris of the Pittsburgh Steelers, who in very unlikely fashion proceeded to fill the gap in a profound way. For a time Dubner signed his school work, "Franco Dubner."
   
   Dubner grew up, went off to college, got a job and pretty much forgot Franco, until a chance sighting of the former football star on a magazine cover ignited a fool's errand, for the author to actually meet his childhood hero and establish a connection.
   
   In the process Dubner is forced to re-examine the loss of his father, look long and hard at how he filled that void and, more importantly, take stock of the remaining sense of loss and sorrow.
   
   In reading the book, I found it impossible not to examine such holes in my past, as well.
   
   I'm currently reading "Turbulent Souls," another book by Dubner, which details the strange spiritual and cultural journey taken by his parents, which led them from a life as Jews in New York City to life as committed Catholics on a farm in rural Upstate New York. That's where they all were when I came to know them during my year in Duanesburg as the 13 year shortstop of the local sandlot baseball team.



5. I was a little predisposed to enjoying this book for a number of reasons, and I think I should describe them before getting too much into the review.
   
   I am nearly the same age as the author, lost my Dad in 1974 and am a lifelong Steelers fan, who grew up well outside Pittsburgh, but followed the team religiously. My Mother was a religious and caring woman, and we were raised in relative poverty. I idolized Jack Lambert (another Steeler) and my own Mother passed away around the same time in life as the authors. In short, the similarities between the author's life and mine are much the same, so that might be relevant in knowing my thoughts on this book.
   
   "Confessions of a Hero Worshipper" takes the reader through the author's childhood and his early search for identity. It gives a vivid description of his Father's death and his attempt at identifying with the star running back of the Pittsburgh Steelers, Franco Harris. Dubner arranges to meet Harris and the book gives a narrative of his frustrations- sometimes comical- at understanding Franco, when in truth, the author was really searching himself. As the book develops, Dubner skillfully explores why people choose to worship heroes and what heroes are. He also discusses the religious aspects of hero worship and concludes that they are a necessity. In a surprise twist, Dubner finds heroic qualities in Mr. Harris' mother, whom he befriends late in the book. He finally breaks free of his need to see Harris as Superhuman after talking with him in a final interview in Mr. Harris' home and through the first years of Dubner's own son's life.
   
   Although this book is (as a few other reviewers have pointed out) somewhat disjointed, the prose style is enjoyable and unpredictably funny. Frankly, I did not expect the book to provoke as much thought as it did about why people choose the heroes they do, or the larger meaning of building people into what we want them to be. With the disclaimer of what this book meant personally to me, I recommend it.

1 comments about As It Was: Sin Mar a Bha : A Ulva Boyhood.

1. This slim volume is a pleasant history of Ulva, off the coast of Mull, and the memories of someone who has lived there. (Current population:12) Of primary interest to those curious about Scottish history and culture. Not for the general reader I wouldn't think.

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No comments about His Name Was Amy Mable: A Lifetime of Memories.

No comments about Mother Was a Rebel: In Praise of Gentle People.

1 comments about Willie.

1. This book was interesting because of it's variety of subjects. It follows the life of a medicine man in rural Canada, the struggles of a child,the fascinating people he meets, his interest in horses and racing,the happy and sad times in his marriage and family and finally the exciting musical talent that emerges. It is well worth the read for it's description of life in the depression in Canada, and the endurance of the spirit and finally the triumph of the music.