5 comments about The Wagner Clan: The Saga of Germany's Most Illustrious and Infamous Family.

1. Well written. If you looking for a biography of
   Richard Wagner this is not it, and you need to buy another book. This is the story of how the family was able to retain control of Wagner's preformances. I found the first part of the book to be most interesting since it discribes Richard and events up to 1947. The post World War II porition of the book is less interesting since it resembles a "soap opera" and I lost interest in the spoiled Wagner grandchildren and great grandchildren.



2. Jonathan Carr's book on the Wagner clan is bascally an interesting look into the lives of an interesting family. The Wagners' devotion to the works of the patriarch, Richard, is unusual in this day and age. Each member of the family is a facinating topic per se. However, Carr's obsession with German politics gets in the way; yes Wagner displayed antisemtism in his life, yes his daugher in law was fascinated with Adolph Hitler and yes the Bayreuth Fesitval became a showcase for Nazi pretensions to high culture. All that is regretable and well known. Carr however goes into post war German politics with the intention of smearing people like Conrad Adenauer and his administration for not sufficently denouncing the Wagner ethos at Bayreuth. At the same time Carr gives his fellow European socialists a pass by praising how they owned up to the evil connections to the Nazi past of their countrymen. It would have been interesting and fair had Carr mentioned that his fellow Leftists turned a blind eye to the brutality of the Soviet and Communist regimes and that Left wing artists like Brecht and Gunther Grass made common cause with these brutal regimes in the latter half of the twentiet century. Maybe Adenauer et al did not do enough to highlight the connections of post war Germans with the evil of Nazism but the Left continued to praise the evil of Communism within their own artistic world.



3. If you are into Wagner (and all you have to do is listen to any of his music and you will be) this is a most interesting book. Great background on Bayreuth and the festival. Yes, sad that Winifred went gaga over Hitler and a low mark for Bayreuth. But it happened...let's move on. To attend the festival at Bayreuth is a grand experience. This book brings it back...with all the good and bad memories. Hitler did say one good thing: "You can never have too much Wagner." I highly recommend this book.
   Beautifuly written to boot.



4. Wonderful history of the Wagner family that would be enjoyed by music lovers and non-music lovers alike.



5. Yes well I thought this was a very interesting book. It explains alot of connections between Nationalists of the day and read like a who's who of the right. Really put alot of it all in context for me. I would recommend it to all Nationalists as a good history of what was going on at the time.

5 comments about Henry Knox: Visionary General of the American Revolution.

1. Finally a good quality well written readable biography of one of the unsung heros of the American Revolution. Well done Mr. Puls



2. Masterly written book of an outstanding American hero. The history of the man and his times come alive. One senses the excitement and great tensions of Henry Knox's life and achievemments. Wonderful book.
   Highly recommended.



3. The author obviously spent a great deal of time researching and writing this book. It's a pity that the publisher has chosen to skimp on the quality of the finished product. The book is filled with examples of incorrect grammar and punctuation, which are a distraction to the narrative. Proofreading before publication would have yielded a book more worthy of the author's effort.



4. The back of the book jacket quotes another author calling this "the definitive biography." Given the over-reliance on secondary sources, I think not. The book's author does point out that a fire destroyed the records of Knox's time as Secretary at War and subsequently Secretary of War, but there must be plenty of other primary source materials to draw on. I agree that this is a well-written biography, particularly in noting Knox's close relationship with Washington, which has been obscured by the focus on Hamilton and Lafayette as Washington's supposed favorites. As another reviewer noted, the war is the bulk of this briskly written book and is well written to reflect Knox's point of view and role in the campaign. I would recommend this book for those interested in the back-story of supporting, supplying and training the Continental Army. Knox will have to wait a while longer for his definitive biography, however.



5. In very many ways, the story of the United States is also Henry Knox' story, of someone from humble beginnings, including a physical handicap, rising to be a significant part in the American Revolution, through personal efforts and overcoming seemingly insurmountable challenges. Knox may not have been an architect of victory, but he certainly was one of the major instruments of it. An American `Man For All Seasons', his range of talents, as well as personal and professional growth, were amazing: valor and leadership in the field; extraordinary organizational skills; trusted senior advisor to George Washington; quick in developing tactics and tools to accommodate the Continental Army's myriad weaknesses; founder of the US Navy; recognizing and exploiting new technology; founder of West Point Military Academy; architect of a professional officer corps. These and more were contributions he made that not only served the immediate struggle for the US' existence, but also provided tools for subsequent national leaders who were grateful for having them as instruments of policy. And, like all of George Washington's `family', he had a sense of honor that was sorely tested by the pointed, repeated and deliberate failures of national political leaders, something that exists still in today's modern military. The 257 pages are organized into 12 chapters and an Epilog, with extensive notes and bibliography. The time span is from his early years to his untimely death. A delightful read, and highly recommended.

2 comments about The Garden and Farm Books of Thomas Jefferson.

1. Forget About Other Organic Gardening Books! This collection of books and writings by Thomas Jefferson includes decades of his farm records and gardening notes from back when they didn't even have chemical fertilizers, herbiscides, and insecticides yet. He experimented with a huge variety of fruits, vegetables, and fiber plants (including hemp) that he imported from all over the world. He also kept complete ledgers of his slaves, chronicling their births and deaths. He kept records of their production and consumption of linen, wool, blankets, clothing, etcetera. This book is a gold mine of history, gardening tips, livestock records, diary tidbits, photos, diagrams and more.



2. If there were a ten star rating, I would give it to this book! If only all of our Presidents were so committed to the values of home and garden.

   This is a wonderful book, both for Jefferson fans and gardeners. Since I'm both, it is doubly wonderful. You can read Jefferson's records of what he planted when, his observations about all sorts of garden topics, his letters to friends and family about gardening, and see the voluminous records he kept about all things horticultural.

5 comments about An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917-1963.

1. Well packed and arrived in a timely fashion. Everything as expected. A pleasure to do business with.



2. I very much enjoyed this biography of JFK. It is very well written and exactly what you want in a biography. It has a very detailed account of his entire life, from birth, through school and his travels, and on to his time as President.
   
   My only criticism is that for those of you who were not alive at the time of JFK (like me), you can get lost in many of the pages surrounding his Presidency. The author's accounts are so detailed, that I often found myself turning back in the book to refresh my memory about the many names and places that are referenced.
   
   Other than that, I highly recommend this book. The accounts of his young life (the privilege, the travels, the women) are fantastically interesting. The accounts of his many illnesses were also well done, and news to me.
   
   If you are like me and a big fan of biographies that start from the beginning and tell the whole story chronologically without leaving out a single detail, then this book is for you.



3. Thought that the book was an adequate one volume account of the life of JFK. The author talked alot about JFK's medical problems, more than I would have liked. He could have written a chapter about the medical problems JFK had with his stomach and back and about how the Kennedy's covered up those ailments during the run for the presidency and during the presidency.
   
   But overall I thought that it was a very good book and would recommend to anyone who is reading their first Biography of Kennedy.



4. Robert Dallek is a gifted historian. He is also a complete historian, because he writes extremely well. I wonder if he has ever won the Parkman Prize, because his apparent meticulous research is consumed by the reader with such ease. Of course, because it is Dr. Dallek, I have but one complaint. In the young, Kennedy years, prior to the presidency, the biography feels intimate -- as if we were talking to someone who was right in the house growing up with him -- almost if we were like Lem Billings. But when we get to the presidency there is a bit of opinionating that oftimes goes from historian to editorializing. For example, when speaking of the Berlin Crisis, Dr. Dallek opines that it is best that JFK was running the show because RFK, being a hothead, might have gotten us involved in a nuclear exchange. Other than that minor, minor complaint, (because he is probably right on his opinionating), I think Dallek is great. So is his new title about Nixon, (and Kissinger,too.)
   
   Joe Nichols



5. An extremely informative book. I came away from the book having only a little respect for Kennedy as a man or politician.
   
   1) He accepted a Pulitzer Prize for a book that was almost entirely ghostwritten for him.
   
   2) His daddy helped him cheat to win in elections and primaries.
   
   3) His primary accomplishment as a Senator was keeping the seat warm for the next guy.
   
   4) He, like at least one other President, lied about or withheld the truth about significant medical/physical problems.
   
   5) He appointed his brother to post of Attorney General even though RFK was completely unqualified.
   
   6) He treated his wife with blankfaced disrespect (openly philandering) in public and private.
   
   7) He was primarily responsible for the Bay of Pigs fiasco which made him look weak and emboldened Cuba and the USSR, thus leading to the Cuban Missle Crisis which he handled surprisingly well.
   
   8) He dragged his feet on Civil Rights because he was afraid of losing the support of Southern Democrats. (MLK Jr. said JFK's assassination was the best thing to happen to the Civil Rights movement)
   
   9) He freely admitted his first year as President was a miserable failure.
   
   10) He stepped up involvement in Vietnam without actually dealing with the problem. This forced Johnson and Nixon to make strategically terrible, morally insupportable and after-the-fact decisions.
   
   He was good looking and well spoken. Even his fiercest detractors admit he gave a great speech. He had a beautiful and cultured wife and adorable kids (Camelot). He was intelligent and erudite. He did his duty in WW2. As the President, he meant well but was inexperienced, naive & hopelessly out of his depth in high level cut-throat politics and completely lacking in moral courage. He did at least listen to the Civil Rights leaders and proposed bare minimum legistation. He got the space program off the ground (so to speak). He started the Peace Corp. He stared down the bombastic Khrushchev and the belligerent Castro. He encouraged Americans toward volunteerism and thinking of America 1st and themselves 2nd. All in all, a failed half-presidency with a few points of light redeemed by his martyrdom and subsequent mythology.

5 comments about A Life in Secrets: Vera Atkins and the Missing Agents of WWII.

1. When I think of secret agents from the United Kingdom, normally I think of MI 5 or MI 6. Another agency was created during World War II--and disbanded at its end--called the Special Operations Executive or SOE. This book is about one woman, Vera Atkins, and her work within this branch of covert operations that sent patriotic men and women spies into France to help bolster the work of the French Resistance prior to the 1944 D-Day invasion at Normandy.
   
   It is obvious from the start of the book that author Sarah Helm has done extensive research on Ms. Atkins, piecing together not only her work for the SOE, but also Ms. Atkins' personal life. For example, Helm was tireless in trying to find exact locations of photos taken during Ms. Atkins' childhood in Romania. At the very beginning of the book the author talks about the one and only encounter she had with Vera Atkins.
   
   At the time of the interview, Ms. Atkins was but a few weeks from her 90th birthday, and chose to speak little of her involvement with the SOE. With that as a backdrop, the author used her skill and connections to interview anyone who had worked with or knew Vera Atkins to put together a very interesting story. The book is written in narrative form, but at times Helm drops into the text a snippet from one of these various interviews with survivors from that era. Most of the book is about how Vera Atkins tracked down leads on the agents who didn't return or were presumed dead, because Ms. Atkins felt responsible to give an accurate accounting to the families that were unaware their missing family members were agents.
   
   When reading this book, you are aware that you are reading about British history by a British author. One of the ways that this is evident is by the author's liberal usage of French phrases, some of which are not translated into English. For a British audience this may not be a problem, but for the average American audience, it can be troubling at times.
   
   Armchair Interviews says: A fascinating story about World War II and well worth the time to read.



2. It's one thing to be a trained trooper, heavily armed and supported by your comrades. It's another to be a young female civilian, clandestinely landed or air-dropped into enemy occupied territory. Sarah Helms has written a very personal biography, a page-turner that helps today's interested reader access a facet of the war that hasn't been forgotten because it's never been widely known. The portal is Vera Atkins, the woman behind F section at SOE, who was personally responsible for recruiting, training, dispatching and managing civilian female agents in occupied France. It's an inspiring and byzantine story that takes the reader back to the roots of the 20th century. More immediately it makes you shake your head when you realize that many of these young heroines, idealists all, risked and lost their lives owing to the incompetence and betrayal of their colleagues, as well as the twisted and bestial treatment they received from the men and women they faced in German uniforms. It's comforting to know that at least one person - Vera Atkins - felt a personal responsibility to discover the fate of her female agents. Vera's motivations are sometimes questionable and murky, and the tapestry of her roots and experiences are as complex as the war itself. It would have been useful to read more about the specific training of the agents and have more details of their actions in the field. It's not entirely clear what they were supposed to do and what they actually accomplished. More attention on the issue of whether these women were legally considered spieds or not would have helped. Overall Helms book succeeds because it makes an important chapter of the war accessible to today's reader/student. It makes you want to go out and continuing reading on the subject, but one already suspects that her book is one of the best.



3. Numerous interviews with family members and friends, aggressive pursuit of declassified documents and old letters, allow secrets to be revealed in this book. A LIFE IN SECRETS traces the history of special agents parachuted into France during World War II and their fate. The bravery of these people, and especially of the women, should always be remembered.
   
   Secret organizations are secret, their files restricted, purged, and hidden. That makes it especially difficult to trace decisions, responsibilities, and fates. To place credit for the actual heroic achievements and to place blame for mistakes and over-developed egos is exceedingly difficult.
   
   This book is meticulously researched and reconstructed and reveals the facts of agents in World War II yet it evades being tedious. The reader is left to decide the personality and motives of various responsible cadre members and who may be a traitor or not.
   
   There is no doubt as to the achievement of the agents or the author of this superb book. It is an extraordinary book about courageous people in monstrous times.



4. The extraordinary life of Vera Atkins- the woman who parachuted female secret agents into occupied France during the war, and then in 1945 made it her personal mission to track down the missing agents and find out the awful truth of what had happened to them. Sarah Helm, the author of A Life In Secrets: The story of Vera Atkins and SOE's lost agents, tells the whole story about the underground and dark side of political intrigues, spies and beyond. A most fascinating book.



5. I loved every second of A Life In Secrets. It was like reading the best mystery, spy novel, espionage thriller, personal history, and WWII fact-finding book all in one volume. In it Sarah Helm tells several stories and unravels many mysteries. The obvious story is that of Vera Atkins and her "missing agents", the women (mostly) and men who were dropped into France and other countries by Britain's Special Operations Executive, formed to help assist underground resistance movements in Nazi occupied countries. These agents were civilians who were hand picked and trained to blend in and do their job, and it was Atkins' job to communicate with their families and make sure they were okay.
   
   The obvious aim of Secrets is Helm's biographical telling of the life and career of Vera Atkins, which partially involves interviews with Atkins herself as well as surviving relatives, co-workers, and friends. Just the recounting is fascinating, as Helms travels all over East and West Germany, Roumania, France, Canada, and England, tracking down her tale. Then we have the chronicles of the missing SOE agents and Atkins' dogged pursuit of their fates, however tragic, made even more interesting when Atkins gets approval to travel to France and Germany. Her stories of attendance at war crimes trials, testimonials from concentration camp leaders, guards, and inmates, and her search for closure amongst the wreckage of post-war Europe are detached enough to be clear and objective yet connected enough to be horrifying.
   
   But the deepest and most interesting mystery turns out to be that of Atkins herself. How did Vera Rosenberg, a Roumanian Jew, become naturalized British citizen and SOE leader Vera Atkins? Why was she so interested in Nazi Germany? What drew her to this work, and especially to her dissection of the ends of the lives of her agents? What secrets was Vera Atkins hiding?
   
   The answers to these questions are surprising and a bit disturbing. The lines between good and bad, collaborator and enemy, friend and enemy are blurred. But in the end I had not only a great respect for Atkins and how she did her job (in more ways than one) but for Helm, who solves several deeply buried mysteries. Highly recommended!

5 comments about The Children of Willesden Lane: Beyond the Kindertransport: A Memoir of Music, Love, and Survival.

1. This is a story which every parent should read to their children. Talk about the history of WW2 and discuss the extremes of humanity. A book which once read you will never forget.



2. Full of history. Easy to follow. Great read for young and old alike.



3. This is one of my all-time favorite books. If you are a musician, you will fall in love with it. The story is inspiring and moving and will make you appreciate music to the greatest extent possible.



4. author of Cooking Jewish: 532 Great Recipes from the Rabinowitz Family
   
   from the Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles
   August 30, 2002
   
   Vienna, 1938. In the city of Mozart, Schubert, Beethoven and Strauss, 14-year-old musical prodigy Lisa Jura looks forward to a promising career as a concert pianist. Hitler has other plans. With the breaking of glass on Kristallnacht, Jura's dreams are shattered.
   
   Internationally celebrated concert pianist Mona Golabek, with journalist and poet Lee Cohen, has crafted a loving, lyrical tribute to her mother, Lisa Jura, in "The Children of Willesden Lane: Beyond the Kindertransport: A Memoir of Music, Love, and Survival."
   
   Jura was one of 10,000 Jewish children saved from the Nazis by the British and sent on the Kindertransport to safety from Eastern Europe. Already being compared to "The Diary of Anne Frank," this simultaneously heartbreaking and uplifting tale weaves together the stories that Golabek's mother told her about prewar Austria; the gut-wrenching separation from her family; life at the orphanage on Willesden Lane; and the power of music to help her survive.
   
   As Jura's mother, Malka, puts her on the train, she says the prophetic words that will sustain and inspire her daughter and future generations: "Hold on to your music. Let it be your best friend."
   
   In a world turned ugly, the beauty of music becomes Jura's strength, and, against tremendous odds, with the help and encouragement of the 30 other displaced children at the orphanage, she wins a scholarship to London's Royal Academy.
   
   "Each kid saw something in my mother's music that reminded them of what they had left behind in Czechoslovakia, in Austria, in Germany," says Golabek, a Grammy-nominated artist, "and that's what I tried to do in the story, not only to pay homage to my mother, but to all these kids and to their bravery."
   
   The book opens with Jura's tantalizing daydream of performing in a great concert hall and closes with the fulfillment of that dream, as she makes her debut before an exhilarated crowd. And in between, the pages burst with melody: Jura pounding the cadenza of the Grieg "Piano Concerto" to drown out the sounds of bombs during London's blitz, Jura visualizing Chopin fleeing a flaming Warsaw as she struggles with the somber coda of the "Ballade," Jura remembering her mother's Sabbath candles as she plays the solemn opening of Beethoven's "Pathetique."
   
   "My mom and her mother never cared if a piece is in C major. What really counts is the passion behind it, the image. If it's `Clair de Lune,' imagine the moon over a desert island. That imagination allowed her to survive the horrors of what she experienced, because a C-major chord will not inspire you through the horrors. It's the moonlight, the idea that maybe the composer wrote it for someone he loved. These things inflamed her imagination, and that's how she inflamed mine."
   
   And now Golabek's book will inflame the imagination of a whole new generation. The Milken Family Foundation, together with Facing History and Ourselves, an educational organization that teaches tolerance to 1 million students annually, are working with Golabek to bring the story to schools across the country by developing a companion curriculum guide.
   
   Plans are under way to launch the book in Austria, and make it available to teachers as part of the now mandatory four-year Holocaust education program for students.
   
   The saga of Golabek's 18-year struggle to get the story published is almost as harrowing as her mother's story itself. "It went through many, many writings; many, many ups and downs, starts and disappointments," Golabek says.
   
   Now the accolades and offers are pouring in. On Sept. 24, she will be an honored guest speaker at the California Governor's Conference for Women at the Long Beach Convention Center and will appear at Beth Am on Nov. 17 with her sister, pianist Renee Golabek-Kaye, and Jura's four grandchildren, all musicians: Michele, 16; Sarah, 14; Jonathan, 8; and Rachel, 7. Brandeis University will honor her at the Skirball Cultural Center next March 31.
   
   Last week Golabek was interviewed on NPR's Morning Edition and was the subject of a feature story by Andy Meisler of the New York Times. In the planning stages is a concert next year co-sponsored by the U.S. Holocaust Museum and the Austrian government. And, of course, Golabek is considering movie offers.
   
   On her syndicated radio show, "The Romantic Hours," which highlights stirring writings against a musical backdrop (Saturdays at 10 p.m., 105.1 FM), Golabek often quotes the poet Jean Paul Richter: "Life fades and withers behind us, but of our immortal and sacred soul all that remains is music."
   
   "That was a quote my mother taught me, and the whole reason why I wrote this book and why I created `The Romantic Hours' was that my mother felt through words and through music our souls would be immortalized."



5. I was unfamiliar with the Kindertransport that moved 10,000 Jewish children to safety from the Holocaust. This biography brings that event to life through the memories of Lisa Jura. At 14, her parents sent her to London and the book covers that wrenching journey and the next six years of her life. Growing up during the blitz in a refugee home with 31 children makes a fascinating book.
   Lisa's devotion to music weaves the story together as she strives towards her parents' dream. Becoming a concert pianist seems unachievable under the circumstances, but this touching biography details Lisa's progress towards that goal. This account has appeal for both adult and teen readers.
   I also recommend In The Shadow Of The Cathedral: Growing Up In Holland During WW II by Titia Bozuwa

5 comments about Billy the Kid: The Endless Ride.

1. A great story with not a lot of facts to bore it down. A easy read.



2. I found the book a good read of Billy the Kid. Mr. Wallis explores the different alleys of speculation about the Kid.
   
   Although it has its dry spots I still found that he put Billy the Kid in the context of his times and not ours.
   
   The reason for the four stars is some of the PC statements at the beginning of the book and the dry spots.



3. This is a very good book by Michael Wallis. Even though I love western history, I never thought I would read a book about the Kid, but an NPR interview with Mr. Wallis changed my mind. The book is well researched and entertaining. It is very enlightening and does not play on violence, but deals with the person and world of Billy the Kid in as much as it is possible to know him.
   
   Some reviewers have complained about the fact that book gets off subject and wanders at times. Mr. Wallis writes biographies from a social history point of view. He admittedly does get off the subject to give the reader a broader view of the environment an individual was living through. I feel this is a strength of the book.
   
   Highly recommended.



4. If you want to read the politically correct version of the story of Billy the Kid, this is your book. Starting with his tortured, self-consciously folksy writing style, the author does everything but call his readers "podner" to show he is a real buckaroo, podner, who's "miiiighty familiar with the story told him by his grandpappy and reckons he kin share it wif you". It is ridiculous and not even done well enough to bring sufficient entertainment to the project to cover his almost complete lack of original research.
   
   Mr. Wallis appears to have read a number of books on the subject, communicated with the living authors and considered that sufficient research to enable him to write this less than engaging book. In the fashion of modern historians, the book is suffused with his liberal, "I hate America and its history" views clearly there so he can have some credibility with academics who will endorse anything that judges the past by present standards. The settlement of America was not carried out by pipe smoking professors, tut tuting about the morals of their betters. It was conducted by men and women of strength and toughness and the ability to fend for themselves in wild places without institutions to protect them.
   
   But Mr. Wallis will have none of that. To him, the frontier is a dark and threatening place only because those darned white people from the east came out for the sole purpose of killing Indians and oppressing all other non-white people so they could steal from them for their own part. The pioneers, to Mr. Wallis, were gratuitously violent; apparently stupid and just plain evil. And life in the west was poor, nasty, brutish and short. It had no further significance to the author, such as, oh, I don't know, the creation of a great nation.
   
   Mr. Wallis finally gets to the story of Billy sometime around page 150 of his 250 page book. The first 150 pages are contemplations on American history, speculations about what might have happened (as opposed to renditions of what did happen) in various parts of the West, listing of theories as to who Billy's mother was and where she came from, quotes from famous authors with whom he has corresponded all spiced up with his silly opinions on race relations, gun control and pretty much every other political issue never relevant or addressed in the context of the 19th Century western United States.
   
   The worst aspect of this silly book is that it adds absolutely nothing new. If you read Utley's book, you got all the information you would get in this one (without the political diatribes). If you read any good book on the Lincoln County War you get more information about Billy than you get in this one. Readers who read newer books on subjects about which they have previously read expect that the author would have taken the time to do more research than earlier authors and that there will be new information to be had. Not so this one. This one is basically a compilation of what has been written before jumbled into one badly written, worthless book. In reading this book, I lost hours I will never get back. Don't waste your $17.13 on it. Mr. Wallis should retire and do something for which he might have more talent. Say, writing letters to the editor of his local paper.



5. Michael Wallis offers a book - "Billy the Kid" - to prove not much is known about Billy the Kid. The Kid (name not certain, Wallis says) was dead before he was 22. There usually is little enough to say even about the greatest in our histories from the years of childhood and adolescence. There is not much factual to say about The Kid. Anyway, no one was watching him closely or chronicling his deeds.
   
   What is known is not sensational. Even The Kid's murders do not rival the records laid out by Charlie Starkweather or Charles Manson.
   
   Wallis introduces a score or more of men (mostly) who associated with The Kid, or knew of him. His account becomes a maze of names for one-dimensional characters.
   
   Reviewers agree Wallis' account probably is the most factual in print.

No comments about The Jews of Sing Sing.

2 comments about The Faith of America's First Ladies.

1. Having been interviewed for this book by Mrs. Cook, I was intrigued by her topic of combining the Prov. 31 woman with stories of America's First Ladies. I was thrilled upon reading the book to find it a tremendous source of information and inspiration. Mrs. Cook's stories of the First Ladies were a delight to read, and I looked forward to the start of each new chapter, waiting to see what scene she would paint for me to be able to envision some touching moments in the lives of these women. Each chapter then develops into a wonderfully readable and enjoyable collection of Scripture applications, interviews and fascinating personal stories. An excellent book!



2. The way Jane, the author, brought the woman of Proverbs 31 to life through the lives of the first ladies was unexpected and fascinating. I loved how Jane weaved each story into the next story. I was so impressed with this book I bought a copy for each of my three nieces. Not only will this book give them more insight into our country's history, but more importantly, it will also teach them what it means to be a woman of noble character.

No comments about Mormonism Unveiled: The Life and Confession of John D. Lee and the Complete Life of Brigham Young.