5 comments about When All the World Was Young: A Memoir.

1. Unlike many autobiographies, this one avoided two frequent mistakes. First, it did not read like a boring recitation of events which plaques so much nonfiction. Barbara Holland is a gifted and interesting writer. But more importantly, she does not make excuses for, sugercoat, or gloss over her sometimes none too stellar behavior. She avoids the mistake of portraying herself as a heroine, always right, at the mercy of the mistakes of others. Her hobby of shop lifting as a young child is described and explained forthright, not excused. Even at the end of the book as life whirls out of control, she never whines. She always accepts responsibility for her behavior. Although she explains why she was misunderstood or why she was just plain acting badly, she never (like so many autobiograhers) blames anyone and everyone else for her troubles. This is an insightful look into the disturbed life of a sometimes happy, but mostly unhappy childhood, and a brilliant portrayal of the times. Growing up in the late fourties and fifties myself, this book jogged my memory over and over. It truly was a time like no other, an atmophere in American that our children and grandchildren, unfortunately, can never experience. Kids went out to play without supervision and had free rein of the neighborhood. We did not wear bike helmets and knee pads and globs of suntan lotion, and we certainly didn't carry music and cellphones. An innocent (and, as one reviewer says) a not so innocent time, when the world was neither more glorious nor less evil, but truly simpler, quieter, and incredibly, gloriously different.



2. I wish it hadn't ended -- but it ends, just the way it begins, with the perfect sentence. OH my gosh, where to begin. I can only say that I adore Barbara Holland's phrases and analogies. This is memorable stuff, turning me right into an annoying cheerleader along the lines of "You HAVE to read this book!" I feel it's my duty, as a friend and relative, to recommend it to others, especially my three sisters. We were born in Washington, D.C. (post-war), raised in the Virginia suburbs, and frequently visited our aunts in Maryland, in what's now a neighborhood more dangerous than Fallujah, so "When All the World Was Young" has the added allure of familiar nostalgia. But mainly, it's just a perfect memoir: rich, comic, dark, fearlessly honest, revealing, highly comforting. With two children in public high school in the much-touted Fairfax County School System, I feel great heaps of despair over the whole shebang (for lack of ability to better describe our personal education woes and utter lack of "school spirit"). Just reading Ms. Holland's reminiscences about school has bucked me up enormously, really more than anything else ever has. For this alone, I owe her much gratitude, but I'm also thankful for laughing my head off over subjects like the 1950 government's instructions on dealing with nuclear attack. I don't want to give anything else away; incidentally, be forewarned about reading Lynn Harnett's review because she basically gives the whole book away - yikes! For me, "When All The World Was Young" is right up there with Betty MacDonald's memoirs and Cornelia Otis Skinner's "Our Hearts Were Young and Gay", and that's high praise. Highly recommended; thank you, Barbara Holland! (Please keep writing)



3. "Growing up is the process of learning how many things you can't do and how many people you can't be. When you've winnowed them out, what's left is you." - Barbara Holland
   
   I've said before of author/essayist Barbara Holland that she has a remarkable talent for perceiving the small details of life and living. Or rather, a talent for remembering what she perceives and subsequently bringing it to the attention of the lumpish rest of us.
   
   In mid-2006, Holland wrote a piece for the magazine AARP, "Being 70: The View from Up Here." So, published in 2005, WHEN ALL THE WORLD WAS YOUNG can perhaps be taken as Barbara's final word on the subject of her formative years. Somehow, I don't expect a sequel.
   
   This volume is Holland's episodic narrative of her life from shortly before the beginning of World War II, at which time she was about six, to her first job in the display department of the Hecht Company in her (apparently) very early twenties. Measured against the comparatively happy memoirs of other female writers - Laura Shaine Cunningham (Sleeping Arrangements) and Doris Kearns Goodwin (Wait Till Next Year: A Memoir) come to mind - WHEN ALL THE WORLD WAS YOUNG is surprisingly bittersweet. The author is not reticent about her sternly authoritative stepfather, a self-absorbed mother disengaged from maternalism, her shoplifting phase, her high school abortion, and her wretched first marriage.
   
   As in all of Holland's books that I've read to date, her wry, iconoclastic humor is a joy. She relates how, in the fourth grade, she was given the assignment of reading a passage from the Bible to the class every morning.
   
   "I read my classmates a psalm a day, looking for the most rousing ones to hold my audience. ('Thou hast also given me the necks of mine enemies, that I might destroy them that hate me. They cried, but there was none to save them: even unto the Lord, but he answered them not. Then did I beat them small as dust before the wind. I did cast them out as dirt in the streets.' Psalm 18, perfect for the playground.)"
   
   Because of her talent for perception, she comes across with unorthodox snippets of insight, such as: "Peculiar relatives make good stories in later life, but to a child they're a wobbly rudder." Or this: "Down below the grownup eye level, even the best-kept suburb seethed with action."
   
   I wished WHEN ALL THE WORLD WAS YOUNG was two, three, four times as long. As a child, Barbara was an awkward loner who found companionship with only one or two really close friends, and who otherwise found escape in books. I soon realized that she and I, when growing up, were much alike. And my affection for her has grown accordingly.



4. WHEN ALL THE WORLD WAS YOUNG is an immensely readable book. Barbara Holland's story kept me interested from start to finish. She left me wanting to know more about her writing career, her marriages and mostly her children. The story had added interest to me because, like Barbara, I also grew up in the Washington, D.C. area.
   
   I could also identify with the distress that she experienced during her school years. So many children are happy until they start school. I guess it's a major awakening when the world intrudes into our lives for the first time. We're on our own with opinionated teachers and other children who may not like us for reasons that we don't understand.
   
   This is a memoir and so not everything is answered, but the true measure of any good story is not wanting it to end.



5. Nostalgically deep yet painfully honest account of a young girl who never quite fit in set in the halcion days of America's golden age.

No comments about The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin.

3 comments about Breaking News: How the Associated Press Has Covered War, Peace, and Everything Else.

1. This book is an important reminder of the tireless and many times anonymous job AP reporters do on a daily basis. The book is filled with rich details about the wire service. It's really a history of American journalism.



2. Very interesting, especially for those journalism junkies. However, it reads more like a text book than a casual read or coffee-table book. Photos are fabulous, though.



3. "Breaking News: How the Associated Press Has Covered War, Peace, and Everything Else," by Reporters of the Associated Press, Princeton Architectural Press, New York, 2007. This is a very nicely done coffee table book telling mostly how news has been reported by the Associated Press over its history since about 1850. The book includes many first rate, quality photographs, often famous ones related to major stories. It also includes photo reproductions of telegrams and teletypes reporting famous news stories such as Lincoln's assassination, and even 9/11.
   
   A section includes a glossary of wire service terms. We learn that AP's main national newswire is known as the A-wire, which is controlled from New York City. There is also an F-wire, which carries financial news, presumably in competition with the Dow Jones Broad Ticker and the Bloomberg News Service. There is also a Sports Wire, which carries sports news, and one suspects there are numerous regional wires, and probably international wires covering the news at various levels. We learn that for many years Reuters stories have been distributed in the US by the AP and Associated Press stories have been distributed in Europe by Reuters. The famous lead or "lede" is the first paragraph of the story intended to grab the reader's attention. A newsflash is a news alert of immediate importance. Though rarely sent by AP two were sent within two hours on 9/11. Five bells is the signal from the teletype alerting of incoming news usually a flash or bulletin. A bulletin is a major breaking news story; an urgent heading indicates an important story not quite of bulletin caliber.
   
   Section titles gives some idea of the content. They are War I, Trials, Freedom of Information, Aviation, Sports, Elections, Civil Rights, War I I, Foreign Correspondents, Photographs, Disasters, and the White House.
   
   The news business includes its share of blunders. Several famous ones are described. Shortly after the Union victory at Gettysburg, a spoof message was sent to New York papers announcing that Grant was giving up his Wilderness Campaign and Lincoln had declared "a national day of fasting, humiliation, and prayer." Most papers immediately recognized the story as false, but two published it.
   
   At the end of World War I, United Press, a competitor, announced that the armistice had been signed on November 7 - 4 days before the event actually occurred. At the Lindbergh kidnapping trial in Flemington NJ, on September 20, 1934, AP had developed an elaborate code to signal the terms of the jury verdict before competitors could leave the courtroom. Confusion resulted in a misunderstood code and a false flash, announcing a verdict had been reached "guilty and life" rather than "guilty with the death sentence." As a result, AP fired one man, suspended another, and demoted a third.
   
   To get ready for deadline, news stories are often written ahead with the name of the winner inserted at the last minute. In AP lingo, "Will Overhead" was a fill name for the winner to be sent by "overhead wire" later. At least once, a newspaper staffed by inexperienced personnel managed to publish Will Overhead in a headline as the winner of an event.
   
   The addition of photographs to the AP wire service was an important development. In 1926 American Telephone & Telegraph Co. began commercial picture transmissions between major US cities. The pictures were of rather low quality, but Associated Press began using that service in 1928. However, AT&T discontinued their service in 1933 finding that the business was not profitable. AP began its Wirephoto service on January 1, 1935, with 47 newspapers in 25 states.
   
   In March, 1959, China took over Tibet and forced the Dalai Lama to flee to India. AP and UPI were in competition to get a photo of the Dalai Lama sent by radio photo to newspapers around the globe. UPI won by almost 57 minutes, but they misidentified the man in the photo. Their photo was cropped and identified the Indian Foreign Ministry's press spokesman as the Dalai Lama. The AP photo came later, but with correct identification. The AP creed is timely, accurate, and unbiased.
   
   The appendix includes a brief history of the Associated Press. According to the summary, news has always been highly competitive with papers using various means to get the story first. Originally it was a matter of racing horses, using carrier pigeons or whatever to get the story there a day sooner. Major stories often took a week to get to eastern newspapers. The telegraph changed all that. Now stories could be delivered to the paper within hours. The Associated Press grew out of coverage by competing New York City newspapers of the Mexican War in April, 1846. They realized they were duplicating efforts, and instead decided to cooperate and share the news stories from afar. Initially the news went only to the New York City newspapers. Only later did they agree to supply the news to outlet's across the country in return for fees.
   
   For years, the Associated Press was "the" news service. By arrangement with Western Union, the telegraph company agreed to carry AP news reports exclusively so long as the news service spoke kindly of Western Union. In addition, any subscriber to the AP service could block any competing newspaper's participation in the service. Since there were few other telegraph companies that effectively meant no alternative. That is quite unlike today's networks when NBC and CBS, and later ABC, Fox, and CNN, provide competing services. In the heyday of AP and Western Union the combination told the Republican view and were said not to transmit the position of the other side.
   
   A problem with the history summary is that the story of the beginning of the wire services told by AP differs somewhat from that told by Alexander Jones in his "Historical Sketch of the Electric Telegraph." According to Jones, telegraph companies formed news departments to report commodity pricing of materials like flour and grain in cities along the telegraph lines. How these services were ultimately combined with those of AP is not clear. However, AP admits that its early records are fragmentary.
   
   The appendix includes a list of AP General Agents, General Managers, and CEOs dating back to 1849 as well as the locations of the Associated Press offices in New York City back to 1849. The volume includes extensive endnotes and is well indexed.
   
   Overall, this book is very well done. Readers will appreciate its highly professional presentation. They will be reminded of moments in history, and they will find it informative and entertaining.

5 comments about Hemingway's Cats: An Illustrated Biography.

1. The tender side of Papa Hemingway? You need to read this biography to get the whole picture of his macho persona. Hem was absolutely devoted to his cats and dogs. The sentiment ran fine and deep. My only qualm with this book is in the quality of the black and white photographs. So many of them are blurry and the contrast of nearly all is downright poor. It makes me wonder if no one around him had a camera that could shoot decent pictures. Composition is generally good, but, man, you would think that some digital enhancement could have improved the lot. The 4-stars are for these faults alone. Otherwise, it is nice to have these selections from his family photo album. The text is always revealing and charming.



2. This is the perfect book for Hemingway fans and animal lovers. Hemingway is seen as a compassionate man who was endlessly devoted to his canine and feline friends. The photographs are beautiful, and the book is very well-written.



3. After buying my copy, had to rush out and buy five more for gifts! This is a must have for any Hemingway Fan or Cat Lover!! An enjoyable read but the best is the artistic display of the photos. The photos have a softer side and is so refreshing after a long day of computers and TV's. This book won't leave my coffee table!



4. Though the illustrations of this book should have been sharpened digitally, they but slightly take away from this warm account of Hemingway's love for his pets.
   
   I seldom mention this, but it was a 6-toed "Hemingway Cat" that spurred me into action one Spring day in 1997. I met Hemingway at his 1959 Pamplona Fiesta. He invited me to join his group. I was a young American freelance writer/photographer from Madrid and he generously let me photograph him. I had just returned from backpacking through the mountains of Tunisia to find a WW2 battle site called Hill 609 at a fortified mountain. Hemingway knew the outfit; he liked what I had done. Despite our difference in years, we spoke the same language.
   
   Long after his death, many years later, a large black tomcat brought a trailing gray and white kitten into my Florida backyard and left it. My wife and I had no kids. I tried not to allow the kitten to adopt us. But that was impossible. She did anyway. I nicknamed her SuperPaws though she won our hearts as simply, Pooky. As she grew into a quietly beautiful young lady and our love for her grew deep, I wondered if Hemingway was trying to tell me something with this strikingly singular big-pawed cat. Her sudden appearance touched me. The big black tom cat that brought her to me, then disappeared from our neighborhood. It made me think of Hemingway and his cats. It made me in the back of my mind wonder if there was any connection at all. I am definitely not superstitious. Still, was there a meaning to this? I had always intended writing a Hemingway book, but never did. Now, I wondered if something -- Hem maybe -- was urging me to go ahead and do it.
   
   Pooky's presence seemed more than happenstance. That spring of 1997 I kissed my wife, JuliaAnn, goodbye and returned to Europe to backtrack Hem through his Paris haunts, back to Pamplona before the fiesta, and then backpacked into Spain's high Pyrenees where I found such strange things as where he and his buddy had hidden bottles of wine to chill in a spring near where they trout fished, and an old piano in a hostel where he stayed, with his name, incorrectly spelled, scratched on it along with a wrong date.
   
   After his death other books filled in unknown details for me. I put them all together, our chance meeting, his interest in me, what I saw at Pamplona, and then what others reported later. Things fitted like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. My memoir, "Hemingway's Paris and Pamplona, Then and Now" was published in 2000. In late 2003, Pooky, our beautiful long-furred gray and white neutered female cat disappeared after a full moonlit night outdoors. We believe she was visiting three new kittens that lived across the street. I was off on a trip but my wife searched fruitlessly, driving around the deep woods behind the houses across the street. No Pooky. The city said they had recovered no dead cats during that period. I figured she might have been catnapped. But losing her was as sad as losing a family member. Worse, the following spring, 2004, my wife of 48 years suddenly developed a fast-growing strain of lung cancer and died. The coincidence of these strange events still haunt me.
   
   Hemingay's fondness for cats always had a subtle but very profound affect on his inner self. All cat lovers know and have felt this but none of us seem to understand why. Yet, there is nothing quite like a cat to make you appreciate the profound pleasure of their company. No wonder the Ancient Egyptians had such reverence for them. Cats were working their wily ways with mankind even back then. As for the peculiar circumstances surrounding the sudden addition, then loss, of a Hemingway cat to our family, I have no answers. But I still love and respect them all, mysterious as they are.
   
   Robert F. Burgess



5. When one thinks of Ernest Hemingway, one usually thinks of a macho adventurer, going on safari, running with the bulls or deep sea fishing, just like the heroes of his novels. One does not often picture him at home caring for stray cats and dogs - yet that's exactly the Hemingway we meet in "Hemingway's Cats." We also meet his four wives and his children, but the stars are the many cats and dogs Hemingway cared for over the course of his life. He often brought home strays, and they became part of his extended family. At one point, he had over 35 cats at his estate in Cuba, and according to this book, he knew the names and family trees of every one. He even let some of his favorite cats eat from the table. This was one dedicated cat aficionado! The most interesting anecdote in the book, I thought, came after Hemingway's suicide, when Fidel Castro came to pay his condolences to the widow. The cats came up to investigate who he was, and Castro paid them not one bit of attention - he didn't pet them or acknowledge them at all. I think anyone who loves cats, Hemingway, Cuba, Florida, or any combination of the above would enjoy this book.

5 comments about The Man Who Would Not Shut Up: The Rise of Bill O'Reilly.

1. The Man Who Would Not Shut Up by Marvin Kitman is a meticulously researched and well-written story of an unusual phenomenon. Kitman has a riveting section on O'Reilly's lawsuit and an historically interesting summation of O'Reilly in the world of TV news. Well worth reading whether one is a fan of O'Reilly or -- as in my case -- not.
   
   Barbara Ferguson



2. The title of this post does not refer to Bill O'Reilly--it refers to Marvin Kitman. I have just listened to Kitman's hour long C-SPAN "Book Notes" review of this book. It was in my view a total hatchet job of O'Reilly. Not once in his review did he mention O'Reilly's persistent efforts in getting the very worthwhile "Jessica's Law" (which pertains to mandatory sentencing of convicted child molesters) enacted in all fifty states. Kitman also characterizes O'Reilly as a "cheapskate" yet does not acknowledge that he donates to charity all of the money he personally receives from his website sales of Factor Gear. These are just two examples of why I am bewildered by the previous reviews at this site that thought Kitman's book dealt with its subject matter (i.e, O'Reilly) even handedly. Fortunately, Fox New's O'Reilly Factor is the number one show on cable news. So there are millions and millions of people that tune and judge for themselves if O'Reilly is the total hypocrite that Kitman claims. No doubt about it Bill O'Reilly has a polarizing personality, but the show is very well researched--it has to be. With its hard hitting news stories it has made too many enemies, many of whom are just itching to sue for any factual indiscretions.
   This I do know: after listening to Marvin Kitman for an hour I would NOT waste my time reading any book he has written on any subject.



3. Nice try, Mr. Kitman! How can anyone call this book "fair and balanced" when it was endorsed by Keith Olbermann both on the back of the book and on Olbermann's own TV show which nobody watches? Olbermann hates O'Reilly, and names him the "worst person in the world" on an almost daily basis, along with Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Ann Coulter. Don't make stuff up. Somehow, I doubt that you've ever met Mr. O'Reilly or let alone even talked to him. It seems to me that Mr. Kitman got all the "information" for this book from interviews with O'Reilly on other TV talk shows as well as from O'Reilly's own books.



4. Author Kitman has written an indepth behind the scenes perspective on Bill O'Reilly. This book reveals a bristling, tough, knowledgeable, person,shaped by some not so nice events in his own life. We learn about some of the cruel and unfair treatment he received as a young man coming of age --- and while attempting to climb the television journalism ladder of success. In some instances, Marvin Kitman shows readers that Bill was a major contributor to his own difficulties. At other times his out-spoken candor, individuality, intelligence, talent, high-energy level, true grit, and intense work ethic served as the catalyst.
   
   
   The book is well written. It overflows with past and current O'Reilly capers. Just to mention a few; with Joey Bishop, Keith Hernandez, Mike Wallace, Mike Kinsley, Sen. John McCain, Roger Ailes, Monica Collins, Madeleine Albright, Geraldo Rivera, Levittown, the Marx brothers old house, Al Franken, Keith Olbermann, David Letterman, Peter Jennings.
   
   Thank you Marvin Kitman for an informative book, but you could have included at least one interview with Ms Arthelle Neville, who used to critique Bill O'Reilly on his own "No-spin zone" show. I enjoyed watching that portion of the show. He accepted her criticisms with good humor. Her commentary in this book might have been very interesting.



5. I have not read this book, but in the excerpt I read it stated that Bill's father bought a house on Page Lane and "Billy and his friends were, as O'Reilly calls them, fiends. That was considered the normal childhood state growing up on the streets of Levittown. There were fifteen to twenty kids on the block, recalled his sister Jan, younger by two years. They ran around doing things, creating havoc, from the adults' viewpoint. Billy was the fiend-in-chief, being the tallest and most outspoken." We both grew up in a great neighborhood and there were certainly many kids on the block, but it wasn't Levittown. Page Lane is in Westbury. Our property on Pilgrim Lane backed up to the O'Reilly's yard. We used to cut through the side of their yard to get to Page Lane from our house. Those were the days!

5 comments about Whitewash: What the Media Won't Tell You About Hillary Clinton, but Conservatives Will.

1. Whitewash: What the Media Won't Tell You About Hillary Clinton, but Conservatives Will
   This book is truly a must read!
   This presents what I have all ready read about Hillary
   and more.
   This makes me angry not just at Hillary and Bill Clinton for their totally
   corrupt behavior, but I have to say I am angrier at the National
   media who have continuely given them a free pass when obvious proof
   was avaiable of their guilt. They have betrayed the American people.



2. If you are an extremely right wing, college age, young Republican, you'll find "cool" stuff to cheer this little book.
   
   There is really nothing of substance in this book.
   
   Definitely read through a couple of chapters of this book at a bookstore before even CONSIDERING a purchase, because Bozell's stuff tends to be very low-brow, almost Limbaugh-esque.



3. Read the book before you trust your life and your country to a woman who is dishonest, at least.



4. The depth and breadth of the liberal media's concerted effort to ignore (that is, refuse to report) the serious crimes these two loathsome people have committed, is both astounding and contemptible. If Bill Clinton had not been either governor or president at the time several sexual assaults were committed (Juanita Broderick, Paula Jones, Kathleen Willey), he would be a registered sex offender. As Bozell points out, not only are these three women lifelong Democrats with no reason to lie whatsoever, there are dozens more people with first-hand knowledge of the Clintons' crimes that the media also does its best to ignore. Yes, everybody is lying and poor Bill and Hillary are innocent victims. Please.
   
   The same liberals (in the media and elsewhere) who refuse to see or report the truth about the Clintons would be the first ones to get up on a soapbox and scream bloody murder if a Republican did 1/100th of what these two cretins have done.
   
   The nation of "Honest Abe" has now become the land of "Sleazy Hillary" and "Sex Offender Bill".



5. If you want to wake up from the slumber that the media helps induce, then read this book. You get a new perspective from all the documented facts about lies and scandals that this book reveals about the Clintons (Hillary in particular). Definitely an educational read!

5 comments about All Governments Lie: The Life and Times of Rebel Journalist I. F. Stone.

1. I had been looking forward eagerly to All Governments Lie, Myra MacPherson's thorough study of I.F. Stone's work and times. I had a deep personal interest in the project and confess to being absolutely delighted with the results.
   
   I mention a deep personal interest and the reasons for this are many. For starters: I am a contemporary and there aren't too many of us left. It is true that he was 10 years my senior but still we shared depression and war and cold war years. I can't say that we knew each other, although we did meet on a few widely scattered occasions, but I did attend his school, The University of Pennsylvania. There in his home town of Philadelphia, I moved in circles that included relatives and friends with whom he had grown up. That enables me to say that I had a good second hand acquaintance with him.
   
   I introduce myself in this manner to justify the comments I am about to make about the book. I confine myself to just one area of the book's treatment of the life of the man the author calls "the rebel journalist". I felt warm satisfaction in the way she swept into the garbage pail the ludicrous charge that Stone was guilty of espionage for the Soviet Union. She is convincing on the subject and reminds us of what should put an end to this baseless gossip. The F.B.I. never found one shred of evidence, and it was not for lack of trying.
   
   J. Edgar Hoover was a stubborn, determined man when he had a hated target in his sights. He despised Stone to the point where he had made up his mind to get rid of him. To him the Stone threat was in the same class as those of Martin Luther King and Albert Einstein and we recall the viciousness and relentlessness of his attempts to ruin them. On the matter of the espionage smear, I can state with warm satisfaction now, because of this book: "Case closed!"
   
   On a related theme, Ms MacPherson demonstrates a level of insight and understanding not always displayed by writers discussing her book. She comprehends, as they do not, that one had to have lived through the epoch to realize how it was possible to have taken pro-Soviet stands in the 1930s and '40s. With the hind sight of this century one can sneer at one who was so blind as to be taken in by Joseph Stalin. But for one who lived through the period, and Ms. MacPherson did not, I am in a position to make some points on this.
   
   Those of us who lived during those years with our eyes and ears open, were aware of the threat that soon developed into the nightmare of World War II. We saw in Mussolini's invasion of Ethiopia and Hitler's various menacing moves what the world would be faced with if measures weren't taken. Yet it was only the Soviet representative at the League of Nations during the mid to late 30s, Maxim Litvinov, who stood up and made the much needed accusations and called for collective security. The Italian and German n delegations walked out and the representatives of the great democracies remained cowed and silent. Let me add to this the shameful memory of the Spanish Civil War and the so called Non-intervention Committee. Only The Soviet Union and Mexico came to the aid of the legitimately elected government of Republican Spain.
   
   Many highly respected people wrote admiringly of the Soviet Union, from the muckraking journalist, Lincoln Steffens, to Beatrice and Sidney Webb to Ambassador Joseph E. Davies to the saintly Hewlett Johnson, Dean of Canterbury Cathedral.
   
   If you weren't there then, it's easy to look back now and ask: "How could he not have known?" Well, Myra MacPherson wasn't there then, but she has the insight to reveal the situation that existed and to explain the way decent people lined up.
   
   This book is a must reading for younger generations who know so little about these times.



2. In the interest of full disclosure, I have a bit of personal history with Izzy, Esther, and their son Chris, as well as a smaller bit with the author. From 1959 to 1962 I was a classmate and acquaintance of Chris in law school. Chris told me about his dad and convinced me to subscribe to I.F. Stone's Weekly, which I continued to do until its demise. Sometime in 1966 or 1967 while living in Washinton, DC, I threw a party and on a whim invited Izzy and Esther, and to my great surprise, they accepted and showed up. Then, to cap it off, two months ago, when I was about halfway through the book, I was at a cocktail party and was introduced to someone named...Myra MacPherson. Of course I was entranced with the bizarre coincidence of meeting someone whose book I was currently reading. I mention all this in case you might want to discount my enthusiasm for the book because of possible bias.
   
   This book is valuable for so many reasons: first, it tells the story of a life well lived, of a man who had the courage to follow his passion and tell the truth as he saw it, letting the chips fall where they would without being intimidated by any possible reactions. It is an inspirational story. Second, it provides a perspective on American history from the thirties and into the seventies, with Izzy's prescience about our role in Vietnam presaging similar concerns about our current role in Iraq. Third, it traces the history of leftist politics with all the various and twisting strands during that period. Fourth, it documents the depredations of the FBI in its view of certain varieties of free speech as subversive, along with those of the House Un-American Activities Committee. And fifth, it reveals pusillanimity of most other journalists, who were passively accepting and passing along goverment lies during that period. All told, quite an accomplishment.
   
   If I have a quibble, it would be the 600+ page length, especially all the space devoted to each FBI report. I kept thinking, "Enough already--I get it!" Also, I felt concerned that the formidable length might deter potential readers, and that would be a shame because this book is a gem, a slightly oversize gem perhaps, but a gem nonetheless.



3. This is a good book, although I agree that it's too long. My one quibble is with the subtitle, specifically: "Rebel Journalist I. F. Stone." Izzy Stone is one of the few celebrities I admire, but he was no rebel. The noun "rebel" means "To refuse allegiance to and oppose by force an established government or ruling authority." Stone certainly did not support the idea of opposing the United States government by force. The very foundation of I. F. Stone's Weekly, and his rare genius, lay in exposing government misdeeds and power abuses by revealing the government's own words! Hardly a rebellious act. As to refusing allegiance, although Stone was no blind patriot, he refused allegiance to the illegitimate authority of the likes of Joseph McCarthy, HUAC loyalty oaths, and the infamous J. Edgar Hoover. Stone was a reformer, in the best sense of that word. He was no rebel.
   On the other hand, if the English language has so deteriorated that I.F. Stone was a rebel, then we need millions more like him!



4. To suggest, as Myra McPherson does, that I.F. Stone was willing, too often, to give the Soviet Union the benefit of the doubt, is to elide entirely, that Stone was an agent of influence for the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union bought enormous numbers of his mom and pop newsletter, thus subsidizing him handsomely. He was able, as a result of this, to maintain a comfortable life style while paying for his children's college tuition. His job was to always attack America and to never to criticize the Soviet Union, even praising it when necessary. It seems incredible now that Stone was able to get away with it during his lifetime. McPherson, a writer of the left who served as Ben Bradlee's pit bull at the Washington Post, where she did her damage at the Style section, never has an unkind word for her fellow lefties. To miss this basic and most important aspect of Stone's career is inexcusable.



5. To his throngs of fans, he was a "rebel" who stood up to the powerful and exposed the lies they told those beneath them. Always digging to find the truth in a story, and expose the corrupt use and abuses of power.
   
   However, to a more objective observer, Stone's lust for the "truth" only extended to the United States and her allies. For the early part of his career he was remarkably silent on the Soviets and other progressive "bulwarks against fascism". After his romance with the Soviets ended, he continued to afford their third world proxies, from Castro to Ho Chi Minh, the same uncritical support.
   
   While McPherson is partially correct in her assessment that Stone was not "officially" (wink wink, nudge nudge) working for the NKVD/KGB, she is dead wrong that Stone was not mentioned in the VENONA cables as "BLIN" and that he was not an "agent of influence" for the Soviets. The definitive book on the subject (which McPherson uses as a source) by Haynes and Klehr is quite explicit on the fact that the Blin was Stone's code name, and that he was open to recruitment by the NKVD, although nothing came of it because he feared the FBI would find out. Stone did cooperate with the KGB, Kalugin makes this 100% clear. Stone's willingness to uncritically regurgitate Soviet propaganda is why would the Soviets never had to buy the cow. McPherson uses the ploy of minimizing the evidence and overstating the accusation.
   
   From Stone's lies about Syngman Rhee starting the Korean War, to his lies about the US's use of biological weapons against the North Korean and Chinese forces, to his continued defense of Alger Hiss (birds of a feather I suppose) and to his long and slavish devotion to Soviet socialism and later just Soviet style socialism, he has demonstrated himself less a journalist and more the type of propagandist he accused everyone else of. While I am sure that all of Stone's conclusion were "gleaned from key pieces of official documents" his shockingly poor judgment on some of the most critical questions of the 20th century, and the tortured logic he used to defend these positions, certainly does not qualify him for the showers of praise and respect he now receives.
   
   McPherson obviously has a blind spot for Stone and this trite, hero worshipping, agitprop of a biography is a reflection of that. Any reading of this book should be tempered with that fact.

5 comments about Advertisements for Myself.

1. This book is filled with fiction, essays, and, literally, advertisements for Mailer. The ad he took out for "The Deer Park" is the classic of classics. There is a great work in here called "The Time of Her Time." Sergius O'Shaugnessey is the hero, and I got the idea he would appear again and again in Mailer's future fiction, but it never happened to my knowledge. This is a great book!



2. Advertisements for Mysel



3. All during the 1960s, when authors still appeared on The Tonight Show, The Dick Cavett Show, etc, the two authors who had the most exposure and most proclaimed their "genius" were Norman Mailer and Truman Capote. Both fizzled miserably. Their dwindling fame will be filed under "Celebrity" rather than "Literature." Mailer is the better of the two, but he has not worn well.



4. Originally appearing in 1959, "Advertisements for Myself" remains one of the most unusual books ever published by a novelist. Containing stories, essays, reviews, interviews, novel excerpts and poems, all with detailed, italicized annotations courtesy of the author, this book displays a massive, raging talent assessing itself and the world around it. It is sometimes poignant, sometimes maddening, but never less than compelling. I love this book.

   Today, Mailer's reputation is rather up in the air. To me, his career is an example of an artist constantly pushing himself, writing with breathtaking ambition even if it exceeded his skill. There has never been another writer like Norman Mailer, and it is touching to read here of his desire to write a novel on the level of Dostoyevsky, Mann and Tolstoy, and to read his pithy, sometimes hilarious assessments of his contemporaries. His commentary on the ups and downs of his career and his disgust and sadness about the decline of American literature are illuminating, but his self-aggrandizement and egocentricity are often difficult to stomach. However, one has to stand in awe at the monument of his talent and his passion.

   Reading this book today, one has to ask, "Did he fulfill his expectations?" I think so. "Harlot's Ghost," "Ancient Evenings," "The Executioner's Song" and numerous other works, both fiction and nonfiction, will endure, in my opinion. But I, for one, would like to know whatever happened to the self-promoted masterpiece of a novel he excerpts here. The small sections make for very stimulating reading.

   All in all, "Advertisements for Myself" is a required text for everyone who loves great literature or aspires to write it for themselves.




5. This was one of the strangest and most engaging fictional works I have ever read. An autobiographical narrative consisting of novel excerpts, social commentary, reviews and short stories. Brutally honest and at times hilarious, I find myself regularly rereading many parts of the book and I'm always stunned by ,above all else, Mailer's humor and the vivid and unforgettable stories and characterers that he creates.

   One reviewer remarked that Mailer's reputation in somewhat up in the air. Certainly Over the years Mailer has suffered much harsh criticism, from charges that he is misogynist to claims that he never fulfilled his own potential.

   Nonetheless, Ancient Evenings and this book are his best works and I'm sure they will survive the test of time.

2 comments about Laura Ingalls Wilder, Farm Journalist: Writings from the Ozarks.

1. Laura Ingalls Wilder: Farm Journalist is a collection of nonfiction essays written by the famous author of the "Little House " books for The Missouri Ruralist between 1911 and 1924. Complementing and extending the earlier collection of articles titled Little House in the Ozarks, this edition includes an additional forty -two articles and additional material omitted from the earlier collection. Laura wrote her articles addressed to contemporary farm women, making many philosophical and practical suggestions and observations pertinent to their daily life experiences. Her presence as an author is unmistakable. Much of the information pertaining to her years of experience as a Missouri farm wife finds roots in her pioneer history. Her values emerge clear and solid from the minutiae of daily chore lists and how-to suggestions. Her refreshing voice lends its clarity across the generations of technological advancement and finds its niche comfortably. This is a carefully edited collection that will appeal to lovers of the "Little House" books and American turn -of -the- century history too. The skillful adaptation to changing social and political environments while nurturing a stable base of beliefs and values is unique to this beloved author. Highly recommended reading for adults.
   
   Nancy Lorraine
   Reviewer



2. I cannot help but pour forth great excitement and delight in a book I just picked up titled Laura Ingalls Wilder: Farm Journalist, edited by Stephen Hines. Any American worth their salt knows Wilder as the author of the "Little House" books. I myself cut my book-reading teeth devouring these books time and time again, always dreaming of being a modern-day pioneer homesteader.
   
   Before book-writing fame came to Wilder, she was known through the state of Missouri as a popular columnist in the Missouri Ruralist from 1911 to 1923. This book gathers nearly two hundred of these essays together for our profit. Ingalls wrote about home, agriculture, thrift, parenting, women's roles, etc., and gave readers an endless supply of pithy advice and personal anecdotes. She was Erma Bombeck, Will Rogers, Samuel Clemens, and Ben Franklin all rolled into one.
   
   Ingalls' eyes were wide open to the advancements of the future, all the while seeking to keep her hands on the best of the "old ways". For example, in a clip called "Let's Revive the Old Amusements", she writes:
   "Sometimes I wonder if telephones and motor cars are altogether blessings for country people. When my neighbor can call me up for a short visit over the phone, she is not so likely to make the necessary effort to come and spend the afternoon, and I get hungry for the sight of her face as well as the sound of her voice."
   
   However, Ingalls was not a sentimentalist in regard to the past. She says:
   "Love and service, with a belief in the future and expectation of better things in the tomorrow of the world is a good working philosophy; much better than, `in olden times-things were so much better when I was young.' For there is no turning back nor standing still; we must go forward, into the future, generation after generation toward the accomplishment of the ends that have been set for the human race."
   
   Historians, fans of Little House, farmers, and children will all enjoy this book.

5 comments about Decca: The Letters of Jessica Mitford.

1. This book was giant, in size and in scope. I must admit I did not finish it. Jessica "Decca" Mitford was a bitchy, brilliant, fascinating, annoying, funny, sarcastic and altogether mysterious woman. This book of her letters gives us a very tiny keyhole of insight into that enormous personality. I don't mean that it fails to give us enough; I just mean no book is really capable of parsing the enigma of Decca. It would be a good addition to anyone's book collection, especially Anglophiles, Francophiles, and Bibliophiles!



2. I got this as a gift for my brother and I was lucky enough to receive it as a Christmas present a few months later. Jessica Mitford Treuhaft was one of the famous Mitford sisters. Her sister Nancy wrote novels of manners such as "Love In A Cold Climate", her sister Unity was a Hitler groupie who shot herself in Munich shortly after WWII was declared and spent the remainder of her life with severe brain damage, her sister Diana divorced Brian Guinness to marry the head of the Union of British Fascists, and her sister Deborah is the current dowager Duchess of Devonshire. Jessica, or Decca as she was called since childhood, ran away from home to elope with a Communist named Esmond Romilly and to fight against fascism in Spain; all of this caused rather a major rift with her family. The couple eventually moved to America; Esmond was killed in action after joing the Royal Canadian Air Force, and Decca ended up in Oakland, CA married to a radical lawyer named Bob Treuhaft. But like many who grew up in her time and class, she wrote wonderful letters - quirky, funny, sometimes about awful serious matters but always with a sense of the absurd. She was committed to the work of the Communist Party in the early civil rights movemement in California and traveled to many parts of the country to demonstrate; she and her husband were targets of Congressional investigations and denied passports for years, and she became an effective community activist. After falling away from the CPUSA, she continued her activism, and her letters describe some of the most important struggles of progressive America in the '40s, '50s and '60s. She really came into public awareness in a bigger way when she wrote a groundbreaking expose of the predatory practices of the funeral industry, "The American Way of Death." She followed that up with exposes of the prison industry and other abuses and was active until shortly before her death in the late 90s.
   The letters are gems - when I finished the book, I thought, "I'd really have loved to have known this woman and to have received some of these wonderful letters." Some made me laugh out loud, others made me recognize anew the courage of those who had the vision and the foresight to combat racism in America at a time when it was simply taken for granted. They show a concern for family that is poignant as well as a sense of honor that is almost rigid - when Winston Churchill, who was her cousin, freed her sister Diana and Diana's husband Oswald Mosley from prison after WWII, she wrote to him in protest, saying that their work on behalf of fascism was a danger to freedom everywhere and that they belonged in prison, and that the fact that Diana was her sister did not alter her opinion about that.
   The only shadow I found over this wonderful collection of letters was the lack of any sense of real recognition of the evil committed in the name of Communism by Stalin, Mao and others. She defended against this criticism by pointing out that no one but the CPUSA was taking serious action on civil rights when she came to this country in the '40s, but she never really acknowledges the darker side of the party's international activity. One gets the impression that she sees it as the lesser of two evils; and as much as one can recognize that at that time and place Fascism was certainly the more immediate and powerful threat, one is still troubled by Decca's lack in this area of the uncompromising commitment to truth that characterizes so many of her activities.
   I cannot imagine anyone who is familiar with this period of history in England and America not being fully engaged by this wonderful book. I can't recommend it highly enough.



3. the book itself is well put together and edited. the book's subject is self centered and likes mostly to hear herself talk. i found it to be boring.



4. Sussman does a great job of, first, setting the scene and then laying out in a very readable way this enormous collection of Jessica Mitford's letters. She's always been a favorite of mine. This collection is adding greatly to my appreciation.



5. Mitford-despisers complain that we fans too easily forgive them their sins on account of their rare wit and charm. Well, in the case of Decca at least, this charge is unfair. She was funny (and cruel): her account of a 1962 house party at Chatsworth is quite delicious; ditto her accounts of what passes for high society on Mull. But she was also brave, in journalism and in life. A deathbed letter to Bob - 'It's so odd to be dying, so I must just jot a few thoughts' - is a model of clarity (though perhaps you would expect this in one who had so much time and energy railing against an industry that so pointlessly prettified corpses); so, too, is a letter to Benjamin in which she urges him to seek help for his illness. The fact remains that as an example of what a woman can do once she has rid herself of, or at least decided to ignore, the expectations of others - family, men, society - Jessica Mitford will always take some beating. That she is also a hoot is merely the icing on the cake.