4 comments about Do Me Twice: My Life After Islam.

1. Sonsyrea Tate was raised in a ten children, devout Muslim family. Sonsyrea's mother thought that it was a woman's duty to take care of her family and that having ten children was a blessing from Allah. As Sonsyrea aged, she began to question the wisdom of having children that you can barely afford to take care of. In their household, it was the oldest daughter's duty to help with the other children and as Sonsyrea grew older this caused problems between she and her mother. As the family struggled to survive, she thought that it was unwise for her mother to not step up to the plate and get a job to help with the expenses of living; this caused their personalities to clash. Sonsyrea was determined to go to college and have a career and not have a house full of children, as did her mother. Not only was Sonsyrea dealing with the problems between her mother and herself, but Sonsyrea's favorite uncle was dying and to make matters worse her father was arrested for dealing drugs, causing the family even more financial problems. Just as most religions teach that fornication is wrong so does Islam. Dealing with her sexuality became a major problem . In order to have guilt-free sex, Sonsyrea married at a young age. She un-wisely married a man in constant trouble with the law.
   
   I admire Sonsyrea because she did not let past mistakes ruin her life and went on to get the career that she wanted. The problem that I had with this offering was that it seemed to be written out of sequence. And she could have put in a little more excitement; this did not stop me from receiving the point of view that she was making. This book was an uncorrected proof so if she gets the chapters in better order it will be an enjoyable read.
   
   
   
   
   
   Reviewed by Margaret Ball
   
   
   
   APOOO BookClub



2. As a child, Sonsyrea Tate, affectionately known as "Ray-Ray," has no idea of the trials and tribulations awaiting her in adulthood - but she sure gets plenty of indicators: her father's devolution into a drug-dealing transient, her mother's overbearing animosity, her extended family members' overall dysfunction...the growing cloud of unhappiness in her life often leads her to imagine sunnier times and places not too far away (or so she hopes).
   
   On top of everything else, her beloved Uncle Hussein, a cherished role model and mentor, is slowly degenerating into a veritable shell of his former self. His body ravaged by the grueling onset of Multiple Sclerosis; the protection of his gentle, loving spirit long gone from Ray-Ray's life. Watching him suffer, she finds herself racked with questions and doubts about the benevolent, fair nature of God, and - seeing the righteous so afflicted - she begins to wonder what the point is of serving Him at all.
   
   As her life proceeds, she endures abortion, infidelity, a tumultuous marriage (even multiple instances of marital rape), and eventually the incarceration of her husband, Ron. With Ron gone, little Ray-Ray finally has the freedom of time and space to evaluate her life on her own terms and begin her transformation into the full-grown Sonsyrea. Enrolling in college, Sonsyrea then sets out on a new path, one that challenges her previous long-held beliefs and alters her vision of how her own future should take shape. The journey proves to be difficult, but one she remains determined to make for none other than the preservation of her own sanity and peace of mind.
   
   Do Me Twice is an excellent treatise on the power of self-discovery. Much like Siddartha, Dust Tracks On A Road, and Jonathan Livingston Seagull before it, Tate's story of emotional & intellectual awakening does a commendable job of confronting the misguided teachings that typically shape our youth with the learned truth and experience of our later years. Regardless of our personal religious or philosophical leanings, it cannot be argued that we are raised to follow particular doctrines designed to guide/control our behavior and bias our thinking processes. In her narrative, Tate tells of her admirable journey in combating those very doctrines time and again as they are espoused by family, friends, and even strangers committed to challenging her newfound independence. Refusing to return to the "sleepwalking state" of her past, she bravely defends her right to think for herself - and her life becomes that much more rewarding for it.
   
   Tate's emigration from the often confusing rigors of Islam may be a sensitive topic in the global political climate of our times, but the symbolism of her spiritual quest is an invaluable lesson for the ages. With a critical, yet open mind, by her personal example she successfully encourages the reader to be not afraid in coming to individual conclusions regarding all matters great and small. Highly recommended.



3. DO ME TWICE: My Life After Islam is not a generic book about the highs and lows of being a member of the Nation of Islam. From her days in Muslim School to her guilt-trip marriage and her exit from Islam, Sonsyrea Tate reveals a poignant personal history unlike any "coming of age" or "coming to religion" story ever told.
   
   Tate unveils the dark secrets that controlled her childhood, yet strangely liberate her as an adult. As she becomes comfortable with her own sensuality, she realizes just how much her sexual identity has defined many of the dramatic periods of her life and the life decisions she's made. Against the backdrop of colorful, dysfunctional family and the author's lyrical style peppered with raw realism, DO ME TWICE is a hands down keeper.
   
   Reviewed by Cxandra
   for The RAWSISTAZ Reviewers



4. I truly enjoyed reading Sonsyrea's memoir. What I loved most about this book is how she tells her story with candor and honesty. The transformation she makes from a young girl raised in Islam, questioning her very existence and everything she's been taught, to a young woman finding her own way in life is incredible. I would definitely recommend this book.

5 comments about From Soupy to Nuts! A History of Detroit Television.

1. This is a MUST READ for anyone who lived in Detroit in the 50's and 60's. Nostalgia reigns as the authors comprehensively share information on television favorites such as Bill Kennedy, Captain Jolly and Poopdeck Paul, Milky the Clown and more. Loved it.



2. Wow - What a great book! I bought it as a gift but will have to get a copy for my personal library. It was wonderful to read about the television personalities from my youth along with the other Detroit notables that this book covers. It even had the words to some of the commercial jingles that we used to sing along with. Having moved away from Detroit several years ago, I had often wondered what happened to a lot of the people I grew up watching on TV and this book answered those questions. If you were a Detroit kid in the 50's or 60's, I highly recommend that you get a copy of this book and take a stroll back to your childhood.



3. My mom wanted this book for Christmas. I read some parts of it and found it very intersting. So many people that I recall from my childhood. Good book.



4. I purchased this book for my brother's 60th birthday- having grown up in Detroit- thought it would be a great walk down memory lane. He called me when he received the gift and absolutely gushed- loved every entry. Now, i may have to buy a copy for ME. thanks



5. Of all the books dealing with the subject of local TV, FROM SOUPY TO NUTS!: A HISTORY OF DETROIT TELEVISION is my favorite. Naturally, the fact that I grew up in Detroit makes me the perfect audience for this volume.
   
   This book brought back a flood of wonderful memories. So many names, so many programs. Kid-show hosts (Soupy Sales, Johnny Ginger, Jerry Booth, etc.), horror-movie hosts (Sir Graves Ghastly, The Ghoul, Morgus the Magnificent, Count Scary), newscasters and reporters, sportscasters, weathercasters, etc. -- they're all here, and plenty of others, including some unsung behind-the-scenes personnel.
   
   I had tears in my eyes reading the chapter devoted to the pro wrestlers who were my childhood heroes: Dick the Bruiser, The Sheik, Fritz Von Erich, Johnny Valentine, Bobo Brazil, and others. In later years, I got to know some of these guys, and they were friendly and cordial -- not at all like their violent, rough-and-tumble public images.
   
   I give this book my highest recommendation.

4 comments about The Making of a Writer: Journals, 1961-1963.

1. Bestselling author Gail Godwin, a three-time National Book Award nominee, keeps a journal that her friend Joyce Carol Oates suggested she edit and share with readers. In this first installment, we eavesdrop on Godwin's life as she emerges as a writer during her travels to Europe as a young woman.
   
   The journals open as Godwin is waitressing at a resort in North Carolina, saving money for her grand excursion. She is soon on a ship headed to Denmark --- and adventure. Humorous character sketches of her fellow passengers draw the reader in as we follow her to her destination.
   
   Godwin struggles with self-doubt as a writer and her relationship with the man she loves in Denmark, as well as her perennial lack of money. She considers going home, but when she's offered a job in London, she takes it. First, though, she visits the Canary Islands for a blissful month. Afterward, she is torn between staying with a local love and going on to London. When she finally decides, her leave-taking is wrenching.
   
   In London, her roller-coaster writer's life continues with the highs of doing good work and completing projects in which she takes pride. The lows are rejections and periods of writing inertia. She similarly experiences a roller-coaster relationship with 38-year-old never-married, "probably hopeless" James. She connects with other men and travels back to North Carolina to meet up with an old lover.
   
   Back in London, Godwin struggles with co-workers, office politics, changing apartments, and writing or not writing. She yearns for a true relationship with a man, all the while despising herself for caring so much. At the same time, she celebrates her freedom.
   
   Godwin constantly thinks about her writing. Even as she battles self-doubt she concocts rules to write by, such as: Don't be false. Trust in the story. Eliminate the dull parts. Forget second-best plots. Don't anticipate the reader's reaction. Start somewhere, anywhere. Let the ending be found in the beginning.
   
   The reader of THE MAKING OF A WRITER is privileged to watch as Godwin composes a story, talking herself through each part and using her life experiences --- a fascinating process. She also includes advice on keeping a journal and the reflection that her journal entries seed writing that may come decades later. The book is also liberally peppered with footnotes; at the outset I found these distracting but soon came to relish them.
   
   I've been a Gail Godwin fan for decades. After reading her journal, I feel that I now know her as a struggling author and as a person of moods and vulnerabilities. I constantly looked forward to my time reading it and discovering more about the author. It is particularly fascinating to read Godwin's latest novel, QUEEN OF THE UNDERWORLD, which was partially based on the author's experience as a young reporter in Miami, in order to discover echoes between the two books: a suicide, waitressing jobs, significant names, and more. An excellent read; highly recommended.
   
   
   --- Reviewed by Terry Miller Shannon (terryms2001@yahoo.com)



2. On the face of it, this book seems to be pitched to aspiring writers, but I think that it holds greater value as a reflection of the early 1960's, and as a testimony to the human spirit.
   
   In "The Making of a Writer" Gail Godwin describes her life in terms that echo the words of a heroine in her fictional work, "The Odd Woman". In that book, the character of Jane says, "Sometimes I think those persons raised in the interstices of Zeitgeists are the ones most punished."
   
   At the beginning of the 1960's, America was not a country given over to self-examination. A resurgence of feminism was nothing more than a vague rumor that may have swirled in the air. Women in the early 60's were not well positioned for success. This was a generation in peril of falling through the cracks. The truest echo of this time may be Sylvia Plath's classic, "The Bell Jar".
   
   For Gail Godwin, the 60's began with an abortive attempt at marraige and a short stint as a journalist with the Miami Herald which also ended disastrously. Focusing her indomitable will on her desire to become a writer, Godwin embarked on a personal odyssey, traveling to Denmark, Spain, and the Canary Islands before taking a job with the Travel Service and extended residence in London.
   
   In her journals she depicts both the struggle to become a published fiction writer, and a deeper quest to understand herself and other human beings. As she records impressions of her life and the characters who populate it, she also strives to find the modern writers that most speak to her sensibilities and to discover the essences she most wants to inform her own stories.
   
   As a "twenty- something'', Godwin is possessed of a very acute intelligence--but the reader will also find hints of youthful callowness. To her credit, Godwin has not expurgated her journals. Their scrupulous honesty is part of their appeal.
   
   As the book progresses, Godwin seems to shift her aims away from overly idealized characterizations and toward a new concern with "displaced persons". As this volume ends, she is beginning to investigate Carl Jung's psychological theories, something which seems to bode well for a young writer who views much of the world in black and white.
   
   One thing that I didn't find endearing about this book was its use of an "explicator", in the form of editor Rob Neufeld. His italicized introductions and interjections often seem to be leading the reader like a rather stuffy tour guide through the Musee d' Godwin. I didn't really appreciate his presence, and I wish Godwin had done the honors (of "explication") herself.
   
   Not every reader who comes to this book is going to buy into the idea, as Neufeld does, that Godwin is a writer of greatness deserving to join Faulkner, Steinbeck, or even Salinger in the firmament. The excerpts from the fiction Godwin was writing at the time of these memoirs reveal only a talented beginner---one who seems intimidated by the contemporary Beat writers ( her story about a Village girl seems lifeless ) and unsure about how to fully animate fiction drawing on her own backround.
   
   It could be that in the future, nonetheless, these diaries (of which this volume is the first) may be regarded as Godwin's best work. I am not ready to compare her to Anais Nin or Lou Salome, but these journals do reveal an estimable intelligence possessed of great determination. In finally stepping out from behind the veil of fiction, it is here that Godwin may make her lasting mark.



3. I first read Gail Godwin's work in the mid-seventies, when in the midst of the women's movement, I was trying to find my way through the dilemma of being an independent woman who loved men. Godwin had been there before me, and I was attracted to her early novels--The Perfectionist, The Odd Woman and Violet Clay.
   
   Now, reading her journal, I see that she was addressing of this dilemma nine years before she published her first novel in 1970. She's been one step ahead of me ever since. At first, this journal seems to be rather typically about a woman with a wealth of male lovers and friends who can't decide who's Mr. Right. Remember, this is pre-Second Wave feminism, on the early edge of the Sexual Revolution. She's so circumspect about her sexuality that you must read carefully to figure out who she's sleeping with, and who she's not. Although Britain must have been more open that North Carolina where she grew up, Gail scandalizes the people who run the boarding house where she lives by staying out all night. She struggles with developing her own moral compass just as diligently as she struggles with her affection for a variety of men.
   
   She also forms one of her rare female friendships with an American woman of color, something that was uncommon for Southern white women as the Civil Rights movement gained momentum.
   
   Meanwhile, she flogs herself about her writing and re-writing of various fictions, none of which makes it to publication during the course of this journal. She takes her vocation as a writer seriously, above anything else. Amazingly, she's only twenty-four when this journal begins, but she's already married and discarded one husband and one career as a journalist.
   
   Beyond her determination to be a writer, two things intrigued me about these musings: the attraction she must have held for men and the absence of mention of her parents. I found explanations for both that satisfied me before I finished. The poet Sylvia Plath was about the same age as Godwin and lived in London at the same time. There is no indication that they encountered each other, but it's interesting to compare how the two women addressed very similar personal and vocational issues.
   
   Now I want to return to the novels and see if they have the same power I felt when I first read them. Godwin was brave to publish this journal, because by spilling her guts on some very raw material, she reveals how her persistence led to a rich literary career.



4. Gail Godwin's latest book is as much about the struggle of a female in her mid-twenties to find her life's work, as it is about writing. As her story unfolds over a two-year period, the reader can sense the author's growth, both as a person and as a writer. I recommend this book for anyone who wants to be a writer.

1 comments about William Maxwell: A Literary Life.

1. There are few biographers who know/knew their subjects as well as Barbara Burkhardt. She has been a professor of mine for fours years and I can tell you first hand she is a wealth of knowledge when it comes to Mr. Maxwell. Her interviews and friendship with Mr. Maxwell make her writing more real and personal. I can't think of a better person to ask (or read from) than Barabara about William Maxwell and his life and works!

5 comments about Raising Fences: A Black Man's Love Story (Today Show Book Club #4).

1. This book is great and I hope that it will spur a new line of books in a similar vain by black men.
   
   I can not put into words the feelings reading this book brought out in me. We as black women speak candidly about our emotions daily, but to see a black man, correction a strong black man do it brings such elation. My deepest respect to Michael Datcher for exposing the emotional side of a black man, and lets hope that there will be more powerful but tender works like this from Datcher in the future. I will be waiting.



2. This book was amazing... I could not put it down... How have I went all this time without hearing about this book!?
   Most books I love it is because in some way I can identify with the characters; not in this one... I loved it because it was raw, passionate and based on truth... truth of the relationships of our black men...excellent!



3. RAISING FENCES by Michael Datcher is a gripping, realistic tale of a fatherless child's struggle into manhood. Mr. Datcher's writing style is remarkable. His use flashbacks and crisp and clear imagery allows readers to live vicariously through the author.
   
   Readers will be drawn into this story as the author delves into intricate issues of African-American families such as broken homes, adoption, unprotected sex, surviving the streets, loveless relationships, having children out of wedlock and so much more. He does an excellent job of providing a male's prospective on these various issues.
   
   The use of poetry incorporated in the book is an added bonus for poetry lovers, but may not be received well by readers who are not fans of poetry.
   
   In this inspiring book, Mr. Datcher also shows readers that your past doesn't have to dictate your future.
   
   Take a bow Mr. Datcher, for you have penned a masterpiece that not only is enjoyable to read, but educational and informative as well. This autobiography is highly recommended!!!



4. If like me you are a woman and have always wanted to know about the thought process of a blk man then this is the book for you. M. Datcher does a great job of navigating us through his mind and life. Great read and an important read especially for the women out there playing that trifiling baby daddy game.



5. Raising Fences, a memoir, brings you on a tour through the life of an enduring Black man, while staying clear of the pimp-esque bravado. Datcher, born to a single mother who births him after being raped, but is given up for adoption, develops an obsession of being a great husband and father early in his life. Taken through his struggles with self-identity, female relationships, financial hardships, Datcher hides nothing, and tells all. If you are looking for a book that will do away with the Black man "playa" myth, this one is for you. A great poetic read from cover to cover.

5 comments about Ogden Nash: The Life and Work of America's Laureate of Light Verse.

1. Mr. Parker has written a terrific biography of a fasinating man. The book is meticulously researched and beautifully written. I was very impressed with this scholarly work and I am anxious to read Mr. Parker's next endeavor. Highly recommended!



2. Many of us probably recognize Ogden Nash as the creator of humorous poetry, but he was a man of far greater accomplishments than might be generally known.In this biography, Doug Parker gives a very complete and fascinating overview of Nash and the diversity of his works, which included movie scripts and--much to my surprise--song lyrics. Parker relates his story in manageable sequences, interspersing just enough famous lines from Nash to lure the reader into wanting to read more of the man's work. One would think that Parker knew Nash personally because of the skillful manner in which he discreetly discusses the poet's health problems, his devotion to his family, his dislike of confrontation, and the entire span of his creative life.
   
   It took an impressive amount of research to create this interesting account of Nash's life, and Parker made much use of Nash's personal letters. He does not overwhelm the reader with excessive detail, rather, he leaves the reader feeling like one who has enjoyed a great meal but has not overeaten, and who knows he can come back for seconds by reading more of Nash's work. This is an enjoyable and informative book that gives the reader a real appreciation for the talents of Ogden Nash.



3. The philosopher poet, Ogden Nash,
   Though born and wed to privilege,
   was throughout his lifetime frightfully far from bogged in cash
   (Or at least he so lamented).
   Doug Parker says,
   while assuring us his penury never quite prevented
   Nash from keeping house or houses
   Servant-staffed while traveling
   in luxury with wife and kids and friends with kids and spouses.
   Though his efforts yielded flops
   In Hollywood and Broadway ventures,
   rhymes he wrote for glossies and anthologies and his hops
   Around the lecture circuit
   (Which, though ruinous
   To his fragile health, he never would quite shirk it)
   Kept his ledger black enough.
   Indeed, couplets comparing
   the speed of bonbons versus bourbon and similar wacky stuff
   (Like rhymes that ridiculed
   A bluenosed "Ut" named Smoot
   whose Senate stint by tariff acts and smiting smut was fueled)
   Consistently kept Mr. Nash `n'
   Fran `n' Lin `n' Isabel
   (his wife and daughters) living in quite comfy fashion.
   Nash's life was not a bore,
   But Parker's grand obsession
   With minutia made me often want to holler "Less is more!"
   And, moreover, many others'
   In the story, though tangential,
   Had lives of greater interest were I to voice my `druthers.
   
   :-)
   - stanwhjr -



4. When I think of Ogden Nash, I think first of a poem I read in school a long time ago titled "The Purist." I have read it too many times to actually laugh out loud again, but I still smile when I read it. I become the kid I once was somehow, happy to hear the joke over and over again.
   
   I think Ogden Nash brings back memories for many older Americans. When I was reading the new biography Ogden Nash: The Life and Work of America's Laureate of Light Verse by Douglas M. Parker, while eating a sweet roll in Panera last week, an older man noticed. As he passed my table he said, "Ah, Ogden Nash, he was a wonderful man." I noticed the older man, who looked like a retired executive, having a look of competence and industry, was cleaning tables. Was he laid off by a corporation, replaced by someone young? Was he working at Panera because he was unable to find a management job in the new economy, which disvalues the older, experienced worker? Is Nash for him a link to a happier time, his time?
   
   Nash has often been a bright spot in a dark time. He became popular for his humorous poetry during the Great Depression when his works began to appear regularly in The New Yorker, Saturday Evening Post, and other magazines. Because he was never paid much for his poems, he had to write and sell a lot of them, which he continued to do into the 1960s, when changing tastes made his work harder to sell. By the time of his death in 1971, he had published over a thousand poems.
   
   Nash did not only write poetry. He tried his hand as a book editor, magazine editor, screen writer, playwright, lyricist, and game show panelist. He was valued as an editor at Doubleday and other publishers, but the pay was poor and he left the profession to write fulltime. His efforts in Hollywood and on Broadway always started with lots of promise but usually fizzled. Radio and television appearances eventually paid fairly well, but poetry was his steady income.
   
   Being a writer, he often worked from home. Unlike many men of his era, he seems to have spent much time with his two daughters. On several occasions, he was the primary parent as his wife took long European vacations. It may not have been difficult to do, as the family always had servants. His wife had her own money inherited from her "old family" Baltimore ancestors. She and Nash were always able to live the country club and martini life.
   
   I think readers will enjoy learning how involved Nash was in the literary scene of the 1920s and 1930s. He knew Dorothy Parker, F. Scott Fitzgerald, E. B. White, and many others. Douglas M. Parker also tells much about mid-twentieth century world of publishing. Fans of The New Yorker will especially want to read this book.
   
   Some will enjoy the book for their own memories. There are many Nash verses scattered throughout the text.
   
   Read "The Purist." The punch line ends with a word that rhymes with "smile."



5. Loved the book. Ogden Nash? Not so much. As a little boy I loved his verses and would browse through THE NEW YORKER slapping the pages from left to right to see if they were carrying a new Nash poem that week. Often as not, they were, then I'd be happy, crawling away toward my treehouse to memorize his goofy sense of humor and his sophisticated attitude towards marriage. I can see how, without Ogden Nash, there might never have been a Stephen Sondheim. Parker is his ideal biographer. Obviously he had a lot of assistance from Nash's two enigmatic daughters, Linell and Isabel, whose photographs make them look like two grave Snow Whites. And yet he is not afraid to call a spade a spade, and we get the picture that the mother of these two girls, Frances, was often a Xanthippe for reasons unknown.
   
   It's great that Parker did so much work towards reconstructing Nash's other life as a Broadway lyricist, and I'm sure that his account of Nash's work with Kurt Weill and with Vernon Duke will never be excelled.
   
   He doesn't really pay much attention to the Hollywood work, however, and I don't know if he even bothered screening the Jeanette MacDonald starrer THE FIREFLY (co-written with Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett), which is nothing short of excellent.
   
   The story gets grim as Nash ages and his career takes a nosedive. You get to despise Roger Angell, Nash's editor at THE NEW YORKER, for being such an obseqious Uriah Heep, even when he's rejecting Nash's latest efforts. It's like he delights in kicking Nash's butt while kissing it at the same time. Nash seems aware of Angell's double nature, but doesn't really know what to do about it. THE NEW YORKER seems like a velvet trap--can't live without it, but it tears you to pieces inside. I also enjoyed reading the parodies or pastiches of Nash's verse that Parker has collected from all different sources, from Dorothy Parker to Scott Fitzgerald, everyone wanted a piece of the man.
   
   To top it all off, Dorothy Lamour got upset with Nash and laid into him with both barrels, when he wrote a poem for her to read on the air that contained the word "conundrum." She thought it risque, perhaps confusing it with "condom," and refused to save her reputation. Furious, she lashed out, "If you don't think I know what that word means--and that I'll be fool enough to say it on the air--you're crazy! I wasn't born yesterday!" Nash wrote to Frances, "she's very pleasant but as dumb as you would imagine." (Not as bad as his opinion of poor Ginger Rogers: "coarse, painted, dyed.")

2 comments about Remembering Charles Kuralt.

1. Charles Kuralt never really believed how good he was at his profession. That's hard to believe, but it's a sad truth and maybe at the heart of the man who traveled the country for over 30 years, chronicalling what he saw and felt in his "On the Road" series for CBS News.

   By that time he graduated college, Kuralt had a work record that would be the envy of a college journalism graduate. As recounted in "Remembering Charles Kuralt," a collection of interviews and essays edited by Ralph Grizzle, the high school senior had worked for a radio station, helping to call the baseball games of the Charlotte Hornet. The summer he was 13, he had a once-a-week radio show. He had won an essay contest on democracy and delivered his speech in the House of Burgesses in Colonial Williamsburg.

   Kuralt knew what he wanted to be a reporter early in his life, and he pursued it with a single-minded determination. But not only that, he did it on his work ethic and talent alone, and in a good-natured manner that came through in his television appearances. "I never heard Charles say anything unkind about anybody," jazz pianist and friend Loonis McGlohon said, "that's true, and in thinking about it, it's pretty unusual."

   "Remembering Charles Kuralt" covers the whole of his life and career: his upbringing in eastern North Carolina, his growth as a writer and reporter, his career at CBSNews, and his life in retirement, his illness, decline and death. It's an affectionate look that reveals more about the man than Kuralt probably would have wanted.




2. This is a well-written, intimate portrait of Kuralt presented in a way which itself reminds the reader of Charles Kuralt's own journalistic style. A beautiful edition including original photographs and a variety of personal and professional perspectives. Recommended for any fan of Charles Kuralt or for the reader who wants to learn how and why this charismatic individual transformed the nature of American journalism.

2 comments about No Regrets.

1. This well written book sheds light on the many aspects of a complex woman. The contrast between her somewhat puritanical streak - a result of her upbringing in the famous Peabody family - and her enjoyment of the high life is riveting. In the end the reader finds her to be likable but not without fault.



2. This book is not only about Marietta Tree, it is about her time and her environment. It is about the options se had as a woman of her class, and the consequences of the choices she made. She did not make the usual choices.

3 comments about The Woman and the Dynamo: Isabel Paterson and the Idea of America.

1. I really enjoyed reading this biography of Isabel Paterson, mostly I suppose because she is a fellow traveler to me. An American living from 1886–1960, Paterson was a libertarian intellectual who lived mostly alone in a world which did not understand. She is best known today for her book about the source of America's greatness, The God of the Machine, but she was also a famous literary critic and a novelist. What makes Paterson special to me, her political values, will probably cause most people to dismiss her.
   
   Stephen Cox gives a good deal of information about the life, relationships, and character of this woman. But, as a bonus, along the way the reader also gets short introductions to many other important people who Paterson knew. These include Ayn Rand, Rose Wilder Lane, John Chamberlain, Leonard Read, William F. Buckley, Herbert Hoover, and many more. The interactions with Rand are especially interesting because Rand achieved surpassing fame as a novelist and movement leader. Rand admired and learned from Paterson, who was 19 years older. On many occasions they sat up and talked most of the night.
   
   The reader of this biography gets a good review of each of Paterson's novels, a few of which show characters much like Paterson herself. From having read a few of her novels, I would have guessed the author was considerate, polite, and feminine — a welcome contrast to Ayn Rand. But the reader of this biography learns that Paterson was routinely rude and ill mannered, and like Rand she broke off many relationships in cold ideological rejection.
   
   Probably this book should be called scholarly; it has lots of footnotes. It seems carefully edited and produced. I noticed only one typo.



2. Those who known the name Isabel Paterson probably know her from her outstanding 1943 work THE GOD OF THE MACHINE. That work, as Prof. Stephen Cox noted in his 1993 introduction, is "one of the few original theories of history that have been developed in America."
   
   Paterson was also a successful novelist and one of the most important columnists and book reviewers of her time. Her life also intersected with many of the most important thinkers in the libertarian and conservative individualist tradition, including Ayn Rand, Russell Kirk, Whittaker Chambers, William Buckley, and H. L. Mencken. Certainly Paterson deserves a full-scale biography and Prof. Cox has filled this gap with this admirable work.
   
   Paterson is also well known for her influence on Ayn Rand. Prof. Cox sheds new light on their relationship. Paterson was a compulsive reader, particularly in history and politics. Rand, on the other hand, appears to have read little in this area. Rand would talk to Paterson for hours at a time, and many of Rand's ideas flowed from what she learned from her. They were both strong-willed and difficult people and their relationship began to show strains when Rand accused Paterson of using some of her own ideas without credit. (Rand had an exaggerated sense of her own originality.) In 1948, Paterson said something offensive to Rand and their relationship came to an end. To Rand's credit, she continued to recommend THE GOD OF THE MACHINE.
   
   This book is something of a "life and times" biography of Paterson. There is much of interest concerning the politics of the time, the New York publishing scene, the nascent libertarian movement and the like. Unfortunately, only THE GOD OF THE MACHINE remains in print and it doesn't appear that an anthology of Paterson's non-fiction writing was ever produced. Hopefully Prof. Cox or someone else will remedy this situation.



3. In 1943, belief in what we today would call libertarianism was at its ebb. Collectivism, in the form of bolshevism, fascism or even the non-totalitarian movements of socialism and New Deal liberalism, seemed to be the order of the day. Individualist anarchist Albert Jay Nock was in such despair, that year he published his autobiography under the title Memoirs of a Superfluous Man.
   
   Yet also in 1943, a counterattack began in the guise of three books written by three different women. Two of those women, Ayn Rand and Rose Wilder Lane, are better remembered today, Rand as the founder of Objectivism and Lane as the editor (and possible author) of the Little House Series of books and of her own books of life on the frontier.
   
   But in terms of formulating the freedom philosophy, the third woman, Isabel Paterson, less well today, was probably the most important. Paterson was born in humble circumstances in the middle of Lake Huron. A Canadian by birth, her somewhat shiftless father moved several times along the American and Canadian west.
   
   Though she had little formal schooling, Paterson was a voracious reader and taught herself what she missed at school. Despite the lack of formal education, she ended up working in newspapers, initially along the west coast of the US and Canada (one of her bosses ended up as Prime Minster of Canada). By 1925, she was an editor for the influential "Books" supplement to the New York Herald Tribune, somewhat mischievously signing her "Bookworm" columns with the initials I.M.P. Along the way, she managed to write a few books of her own, briefly hold the altitude record for a woman in an airplane (though a passenger) and marry and quickly discard a husband (who she never seems to have divorced).
   
   Professor Cox really has a feel for his subject. He does lose some objectivity as he is quite taken in by her. But he is willing to show her negative points. Paterson comes across as intelligent and gifted, a self taught intellectual, but as someone who was difficult to get along with. She had a tendency to break friendships over ideological grounds. Yet she also found friendship with her immigrant neighbors.
   
   The book is well written and researched and while the last few chapters, detailing Paterson's retirement and decline in health drag a bi, it is understandable as her earlier life was so interesting. Paterson's importance in American political history cannot be understated. Paterson's 1943 book, "The God of the Machine" would help Rand formulate her philosophical system. Paterson also corresponded with Russell Kirk and worked for William F. Buckley. Those three, who would help shape the philosophical battles in post World War II America, each got something different from Paterson, and in turn, influenced American political discourse.
   
   So why is Paterson not well known? Professor Cox provides the answer - Paterson was "a committee of one". Rand had Objectivism, Lane had the Freedom School, Hayek and von Mises their academic activities, Friedman his web of like minded academics and the ear of presidents. Paterson had her column and her novels. Cox notes that she resisted calls to teach at the Freedom School, and she had a tendency to drop her friendships (such as breaking off relations with Rand and Lane).
   
   Cox's book rights a great wrong and hopefully puts Isabel Paterson back into prominence. Anyone interested in the roots of the modern conservative and libertarian movements should read it.

5 comments about Not So Wild a Dream.

1. The rarest of coming of age stories, one that deals not with the emotional struggles that adolescents face upon reaching social maturity, but instead a story of a generation and a nation (would that we Xers had a representative as articulate and thoughtful as Severeid) coming to terms with their ideological commitments and global responsibilities.



2. Well, yes, Eric Sevareid's autobiography to the year 1946 is a good read by a seasoned world observer. He grew up in the same North Dakota milieu as my father. I liked the part where he was advised not to enlist during World War II because he might find himself "...cranking a mimeograph machine in the public relations section of some Nebraska army camp for the next three years." Surely his contributions as a wartime news correspondent served in good stead.
   
   I'm not sure Sevareid thought much of women-he refers to an "honest whore" and "old crones." His wife is barely mentioned. Then again, he was a product of his time. Sevareid ends his book with, I guess, a plea for niceness and not bad war. As has been said, however, men love war. It is "...like lifting a corner of the Universe and taking a peek." We'll never top that.



3. One of the best books written by an American. Read it, and you will agree.
   
   The book was compared to "The Education of Henry Adams" when it was first published. I think Sevareid's book is much better. Ignorant of me? I hope not. I have read them both more than once, and Sevareid is the best.
   
   This is the book to read about America in the 20th Century. The depression, riding the rails, the incredible canoe trip Sevareid and his friend made, pre-war Europe and Nazi Germany.
   
   Then, the war. Sevareid saw it from Asia and Europe. He survived the crash of his C-46 crossing "the Hump," and returned to Europe to see the end of the war.
   
   You see the war as he saw it, and you read one remarkable story after another. Sevareid's account of the war is personal, on a personal level. He writes of people and events. the GI slogging through Italy, and the impressions left by encounters with the great and powerful.
   
   What a great book. He wrote thoughtfully and beautifully. His observations are remarkable. You feel America when you read his book. What a treat to have this book around. Just fabulous.



4. I ran into an old friend in the library stacks, an old CBS commentator pictured on the back of his book, "Not So Wild A Dream." For one who was always captivated by this worldly-wise soul, Eric Sevareid, pages into this memoir of his early years to manhood and full citizenship at the close of World War II I was in complete enthrallment. Like striking the richest vein of learning. Inside this "memoir" you wil find three adventures: the earliest taken by Sevareid and a companion by canoe and foot over 1300 miles of northwest waterways at age 17; then a railway tour of the U.S. in the thirties, filled with nuggets of whimsy and wisdom, leading to the outbreak of World War II,the final adventure spanning 4 continents, major Allied campaign areas while raising a family and meeting deadlines.All the captivating storytelling gifts man can struggle for are on display in this wonderful look at the Greatest Generation in the first half of the 20th Century by one of our very own. Compelling human drama, amazing quickly-drawn human sketches and thought-provoking commentary when normal words begin to fail are the seldom-realized resources of this journalist of the House of Murrow. For those who know that time and place only through Life or Time magazines, this will color in all the gaps with greater dimension. This is a treasure trove for aspiring writers of any level to read one who walked with Dickens, Gibbons, Herodotus, Churchill and Gertrude Stein at his side, the antidote for the TV jackanapes who serve us propaganda with no historical context under the banner of "headline news." Sevareid represents the elite of Murrow talent who were first in the service of truth, skeptical of those who wandered away from that path and had the integrity to caution those who thought otherwise.Henry Adams, another American, represents the patrician class; Sevareid, a classless original.



5. Eric Sevareid (1912 - 1992) was a third generation Norwegian-American born and raised in a small town in northern North Dakota. His book of memoirs Not So Wild a Dream, published in 1947, is mostly about an action-filled 15 year period from high school graduation in 1930 (age 17) to the end of World War II (age 32). During that time Sevareid professionally and personally went through a number of adventures that typify his "Greatest Generation" and events of the world at large.
   
   Sevareid was one of the pioneering "Morrow Boys", a team of radio journalists who filed daily radio journalistic pieces from Europe during the war. This allowed him to travel to many places and get up close to the front and fighting. Sevareid is at his best narrating his adventures, the book is episodic and some of the best include: Bombings in London during the Battle of Britain; the plane wreck while going over "the hump" into China; his experiences in Paris during the "phony war" and "Exodus"; the horrors of war on the Italian front; the D-Day invasion and subsequent Battle of the Rhine; the mutiny on-board a Liberty Ship in NY harbor. His accounts of the Great Depression, when he tramped around as a hobo on a train are really excellent, as is his description of a 2500 mile canoe trip, which is covered in more detail in his 1935 book Canoing with the Cree. These two books, written while still a young man, would be his most popular, and last real literary output - although he always considered himself a writer first, most of his later career was on television..
   
   Sevareid was known for writing "think pieces", for example in one transcript, aired late in the war to popular acclaim, he talks about the unknowability of the experience of combat for a soldier, the impossibility of words to describe the immediate and often irrational emotions and thoughts of a soldier. These "think pieces" became a trademark of his later in life as a TV reporter, and Not So Wild a Dream often goes off on a thinking tangent. If there is a theme to the book, Sevareid is seeking the essence and spirit of his time and generation, what we might call the "Zeitgeist", and he often comes very close to capturing the immediate feeling of change. It is why this book is so important as a primary source for documenting the times and his generation. One of the more profound moments for me is when he sees a change in his generations attitude towards war:
   
   "Our own men, whose cult was antimilitarism [in the 1930s students were highly anti-military], whose habit is to identify themselves merely as civilians in different cloths who detested soldiering, now subtly changed. There was a dash and verve about them that I had rarely observed before, and young boys would frankly say: "In Italy all i used to think about was going home. Now I kinda hate to quit before we get to Berlin." It was if they suddenly realized they were soldiers by profession, with the honest desire to complete this masterpiece of their skill down to the last detail."
   
   Sevareid is right, during WWII the American military went from a small and and unpopular enterprise to a large beast that to this day is a major force in American culture, the consequences of which Eisenhower predicted in his military-industrial complex speech. Another area Sevareid muses on is the waning power of Britain and the ascending power of the USA - which given the events post-Cold War and the "Rise of the Rest" of the world, also has a prophetic tone. To get an idea what the US will be like as it becomes less relevant in the world - with the rise of China, India and the rest - one only has to read Sevareid's account of the waning power of Britain in the last chapters of the book.