5 comments about Genius in Disguise:: Harold Ross of The New Yorker.

1. Harold Ross, a mostly forgotten man, gave his heart and soul to The NewYorker, and ultimately, to all of us. In this well-researched biography, we get a first-hand tour through the mind of Ross, a visionary/pessimist, described by James Thurber as "a man capable of mood-swings...from the wildest flights of fancy, to the darkest pessimism." It would almost seem Kunkel had ridden the rails with this "hobo", or had been a short-lived employee, perhaps one of "The Miracle Men." Ross's life was wonderful, full of the humanity of the day, and the pathos, the tragedy and heartache, the love and respect he enjoyed; albeit with great discomofort. Kunkel, himself a newspaperman, does not treat the editor with kid gloves, but with an honesty that is neither sensational, nor bludgeoning. Kunkel triumphs...



2. Maybe it's some kind of deliberate autodeconstructionism or god-knows-what, but this book is a poorly-edited and generally incoherent biography of a great editor who prized coherence. Ross would've been irked by it. The intent seems to have been to do something vaguely chronological, but "vague" is the key word here. Different chapters often cover the same ground in similar ways. The author will often mention something as if it were news, but the reader, if awake, will remember the same event having been covered in greater depth three chapters back. It's a mess. Kunkel is also fond of overusing idioms; five or six times, "foo 'allows as how' bar", and not in quotes, either. These things lunge forth out of otherwise normal prose. It's weird and distracting. After a few iterations, I really began to wonder if the book was edited at all. Another irritating little fact is that while there are photographs of most of the major people mentioned, they're scattered around almost arbitrarily. Wolcott Gibbs makes an appearance, and we're left wondering what he looks like for a hundred pages or so until Liebling or somebody turns up, accompanied by a very nice photograph of Gibbs. Sometimes the photos precede their subjects, leaving one wondering who these people are.

   Of course, I did keep reading it. The subject matter is groovy enough to make up for the lousy execution, and Kunkel makes a valuable case for Ross as a serious person; not an idiot-savant, not a clown, but someone who got by on ability more than luck. Ross as human rather than cartoon? Why, yes. It's about time. There's also some fun coverage of Walter Winchell, which explains why Matt Drudge admires the guy so much -- Winchell was inaccurate, irresponsible, and vindictive, too :)




3. This book is a solid and readable biography not only of a man but of a magazine, for The New Yorker strikes many of us as a living entity in an age in which most magazines are stiffs. The most interesting part of it is the actual creation of the magazine, from the initial prospectus (still accurate of the current mag in many ways) to the gradual assembling of a poorly-paid but nonpareil team of writers nurtured by one of the most eccentric editors ever to helm a major publication. The rest is also interesting, if ultimately rather sad. Ross came from a modest background and got his feet wet in military publications. He was never easy to be around, and often bullied writers and friends and wives (several became ex-writers, -friends and -wives) over the course of his life. He struggled financially most of his life, and was cheated out of a fair amount of money by a personal secretary who committed suicide rather than face the truth. Yet he brought out the best in a cadre of brilliant writers and artists (Ross never thought of cartoonists who did interior drawings and covers as less than that), and the magazine, no matter what you think of it, changed what one can do and be. By the time that Ross died, he had become a legend. Kunkel does a fair amount of debunking of that legend, while making clear why Ross accomplished what he did. The overall view is one of guarded admiration of its central figure. The development is thematic rather than strictly chronological, so there are variations on certain themes as the story progresses, but I wasn't bothered by it. The book doesn't seem long despite its length. I recommend it for anyone interested in the people behind one of the publishing phenomenons of the modern era. (My subject line is something Ross said when complaints surfaced that The New Yorker was getting too liberal in its epithets. It's related to the statement in the original prospectus that The New Yorker is "not for the old lady from Dubuque".)



4. This wonderful biography tells the story of Harold Ross, The New Yorker's founding editor, and his making and management of this magazine from 1925 until his death in 1951. In the book, Kunkel often takes the position, popular in Ross's time, that Ross's success was improbable, since he was, basically, a tramp newspaperman with a poor education, before he came to New York to build his career in publishing. But throughout his life, Ross made great professional (not personal) choices. And, he had a formidable intellect and curiosity, terrific taste, integrity, and an eye for talent.

   In part, Ross was underestimated in his lifetime because he had the unfashionable style in the office of a neurotic worrier. Here's Ogden Nash describing the publisher on the job: "His expression is always that of a man who has just swallowed a bug. Once a day at least he calls you into his office and says, "This magazine is going to hell." He never varies the phrase. Then he says, "We haven't got any organization. I'm licked. We've got too many geniuses around and nobody to take any responsibility. He has smoked five cigarettes while saying that. Then he takes a drink of water, prowls up and down, cries "My God!" loudly and rapidly, and you go out and try to do some work." A captivating book.




5. Genius in Disguise is the kind of biography which is entertaining beyond the limits of its subject matter. Even someone who would not think that they would enjoy a biography of a media figure should find a lot to like in this engaging book.
   
   Using anecdote, history, and a wide range of sources, Kunkel paints a picture of Ross as a man, which in turn teaches us a lot about the New Yorker and the magazine industry. It is published with The New Yorker Prospectus, an article called "Theory and Practice of Editing New Yorker Articles", and Ross Query Sheets as appendices. Additionally, Kunkel provides a selected bibliography with helpful pointers to further reading.
   
   This book would make a good companion piece to Remembering Mr. Shawn's New Yorker by Ved Mehta. I would recommend it for fans of The New Yorker, people interested in the Algonquin Round Table, or simply for anyone with an appreciation for well-written literary biography.

5 comments about Afterglow: A Last Conversation with Pauline Kael.

1. This little book is well worth the read. Pauline Kael is not someone you feel lightly about - you either love her or hate her (there's a website called die-critics-die that gets my blood boiling...). I adore Kael; she is quite simply my favourite writer, and the wonder of her interviews (there's another book containing a whole pile) is that she wrote how she spoke, so a conversation with her is like discovering a new review. Sure enough you get to find out which recent movies she likes ("Three Kings"), but the book is intellectual and moving as well. Few writers ever fused analytic thought with passion the way Kael managed - reading her made you more fully human, made you expand.

   This book, slight as it is, gives fresh insight into her writing methods, her tastes, and her wit. It's not as flowing as it might be; Davis's questions seem sometimes to be deliberately elaborate for the unknowing reader (like the explanation about Richard Stark). This is a problem because the fun of Kael is a sharp and fast mind, so a conversation should be a break-neck brain tease among other things. Still, Davis's introduction is wonderful, and he's a fine writer (one I'll look up now I know about him). If you're a Kael fan, read this soon. If you don't know who she is, she's the most important commentator on the popular arts there's been. And she's great, great fun.




2. Afterglow: A Last Conversation With Pauline Kael by Francis Davis (Contributing Editor of Atlantic Monthly magazine) is an absorbingly written memory of the wit, wisdom, and wonder of a truly great actress, and the memorable chat she had with author Francis Davis shortly before her unfortunate death. Written in question-and-answer format, Afterglow preserves this remarkable woman's keen insights on movies, television, literature and much, much more in her own words.



3. In September, 2001, film critic Pauline Kael passed away. She had written and spoken with sometimes brutal honesty on actors, directors, and all types of movies. Kael didn't really care who she offended or upset. It's not like she tried to offend or upset, she just called them as she saw them. She unflinchingly says of Stanley Kubrick's `Eyes Wide Shut,' "It was ludicrous from the word go." She calls Spielberg "uninteresting" and melodramatic.

   But she also handed out glorious praise when it was due, especially when other critics were ignoring good films and performances. She states that "Paul Mazursky hasn't been given his due," and that actresses such as Debra Winger have been wrongfully overlooked. Kael mentions several wonderful films that have all but fallen into obscurity, all because most critics are afraid to take a stand and swim upstream against the tide of their colleagues.

   If the book concerned film criticism only, it would be worth purchasing. But interviewer Francis Davis also asks Kael to address writing, her days at The New Yorker, television, and the reason why so many awful films are made these days. `Afterglow' is a fascinating look into the thoughts of Pauline Kael, but it's far, far too short at 126 pages.




4. Afterglow gives Pauline Kael fans a chance to hear her opinions on the big films that were released after she stopped reviewing them. You miss her great long prose in an interview like this, but you still get the insight in little capsules.

   Most surprisingly is her love of the television show, Sex and the City. She makes a good point about how TV shows filmed in New York like Law and Order and Sex and the City have better actors and guest stars because they can easily get them from New York theatre.

   There's a funny moment in the story where the author tries to convince Kael to watch the independent movie CROUPIER. He can't admit that he has already seen it, because Kael wouldn't hear of him watching it twice, she herself being famous for watching a movie just once. Kael does later admit that she has seen just a few movies twice but it's rare.

   Like always, Kael's movie taste surprises you. She's always been good at pointing out the flaws of movies that you like, and sometimes forgiving of movies that you didn't get. Here she sums her thoughts up with a sentence or two. The book acts as a nice epilogue to an enjoyable career.




5. A few short comments about Pauline Kael's movie criticism.

   Like most people who are serious about film, I, too, believe Pauline Kael was a brilliant and irrreplaceable critic -- but this does not mean that she didn't have her flaws. Kael was a superb critic in any number of ways. She was outstanding in her ability to write about screen acting, today one of the most neglected areas of film criticism. (Stanley Kauffmann writes better about acting than anybody else around; but then, he is the best serious film critic writing today.) Kael was superb at detecting new and important talent, at understanding the ways in which movies reflect and interact with cultural currents, at conveying her ardor and passion for directors and actors, at the potentiality of film for exploring human sexuality. She was also simply a hell of a good writer, and the depth of her knowledge of film, books, theatre, dance, etc., all played importantly in making her a great critic.

   But Kael was not perfect. Some of her reviews simply run on long after she has made her point; and although I love the hyperbole of her writing, sometimes it seems hyperbole for hyperbole's sake.

   Also, and I think this was her chief flaw as a critic, she displayed a bias against certain non-English-language directors and their work. In this regard, the brilliant Penelope Gilliatt was Kael's superior. Gilliatt was a brilliant film critic (part of the great team of Ken Tynan and Gilliatt at the Observer [London] before she moved to The New Yorker), a dazzlingly talented writer of screenplays, short stories, novels, television and radio plays, and profiles; she was also an opera librettist and writer of nonfiction (her books on movie comedy and on Tati and Renoir are invaluable), theatre criticism, book reviews, and essays. (Her IQ was higher than Einstein's!)

   Gilliatt had a far deeper understanding of that elusive element in the arts -- style. Her criticism is vastly better than Kael's on films from Europe (she was notoriously better at writing about films from Eastern Europe), Asia (Ozu, for a supreme example), about science fiction (Gilliatt was the "only" major critic to stand up for 2001), about directiors experimenting with stylistic devices (Fassbinder, for another supreme example), and simply had a wider view regarding the possibilities of film as an art form. Gilliatt also was better at writing about the films of Godard (though, Kael, too championed his work of the 60s, Gilliatt's criticism today stands higher), Bresson, Bergman, Fellini, and many, many more foreign-language directors.

   Of course, no critic is perfect. Even Agee had a severe flaw --he couldn't write worth a damn about acting, and often contradicted himself. So, Kael, in perspective, was a great, if deeply imperfect critic -- and god knows I miss her writing terribly. Denby and Lane, compared with Gilliatt and Kael, are but pale comparisons to The New Yorker's once great women thinkers -- Gilliatt (whose talents were panoramic) and Kael, who could make your pulse race with excitement.

1 comments about Truth Comes in Blows: A Memoir.

1. This is a well-written evocative memoir. Painful to read in places. Someone once said that we read to know that we are not alone. This sums up my feelings about this book. I'd add that we read in order to get enough distance to empathize. "Turth" is an elegant tale about struggling to grow up in sometimes dire emotional circumstances. It's especially refreshing because it is not a mewling, raging therapy session as so many similar stories are today. It's a painting of a time (Depression era America) and place (industrial burgs of NYC) and an attempt to come to terms with great suffering in a dignified manner. And it's so much more.

No comments about La Habana para un infante difunto.

3 comments about Chaplin and Agee: The Untold Story of the Tramp, the Writer, and the Lost Screenplay.

1. CHAPLIN AND AGEE is the story of a screenplay and, as a result, has the right to be a little bit glamorous. Unfortunately, like a lot of screenplays, it is a story about failure, disappointment and heartache, but there's enough glamour along the way to compensate for it.
   
   You may know the story of Charlie Chaplin, even though his best work is from the long-ago silent film era. CHAPLIN AND AGEE focuses on the latter part of his career, in the 1950s, when he is best known for his Communist political leanings, and the subsequent hounding he took for them from Senator Joe McCarthy and his followers. (Readers who are not convinced that McCarthy was the darkest character in modern American political life will find CHAPLIN AND AGEE slowgoing.) At this point, Chaplin is in the process of leaving his "Little Tramp" character behind (the Tramp's last appearance was in the 1940 classic The Great Dictator) and moving on to different fare.
   
   Chaplin's 1947 film, Monsieur Verdoux, plays an outsize role in CHAPLIN AND AGEE as it never did in real life. The movie --- Chaplin's second talking picture, after a career making silent films --- is little-known or remembered today. It's a dark comedy where he plays a charming serial killer --- not the sort of thing that would resonate with postwar audiences. It is an utterly unimportant film, except to the extent that it is discussed here, and that is only because of its effect on novelist and film critic James Agee.
   
   The screenplay at the heart of CHAPLIN AND AGEE is Agee's, and Agee was no slouch as a screenwriter. He did the screenplays for two of the most enduring films of the 1950s --- The African Queen and Night of the Hunter. As the book begins, the multitalented Agee is splitting his time between being a reporter for Time and doing movie reviews for The Nation. While at Time, he got the assignment to write up the magazine's report on the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, which profoundly affected his worldview.
   
   The result was The Tramp's New World, the screenplay that is the basis of John Wranovics's book and that takes up the latter third of the volume. The screenplay is for a Charlie Chaplin movie, and Wranovics deftly details the lifelong admiration that Agee had for Chaplin's work. The screenplay sets the Little Tramp in New York --- but a New York that has been destroyed in a nuclear explosion, leaving the Tramp the only survivor, exploring the burned-out buildings and horrible silhouettes of the dead. It is a screenplay that had been lost for years and only now has been recovered, and Wranovics is to be credited for his scholarship.
   
   But the fascinating thing about The Tramp's New World is not the screenplay itself. In fact, the screenplay is quite near unreadable, with great masses of impenetrable stream-of-consciousness dreck and some ham-handed political parody. What's fascinating is the length that Agee went to bring it to Chaplin's attention. (Chaplin, reasonably enough, seems never to have given it any serious consideration.)
   
   What Agee did, in his role as a film critic, is remarkable. He wrote his initial review of Monsieur Verdoux for Time magazine, and it was fairly noncommittal and unenthusiastic. But in The Nation, he changed his tune sharply, arguing in three different installments that Monsieur Verdoux was the best movie of the year and one of the best that he had ever seen. The Nation reviews are treated uncritically by Wranovics, as evidence of Agee's respect for Chaplin. But seen from a reviewer's perspective, especially given that this reviewer was trying to sell Chaplin a screenplay, they are embarrassing at best, horrifying at worst. Wranovics obviously admires Agee, even as he chronicles his slow descent into an alcoholic stupor. But CHAPLIN AND AGEE perhaps ought to be a bit more skeptical about Agee's motives than it is.
   
   Wranovics does an excellent job of bringing Agee, and his times and his politics, to life. Even those not particularly interested in the novelist will find it an absorbing enough read. Those who are interested in the era, and scholars of Agee and Chaplin, will find the book to be a small treasure.
   
   --- Reviewed by Curtis Edmonds, who writes movie reviews at TXreviews.com.



2. Two major things I learned from this book are 1) James Agee had an obsession with Chaplain's character, Little Tramp, and 2) he was deathly afraid of the Bomb which America had created. Other supplemental things I may have rather not known is that he drank too much, could down a whole bottle of scotch and still not be drunk and, during the last month of his life, he had a total disregard for personal appearances. It is said tht he wore the same shirt, and hardly every changed clothes. He was allowed to basically die alone, like Dean Martin. Stardom is soon forgotten.
   
   Those 'facts' I could have lived without knowing. Now, there is a group in Los Angeles called the 'Society of Singers' who help retired and elderly members of the movie world (Agee was part of that in a big way.)-- those destitute and in need. Chuck Southcott and Wink Martindale are members. As is fact, Agee died in May of 1955.
   
   In the end, his life "was bookended by his admiration of Chaplain." The Tramp was his inspiration to his art and life from his earliest remembered childhood until the last days of his life. In the movie, that dad took Rufus to the Roxy theater across the L&N viaduct from the neighborhood where they lived, to see and laugh at Chaplain's "Tramp' silent features.
   
   Agee's talent and his love for the poetic art of silent comedy films is shown in Part Two of this book. His previously unpublished screenplay was untitled when he died that fateful May, but here they call it 'The Tramp's New World.' He finished it in 1949, but no one ever considered making it. The premise was that only the innocence of childish adults could survive the Bomb. The scientists were safe in their underground shelters, but they have no real feelings or common sense. Its "timeless message of respect for humanity and the dignity of the individual are needed now more than ever."
   
   Agee claimed to one and all that writing his autobiographical novel "was killing him." Sometimes it is best not to remember, or at least have a selective memory. It was named after his death and edited quickly, leaving much material on the wayside, to be published in an expedient way so as to use the publicity of his death. It won the Pulitzer Prize, a well-deserved reward for his work and hardship at the end.
   
   I marvel at how the majority of people tend to think about the sordid or bad things which happened to an important person after they are gone instead of remembering the good they had achieved during their peak years. The same happened to my friend, Bob Lobertini. Helen Gee, in her memoir of Limelight, the photraphy gallery she founded and named after the Chaplain film, was one to dwell on the 'unmentionables.'
   
   Agee was a native Knoxvillian, though he did not spend much time here after his mother remarried and moved up Northeast, and there is a marker on Cumberland with his name and history, a park named after him as well as one of the streets on the UT campus. He is remembered here as a 'native son' who did good out in Hollywood.



3. Notwithstanding back cover puff about a "deeply significant episode" or a "rough-hewn dazzling masterpiece by James Agee", it is difficult to understand what John Wranovics might have intended by this book. While not overtly denunciatory, it might certainly be taken as such, as it significantly detracts, perhaps inadvertently, from whatever "urban legend" might have grown up about Agee as some kind of super-intellectual, mid-century, Liberal saint.
   Wranovics coolly details Agee's blatant use of his perch as The Nation's film critic as a platform from which to curry favor with Charles Chaplin, to whom he was--even while shamelessly stroking the little fellow in print--hustling a screenplay of his own.
   Even though offering his pronouncedly puerile "treatment" quite gratis, asking nothing more for himself but permission to rub his forehead against the Great Man's trouser cuff, there's no eliding Agee's questionable ethics. It must have been enigmatic, not to say embarrassing, to friends and colleagues, for Agee to have taken on so extravagantly about the supposed excellences of Chaplin's then current and controversial "Monsieur Verdoux"--which he rated scarcely a tic or two south of Hamlet and Lear. (One's reaction to MV became a kind of political litmus test in those days, the cinematic equivalent of the Alger Hiss Case. It was somehow letting down the side to express dismay at it's snail's pace, all-around sub-standard trade craft, forced humor, and trite, petulant, adolescent philosophizing at the close) And the assemblage of over 100 pages of notes for Agee's famous, 4000 word, 3-part, Great American Review, must have left even well-wishers simply babbling. (It should not be surprising that among the literati (who are forever distilling profundities from the after-shave of prize fighters and matadors), the funniest fellow ever on roller skates ought to be closely attended to on questions of Faith, Morals, and Matters of State.
   Chaplin had begun a pretentious, monomaniacal out-of-frame monologue at the close of "The Great Dictator", ( "I can't speak" "You must. Or we're doomed." or words to that effect) a Polonial mélange of middle school epiphanies he lost no opportunity to re-visit in every wretched "talkie" he made thereafter, and Agee's turkey of a "treatment" might, indeed, have been well suited to such juvenilities. Chaplin wasn't taking, though, even at the price, so "The Tramp's New World" became a lost "masterpiece" reprinted in 2005 with discreet rum-tum-tum by Palgrave Macmillan, and blurbed by The Village Voice as "an unmade movie so vivid that it practically sears the mind's eye." (There is apparently no "use by" date on litmus.)
   The greatest shock to the system of any Agee groupie still left standing, however, is likely to be caused by a couple of letters Agee wrote to CC in early days. These are sniveling, cap-twisting, forelock-tugging, an-it-please-yer-Lordship unctuous-beyond-belief, "base spaniel fawning" of a kind that might be regarded as excessive even when addressing The Lord of the Universe in full regalia.

5 comments about Ahmad's War, Ahmad's Peace: Surviving Under Saddam, Dying in the New Iraq.

1. Of all the articles and books that I've read concerning the modern history of Iraq, none has affected me as much as Michael Goldfarb's wonderful new work. Goldfarb brilliantly interweaves the history of Iraq with life story of his interpreter Ahmad--his suffering, joy, hopes seemingly fulfilled by the fall of Saddam, hopes corroded by the miscalculations and lack of planning by the American government. No matter which side of the Iraqi debate a reader has taken, this is a book that challenges all pre-conceived ideas. Perhaps even more importantly, it is a shattering personal story written with enomrous skill and perception by an exceptional journalist.
   Essential reading.



2. Besides being an extremely well-written crash course in what went on in Iraq at the outset of the current war, Michael Goldfarb's superb book describes the beautiful friendship that developed between him & his extraordinary interpreter while Goldfarb was covering the war in Iraq. Goldfarb has been a voice of reason on NPR for many years; anyone familiar with his first rate radio work will easily be able to hear him telling this story -- he writes the way he talks: the voice is engaging, precise & always lucid. He has a gift for describing even the most complicated events in a way that the general reader can readily understand. As engaging & personable as Goldfarb is himself, he never lets you forget that the real hero is Ahmad, an amazingly resilient & likeable fellow -- a man of honor & courage & of incredible personal warmth.
   
   Despite the cruel tribulations recounted in the story, the book is notable for its gladness of spirit -- it isn't grim & forbidding -- quite the contrary: Ahmad's story is a sad one, but the man himself was not a sad person, & certainly not one given to self-pity. He is full of life & enthusiasm & you will be glad to meet him.



3. In this book, you will find information about leaders we have heard of. some famous and some infamous. Khomeini Auyatollah, Osama bin Laden, Gamal Abdel Nasser, Jelal Talabani, Kind Faisal I & II, and Saddam Hussein. American generals include Norman Schwarzkopf and General David Petraeus. Theirs is a history of duplicity and violence against others. One of the triumps of the Bush administration's Iraq policy is that "they managed to create an environment in which Americans, rather than being thanked, are more likely to be abducted and decapitated if they walk down a street alone."
   
   Iraq was born in the aftermath of WWI, as the Allies carved up the Ottoman Empire and created the nations of the modern Middle East. The British created an Iraqi government modeled on their own, with a constitutional monarchy established. Faisal I was chosen to be elected the first King, and his relaitonship with T. E. Lawrence is shown in the movie, 'Lawrence of Arabia.'
   
   When wars end, generally the battlefield is cleaned up. After WWII, warships were mothballed and the California desert was filled with old warplanes. That would be a sight to see! When the Cold War was over, USA did nothing to decomission its proxies (tyrants created and sustained in power), and it is now paying the price. In Afghanistan, Taliban and al Qaeda were formed as terrorist groups against their own people.
   
   "Life without problems is not interesting" and "We each have a role to play" introduce you to the integrity and devotion of Ahmad Shawkat to his family and to his country. He felt helpless and told the author, "Only America has the power to do these things." Ahmad looked like someone I know here, Jim Nahmad, always on the prowl to find lost people whom he can help. Ahmad took chances and went into war torn areas, and paid the price, just as America paid for their intervention with the deaths on 9/11/01. If you are a listener to Public Radio, you willl have heard Goldfarb's "Inside Out" program. He won the Edward R. Morrow award for one of his features on Ahmad.
   
   I had a doctor called Ahmed. They said he came to America from India. I once worked as a medical transcriptionist for Dr. Z also from India. I became friends with his sister-in-law who, with her two brothers, attended Vo-Tech when I did. They are secretitive people, innocent in a way about America's abundance, and hire family to work in their offices. Dr. Z. had his connected to the local hospital; on Secretaries Day, even though I was not one of his employees, I was invited to have a meal with them and he told me, "Betty, when I was in school in Chicago, I actually laughed." I would ask sometimes if he ever smiled; his wife was always smiling. The different cultures keep nationalities apart as they feel they cannot trust each other and thus, deception rules. Ahmed is young and agrees that he does not know how to get a specialist, or prescribe the needed medicines. He was personable, but incompetent as a family doctor. He wanted to be a specialist and so charged accordingly.
   
   "Admad began to feel freedom at last with the fall of Saddam. He had a newspaper in which he decried terrorists in his editorials. He as murdered as a result. Goldfarb won the Lowell Thomas award for his report about British Jihad in 2005.



4. This book is the author's tribute to the late Ahmad Shawkat, a Kurdish translator who worked with Goldfarb when we was covering the war in Iraq for WBUR radio. Goldfarb is a London-based reporter for the American public radio station; he first met Shawkat shortly before the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime in 2003.
   
   Goldfarb was more than a man who knew the language. As an intellectual, he had moved in revolutionary circles for many years, agitating against Hussein's government. He had been captured, imprisoned and tortured on a couple of occasions and once even met the dictator. As a Kurd, he rejected the sectarian leanings of many of his people in favor of a single, unified nation. As Goldfarb explains, Ahmad Shawkat was uniquely qualified not only to translate words but to provide context to what the reporter was seeing and hearing on the streets of a new Iraq.
   
   The first section of the book follows the two men together as Goldfarb reports on the war for public radio. (His dispatches can be heard on WBUR's Inside Out web site.) The last section is the story of Shawkat's tragic death at the hands of an assassin and the months after when the author returns to the war-torn country. The middle section, Ahmad's Life, is the author's reconstruction of his translator's story. From his early life as a bookish boy through college and into adulthood, the reader learns to know a man who never stopped searching for the answers in life, and the solutions, whether they be of a political or a religious nature.
   
   Goldfarb's own take on the war in Iraq may surprise some readers. Although he is very critical of the Bush administration's handling of the post-war situation, the author and reporter initially supported U.S. action there in the belief that the Iraqi people could be freed. He and Ahmad speak about this shared belief at length, alternately dreaming of the future and despairing as the country falls into chaos and internal strife in the months after the fall of Saddam's army.
   
   Michael Goldfarb writes about the qualities he looks for in a translator. Often he cannot find all of those things in one person. In Ahmad Shawkat, he finds a scholar, an intellectual, a writer, a patriot and at the end a close friend. It is a remarkable life story which could be difficult to read due to the fact that one knows how it ends. In spite of this, Goldfarb's skill makes for a moving, poignant read from start to finish. Highly recommended.



5. Ahmad's War, Ahmad's Peace: Surviving Under Saddam, Dying In New Iraq is an outstanding book that inspires and educates.
   
   The story centers around the United States' invasion of Iraq and the subsequent overthrow of Saddam Hussein and Ahmad Shawkat, an Iraqi Kurd. Ahmad is an intellectual, a reader, a writer, a husband, and a father. He's had many different ups and downs throughout his life in a country that didn't quite value its intellectuals and often times tried to silence them.
   
   As told by Michael Goldfarb, a British journalist in Iraq to cover the war, the story is both beautiful and heartbreaking. Going behind the scenes, Mr. Goldfarb shows us the life in Iraq from the perspective of a native.
   
   Very few books remain neutral on the subject of Iraq War. Goldfarb manages to do so well. I highly recommend picking this one up.

5 comments about Hillary's Secret War: The Clinton Conspiracy to Muzzle Internet Journalists.

1. Poe plays Virgil and Hillary is the Debbil on this fascinating tour of the nether regions of trans millennial political intrigue. It would be hard to find a better spirit guide than Poe. He speaks with a reliable precision when delving the personalities and policies that make up the current American debate. This came forth on an episode of the O'Reily Factor when the host categorized George Soros as a "Leftist." Poe responded that Soros is not a doctrinal leftist and, in fact, is not doctrinaire. He merely wants to rule the World.
   
   Read Secret War and learn about Hillary's collusion with the major media to deflect and divert public attention from the scandals of the Clinton Administration. Get the details on Whitewater, Chinagate, and the Arkancide body count. Find out who really invented the Internet. Read about the New Underground- when it became self aware, who are the major players and what influence it will have on Hillary's aspirations- and what she is willing to do to stop them.
   
   Hillary's Secret War had taken on even greater importance with the implosion of the mainline media that took place shortly after publication. The events of Rathergate read like the next chapter in "..Secret War", highlighting Poe's perspicacity and underlining the credibility and importance of this book.



2. Richard Poe provides an interesting take on the emergence of the conservative internet as a response to the liberal slanted mainstream media (New York Times, Washington Times, LA Times, CNN and the big three networks). Poe discusses how some of the powers behind such sites as the Drudge Report, NewsMax and FreeRepublic (for example) were ostracized by the mainstream media and turned to the internet to voice their opinions. They were quickly joined by hundreds of thousands of like minded net surfers and what started as a very large discussion forum grew into political action. It was the conservative internet that exposed the falsified documents used as the basis of the CBS "60 Minutes" report on President Bush's National Guard service. Liberals tried unsuccessfully to answer back with their own web sites. When she found she couldn't control them Hillary unleashed her dogs; suddenly people were being audited, sued and some lost funding (when donors were threatened). Through it all they preserved and, in so doing, flourished.
   
   While I have no doubt that liberals would like nothing more than to silence the conservative voice (which threatens their monopoly on news, opinions and, hence, threatens their agenda), I think Poe sometimes sees conspiracies where there may not be any (however, if I went through what some of these folks did I'm not sure I would see conspiracies everywhere also). I also think he goes a bit overboard with his praise of Matt Drudge (and his website).
   
   But those reservations aside I recommend this book for two reasons. First, for anyone coming a bit late to the internet party this book is good at catching you up to what's gone into getting things where they are today. Second I found the discussions of the Vince Foster and Ron Brown cases fascinating. It lays bare the lengths the Clintons, their minions and accomplices within the media will go to obfuscate the truth in pursuit of their goals (power and a return to the White House). Will the internet be powerful enough to stop them? Poe seems to think so. I hope he's right.



3. This book does give a concise and to the point overview of scandals and cover-ups that have ties with Hillary, with documentation for further research. However, as far as this book is specifically concerned, I would describe it as a very interesting history of the new Internet journalists, especially as regards their rocky relationship with Hillary Clinton when she was first lady. In addition to this, it also documents the failure, in many cases, of the mainstream "Big" media (sometimes purposely, according to the author) to report the facts as they are, so as not to offend certain power structures in the country.
   
   I do not believe anyone in their right mind, (Hillary is in her wrong mind :-) reading this wonderful chronology of Internet journalism, could pin the term "vast, right wing conspiracy" on the expository news released by the more conservative Internet journalists. After all, politically speaking, it has been the left wing, and less the right wing (with some exceptions), in recent history, that has resorted to more surreptitious and psychologically deliberate forms of persuasion. Either way, I do agree with Anne Coulter's observation, as quoted in this book, that "Liberals fail in any media realm where there is competition. In the three media where success is determined on the free market--radio, books, and the Internet--conservatives rule....Only a monopoly could produce a Dan Rather." (p. 56)



4. What we have here is an apparently hard-hitting, gloves-off book that exposes the depths of the corruption of Bill and Hillary Clinton. It's real purpose, though, is to preach to the choir of those who already dislike the Clintons intensely, while cleverly covering up the deeper, broader corruption that envelopes both major political parties and all the nation's major opinion molders. The proof of the pudding is in the following long passage in the book describing how Kenneth Starr's "investigators" shrugged off the frightening harassment of an inconvenient witness in the Vince Foster death case:
   
   No one knows who ordered the harassment team to begin its operation against Patrick Knowlton on October 26, 1995. However, someone close to the Starr investigation must have tipped them off that Knowlton had received a subpoena.
   
   Throughout Knowlton's ordeal, Starr's team treated the beleaguered witness with extraordinary contempt.
   
   When the street harassment began, Knowlton called the FBI and requested witness protection. Nothing happened for two days. Finally, Agent Russell Bransford--the same FBI agent who had delivered Starr's subpoena--showed up. "He had this smirk on his face, as if he thought the whole thing was amusing," says Knowlton. "I told him to get the hell out of my house."
   
   At the same time Knowlton was calling the FBI, Ruddy and Evans-Pritchard called Deputy Independent Counsel John Bates to report the intimidation of a grand jury witness. Bates's secretary jotted down some notes. "An hour later I called again," says Evans-Pritchard. "She let out an audible laugh and said that her boss had received the message...Bates never called back.
   
   What did Starr's people find so funny about the situation?
   
   As a last resort, Knowlton prepared a "Report of Witness Tampering" and took it personally to the Office of the Independent Counsel. "It was their responsibility, at the very least, to find out who leaked word of his subpoena," notes Evans-Pritchard. According to Evans-Pritchard, John Bates responded by calling security and having Knowlton removed from the building.
   
   Perhaps the most telling indication of Starr's attitude toward Knowlton is the humiliating cross-examination to which this brave man was subjected before the grand jury. Knowlton says that he was "treated like a suspect." Prosecutor Brett Kavanaugh appeared to be trying to imply that Knowlton was a homosexual who was cruising Fort Marcy Park for sex. Regarding the suspicious Hispanic-looking man he had seen guarding the park entrance, Kavanaugh asked, Did he "pass you a note?" Did he "touch your genitals?"
   
   Knowlton flew into a rage at Kavanaugh's insinuations. Evans-Pritchard writes that several African American jurors burst into laughter at the spectacle, rocking "back and forth as if they were at a Baptist revival meeting. Kavanaugh was unable to reassert his authority. The grand jury was laughing at him. The proceedings were out of control."
   
   It was at that point, reports [British reporter and author Ambrose] Evans-Pritchard, that Patrick Knowlton was finally compelled to confront the obvious: "the Office of the Independent Counsel was itself corrupt." (pp. 106-107)
   
   Note carefully the names of those two Starr underlings involved in the harassment of the witness, Knowlton. They are John Bates and Brett Kavanaugh. On page 143 Poe says, not surprisingly, "Like most Americans I support George W. Bush and his War on Terror." But Poe conveniently neglects to tell his readers that this president, whom he praises as a "decent, God-fearing man," has made federal judges--with the approval of the United States Senate--of these two accomplices after the fact of a high-level murder. He even leaves their names out of his extensive index. You will never find this connection made anywhere in the mainstream media, either.
   
   I rest my case.



5. Now why would it be that there are no reviews on this page? For some reason the edition of this book with numerous informative reviews is not available. Now one could get the impression that Amazon is hiding these reviews at someone's request! If you google your search you will nonetheless find the reviews you are seeking. Hilary doesn't want you to know this book exists let alone read the reviews. This book will tell you something about the woman who wishes to be the next president of the United States.

5 comments about I'm No Saint: A Nasty Little Memoir of Love and Leaving.

1. I greatly enjoyed this book, avidly turning the pages to see what would happen next as it hurtled towards its not-happy but smart and true-to-life ending. Although much of the author's behavior is not what genteel society would call, er, edifying, the self-awareness with which it is described (particularly from a psychoanalytical point of view, e.g., pleasing the father, narcissism, emotional insecurity, etc.) exposes human drives that many share but most bury under layers of good manners and that indefatigable will to please. Hayt is unsparing towards herself, almost self-destructive in her candor, and we are the beneficiaries. She also has a natural way with words, and linguistic gems lie everywhere, often adorning less than pretty entanglements. But even when things are their worst, her delicious sense of humor lightens her experiences, which are those of someone who has gone out on a limb, often and dangerously, while yearning for shelter. Yes, a tale of ambiguity, playing everywhere.



2. While the cast of characters in this story whirling around Ms. Hayt, the protagonist, are the overly educated, upwardly mobile denizens of New York City and its suburbs; with the fast-talking and the intellectualism and all eyes focused on seats of power; this memoir, in the final analysis, details a old sad story, and it's this:
   
   That if you don't understand in your gut that lasting love and fulfillment in this life comes from the giving and not from the getting, you will wind up alone and feeling unlovable which will keep you alone.
   
   Lasting love begins by selectively allowing other people all the way in to your very soul -- that means finding others who you believe may be worthy, evaluating whether they seem to have some real interest in knowing who you really are, and then gradually revealing your most private inner thoughts and dreams and cares and woes to those people, and then evaluating, by their words and actions, whether they really do care. If they do, you will feel cared about, and the feeling that you are cared about is so unbelievably wonderful that it will inspire you to allow those selected individuals in even further. This trust of allowing others in is the highest form of giving, which will engender trust from those people, and they will allow you in. And this is the way bonding happens, spirits intertwine, and love happens. And then you don't need lots of food, drugs, gambling, booze, etc., etc. to feel alive, because you'll have the real thing, which is true love, which really means feeling deeply cared about by another and knowing that the other person feels deeply cared about by you. Again, it doesn't come from running around trying to please others. Anyone can spread their legs. Anyone can learn to make gourmet dinners. There's no giving in that; there is no exposure of self in that; there's no trust in that. To get the fulfilling, lasting love, you must allow others all the way in and trust that the frightened, scarred, insecure, and highly imperfect soul inside you is wonderfully lovable as is. This is the old story that has always been true, and memoir will tell you what happens to people who don't understand this very fundamental emotional truth.



3. I enjoyed and related to some of the stories, having my own somewhat sordid past to own up to. I also thought the book was well-written. But the life the author lived is also full of things that only lots of money can buy... nannies, constant psychotherapy, lots of plastic surgery, among other things. Her story is hard at times for us middle class folk in "flyover country" to relate to.



4. i most definately got into " i'm no saint " by elizabeth hayt, a memoir by a woman who thought she had it all, but still felt empty....i was impressed with her writing style. ms. hayt, an art critic, could just as easily be a novelist; she has a flair for writing, often dabbling in euphenisms, metaphors and colorful descriptions of her childhood on long island, then later as a college student in new york city. hayt drops names: she gets kissed by an up and coming musician named prince and spends time in keith richard's apartment, but makes it all seem as ordinary as a walk in the park. i felt for her when she explained while she was embracing her inner slut through many intimate encounters, she still wanted to be loved....
   
   
   this woman is no prude; this book's sauciness will make the hair stand on the back of your neck. ms. hayt is equal parts porn star and intellectual; a combination that never fails to impress. like her mother, elizabeth gets an abortion, only to regret it later, longing to give her son, dash, a sibling.....i was hoping ms. hayt and charlie, her husband, would get back together, but real life is not a hollywood movie....but she comes out better from the experience. i will never look at jewish girls the same way again....clear a weekend on your calender and read this....



5. After reading the catty negative reviews here I felt the need to write my own. Hows this for a review?? I couldn't put the book down. From the very first page until the very last page I was stealing paragraphs while working, while vacationing and while doing laundry. This book was one of the true honest portrayals of a "Upper East Side" Desperate Housewife. I picked up the book not expecting to be glued from the getgo. I appreciate the author's recollections and clear memories dating back to her childhood. She admits what too many of us don't and its terribly bookworthy. Her sex scenes were graphic, but if they weren't this book wouldn't have been delivered with the guts and determination that makes it great.
   Elizabeth!! I need a part two!!

5 comments about Faded Pictures from My Backyard: A Memoir.

1. Carswell's book is a tremendous, insightful read. There are so many beautiful images and her writing just flows off the pages. The story is captivating and the characters -- her family members -- are honestly drawn and with great humor.
   
   I literally could not put this book down. Not only is the writing fantastic, her changing voice as she matures and ages is something I don't think I've ever experienced as a reader before. The stories themselves are all intertwined and her observations of her mother and her own self-reflection are devastating, moving, hilarious, wrenching, and lovely. It's a wonderfully fascinating story and for anyone who grew up in a large family in the 60s, it is especially fun.



2. The tender love emanating from the pages of this book touch the depths of one's soul. Whether she knows it or not, Ms. Carswell has attained spiritual greatness, although the book does not seem to be written to that end. The love she has for her mother and the empathy she holds for the orphans are the true essence of its beauty.
   
   Reminiscent of the style in which Harper Lee wrote To Kill a Mockingbird, the author so poignantly captures the voice of a child trying to make sense of the sadness which is her backyard; while at the same time she interjects bouts of comic relief that can only come from pure childhood innocence. As she ages in the book her voice does also. It is brilliantly done.
   
   I highly recommend this book. You will cry. You will laugh out loud. And, because Ms. Carswell reveals her heart so openly, you will love.



3. Sue Carswell's astonishing, spectacular book is, without a doubt, the most courageous book I have ever read. Carswell opens her heart, her psyche, and her soul to the reader and the world, and does so with monumental skill, humor, and candor. When you finish this book, you feel you know the author better than anyone, other than yourself, because she has revealed herself so generously. What a comfort her struggle with her demons will be to so many people.
   
   I laughed out loud at points and cried (something I haven't done in years while reading a book). Her voice evolves over the course of the narrative and will be in my head for a very long time, maybe forever. So sweet, so sad, so resilient. Ms. Carswell invites readers in to her wirting process in the beginning of this book, and at the end, she brings you back to her flickering computer screen. Even though much of the book is painful to experience, I didn't want it to end and so I read the Acknowledgments as if they were a part of the story and, in a way, they are.
   
   I tried to find one thing I didn't like about this book, but the only thing I was unsure about (the lack of quote marks), I ended up loving. Their absence is liberating.
   
   I recommend this book to absolutely everyone. Put it on the top of your list for 2006.



4. Sue's father is the Director of a home for disturbed children. It's interesting the expertise and wisdom that he can give to other troubled children, but when it comes to his own daughter, he's in denial. Very candid and extremely well written.



5. From December 1947 until June 1951 while I was a student at SUNY - Albany, I worked and lived at the Albany Home for Children as one of several Assistant Activities Directors. A week ago while googling "Albany Home", I came across this book and started reading it to learn more about what has happened at the home since I left. It didn't take long for me to become absorbed in the major thrust of the book as described by previous reviewers - especially Virginia Mathers. "The heartfelt story she tells of her love for her mother is so poignant that at some points it is almost painful to read - her emotions are so raw and real. The other part of the story is Ms. Carswell's amazing candor as she describes her own problems and obsessions which haunted her throughout a majority of her life. The fact that she has perservered and become a major literary success is a tribute to her strength of character."
   
   I actually couldn't put the book down.
   
   Although it was a minor part of the book, Ms. Carswell's descriptions of life at the home, both from her own experiences and Bob Wygant's, was right on. In fact, I learned more about the purpose and mission of the home by reading the book than I did while I was there.
   
   I'm glad that she got to meet my boss, friend, protector, and straight shooter - Coach Huddleston.
   
   Read this book!

1 comments about News at Ten: Fifty Years With Stan Chambers.

1. As I was researching the era of live television for my own book, actress Sybil Jason recommended that I read this one. Am I ever glad she did! News at Ten gives us a rare glimpse of the behind-the-scenes goings on in the television news industry, and the early movers and shakers with extraordinary foresight who helped it develop into the efficient presentation it is today. The author, a very familiar face to southern California viewers, was right there in the middle of it as it progressed and tells the story in a very engaging way. Thanks for a good read, Mr. Chambers.