4 comments about A House Unlocked.

1. Penelope Lively's extended essay centers on the home of her grandmother, who was born in Victorian times and in Edwardian days was a young wife and mother, mistress of a country estate. Through her description of hundreds of items considered vitally necessary to the household, she ponders the cast-in-stone class structure, the assumptions which underlay the roles and behavior of men and women, the status of children, the notions of childcare, the sturdy outdoor motif of country living. The weather, she said, was simply ignored, and people went about what they meant to do, rain or sun. Hunting and gardening figured prominently; many social activities centered around
   these activities.

   Americans who know the work of writers like Agatha Christie will be familiar with this English world, dissimilar from our own country especially because of rigid class distinctions. A middle class household, Lively tells us, would be expected to employ servants. Her grandmother could spend hour upon hour doing rigorous physical labor in her gardens, but she felt much put upon when in later days, she was faced with doing her own "washing up" (kitchen dishes and pans). Lively also describes well the distance between genders, the attitude that men and women were utterly different, with different interests and orientations, unlike the more intimate, nose-to-nose marriages that began around mid-century.
   
   Lively's essay is composed of personal perceptions, and although I find the limitations of this subjectivity its one drawback, I recommend it as an entertaining view to a vanished era.




2. I am a great admirer of Ms. Lively's work, both fiction and nonfiction, and I think this is a wonderful book. My only disappointment is that there are no photographs in the book--not even an author photo on the jacket cover! Photographs would have raised the book's price, I suppose, and it might seem childish to request them, but when there is such detailed and vivid description of specific objects (that embroidered firescreen, for instance) and people, I don't believe it is unreasonable for the reader to want even more--and to feel a bit cheated. Was it her decision, or a stingy move on the part of her publisher?

   Still, I love this book and plan to re-read it many times.




3. Although I have always been and will be a fan of Lively's writing, I was somewhat disappointed in this book. Once or twice I thought she got way off the subject of the house. I would have appreciated more details about the house's inhabitants over the years, its contents and what all these meant to her at different times of her life. There could have been a few more details about things were done and what it was really like to be a girl in England during those times. These fascinating subjects were somewhat glossed over, I thought....

   I would have enjoyed it quite a bit more had she included lots of photos of the house, gardens, rooms, the family heirlooms mentioned, old photos of relatives and retainers, and family events. These would have made the book so much more meaningful. Even if that had meant a higher price,I would still have bought it.

   (It would be interesting to know what's become of the house since her family left it. Is it still a private home? Converted to a business of some kind? Being loved and kept up the way it once was?)

   All that said, I very much enjoyed the things she DID write about, as well as her writing style. Perhaps some day she might reissue the book in a satisfyingly "illustrated" form.

   More please!




4. Lively does a great job of linking her ancestry and past to the physical structure and contents of the family's country home. Great detail and description of another time, but it becomes a bit ponderous. I raced through the first half of the book, and plodded through the last quarter.

No comments about No Problem: The Story of a Cornishman Part II (Isis (Paperback Large Print)).

5 comments about I Thought My Father Was God.

1. I love the stories in this book. I love how they are written by "real" people, not professional writers. I love how they are true, and how every one, no matter how short, makes you feel or learn something strong and beautiful.
   After reading each story, though, you will struggle with trying to decide if you should pause and feel the new emotion each one gave you, or if you should quickly flip through the next page, asking for more. I'm a greedy reader and I usually did the latter while reading this. But for the second read, I will force myself to reflect.



2. I had heard about this book from a friend. I not only enjoyed reading it, as I did so it gave me a greater appreaciation for my own father. As my father laid dying, my brother and I took turns reading selected stories to him. It gave us a chance to tell him how much we (now as adults) appreaciated his years of parenting. I highly recommend it.



3. The sheer variety of life experiences gives the reader a new perspective on their own lives, seeing how sometimes simple events can have a profound effect upon oneself or others. Helps you realize today's "disaster" may be the event that leads to tomorrow's SUNSHINE. Covering the USA, I ran into a story from a nearby town in which a dear friend of mine was mentioned by first name only, but instantly recognizable because of her loving kindness toward a family member of the storyteller. Adults (young and old) can pick up valuable "life lessons" without the preaching that usually accompanys them.



4. Heard I THOUGHT MY FATHER WAS GOD, edited and read by
   Paul Auster . . . this is a collection of stories that came as a result
   of a call to listeners of National Public Radio's WEEKEND ALL
   THINGS CONSIDERED . . . more than 4,000 were submitted.
   
   I couldn't really tell whether they were fact or fiction; it really
   didn't matter . . . after taking me a while to warm up to them,
   I quickly became interested in what others had to say about such
   subjects as Animals, Families, War, Love, and Dreams.
   
   Some stories were mundane, but many others were quite
   moving . . . in particular, I was touched by the one involving a
   small boy's realization that his mother has pawned her wedding ring
   so that she can buy him a school uniform.
   
   As the author notes: [I was most interested in] stories that defied
   our expectations about the world, anecdotes that revealed the mysterious
   and unknowable forces at work in our lives, in our family histories, in
   our minds and bodies, in our souls. . . . I was hoping to put together . . . a
   museum of American reality."
   
   He has succeeded . . . my only criticism has to do with the
   narration . . . Auster handled the stories from male readers just
   fine . . . I would have preferred a member of the opposite for
   stories from female readers.



5. This is not a book by Paul Auster. It's a book by me. And you. And your smart neighbor. No, the other one, the smart, creative one.
   
   I know this because, if you're reading this review, you're that neighbor (and you have a neighbor or two like you). When you read this book, and you should, you'll read stories by folks who, like you, think once in a while, "I should write that down." "I can think in adjectives and adverbs about that, and that is something I think someone else might want to see, too."
   
   Someone has told you, "You should write a book," but you've never really sat down to do that because, even though your life is full and rich and there have been sorrows and amazements and happinesses and crime and death and dogs and your father's car on a hot vacation trip sitting next to your cousin, your life is too full to take the time to sit and do something as mundane and time-consuming as write.
   
   But these 179 people did just that. I have to warn you that you can't read this like a regular book. Its rhythm is single drumbeats, not cascades and bar after bar. Each story is itself. Each story is introduced in the first paragraph, which is so different from the last paragraph of the story before that if you allow yourself to read like you usually do, your eyes will simply register the individual letters of the next story while your mind is still absorbing the last. It will be mulling, savoring, feeling like the woman whose father heard her first words speaking of life's responsibilities after spending her first really full day at his mortuary, that last sentence seeping into crevices of your grey matter and prying out little (and big) thoughts and hopes and connections and worries hidden because you haven't yet had time to write.
   
   You'll need to stop your eyes moving halfway through that next story, because you'll have missed the first paragraph of these stories that are over in an eyeblink but carry weight, most just a little, some considerable, but in sum giving you the reason you've always needed to sit with your word processor and add to the tome.
   
   Go back and read from the beginning. It's worth the time and effort. Then sit and write another. -- rg

No comments about The Private Life of Napoleon Volume VII [EasyRead Large Edition].

5 comments about Basil Street Blues.

1. Michael Holroyd's "Basil Street Blues" is a marvelously readable memoir by the biographer of Lytton Strachey and others. Holroyd's early life in England before, during and after WWII was filled with a cast of eccentrics-- one grandmother occasionally sported a monocle, the other shouted the odd word in French; his mother was compared in every way to champagne; his father was "a most unlikely old Etonian;" and the waning family fortune came several generations back from Rajmai Tea, a company whose dramatic ups and downs proved "better than a seat at the opera." Holroyd cleverly explains how this oddball cast of characters ultimately led him into the profession of writing biography. This is a wonderful story, told not without pathos and humor. One hopes for a sequel.



2. Although Michael Holroyd had a difficult life growing up among eccentrics, his beautiful prose and gentle sense of humor show that he nonetheless emerged as a remarkably insightful, down-to-earth adult. His descriptions of the people who influenced him are wonderfully observant, and kinder than most of the people probably deserved. On page 142, he notes that what he can reveal "emerges more between the lines of my writing," and he gives us ample lines to read between. I would strongly recommend Basil Street Blues to anyone interested in the art of memoir writing, as well as anyone interested in knowing more about Holroyd.



3. Holroyd, a biographer, turns his skills as a researcher and writer onto his own family, and proves that the devil really is in the details, and in the telling of the same. The display of his skills as a writer in dealing with the homely eccentricities and dusty skeletons in the closet of his own life have convinced me that I must, at the very least, acquire and read his work on Bernard Shaw. Definitely recommended.



4. This is one of the most beautifully constructed books ....beginning slowly with an introduction too Holroyd's unusal ancestors .... his own shyness and youth among various estranged folks, and then building to a wonderful, generous, end.

   I was quite overwhelmed as the last few chapters came round. I am highly recommending it to readers




5. Holroyd may be a great biographer revealing the lives of the British authors, but he struggles to portray his own life which is the subject of this book. To cope with a world he doesn't understand, he wishes for invisibility as a child. He grew up in the dysfunctional home of his grandparents and elderly aunt, but as an adult delves into the fragments of their lives and the lives of his divorced parents.
   In this autobiography, he grasps as shreds of his family life, trying to piece together a coherent narrative. For the reader, the numerous relatives and switching of time frames, it becomes difficult to follow. Despite this, one feels drawn in to his search for meaning in the family's behavior.
   It's an interesting, though fragmented view, of a British family clinging to past glories and bemoaning lost wealth. I really wish it included a photo section.

1 comments about Three Cheers for the Next Man to Die (Reminiscence).

1. The Law Of Land Warfare is quite clear, in that ANY person fighting in uniform, who surrenders, is to be afforded Prisoner Of War Status under the Geneva Convention.
   On page 157 he relates how four captured Germans "in uniform" were ordered by the Battalion Commander..."to be stood against the playground wall and shot".
   On page 158 he relates..."The oldest could not have been more than sixteen, and the youngest probably only fourteen."
   The author/witness does not relate that anyone.....
   ANYONE!... even raised a peep of protest, objection, or argument to these murders of children who legally should have been afforded Prisoners Of War Status under the Geneva Convention.
   No legal justification is provided.
   In 1983, when this book was published, and this veteran "told all",
   had it been Germans executing adult Partisans fighting out of uniform,
   all hell would have broken lose,
   with crininal investigations of any and all surviving members of the self-admitted War Criminal Glider Battallion, (British) Sixth Airborne Division.
   But this was not even that...
   These ...were...C H I L D R E N !.....WHO... WERE... IN ...UNIFORM !
   Ahh, the "Good Guys"...what unabashed hypocrites!

No comments about Boots and Saddles (Nightingale Large Print Series).

5 comments about The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out Of Darkness (Walker Large Print Books).

1. This is a remarkably personal and insightful journey which takes us through the loss of hope and faith and then back to a higher realm of love and understanding. Here are my personal thoughts about this book:
   
   1. By the end of the book, I felt a bond with her that is similar to something I have felt for some of my best professors and teachers who helped me understand complex things. Karen is extremely honest and open and able to describe emotions and reactions which many thoughtful people must have to orthodox religious training and dogma. She works so hard to do the right thing and yet she is unable to feel the connection to God and make the decision to accept things as they are. She is the opposite of the normal rebellious person who bolts. She is the long suffering special person who will follow the rules, sacrifice and do the right things over and over again to come up with the expected result of obedience and conformity. And yet, that brilliant and analytical mind of hers cannot allow herself to be tricked or cajoled into compliance. I feel that this is because she is brutally honest and pure.
   
   2. She lets us into her very private and sometimes sad life. We know her every fear and understand that she is shy, awkward socially, and backward, and as she heals and moves to the next level of understanding in her life, we root for her and admire the things she is trying to do. Her accomplishments are huge and she has done it virtually all alone with extreme patience and many setbacks as well as thousands of days carefully studying the history of religion, various poets and other important writers. The ultra close relationship we have with her every day struggles helps us comprehend her conclusions and remarks about spirituality, religion and life. She has taken the time to do what many of us would like to do but can't do because of other more pressing obligations and, perhaps, addiction to regular shallow life things.
   
   3. She is imprisoned by her unknown health problems, her religious obligations, fear and shyness, and yet we see her determination get her to a level of freedom experienced by very few people. She loses her faith, gains a cause to help others understand how religion at a certain level can be damaging, and as she reads and studies each of the three major religions, she gradually moves back to a spiritual understanding that gives her a new freedom and love of everyone. Along the way, she teaches us some of the basics about each of the religions and why we need to understand them before we assume that all others are incorrect and horrible. This gives us hope and makes us want to reexamine and study others and then move to that higher level that is taught by all of them. Certainly, it makes me want to study more about Judaism and the prophet Mohammed's teaching.
   
   I finished the book with a great and positive feeling that there may be hope in the world if we could take the time to truly understand each other. It's a great book. Thanks, Karen.



2. Written with much sensitivity (and courage), it induced much empathy with the author. A good read.
   
   I was less than impressed with some of her books on history of religion, but this autobiography shows where she was coming from, and helped me better appreciate what she was trying to convey in those other books.
   
   I look forward to the next installment in this autobio series. :-)



3. So Karen is dysfuntional? No, like me, she has temporal lobe epilepsy, a condition from which the world and society prefer to turn away and pretend it doesn't exist. It's exceptionally hard to describe, since it has literally hundreds of forms and does leave one doubting one's sanity at times. Then we doubt the world's mental balance. I was once dismissed from work by someone who feared I'd bite colleagues. And Karen is an apologist for Muslim extremists? Oh, for pity's sake, grow up! Read what she says, not what your prejudice tells you. Does she perhaps wear a Paisley scarf too (originally a Scottish design, by the way)? There's no trusting these people, is there, if they don't think just like you? Open the window and look outside. There's a world out there, bigger than even your prejudices and bigotry.
   And a note to Mr Benanchou: the Greeks didn't believe the world was flat. In the centuries BCE, the circumference of the world was calculated to a high degree of accuracy, with two sticks, sunlight and basic trigonometry (subtended angles - look it up.) We rely on very pricy satellites, not garden canes, which cost so much less.
   I applaud Karen Armstrong. It can still be problematical - I know well from experience - to assert one has epilepsy. Fears of evil spirits crop up, even now. And it can lead to social and career disaster. I was forced to retire, with two degrees, at only 42.



4. As a memoir, Armstrong's "The Spiral Staircase" succeeds in the first half. She documents her life in a Catholic convent, her physical challenges and her mental state of mind. Readers wonder, Why would she do this to herself when she was so miserable most of the time? Answer: Her goal was to find God.
   
   Her obsessive journey leads me, and I suppose many other readers, to conclude that she tried too hard. But it's a fascinating story.
   
   The last half of her memoir solves the puzzle of her physical (misinterpreted early in her life as mental) disability. Success follows her discovery, but the book gets tedious with her sometimes repetitious account of daily life and re-learning how to cope with job loss. She eventually finds her niche as a writer by publishing "A History of God," a thoughtful review of many religious cultures.
   
   Armstrong realizes that the study of God does not have to include belief in all the dictates of a specific religion. In fact it need not include belief in God at all. She finds out that the journey is more important than the goal.



5. This book is a beautiful act of compassion for other women and men who, like Karen Armstrong, have struggled with doubts, conforming to religions, and other related "failures." The book provides alternate, thoughtful, and understandable means of interpreting and expressing hopes and faiths. Thank you Karen for writing down your thoughts and helping many of us who have struggled with so many of the same issues you have studied.

No comments about Letters of Cicero.

No comments about Nurses at War (Ulverscroft Nonfiction).