No comments about When Blind Eyes Pierce the Darkness: A Mother's Insights.

5 comments about Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America.

1. Author Barbara Ehrenreich spends a year as an experiment living on minimum wage and writing about it as a journalist. The book chronicles her year working in 3 states (Florida, Maine, and Minnesota) as, among other things, a waitress, maid, and Walmart employee. From the beginning she makes two caveats: that she has her own car (many minimum wage workers don't) and she won't go hungry (e.g. she will dip into her ATM before she will starve).
   
   I thoughourly enjoyed this book. It was fascinating to see, fully see, another side of life that I thought I knew but really didn't. These people work hard, very hard, are good people, honest people and watch out for each other as best they can with what little they have.
   
   Every dollar counts. I remember the Merry Maid who ate hot dog rolls brought from home for lunch because not only did she have no money, but no time since the work schedule was so tight. Decent housing is nearly impossible to find. All this and the author didn't even have to worry about chilcare costs. Everyone on minimum wage has to work at least two jobs to survive at even a subsistence level and live with friends, relatives, share a couch, a trailer. It's bad.
   
   This book has changed my outlook toward minimum wage workers, made me a better tipper, and a much kinder and more thoughtful customer. I recommend it to anyone just as an aid to your humanity.



2. This book was required summer reading before my freshman year at the University of Missouri. I was appalled to find after the first chapter or so a political undertone of liberals masquerading as journalists yet again.
   
   Now I am a middle of the road individual, but my biggest pet peeve is when people are NOT UPFRONT with there intentions. It was the most hypocritical book I have ever read.
   
   She does her best to point out how hard it is to get by on minimum wage with minimal education. She stays in these personas long enough to learn about her coworkers and show us how hopeless it is. Our lives are what we make of them not our jobs or money-I certainly hope I can not be reduced to a $ sign. Maybe if she lays off the drugs long enough she will stop blaming society for our problems and realize that it boils down to individual responsibility.



3. I was expecting this book to make us 'understand' ,not 'know', what it is like to be in a low wage job and more or less at the bottom of the economic chain. This book left a lot to be desired. The author never really 'lets go' and immerse herself in her situation. Rather, she stays high up on her perch, and passes judgment on everything that moves. How do we interpret her musings and thoughts and humor? Was it just to alleviate her pain arising from a situation (she makes fun of the 'rich' folks who employ 'poor' house-maids. While the humor was nice to read, what was she trying to convey in the page after page of sarcastic comments about the boss of the maid service? Wasn't he a product of the economic system as well?)
   What I was looking forward to was someone who stood back and simply 'described', with the astute observational-eye of a Somerset Maugham or an R.K.Narayan - and let the reader interpret and judge. Instead the author fills the book with pages and pages of sarcasm and humor poked at someone or the other - management, the hotel owner (she even goes to describe problems with an East Indian marriage system !), the rich and even at the English language in Walmart's video material! The author behaves like a 'tourist' having a trip on her expensive car through 'poor town' and thinking that she is experiencing poverty. Poverty is more of a state of mind - of how the mind, in desperation, breaks down and accepts its surroundings without question. For some reason, the author simply finds this hard to understand and keeps questioning 'why the employees at Walmart don't form a union'.
   Go ahead and the read the book - I do commend the author's courage in leaving her safe surroundings and living in poor conditions. But do not get swept away by the glowing reviews on the cover - they are by affluent reviewers who just want a vicarious peek at poverty.



4. Gave the book as a gift...didn't read it but the reviews on it are great. I'm reviewing the bookseller. The book was here very quickly in excellent condition.



5. This was me! For those who reviewed the book and said that Ehrenreich was "unrealistic", I'm going to share my story. Several years ago my ex-boyfriend and I could have been in the book; we were each working a full-time job and he also had TWO part-time jobs at the same time (one after his full-time job and another on the weekends). Our jobs were in electronic sales at a big chain store and telemarketing which at the time paid $7.50 an hour. Yet we were still unable to make ends meet. After rent on our shoebox-efficieny apartment and utility bills, quarters for laundry and bus fare (we couldn't even afford a car! And even if we could have, we would not have been able to afford insurance AND gas.), we had hardly any money leftover for groceries and certainly NO money leftover for luxuries such as new clothes and new shoes (we did shop at thrift stores, but only when we really needed more outfits). After we ran out of selling our CDs, books, and magazines, which we sold for bus fare to be able to get to and from jobs, we resorted to selling plasma which paid $20 at the time and was enough for two weeks worth of groceries. Everything else that we owned, a mattress on the floor, linen, and kitchen supplies (which we deemed were the necessities) had all been purchased at a Goodwill also with the help of a friend of mine who worked there and used his employee discount for us.
   I'm sure people would have thought my ex-boyfriend and I were lazy and "slackers" but we were working so HARD and pinching pennies and we couldn't understand why we still couldn't afford a nicer apartment, a car, decent clothes and to eat well. I shudder to think how much more of a hell our lives would have been if we had had children to boot!
   Unfortunately the strain of our financial situation did our relatonship in. He moved back in with his single mother and I moved back in with my grandparents as we went our seperate ways. Sadly, living with my grandparents rent-free didn't really make my life easier. I was still working a minimum wage job and trying to save money while also helping them with expenses. Then the worst thing happened, I got another job in telemarketing and lost my voice completely two weeks into training which was followed by strep throat; this latest for a month! Needless to say I lost my job because I couldn't even make it through training. Of course I had no health insurance either. I realized there was no way I could ever afford a car to get a better job off the bus route or to move out into my own apartment anytime soon. Finally, I made the desperate decison to enlist in the Army.
   My life is completely different now that I am out of the Army and a civilian again. From the Army I gained skills and knowledge in a specific field which are marketable and thanks to the Army College Fund and Montgomery G.I. Bill I am currently enrolled in a graduate program. Finanically I am better off now then I ever was in my life, but I never forget for a minute that I can end up again where I was before the Army, (selling plasma for food)...even with a Master's degree. Unfortunately there are countless reasons why some people would not be able to make the same decisions to join the military. For many people that is not an option. So where does that leave them?
   I LOVE this book because I think it IS realistic and dead-on and I should know, I have lived it!

3 comments about Shooting History: A Personal Journey.

1. Unwilling to wait for the May US paperback release of Jon Snow's book, Shooting History: A Personal History, a friend sent me a gift copy from Amazon.UK. It is worth the extra effort. Jon Snow anchors the nightly news on Channel 4 in Great Britain. To get to that prominant seat, he seemingly spent most of the last 35 years reporting from every history-making hot spot in Africa, Europe, the Middle East and Europe. Even his brief adventures in Asia -- getting arrested with Vietnamese boat people in Malaysia and covering the British handover of Hong Kong to China -- remind us of some of that region's most dramatic moments. But it is his interactions with some of the world's most notorious and important leaders of the second half of the 20th century -- and his casual, elegant way of writing -- that make this one of the most important and interesting books availble this year. Snow, for example, made his first trip to Africa at 19, to teach in Unganda in a Catholic missionary school. He met the future dictator Idi Amin at a boxing match, and returned later to chronicle Uganda's slide first into despotism and then into the crisis of AIDS. His African reporting also introduced him to the late Sudanese strongman Siad Barre and he was in South Africa to record Nelson Mandela's first moments of freedom after 27 years in a South African jail. Other world leaders Snow interviewed include Pope John Paul II, who referred to him as "the tall Englishman," Mikhail Gorbachev, Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. In 1980 he courageously went behind the lines of the Salvadoran war to visit a village under the control of Salvadoran liberation fighters, returning a week later with Salvadoran government forces to the same village only to find it devastated by their military assault.
   
   As a news anchor, Snow is much more honest about his political sympathies than his US counterparts, while still reporting objectively and factually. As a young man, he opposed Britian's integration into Europe, but as an adult, especially after the collapse of the Soviet Union, he came to see a united European Community as one viable -- and necessary -- antidote to the unchecked superpower of the United States. Most poignently -- and without heavy hands -- he talks about the tragic implications for US leadership and respect in the world today due to the Bush Administration's post 9/11 policies. Seen for years by most of the world as a beacon of civil liberties and freedom, the US response to 9/11, including the unilaterial and unnecessary preemptive war on Iraq and the willingness to curtail civil liberties at home, has sown confusion, disappointment and anger among the democratically inclined people of the world. But even these difficult opinions are delivered, like the rest of his story, with great irony and wit.
   
   All that politics and a good read, too.



2. My principal tie with Jon Snow is one of his brightly-striped and very expensive-looking silk ties that I won in a competition for a political caption organised by the Channel 4 news programme that he fronts each weeknight. However there are much more important aspects of his approach as a journalist that I empathise with strongly. Jon Snow was born in 1947, the son of a Church of England clergyman who advanced to the episcopate. His upbringing, conventionally religious, conservative and patriotic, was one that he tells us near the start of the book `radicalised' him, and it seems to me that this expression needs to be treated with caution. He was indeed a fairly conventional `student radical' according to the fashion of that time, getting into trouble with his university authorities for protesting against apartheid. However the long-term outcome of his early mental awakening is not radicalism as I would understand the term, but simply sceptical rationality. I detect no burning desire to overthrow capitalism or to do battle with any establishment, for instance, nor any great theoretical basis to his politics. What I do sense on every page of this enthralling volume is a shining mental honesty that takes him to the conclusions and beliefs that the evidence of his own eyes warrants, and that is what I like about him.
   
   These days he is mainly a presenter and interviewer, but that is just how his career has turned out. He thinks of himself as a reporter basically, and he has been around and many states and kingdoms seen, not by and large goodly ones. He has never had any connexion with the BBC, making his first appearance on its airwaves only a few months ago as a guest on a late-night political discussion. I had rather hoped he might have gone into the theoretical issue of independence, bias and impartiality in reporting, but in the event the book only skirts it, and that was all I should really have expected. These reports are the records of a thinking man certainly, and he doesn't need in every case to spell out his thinking for it to be quite obvious what it is, but they are not analysis, only reportage with some editorial comment. What he has always done is to be perfectly open about his own general stance, and I imagine he would prefer to be thought of as `left' rather than as positioned elsewhere, much as I would myself. How, in the last resort, this colours his reporting and comment is hard to say. Not only is no reporter a tabula rasa with political attitudes that are 100% neutral, no listener or viewer is one of those either, so I don't know either whose word we take for it when allegations of bias are made, as they routinely are when any subject of any sensitivity is reported on by anyone at all. Snow was at one time seconded to ABC, and he tells us how his on-the-spot accounts were always checked against versions emanating from the State Department, the latter frequently diverging from his own. It was difficult, he tells us, to get any weight attached to the fact that he was an eyewitness and the State Department were not, and for me also this raises the familiar and incomprehensible issue of how people manage to think in this way. On what basis, or at least on what rational basis, is it possible to prefer the State Department version in these instances? None apparently, but there's no doubt that people think this way and will in all confused sincerity find bias in the only account that has any credible basis. Where the allegations are not sincere the case is really simpler. Snow has a fascinating tale to tell of an anonymous phone call he received that gave him just enough information to identify the source as being the office of HRH the Prince of Wales. This call related to the funeral arrangements for Princess Diana, concerning which a dispute at the very pinnacle of royalty was alleged. Snow duly reported what he had been told, and was refuted by one of the tabloids purporting to speak for Her Britannic Majesty personally. That's the way things are sometimes done.
   
   He has missed some stories, notably Tienanmen Square, and he puts this down to his instinctively greater interest in America, Europe and Africa, another inevitable source of bias, albeit innocent and unintended bias. The patent honesty of the man's mind shines through his memorable account of the buffoonish Idi Amin, and it would be impossible to detect any adornment in the story of how he and his crew nearly lost their lives in Kosovo. I have to conclude that there is no such thing as total impartiality in reporting, and that if there were none of us could recognise it. For myself, I'm inclined to place more confidence in Jon Snow than in most of his occasional detractors, something that of course may say more about me than about any of them. He offers opinions in a candid way, such as that Jimmy Carter was too intellectual to be decisive, but he never seems to preach or to sell a point of view. Just as a narrative, this book is not only gripping but a priceless historical record of some of the most important events in all history. Another issue that affects any reporting is, of course, what is left out. This is the more difficult to assess as I don't necessarily know what most of that was, but among the brief glimpses he lets us have of his personal life I note that there is no mention of his brief engagement to the queenly Anna Ford who now presents the BBC's lunchtime news.
   
   The final story is the Iraq war, where he candidly shares my own view that it's displacement activity to divert attention from the real terrorist threat and the failure to counter it. Looking back he traces a pattern of incomprehension and continuing failure to learn, due in large part to seeing issues through the prism of the interests of Israel. Does that make him biased? It seems obvious to me, so does that make me biased as well? If so, who are the paragons of impartiality who will put us right?



3. Jon Snow's account of his life as a reporter is an intoxicating read. Jon retraces his steps through the maelstrom of world events that have occurred in the past three decades. Situated on the cusp of each wave of history as it breaks Jon has had the enviable opportunity of bearing witness to cataclysmic episodes in time. Geographically we are taken from Chile to Washington, Rome to Uganda, and Afghanistan to Vietnam. Politically, we gain insights into the manoeuvrings within the Vatican, the Iron Lady's motivations behind her firm hand on the Falklands, the freeze and thaw of US Soviet relations, and its horrific and disturbing fallout in countries as far apart as Grenada and Somalia, and as complicated as Iran, Iraq and Israel. Personally, Jon describes audiences with key historical figures who had their hand in the shaping the "new world order"; an order we get the impression he perhaps wishes he had had more of a hand in moulding himself.
   
   Jon's writing is fresh, lucid and honest. He is inquisitive, confident and energetic, something of a rogue, a little reckless. At times he is unpolished and lacks tact but this makes his writing more generous. Jon honestly recounts facts and observations, understating his own bravery and making little of the sacrifices he made with regards to his family in favour of his job. However, the book is far from dispassionate, and this is evident when it comes to world events. Naturally, as a voyager on the cutting edge of history Jon sees the links and connections, with the benefit of hindsight he sees time fold and simply repeat itself as if, as he profoundly says, history is shooting itself in the foot.

5 comments about Tour of Duty LP: John Kerry and the Vietnam War.

1. I found the book refreshing after hearing so many negative things about John Kerry's war service. It's so sad the way some of these far right people writing reviews believe all of the propaganda by their "party". Discrediting his service is a joke. I mean sure, he wasn't the best soldier our country has ever seen, but just compare him to Bush and it makes him look extremely good. Bush can hardly form a sentence (at his age) and Kerry was performing great anti war speeches at a much younger age. As for one of his purple hearts being earned by a self inflicted injury, thats just preposterous, that is not how it works and I think people know that but choose to to believe it. Bottom line is Kerry wouldn't have been the greatest president we have ever seen, but it would have been nice to see someone holding office that actually had served in a war. He might actually have thought twice about sending kids to die. The swift boat vets for "truth" were only one side of the story, and even if some of the things they said were true, obviously the people the Brinkley interviewed with would know better than most of the "truth vets" as they had actually served WITH Kerry, which is different than serving in the same general area.



2. Just one of the many lies i n this book overlooked (????) by Douglas Brinkley was Kerry supposedly in Cambodia in 1968 and havinga telephone conversation with Pres. Nixon. HINT: Johnson was the president in 1968, not Nixon.
   
   To read this book 'TOUR OF DUTY', you'd swaer that Kerry was a real life Rambo when in fact, Kerry was more concerned with carrying around 8mm cameras and old fashioned and heavy Smith-Corona typewritters layingt he foundation for his future presidential campaign.
   
   In another regard, what happened to that BIG DRAFT KERRY said was goingt o happen in January 2005? And the reduced social security benefits? And the Herbert Hoover economy? These were just some of the lies that Kerry repeated over and over and over during his failed presidential campaign in 2004.
   
   But what really happened? There was no draft and 2005 is nearly over. Our seniors got a raise, not a cut in social security benefits and all economic factors show that the economy is doing just great thank you.
   
   Are you all glad that Kerry got whipped last year? Say yes.
   
   [...]



3. It was just a little over 13 months ago that Americans flushed this john and voted for leadership. We didn't buy into the lies or false claims of heroism perpetrated by Kerry and writers like Brinkley who rely on their subject for facts (fat chance)
   
   The economy is moving well. Iraq is moving well regardless what Kerry says. This Kerry promotional piece did not work and thank God for that.
   
   HAPPY ANNIVERSARY AMERICANS! WE ALL "FLUSHED THE JOHNS IN 2004!"



4. This book along with the book by George Butler is so full of crap and hype about Kerry that it makes me laugh. Should be listed as fiction and would make for a great novel. Everybody who really knows Kerry laughs whenever mention of this book is brought up.
   
   Those who knew Kerry back in 1966-67 knew how much he wanted to prevent being drafted and stay out of the service. Kerry claiming to be a war hero is like Michael Moore claiming to be an athlete. Give me a break!



5. Having already proven himself to be one of our best biographers today, with his books on Dean Acheson, JFK, FDR, Jean Monnet, James Forrestal, Henry Ford, Rosa Parks, and others, Douglas Brinkley has done it again with a terrific look at the truth behind an American veteran, politician and lifelong public servant.
   
   Only the ignorant and openly biased will dismiss this highly-detailed examination of John Kerry's war experience, from growing up in Denver and his education at Yale through to his trials, triumphs, and ultimate disgust with the Vietnam War. Any questions you have about Kerry's character or his military service - especially those invented by political opponents who instead backed a corrupt coward named W - you'll find the answers right here.
   
   If you value truth over hype and courage over self-serving cronyism, you'll enjoy this book.

1 comments about Wives of Fame (Ulverscroft Large Print).

1. Previously I would never have read a biography of Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, or Livingston but thanks to Edna Healy I am now interested. She has written an incredible account of the lives of 3 remarkable women and introduced me to their husbands. Had difficulty putting it down.

No comments about The King And I: The Uncensored Tale Of Luciano Pavarotti's Rise To Fame By His Manager, Friend, And Sometime Adversary.

No comments about A Child of the Thirties (Reminiscence).

No comments about Isaac Bickerstaff (Large Print).

No comments about Through Different Eyes.

No comments about Over the Hills and Far Away.