2 comments about A Passion for Life: The Biography of Elizabeth Taylor (G K Hall Large Print Book Series).

1. Being very good at what he does, Donald Spoto, manages to provide readers with an accurate, in depth, and yet entertaining look at the life of Elizabeth Taylor, both on and off screen. Naturally, he starts with the early childhood, because at the age of nine Taylor was already bona fide child-actor. Then, as a heroine, i.e. Talyor, grows up, the discussion focuses mainly on men in her life, her first love (Monty Cliff) and her first marriage...and then, another marriage... and then another marriage, and another... It is hard to keep track at times! However, Spoto also shows Taylor's ability to stay true to her friends, inspite of many-many traumas and ugly gossips that have always surrounded her public persona. The only downside of this book is that narration stops somehere in a "Taylor/Jackson" period. Since Spoto already opened up a candid discussion of Taylor's health and other life problems, I think readers would like to know more about the on-going life battles, that their favorite female star presently has to fight. Also, it would be nice, if he mentioned Taylor's contribution to the fight with AIDS more extensively. In other words, Spoto should be planning on another revised edition of this otherwise lovely book.



2. I really enjoyed this book by Donald Spoto. He went extremely in-depth regarding the life of Elizabeth Taylor. He tells about her childhood to her many marriages and movies. If you would like to get a good look into the life of Elizabeth Taylor, this biography is a excellent choice.

No comments about The Confessions of Jean Jacques Rousseau Volume 1 [EasyRead Large Edition].

5 comments about An Hour Before Daylight : Memories Of A Rural Boyhood.

1. Why is it that ex-presidents make poor writers? Is it that they have had to hide their feeing so long they are afraid to loosen up afterward because we might think less of them? I was looking forward to reading about a boy growing up in Georgia while I was growing up in Iowa, but his writing is so stiff and lifeless that I quit halfway through.



2. After reading this book it is easy to understand why Jimmy Carter was denigrated as a weak Leader who let America's enemies walk all over him. As he looks back with affection & describes his childhood in a strict, hardworking, but loving family on a farm in back country Depression-Era Georgia, Mr Carter comes across as a genuinely kind and good man who respects his fellow-men & women - regardless of color or creed; who is tolerant of - though not entirely blind to -- the shortcomings & foibles of others, and truly incapable of seeing evil in anyone. In short, he is the Ideal Christian. This also goes a long way to explain why subsequently he became so widely respected on the International stage in his second career as Humanitarian & Fixer of the World's Problems.
   
   Mr Carter paints a colourful word-picture of his boyhood home, the close-knit community, the Carter farm, the livestock, the hunting dogs, his family, and his neighbours, the black tenant farmers and their children with whom he worked and played. There is nostalgia for a time and way of life that largely disappeared from this continent half a century ago, when children worked harder & shouldered more responsibility than today's young people can even imagine, but which was the making of them as responsible adults. Yet his writing style is innocent & light-hearted, and occasionally down-right laughable as, for example, when he gives us some examples of his rural childhood diction. It is hard to imagine the urbane, educated Mr Carter uttering the words "We et a bait of plums" or, having travelled 30 miles to see the flooding Flint River, "Wheh de ribber, Daddy? Is it down in dat creek?"
   
   This book touched me on a more personal level as well. I was not far into it before I realised it reminded me so much of the spell-binding stories my mother used to tell us children around the dinner table, stories of her life growing up on a 240 acre Clay Belt farm as one of 15 children of Ukrainian immigrants. The climate, the geography and the neighbours' ethnicity may have been worlds away from the Carters, but her life and her experiences could just as well have happened down the dusty road from Plains, Georgia.
   
   Attention Jimmy Carter: If you read this - I asked my mother about the sound made by the metal clicker on the handle of the milk separator. She is an expert: one of her chores was to operate the milk separator; and afterward to disassemble, clean & reassemble all its the component parts, which she could perform as rapidly as a soldier does with his rifle.
   Mother says you have to turn the handle faster & faster until it reaches the speed necessary for the cream to separate from the milk inside the machine. The change in the tone of the "clicker" is determined by the speed of the turning handle & occurs when the required speed has been reached for the separation to occur.
   
   Mr Carter is one of only a handful of public figures with whom I would care to be acquainted. Such an interesting Life; such an interesting man!



3. I've been wanting to read one or more of President Carter's books for a long time and decided to begin with this one. While I agree that it is well-executed in the main, it doesn't score higher with me on a few grounds.
   
   One: I felt there was a need for more fastidious editing. The book was by no means too long, but there was repetition and disordered content.
   
   Two: Way too much detail in some of the more mundane and unpleasant sections, in particular discussions of minutiae of small-town agribusiness dealings as well as graphic detail of livestock issues including slaughtering and castrating. TMI.
   
   Three: This is a half-hearted complaint, for I realize this isn't the book where these matters would likely be discussed considering the author has several other memoirs addressing other periods of his life (doesn't he?) In any case, I felt like the President did not discuss enough how his upbringing resulted in his being the man he is today as far as race relations are concerned. Lots of discussion about the relatively tolerant household in which he was raised, but lots of apology at the same time about how racism was ubiquitous at the time and not really perceived by his family or by others as a wrong to be righted. I don't know, I guess I'm rambling here, but I would have liked to have read content along the lines of "and these boyhood experiences shaped my perceptions in such a way that I wanted to make a difference in my public service career" and also I woulda liked to have read about how he connects his religious beliefs with his liberal leanings. Flesh out that relationship a bit more.
   
   Just my 2 cents.
   
   In any event, the book was a quick read and I am very glad I got around to reading it.



4. AN HOUR BEFORE DAYLIGHT by Jimmy Carter
   October 29, 2007
   
   
   Rating: 4/5 Stars
   
   I've now read several books written by President Jimmy Carter and I've enjoyed them all. What I love about his books is his personal touch he lends to them. AN HOUR BEFORE DAYLIGHT however is the first full memoir that I've read by Jimmy Carter (the other books were books on Faith), and seeing the world of his childhood, depression era Georgia, has been insightful. This childhood he had is what shaped him into the giving person he is today.
   
   Living in the South during this time meant that blacks were separate from whites, and whites were superior to blacks. And while some of these attitudes may have prevailed even in the Carter household, he was also taught to treat blacks with respect, and most of his childhood friends were the black children of the hired hands they had on their farm. The Carters, compared to many of their neighbors at the time, did well in farming and were very resourceful in all they endeavored. Hard work was the ethic they lived by, but Jimmy Carter also had stories to tell about childhood antics and enjoying life on the farm. Carter also talks about his siblings, mostly referring to his sisters Ruth and Gloria (Billy came along much later, but he is mentioned in the book, in particular in regards to his tragic early death). He looked up to his father, and greatly admired his mother, a woman who did so much in her later years and became famous in her own right (some of the stories Jimmy relates are quite humorous, including her love of the Brooklyn Dodgers, later the LA dodgers and her friendship with the team).
   
   AN HOUR BEFORE DAYLIGHT is not the perfect book. I found a lot of it to be rather dry reading, but I still enjoyed the anecdotes and stories that Jimmy Carter wrote about his growing up years. He's seen a lot in his life and has used what he learned to enrich others and help those who need it. I am slowly going through Carter's library of books and look forward to the next one.



5. This is a very enjoyable book. I love to read about the true
   South. Jimmy Carter is a man to be admired. He grew up learning
   to work for what he wanted. He shows great respect for others.
   A very good read.

5 comments about Love, Lucy.

1. Lucille Ball abandoned this book in 1964, out of concern that its contents would hurt Desi Arnaz. She then forgot about it (as did everyone else in her life, it seems), and it sat neglected in a box of papers until the mid-1990s. This is a phenomenal book, and easily the best I've read so far regarding Lucille Ball.
   
   Love, Lucy should be read along with other biographies in order to get a balanced perspective (Miss Ball tends to be a bit circumspect, though not as private as I expected her to be, regarding her own shortcomings and her private life), but on the whole it is a fascinating glimpse into a legendary life when it was far from over. She had only recently divorced Desi Arnaz and was in the heart of working on The Lucy Show at the time she abandoned the project, and was still terribly active in the running of Desilu.
   
   Lucille sometimes remembers things in a way that makes her seem a bit more moral than she really was. She doesn't discuss running wild and being naughty in her teen years, but since she had young children of her own at the time of the writing of Love, Lucy, I don't suppose I should have expected her to do so. Who wants to display their shortcomings to their kids and then say "don't do that!"
   
   What is most beautiful about this book is the discussion of her love of Desi Arnaz and their marriage. Even though the marriage didn't survive, they adored one another and continued to do so until the ends of their lives. The quote that made me laugh out loud, and I could HEAR Lucy saying it was "It was not love at first sight; it took five minutes."



2. I quite enjoyed this one. It is Lucy's "lost" autobiography--that is, it was only discovered and published after her death in 1989. It was found tucked away in the files of her former attorney, discovered when her children were processing her estate. Apparently, Lucy had begun an "as told to" book by dictating for two years to a talented secretary who transcribed her tapes and even traveled to her hometown to interview her childhood friends for their memories. The resulting product is the history of Lucy from her birth in 1911 to Christmas of 1962. It is written in the present tense, and many of the readers who knew her commented that it was in her "own voice." When Lucie got to listen to the tapes, she even discovered that her mother had been accurately quoted for once! A warm picture emerges of an ambitious but essentially normal comedienne who was very family-oriented and hard-working. Her father died before she had a chance to know him, but she was raised lovingly by her mother and maternal grandparents. She goes through stints of modeling and starring in movies, about which time she meets Desi Arnaz. He played the Cuban firecracker to her more low-key character, and the sparks flew. They went on together to produce the most beloved television show of all time and to rule over the empire of Desilu Productions. But they found themselves not too compatible in the end--he was working too hard and given to explosive rages, and his drinking and many infidelities didn't help matters any. He humiliated her publically on many occasions, and that was why she eventually wanted a divorce. But she remained fond of him, and put this book away because she was afraid that its revelations would hurt him. She went on to meet and marry Gary Morton and found happiness with him for many years until her death. But Gary is only a small part of this book--you walk away struck by what Lucy and Desi achieved together that neither could have achieved alone.



3. I would recommend this book to anyone who is a Lucy fan. Knowing that it is an autobiography makes it more interesting. You can almost hear her voice as you read through the lines. Her life wasn't all roses. Lots of pictures for us to enjoy. Get the book. You won't put it down.



4. Love, Lucy by Lucille Ball was an autobiography she wrote but never published. Her daughter Lucie found the manuscript and decided to publish it almost a decade after her mother's death. Lucille Ball was a comic gem, she did everything so perfectly. This book is good but some of the parts seem empty so I can't give this book 5 stars. Ball talks about her modeling days, how she met and fell in love with Desi Arnaz, her hit t.v. show and becoming a businesswoman when she was highly criticized for being too tough. Check this good summer read out sometime, enjoy!



5. I picked this book up on a recommendation from someone who used to work on the I Love Lucy Show (Dann Cahn). It was fantastic! Written by Lucy herself, it really focused on her feelings and thoughts early on. Once I started I couldn't put it down.

3 comments about Tom Landry: An Autobiography (Walker Large Print Books).

1. Having been a lifelong Cowboys fan I saw this book and had to read it. The first thing I found upon reading it was that total honesty of Coach Landry and the guts it took to wither all the storms life can throw at one person. I found that, even though it deals worth football, there are lessons that are applicable to everyday life. This would be a great book for all school children to be assigned to read. It shows what can happen when one person puts faith and families and principles ahead of instant gradification.



2. America is a sports-crazy nation. Tom Landry's career is worth reading about because it parallels the rise of professional football in the U.S. His rise from the tiny town of Mission, Texas to building a football dynasty is inspirational because through years of losing he had the determination and faith to stick with his plan for winning. A major factor in this was his faith.
   
   Landry's narrative is also intertwined with larger historical events. His older brother Robert died during WWII when the B-17 bomber he was in disappeared over the Atlantic en route to England. At age 18, the younger Landry enlisted and eventually flew 30 B-17 missions over Europe. Another aspect of history--after President Kennedy's assassination in Dallas, the Cowboys were booed at every game they played for the rest of the season, and into the next.
   
   There are some great lessons on leadership in the last chapter that are applicable in any context.
   
   For all he did, Landry certainly didn't deserve the kind of dismissal he got at the end of his career.



3. There are some great lessons on leadership and character in this book. Landry's strong faith and belief system helped shape the morality of many that came in contact with him. His vision on life is based on a high value system. He is a perfectionist and a great strategist who believes that preparation is always the key, which I also agree. After reading this book you will walk away with a new layer of tenacity, an increased will to be challenged, and a new resolution to embrace patience more.

5 comments about Lucky Man (Random House Large Print (Cloth/Paper)).

1. It is humbling to read about someones journey back to reality. Michael had a huge career and was living his dream when he was diagnosed with Parkinsons and soon realized how much he had to be thankful about.



2. Absolutely loved this book. I couldn't put this book down. I actually thought it might be a bit depressing but it wasn't. Michael J. Fox is such an inspiration. There are parts of this book that will make you laugh out loud. It is also a book I will read again and again.



3. I wasn't sure what to expect from this book. Would it be just about Michael J Fox's life or would it center too much on his Parkinson's disease. I'm not usually big on reading celebrity autobiographies and memoirs.
   This one is definitely worth reading! Mr. Fox shares his story with humor and humility and a wonderful honesty. He speaks honestly about his struggles with Parkinson's and trying to hide it in order to continue working. He also speaks honestly about his personal struggles with alcohol and depression. But the struggles don't dominate the book. There are many fun anecdotes about his years growing up in Canada and about the world of acting.
   In the end, what made the biggest impression on me was his gratitude. Gratitude for the life he was able to have as an actor, for his family, and ultimately, even for the disease that changed his life.
   This is a book that I would recommend for anyone who is interested in celebrity biographies. And I would especially recommend it for anyone who has Parkinson's disease or has a family member or friend who has this disease. When you have a disease such as this, it can be difficult to articulate to others just what it is you go through without sounding sorry for yourself.
   Now when I need to explain this to someone, I can just hand them this book and say, "READ IT. NOW."
   Thanks, Mr. Fox!!



4. Michael J. Fox opens his 2002 memoir in late 1990, in the moment he first notices the pinky-finger tremor that leads, a year later at age 30, to a diagnosis of Young Onset Parkinson's Disease (PD).
   
   Then he backs up for a hundred pages to describe his growing-up years in Canada and rising-star experiences in Hollywood -- including an interesting theory of "celebrity" (that it is a gone-haywire extension of the suspension of disbelief/emotional connection that are required of an audience during a performance). He devotes chapters to his PD diagnosis and treatment (including his concealment of it) and to his descent into career and personal crisis. Though it seems PD would top his list of problems then, he notices it doesn't even make the list which includes alcoholism. Fox finishes by describing his redemption, his "coming out" about PD, and his work toward PD research.
   
   The memoir's structure and writing exceeded my expectations and I wondered about a ghostwriter -- until I read Fox's acknowledgements, where he mentions the writing of it and thanks his writing-mentor brother-in-law ... Michael ("Omnivore's Dilemma") Pollan! Lucky Man is an informative, engaging, and insightful memoir.



5. I bought this book on the recommendation of my Medical Terminology teacher. We were discussing neurological diseases and when we got to Parkinson's Disease (PD) she mentioned that she had read his book and how much she enjoyed it. So I got it. I was not a huge "Family Ties" fan but I have paid attention to Michael J. Fox's career especially of late since his disclosure of having PD. In the last few years he has been on a show here and there as a guest. He was on Boston Legal and I thought he was superb! You could clearly see that the camera did not stay on him very long but his acting was top-notch nonetheless.
   
   That said, his book is written with extreme openness, heart and humor. He has such a wonderful outlook on life especially in the wake of learning he has PD. He writes from a place that we wish more stars would be able to go - the very sincerest depth of his being - so much so that I found myself in tears a few times as I read. He writes as if he were telling you, the reader, the story in person. He is himself more in this book than I've ever seen him in an interview on TV. This is a very true, revealing, heart-warming story that definitely gives the definition of what it takes to be considered a Lucky Man today. I highly recommend the book.

1 comments about Here We Go Again: My Life in Television.

1. This book is light, easy reading, but really boring. Betty tells the story of her remarkable career but the book is lacking. Where is the dish? Where are the juicy parts? Betty writes as if it is one big happy press release. She likes everything and everybody. Everything is hunky-dorey. She never minded getting fired from jobs, she never minded being uprooted, she never minded long, tedious work hours. Betty drops names of some of the most famous people in the world and barely comments on them. She gives her meeting with the Queen Mother one sentence in the whole book! She was married to Allen Ludden for 18 years, but until she mentions this toward the end of the book, the reader doesn't even realize that all of their experiences took place over that length of time. She was best friends with Mary Tyler Moore and her husband Grant Tinker and although she tells of many anicdotes, nothing delves very deeply. Betty was on two classic TV shows of all times, "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" and "The Golden Girls", yet she glosses over these experiences and doesn't go into any details about any of it. Apparently Betty's life experience is not able to fit into one book and trying to fit it in one book makes it all seem like an outline rather than a story. Readers will look for some juicy "Mary Tyler Moore Show" stories and some backstage gossip about "The Golden Girls", but they will not find that. They will get Betty's ramblings and squeeky clean attitude about not saying anything if you dont have anything nice to say.... apparently she had nothing nice to say so she glossed over much of her life. I really would have loved to know how she truly felt about her coworkers and how they interacted on and off stage. Some funny "blooper" moments would have been great and some real life gossip would make her seem more human. I love Betty White, I just didn't get all I thought I would from this book. But Betty truly is a Golden Girl, she has done it all

5 comments about NIV: The Authorized Biography of David Niven.

1. It mentions that Peter O'Toole was in the 1976 film Murder by Death. Actually two famous actors name Peter were in that film but not O'Toole. It was Peter Falk and Peter Sellers that were in Murder by Death, along with Niven.



2. 
   Laughing on the outside, crying on the inside may well describe the life of British actor David Niven, at least as it's presented in his first authorized biography by Graham Lord. When questioned about his perpetual cheerfulness, Niven is said to have replied that life was so bloody awful he felt obliged to try to make people happier. And, with a host of friends and 71 films (some not very good) he did just that.
   
   Regrettably, the reader concludes "NIV," knowing very little about who the man really was. The author disputes numerous claims made by the actor in his autobiographies, "The Moon's A Balloon" and "Bring On The Empty Horses." Lord does this with great courtesy, saying, "NIV was an hilarious, utterly charming, delightfully engaging fantasist, and fibber. His gloriously funny autobiography, The Moon's a Balloon, is stuffed with errors of fact, anecdotes that are hugely exaggerated and superb stories that are completely untrue."
   
   Thus, the narrative thread of "NIV" is constantly interrupted with corrections, and quotations from other sources. The reader is left wondering who to believe, Niven, Lord, or the person being quoted as having been there and seen or heard such and so?
   
   Lord's account opens with Niven's childhood which was none too happy as it was spent with a disinterested mother and a stepfather whom the actor described as ugly, a martinet. Admittedly a snob, attracted by titles, an unrepentant womanizer, Niven was also a loyal British subject who interrupted his early film career to fight for his country.
   
   Upon his return to Hollywood a contract with Samuel Goldwyn was to advance his career. The mogul and the actor were often at sword's point, perhaps due to the fact that when Goldwyn was paying Niven $3,000 per week, Goldwyn was receiving $15,000 per week when he loaned the actor out. Those years in Hollywood are described as a constant round of parties, drinking, and romantic entanglements. Names are named ad infinitum. It seems that at one point Niven awoke to find himself in bed with the 20-year-old Marilyn Monroe, and another time with the 23-year-old Ava Gardner. Early on, what appeared to be his most serious attachment was with Merle Oberon.
   
   Women, it seems, were the cause of most of his problems and much unhappiness. He fell in love and married a blonde English girl, Primula Rollo (known as Primmie). The couple had two children, David, Jr. and James (called Jamie). Their happiness was extremely short lived. One night while playing a party game at Tyrone and Annabella Power's house, Primmie mistook the cellar door for a closet and fell to the stone floor. She died a few days later at the age of 28.
   
   Niven was inconsolable. Yet, in perhaps one of the more puzzling aspects of his life he sought to assuage his grief by constant womanizing. A friend quotes Niven as saying, "I was insatiable. No woman was safe. It was no disrespect or lack of love for Primmie - I was just trying to get something out of my system that was better out than in. I believe I was very ill in a sexual kind of way." He eventually consulted a psychiatrist and was told that this feeling would pass.
   
   There's no doubt that he was grief stricken. Douglas Fairbanks' wife answered all the letters of condolence as Niven could not bring himself to do it. Nor could he bring himself to return to the house where he might have lived with Primmie, but had the door permanently locked. With the help of friends, most notably Fred Astaire, and Clark Gable who had suffered after Carole Lombard's death, Niven managed to return to work.
   
   The years passed and Niven married again for reasons that in retrospect seem inexplicable. His bride was Hjordis Paulina Genberg, a beautiful Swedish model, who spoke little English, did not seem to grasp the fact that she was becoming a stepmother, and fancied herself a movie star. They had known each other for ten days when they wed. This was a match that seemed doomed from the first I do.. Frustrated in her attempts to become an actress (which Betty Bacall stated was an impossible dream since Hjordis had no talent), she first took to drink and then to having affairs which she flaunted in Niven's face. Theirs was to be a long painful relationship, for them and the two young boys.
   
   The final insult came when Hjordis refused to attend Niven's funeral, but was coerced into going by Prince Rainier. She arrived drunk.
   
   At one time Niven confronted Goldwyn with an ultimatum and the impresario let Niven go, which was almost the end of his career and income. Television was his savior when in 1952 he made two live drama appearances. Then he invested with Charles Boyer, Ida Lupino and Dick Powell to form TV's Four Star Playhouse. More good fortune followed when the crusty Mike Todd cast him in "Around The World In 80 Days."
   
   Eventually, he bought a chalet in Switzerland where he began to paint and collected pictures. He and Hjordis adopted two small girls, one of whom some consider to be Niven's daughter with model, Mona Gunnarson. He also purchased a home in the South of France, which he loved to share with friends such as the Rainiers, the Gregory Pecks, the Roger Moores, Greta Garbo.
   
   Niven made several Italian films and Hjordis's condition worsened as she suffered not only from alcoholism but also depression. She made life miserable for herself and those around her. In fact, it was said that in the 1970s she became so disagreeable that none could be found to say a good word about her.
   
   Niven perhaps knew himself better than anyone else. Despite his Oscar win for Separate Tables in 1959, he once said to William Hurt, "I know exactly what my position is...I'm a second-rate star." Yet, he was a star which is more than most can say.
   
   In 1979 Niven began to show the first signs of motor neurone disease. He fought it, trying to walk or swim everyday, but he was weakening rapidly. He wrote a note to his dear friend, Deborah Kerr, warning her of working too hard, "Dear Old Chum, .....don't stretch the elastic too far, because it snaps, and that is what has happened to me."
   
   David Niven died in 1983. His life was once described as "Wodehouse with tears." Indeed, it was.
   
   - Gail Cooke



3. After reading Niven's two autobiographies in the 70s I wanted to spread the word that he was among the most likable movie stars who ever lived, a civilized sex-maniac who also couldn't help being urbane, loyal, thoughtful, generous, forgiving, bright, witty, tasteful and who therefore was obliged to know and to become eternal friends with just about everybody that mattered during Hollywood's Golden Age.
   
   This new Lord biography says goodbye to most of that, revealing in a good-natured way, as any honor-bound hero-worshipper would, that Niven didn't tell the whole story, neglecting to haave mentioned that his second wife was a second-rate drunk with the kind of bad taste only the red states would brag about, that his fidelities went just so far, that his rigorously high standards of honesty often had to plummet, that his memory of events and headliners from the 1930s and 40s was not unerring, that he could be a bastard just as comortably as the next guy, that he often mistook panache for talent and that charm is not always commensurate with happiness.
   
   Still, Niven, on balance, is as good an example as you'll find of long-gone Hollywood elegance and that must count for something---at least perhaps to the world's few remaining sentimentalists..
   
   If Clark Gable, who could spot a phony a mile off, thought that Niven was worth admiring (a few gaping holes in his character notwithstanding), so can I.



4. The author spends many pages trying to suggest that David Niven's stepfather was actually his biological father. The photo of the stepfather, used as "evidence" looks more like Basil Rathbone that David Niven while a I mistook a photo of David's father in his military uniform to be David Niven before I read the caption. A photo of his older brother also looks very much like David Niven though the author tries to make the case that David Niven looked nothing like his older brother and sister. I guess this is a case of who do you believe, the author or your own lying eyes?



5. After Niven's death the present owner of his chalet, Coco Wyers, went inside the house and surveyed Niven's muurals of matadors in the dank basement of the prefab house. Psychic Coco knew something horrid had happened in the house, but what? "Oh my God," she thought, "what happened here? I felt that something was really not OK." Author Graham Lord has surveyed half a hundred of Niven's friends and associates and come up with the truth, that Niven could be charming and affable, some say generous, but he was a notorious womanizer and serial cheater. He always felt insecure, as most actors do, and he took himself seriously, cherishing the Oscar he had been awarded for his brilliant performance in SEPARATE TABLES.
   
   At the same time, he and his monstrous second wife, Hjordis the drunk, adopted two little girls who grew up, Lord tells us, to be neurotic, quiet, disattached from reality, and deeply unhappy. Well, Hjordis was a world class monster. Betty Bacall is quoted often in NIV (she must have given the world's longest interview for she seems to be on every page) as calling Hjordis "cold." Bacall scoffs at Hjordis' acting ambitions, sniffing that she must have been crazy to think she could make it in Hollywood. Meanwhile Biven was playing with the girls. Naked, he encouraged the little girls, aged 6 and 7, to swing on his outsized member like Tarzan, telling a guest, the painter William Feilding, who witnessed this bizarre scene of fatherhood, "better get them used to a decent size at any early age." He thought more of his [...] than he did his family, that's for sure. At one point he was skiing with Robert Wagner and felt his [...] freezing within a two thin ski ensemble. The two men raced down the slopes and into a bar where Niven plunged his "unit" into a snifter filled with brandy, to warm it up. Another guest went by and goggled, and Niven joked, "I like to give it a drink now and then."
   
   But I felt sorry for those girls. Having that memory in your past must be a tricky thing. No wonder they're ultra reserved and lonely nowadays. They were always trying to please an oversexed dad, and a distant, cold, drunken mother, who was always impossibly gorgeous and never left the house without a full set of makeup. Many friends of Niv's thought Hjordis overdid it with the makeup. I have trouble spelling her name all the way to the end. I feel Lord did a hatchet job on a misunderstood woman whose failing, in the end, was neglecting to protect her two adopted girls from having to play jungle games on the thick vine sprouting from between her husband's legs.
   
   However "Niv" gave good performances in GUNS OF NAVARONE, THE MOON IS BLUE, A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH, and CASINO ROYALE.
   
   Docked one notch for disrespect to a great poet. Niven took the title of his memoir THE MOON'S A BALLOON from a poem by e.e. cummings. Graham Lord, said to have been the literary editor for the Express for 23 years (!) uses this as a springboard for an attack on cummings' nearly as rabid as his attack on Hjordis. "The title, bewilderingly fey, came from a piece of doggerel by the pretentious e.e. cummings. Why did Niven choose the title? Search me," Lord sneers. Elsewhere he calls the poem "twee drivel," which in England must be the worst insult you can give. To which I respond, Please, Graham Lord, get over yourself! "Bewilderingly fey? YOU'RE the one who just wrote a 370 page ode to David Niven's [...]!"

5 comments about Plan of Attack.

1. Very well-written and informative book, but the person "reading" the book had a somewhat monotone voice. Really detracted from it. Worth reading -but not worth buying the book on tape.



2. Woodward seems to have a little industry of churning these books out (and other people doing a lot of the work).
   
   This book shares the faults and good points of the earlier book: basically a recounting of a lot of meetings that we were never in...but still a limited picture of what people were REALLY thinking...and no analysis of what they SHOULD have been thinking.
   
   Somehow it seems just a bit richer and more interesting than the previous one. As if either the events were more intriguing or Woodward had warmed to his subject more. But still...too much of a reportorial data dump.



3. I just reread _Plan of Attack_, and was struck by how much light it sheds on the currently unfolding drama swirling around Iran.
   
   To the extent that President Bush still appears to believe that it is his sacred duty to strike pre-emptively at evil wherever he finds it, then the current "coercive diplomacy" being aimed at Iran--the current exemplar of his "axis of evil"--seems likely to end in war, just as it did in Iraq.
   
   The parallels between the developments that Woodward reports on in the run-up to the war in Iraq, and what we are seeing with respect to Iran, are eerie--the distortion and exaggeration of intelligence to justify the war, the simultaneous building up of forces in the region, and the willingness to shift justifications as needed, jump from the page.
   
   At this moment, December of 2007, when we are learning that our own intelligence does not support the existence of a nuclear threat from Iran, we're also seeing the neocon establishment attack the messengers, and re-focus on Iran's intent rather than capability. Unless Bush and those around him have experienced a real change of heart, the White House depicted by Woodward can be expected to redouble its efforts to bring about regime change in Iran, rather than admit any errors and change course.
   
   I strongly recommend giving _Plan of Attack_ a read or re-read right now, certainly for what it says about how and why we got into Iraq, but even more for what it may presage about Iran.



4. A lot has been said here. Woodward tells a straight story and has incredible access to Bush Administration officials. As a whole, this is a great portrait of the group psychology that fumbled post-war planning in Iraq.
   
   Rumsfeld is the main villain, and probably justly, but one wonders how Bush could allow Condi Rice to maintain such a weak NSC and so let Rumsfeld (who *everyone* hated and vocally opposed) have his way. Bush comes off as naive here, and so complicit perhaps in incompetence, but it is #1 a story of Rumsfeld. Not much attention is given to Bush as a prime-mover, and the Powell's virtual abdication as 'beacon of the good' in the pre-war run-up is treated lightly too.
   
   Still, at $5.49 or less this is an incredible bargain and it flows terrifically with much dialogue. Check it out and see how poor planning, which bears a strict lesson of 'tread carefully' for any politician, may be the real culprit here.



5. We returned this book because you sent it to us minus the first twenty or so pages. We did not read this book.

5 comments about Raising Fences: A Black Man's Love Story.

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



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



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



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



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