1 comments about Memoirs Duc De Saint-Simon: 1710-1715 (Lost Treasures).

1. I loved these memoirs by a Duke who lived at the French Court during the later part of the reign of Louis XIV and during the regency of Duc d'Oreleans (Louis XV's minority). This second volume deals with the very last years of Louis XV and ends with his death (and the great fight over who would be Regent, since Louis XV was very young). There is a lot of detail about court life and it is very much biographic, details about people. Lucy Norton has done a wonderful job editing leaving out the long boring parts on war, treaties and politics and has left in all of the information on people during that age. I really enjoyed these memoirs.

No comments about Letters Written by Philip Dormer, Earl of Chesterfield to His Son: 1737-1768. With Notes.

5 comments about Gestures: A Novel.

1. For those who appreciate the old-fashioned British style of novel writing, this Penguin paperback telling of life as a British consul in the 1920's-1930's Venice will be a delight. The man plays as if in his 80's, writing of his youthful work when sent out to Venice. (The author in fact seems to be an Anglo-Indian born in 1955!) He tells of interesting English ex-patriates enjoying the cheap prices of post-WWI Europe, and life in Venice amongst their charms, their parties, their endless hours of leisure. He becomes fond of one Jewish art appraiser and comes to his rescue, he finds himself in confusion over love, and he comments always as if he were now very old and considering all of it again, but in retrospect.

   I thoroughly enjoyed this style, and his ability to keep one attached and interested in the motley characters who are tied together by time, place, English language and money, but who then find themselves blown apart by the rise of the Fascisti and the revolutionary forces afloat in Europe.




2. ...It is a joy to read, and transports the reader to a world that is lost and which few of us living today ever knew existed. But that is only part 1.
   It gets better! Taking up the narrative twenty years later in the shambles of post-war Amsterdam, the story, like life, gets deeper. I guessed at less than half of the intrigues and interconnections that are revealed in the denouement.
   I was up half the night trying to finish this book, and the other half trying to comprehend what I had read. It is a compelling commetary on the interplay of good and evil, the limits of government, and the tension between truth and diplomacy. I was left turning over in my mind the well-worn words of Edmund Burke "In order for evil to flourish, all that is required is for good men to do nothing". But which of us is good, and which "nothing" should we not do?



3. I hesitate writing a review for this book because I fear I lack the words to do it justice. Still, I like to try - if only for the hope that maybe I end up saying something that might convince another reader to pick up this exceptional novel. Certain that he/she will at the end agree that the reading of this novel has been one of the richest reading experiences in his/her life; I know it has been for me.
   
   I first read Gestures over a decade ago and the memory of that experience is still vivid in my mind. What H.S. Bhabra managed to do was draw me in in such an artful way that I wasn't even aware of what was happening. And not until I found myself surrounded by the atmosphere of the characters and places was it that I knew that I was lost in the tale that H.S. Bhabra was telling. A tale told with the virtuosity of an extremely gifted writer.
   
   Like the other reviewer I too stayed up till deep in the night, experiencing a wide range of emotions and feelings that to this day impresses me deeply. Rarely has an author's words managed to evoke half that many emotions and feelings from me as H.S. Bhabra has.
   
   I could, of course, talk about what befalls the characters. Tell about their fate, the places they visit, the relations they have, but I won't. I won't because I'd hate to ruin the surprise. All I will say is that to not read this novel will make you poorer by having missed out on what undoubtedly would have been one of the best reading experiences of your entire life. A big statement, yet I'm certain of its truth.
   
   One last remark. For years I've searched for other books by H.S. Bhabra, to my surprise Amazon did not even have Gestures for sale (this made me anxiously guard my copy of Gestures as I feared losing it and never again being able to read it), and today was the first time when searching for books by Bhabra yielded results. To my surprise I found Gestures. :) It makes me very happy to see this story in print again (it was first published in Great Britain in 1986). Some stories are simply too great to ever be out of print.



4. I have always liked this book, with its vast international canvas and 'fin de siecle' feel. It was the only one HS Bhabra published under his own name, but fans may like to try the thrillers he wrote as A M KABAL too.



5. Sometimes novelists overreach. Bhabra almost certainly did, when he undertook to write a book that encompasses all the upheaval, dislocation, pain, betrayal and romance of pre-WWII Venice and post-WWII Amsterdam, as seen through the eyes of an aging aristocratic British career diplomat. Yet what is astonishing is how close this book comes to perfection. It is, after whatever criticism one might have of the plot and the development of the central character, a beautifully written book that displays a formidable knowledge of history and geography. You may not remember the twists and turns of the story, but you will never forget the sense of being completely engrossed in the world that Bhabra creates and of the array of emotions it evokes. It may not be a perfect book, if in fact there is such a thing, but it comes within a hair's breadth of being so. Don't miss it.

No comments about Modern Republican: Arthur Larson And the Eisenhower Years.

5 comments about The Secret Wars of Judi Bari: A Car Bomb, the Fight for the Redwoods, and the End of Earth First.

1. I was left wondering why Coleman wrote this book. Was it just to let us all know that Judi Bari was a bitchy, braless diva? Was it to suggest that she was bombed by her ex-husband? Coleman's tone was so contemptuous of her subject that she weaked her central argument, which I believe was to create a more complex view than the highly idealized one promulgated by left media. I would have been open to that project. I loved the book Scars of Sweet Paradise, which attempts to create a more realistic vision of Janis Joplin, a super-star who was not always likable, even to herself. But the book on Joplin does a meticulous and sympathetic job of placing Joplin in the context of the San Franscisco psychedelic era--something that, as other reviewers here have noted, Coleman fails to do. This book is ultimately neither good journalism nor good biography. If Coleman has a bone to pick with Bari's legacy, that is fine. But she ought to frame her project as a polemic, not a piece of journalism. Her book raises these questions: do we expect all leaders to be "nice" people, or do we have higher standards for certain leaders, especially women? Does the "dirty laundry" that accompanies all human life detract from the significance of their accomplishments? And can we find ways to have leaders without expecting super-human powers?



2. This book read like a detective story and once I picked it up, I couldn't put it down until I'd finished it. It presents a fascinating, well-researched, convincing and even-handed perspective on the complexity of the personality and motives of its subject, Judi Bari, as well as of others connected with the environmental activist movement on the West Coast. Ms. Coleman's writing is a pleasure to read, and her telling of Judi Bari's story contributes to a better understanding of the reasons for her (and her movement's) successes as well as its failures. It's a good antidote to the uncritical adulation often bestowed on people such as Ms. Bari, whose lives are dominated by a unidimensional devotion to a non-mainstream cause (especialy by others who also espouse that cause).



3. that implied bari didn't follow through at all during redwood summer and beyond? I just read bari's own words in timber wars, and it is easy to tell she followed through in a huge way- she wrote, spoke, and represented a deep ecology that is to be admired- coleman is a gossip monger on a good day- I recommend this book as campfire fuel-



4. I purchased this book by mistake, thinking it was a serious biography. IT IS NOT.
   I knew Judi during the 1970's postal organizing period of her life. The fact that this book was funded by a known right-wing group (the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation)which has funded other books pretending to be serious biographies of people like Hillary Clinton and Anita Hill while chopping them up with distorted facts and outright lies and well as doing kiss-up bios on right wing heroes like Clarence Thomas.
   To prevent this right-wing hit piece from becoming a source book on Judi Bari, her friends, associates and family are compiling a page-by-page list of the errors, lies and omissions in Coleman's text. So far, the list has reached 351 (the ;last time I checked), more than one mistake per page. For a detailed list of the errors and lies in this book check out the Friends of Judi Bari website.



5. While reading this book I find myself thinking that the author really did not seem to like Judi Bari. She was always pointing out Judi's flaws but never anything good that she did. She makes her to be a very unfocused dramatic liar. I don't know much about the woman's story but I really feel bad that the story just doesn't seem fair to her. I will finish it, I love stories about the redwoods, but I think I may look for another book on the subject to try to balance this one out.

No comments about Madame President 1901-1905: Nellie Fairbanks, Path Finder To Politics for American Women.

No comments about Gustav Stresemann: Weimar's Greatest Statesman.

3 comments about Understanding the Cold War: A Historian's Personal Reflections.

1. Prof. Ulam's recent death need not deter anyone from finding this book a welcome salve to the usual academic tomes that even he sometimes produced during his many years as a father of Sovietology. His studennts and colleagues knew him as a real "mensch" and this book shows those who didn't get to know him how a powerful set of personal experiences, both before and during the Cold War, made it possible for Adam to create a unique body of knowledge which was truly innovative.

   Those who were not terrible cognizant of the sometimes stark and sometimes ambigious realities of the Cold War will find this an engaging read.




2. I have never read any of Professor Ulam's other works (I believe the tally ended at 18, with this book, after Ulam's death). I had been told by several friends and colleagues that his were, if nothing else, a brilliant marriage of the scholarly and the approachable. The latter is more the case here, wherein Ulam provides his life story, with the tumultuous changes in Europe (both East AND West) as the backdrop.

   More than just a series of anecdotes strung together with a calendar, Ulam presents us with gripping and often moving tales from his past - including, most notably (to me), his departure from Poland at the age of 16, just six days before Hitler's invasion.

   This is a book I'll proudly display on my shelf; it's certainly not one I would have run out and bought the second it hit the shelves, but it was, like a roller-coaster ride through the rise and fall of the Soviet Union, a breathtaking journey, and one I'll revisit again and again.




3. Written by Adam B. Ulam (1922-2000) an erudite professor emeritus of Harvard University, Understanding The Cold War: A Historian's Personal Reflections, is both an engaging, informative examination of the rise and fall of the Soviet Union, and a an intimate, candid confession of how the world-changing effects of the Cold War personally affected his family. Vividly written and tracing a personal legacy in the post World War II world, Understanding The Cold War offers the reader a different perspective on history, embracing the microcosmic as well as the world-spanning shape of events.

No comments about Safirka: An American Envoy.

No comments about POLS: Great Writers on American Politicians from Bryan to Reagan.