5 comments about Jean Arthur: The Actress Nobody Knew.

1. I can't imagine a tougher classic star to write about; nobody really knew Jean Arthur as the title implies. John Oller is to be commended for successfully championing her story and bringing it to light for classic film fans everywhere. It's an easy read by virtue of Mr. Oller's flowing narrative and ample research, and difficult to read emotionally at times because of the nature of Miss Arthur's sad yet intriguing Hollywood exisistence. Get to know Miss Arthur ~ read this book!



2. I was really glad to get some information on Jean Arthur (hard to find) She had a sad long life but that wasn't John Oller fault. Don't blame the messenger. She was a great actress and I will still love her in all the movies that she was in..But you know her and Mary Martin did look alot alike (single white female) remember the movie. Scary!!



3. I grew up in Carmel, California, and my mother used to drive us along Scenic Drive and point out to us where Jean Arthur lived. We'd sometimes see her walking along that oceanside road, her face always wrapped in a scarf. Mom would talk about the actress being a recluse ("hermit" was the word used then) in a framework that assumed pathology: there must have been something wrong with the actress. And she could not have been happy, either: she never even had children! How could someone do without constant company?
   All my life I wondered about this enigmatic recluse. I was fascinated by her reputed traits, which seemed very normal & healthy to me and with which I strongly identified (including her obsessive love & protection of animals). I bought this book more for an understanding of Arthur's personality than her career, although I also loved her movie presence. I was delighted to see the author NOT oversimplify her personality but instead explore all possible causes of her withdrawn nature & sudden walkouts, including the positive causes, and emphasize her fierce individualism and solid integrity, even though on the surface she paid dearly for both. (On a deeper level, she probably became truer to herself.) Oller presents all plausible theories objectively and leaves it to the reader to choose (although I couldn't help but wonder about the additional possibilities of hypoglycemia, of which she had many symptoms, and panic attacks, conditions that might have been treated if diagnosed, maybe relieving some of her suffering). I prefer the theory that she simply did what she wanted and followed some inner direction and that she was predominantly content.
   This is a thorough, well-researched account of her career and her place in Hollywood and stage history. But to me, it was even more valuable as an affirmation of her brave values and strengths and her search for meaning and truth in a time where such search, for women, was discouraged.



4. Lots of info about Jean Arthur's life and career. Well researched. But a depressing read. Arthur was her own worst enemy. She had a love/hate thing about her acting career.
   I love Jean Arthur on the screen. As a person, she was very screwed up, IMHO. And all the booze didn't help, in her later years.
   I read this book, then Rachel Roberts' diaries then a bio of Kim Stanley, one after the other. Afterwards, I felt like shooting myself. Three enormously gifted actresses who had great success. All 3 had drinking problems and ambivalent feelings about their careers. In the end, all 3 kind of threw their careers down the toilet.



5. Jean Arthur would seem to be an impossible subject for a biography. The actress, who died in 1991 at the age of 90, was so reclusive she made Garbo look like a party doll. Interviews exist, but not many; fan magazine profiles inevitably puzzled over her, disgusted by an actress who refused to promote her own career. Her autograph is probably rarer than Garbo's, and she left little in the way of writings, no diaries and not much correspondence. Her stage career was based more on quality than quantity, consisting of a mere 17 appearances, some of which were in plays that closed after a single performance.
   
   Fortunately for author John Oller, Arthur made a substantial number of films (89) and, more importantly in trying to unravel this tricky subject, she made a strong impression -- negative, positive, sometimes both -- on practically everybody she encountered, from fellow actors to her stage and film directors to students in her teaching classes to secretaries and stage hands. They've provided Oller with a wealth of history and anecdotal detail. What emerges is a surprisingly detailed, highly readable account of a complex woman whose integrity and perfectionism -- and sometimes pettiness and even arrogance -- both fueled her work and undermined it at almost every turn.
   
   Arthur's high reputation persists on the basis of stage triumphs in Peter Pan and other plays, and supremely of unforgettable performances in screwball comedies like George Stevens's The More the Merrier, Capra films like Mr. Deeds Goes to Town and You Can't Take It with You, and Borzage's dreamy History Is Made at Night. Behind her luminous face and trademark husky voice, according to Oller, was a woman tormented by self-doubt and neurosis who could be charming one minute and a harridan the next. These qualities surfaced quite early in her career before she developed her loathing of the fan magazines. In 1928 she told an interviewer, "I'm hard-boiled now. I don't expect anything" -- harsh words indeed for "a girl of 20," as she said she was. (She was actually 28; like most stars, Arthur wasn't above lying about her age.) Each rejection -- and there were many early on -- was accompanied by crying jags and nervous fits that would only get worse as time went on. Arthur's early films must have been difficult for the highly intelligent, well-read, sophisticated woman Oller portrays; they were mostly horse operas and slapstick comedies, along with walk-ons in bigger pictures. Hollywood didn't know how to use her at first: in Paramount on Parade (1930), the musically ungifted actress performed two numbers.
   
   But Arthur's striking personality shone through by the early 1930s, and she gave memorable performances in a series of films that are remembered today as much for her presence as anything else. In spite of consistent success and critical raves, though, she continued to struggle with anxiety. Capra says she threw up before and after every scene in one of his films (in an inspired phrase he says "those weren't butterflies in her stomach, they were wasps!"). She was as intransigent as some of the Warners women like Bette Davis and Olivia de Havilland in fighting the studios' manipulations. Being contracted to Columbia, she had it worse, having to fend off mogul Harry Cohn's capricious career choices and his crude sexual advances. Here her stubbornness paid off in 1938 with a new contract that was one of the body blows to the studios' control over actors.
   
   Arthur's disgust with the machinery of stardom led her inexorably to the stage; more respectable, perhaps, but equally or even more problematic for an actress of her skittish sensibilities. Much of the book is taken up with the wildly dramatic struggle of producers, directors, and friends to get Arthur to go on stage and stay there through the run of a play. This was mostly a vain effort. Arthur gravitated to the counterculture and agreed in 1967 to do a play called The Freaking Out of Stephanie Blake. Riddled with pot-smoking stage hands, props that wouldn't work (one nearly fell on Arthur's head), and actors who didn't show up, the play closed after the first night. Oller's account of these events is hilarious, particularly his description of a crazed Arthur kneeling before an audience begging them to let her leave the stage. She alienated so many of her coworkers that the author probably couldn't list them all without doubling the book's page count. Still, she had her defenders who forgave her endless disappearing act from life, and this was equally due to her winning personality (when she wanted it to be) and her fierce talent.
   
   Her Peter Pan, the best ever according to some observers of the time, made her more enemies than friends but was a huge success while it lasted. It was not a smooth production, however; Arthur nearly crippled it when she came down with one of her many "viral infections" that she seemed able to will into existence in times of stress. Besides the obvious mental relief she got from running away from innumerable commitments, she could spend time indulging her favorite activities: interior decorating, reading, philosophy, and playing with her animals. She found little solace in religion but pursued self-realization through mentors like Erich Fromm. She was also an eloquent observer of politics from the left. "The wrong people are running the country," she said, speaking of Nixon and his cronies. "You only have to look at their brutal faces to know that."
   
   The author doesn't delve too far into Arthur's alleged lesbianism (which writers like Boze Hadleigh have taken for granted). Several things point in that direction: her slightly masculine manner and voice, her lack of interest in motherhood, her almost pathological refusal to wear a dress even when a role demanded it, and most of all the fact that she spent the last decades of her life with devoted "unmarried army nurse" Ellen Mastroianni. But Arthur was so secretive about everything, even with Mastroianni in some areas, that this will probably never be verifiable.
   
   The book attempts some psychoanalysis on his mysterious subject -- perhaps appropriate given Arthur's fascination with therapy and her friendship with Fromm. But these sections are the only labored note here, adding an unnecessarily speculative touch to a book that's well grounded in the topsy-turvy reality of Arthur's life and art.

1 comments about Citizen: Jane Addams and the Struggle for Democracy.

1. This is a book about a woman who made a difference. It is also the story of a woman's triumph over Victorian ideas about a woman's place and over personal uncrtainties. Jane Addams became a leading humanitarian and spokesperson for women but she also led struggles which enhanced the notion of democracy in this country and the world. Ms. Addams did not see democracy as neoconservatives see it today. She was not a fighter for capitalism or Republican values but rather for participation and inclusion. She was also a crusader for world peace.
   
   Jane Addams and her colleagues were not like 21st century Americans. She was practically humorless and was moved by moral imperatives almost unknown to us. However, she, aside from being the "real thing", was famous for her kindness to immigrants and children.
   
   This book deals with her early life and her humanitarian efforts in the United States. It discusses the founding of Hull House, one of the first settlement houses in this country, and relates the operation of Hull House to the awakening of Addams' interest in many important causes.
   
   The book is a good read for those who are interested in women's history or in the history of reform and, indeed, radicalism in this country (for she was a radical). It is well researched and written and does not try to turn Addams into a midwestern Mother Teresa.

5 comments about Radha: Diary of a Woman's Search.

1. An uplifting, inspiring, enthralling diary. Recommended by Mas Vidal in Yoga Journal, I bought the book, and read the entire thing in one sitting. You will be left with an uplifted, peaceful spirit. I only wish I could have met Radha while she was still alive.



2. This is a great snapshot of the internal world of a spiritual transformation. Swami Radhananda gives a gripping account of a few months studying meditation in India. She is very frank with her mistakes and experiences. If you liked Autobiography of a Yogi, you will enjoy this book.



3. Uplifting journal like account from a white womans perspective.
   great read on the yogic path.



4. An intimate and detailed narrative. Highly recommend it to anyone interested in Radha's life and in yoga in general.



5. Swami Sivananda is my guru's guru's guru. Swami Radha is a peer of my guru's guru.
   
   It is so wonderful to read of women yogis - those who can and do tread the Dharmic path successfully.
   
   This is a wonderful read that transmits more than the words in print.

3 comments about Bette Midler: Still Divine.

1. After all this time you'd have thought someone would have informed Mr Bego that Billy Cunningham was a musical director more so than a piano player and that when he stopped playing for Ms Midler at the Baths he didn't exactly exit . Even after writing Cher If You Believe, he still doesn't know who Kenny (Claude )Sasha was and why the off Broadway run of French Dressing at the Village Gate (Top of the Gate) and Cher's Act had a lot more to do with the drag bar scene in "The Rose" than Bette' s wanting to be a legendary movie star. The sad part is by the time he revises the book again even more of sources he should have interviewed the first time around won't be with us.



2. For years, I have searched for the ultimate Bette Midler biography - one that is chock full of never before heard or told anecdotes, a fresh perspective and insights into oft told situations or tales.

   Mark Bego's book is the closest thing we've got right now to a definitive, somewhat linear bio, but it still leaves much to be desired.

   I do appreciate that Bego (clearly a fan in his own right) takes the time to go in depth with Midler's albums, making sure every track is commented upon and giving us loads of quality info about the recording process. I love hearing about why certain songs were chosen, discarded, arranged the way they were, et cetera.

   The most in depth album commentary in this book is in regards to Bette's *Songs From the New Depression.* The more I read about this lost possibility, the more curious I am to hear the material. It genuinely sounds like it could have led Midler's career in a completely different, more upward musical direction. I do hope Atlantic Records gives Klingman the master tapes back.

   No other book has given me a clear picture of what Bette's days at the Continental Baths were like, and I am grateful for that. Such a vivid description of the place and the time. It must have been a ball.

   This is also the first telling of Bette's life that gives an indication that Aaron Russo (Bette's manager in the 70's) and Bette were never romantically involved at all. However, the narrative seems fuzzy on whether or not that is entirely accurate.

   The aspect of Bette's career that seems to get shortest shrift is her movies. Each one is given a full plot synopsis, which in my opinion, isn't a good idea, for it ruins the movies for newer fans or people who have not seen them. These plot synopses seem to be masking some glaringly obvious missing information. No 'tales from the set' are told. No comments from co-stars or directors (except in the Jinxed section) on what it was like to work with Bette beyond your standard "press-kit" comments.

   Even so, there are still some interesting tidbits spread out here and there. One of them is that Anne Archer and Donna Mills where considered for the role of Hillary Whitney in Beaches!

   One rather odd thing is the use of numbers in parenthesis after every single quote. I've never seen a device like that in a book, and it made me feel like I was reading a college term paper. Although, on the flip side, I appreciate the quotes are there -- it ensures a degree of accuracy and if I ever want to look up these articles, it's a good resource.

   Also, there is serious need for a fact-checker / proof-reader here. Too many noticeable spelling errors, character or actor names misprinted or mis-spelled, etc. I don't want to blame the writer entirely, because this stuff should be checked before going to press.

   All in all, I recommend this book, but more for the fact that there really isn't a quality Midler bio out there to compare it to. Perhaps there never will be, unless Bette decides to tell her own story.




3. This book which was first released in the 1980s by author Mark Bego gets updated and reworked here. It is impressive to see such a comprehensive scaling of the Divine's long career. Want to hear about some current projects like Bathhouse Betty and her films such as DROWNING MONA and the like, this is the book. I am someone who enjoys reading about others' perspectives on some of my favorite artists. I especially like to read and hear about recent endeavors. Because there has not been a Bette biography since 1997's spectacular BETTE MIDLER SCRAPBOOK and 1995's BETTE by George Mair, that was a long period of no coverage of some of Midler's material. Well, here goes. Even if one is not a Bette fan, one could still enjoy this biography which provides various aspects of the entertainer in a unique form.

5 comments about The Mountain of the Women: Memoirs of an Irish Troubadour.

1. 
   First of all,there are 17 other reviews;most of them excellent and all deserve to be read.I read a fair bit of modern Irish Writing.The McCourts,Roddy Doyle,Brendan Behan,Morgan Llywelyn,Brendan O'Carroll,just to name a few.What I really like about these writers is their magical use of language.Although I have been a fan of Tommy Makem and the Clancy Brothers for at least 30 years,I have never read anything about them.I had no idea of how much they were involved in acting;let alone that any of them had such gifted writing skills.What a surprise;Liam's skills are as good as his musical talents.
   Though not a Clancy,I heard Tommy Makem perform here in Toronto at an intimate club a few months ago.He did "Oh, me name is Dick Darby,I'm a cobbler.";mentioned on page 102.That had to be the best recitation I ever witnessed.
   I would like to quote something Liam wrote about his experience in North Carolina in 1956 and he was writing about it nearly 50 years after the fact.
   From page 170....
   "South Carolina in the spring was seductive with scents of growing things,of magnolias and hibiscus,the air heavy with noontime heat and the swampy buzz of katydids and flying critters.The nights there belonged to the frogs and bats and flying beetles and the countless mingled smells of a land at rest after a burgeoning day's work fermenting life." Imagine the thoughts of a 21 year old,written 50 years later.
   I also had no idea of Clancy's involvment with the people like Oscar Brand,Bob Dylan,Woody Guthrie,Pete Seeger,Odetta,Barbara Streisand,Lenny Bruce,Jean Ritchie,Ramblin' Jack Elliot,Brendan Behan,Diane (Guggenheim),Josh White,Alan Lomax,Mary O'Hara and on and on.
   Liam gives a great insight into the world of acting and folk music of the 50's and the 60's. Now that I have read the book,I am looking forward to listening to the tape.
   I also have no idea if Liam has a second book planned to cover the last 40 years.I am sure it would be a great follow up.How about it Liam,you're only 70 ,and you must still have lots to tell us.
   Thanks.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   



2. I never heard Liam Clancy sing until a couple of months ago, when I found a copy of an album called "The Lark in the Morning" that looked interesting, given its cover and its date of the mid-50s. Growing up, The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem were heard of but not heard by me--I associated them with Aran knit sweaters, hearty shour-an'-begorra singalongs,novelty tunes, and the kind of kitsch that the previous generation had listened to complacently before the revival in the 70s of a tougher trad scene out of Ireland shook it all up again.
   
   Well, I heard the tracks on "Lark" in the car without knowing who was who since I could not see the CD case listings. But when I finished it, I noticed that the songs that had stood out from the rest were all by Liam C. Impressed, I read the liner notes about one Diane Hamilton, who I had never heard of, and Tradition Records, the label for which "Lark" was the debut issue. But the whole story was not clear, given the brief notes, until I read "Women of the Mountain."
   
   From the title, I expected a tale of lusty drunken couplings and riotuous escapades from the "Folksmen"/"Kingston Trio" era. Instead, an evocative tale of growing up eating mortar and chalk for nutrition during WWII, poverty, clerical abuse, and hardscrabble small-town life in Waterford's Carrick-on-Suir unfolded smoothly and eloquently. Sure, the blarney sometimes is laid on a bit too thick for less glib me, but the stage Irishman tendencies are kept mercifully in check by realism: the death of a sibling, the estrangement from mother and Church, the entanglement with Diane H. (who turns out to be a Guggenheim nearly as neurotic as her relative Peggy G. did for Beckett!), and the adventures on the road, in theatre, and on stage.
   
   One surprise and a reason for four stars is the lopsided nature of the book: the singing takes decididly second fiddle to the stage in the dramatic sense. This was fascinating for me, but it misleads the reader perhaps who by the back photo of the group harmonizing might expect far more about Clancy's musical experience. He mentions, for example, as if offhandedly that he learned the tin whistle. Yes, but how? As a musician, did he find it easy after the guitar? How did it help his reportoire? Did he learn it so the group could expand its range? How does it sound to him? How does he play it? Here, music as enacted comes rather late in the book, in not a lot of detail, and seems rather superficially treated as opposed to other incidents and events.
   
   I do commend Clancy on his delicacy with relating his own romantic and emotional engagements with women and men--he reminds us of the fragility we all possess and the need to recognize humanity in each other. And he makes his point after having earned the right to say so after his own checkered past. He comes off wise without sounding pious, intelligent without acting snobbish, and flawed without playing it up as maudlin. He handles people and places with stamina and wit, and his own coming-of-age here, while cut off while he's not even thirty yet, needs however fuller exposition than is given here. The New York Greenwich Village years deserve more depth than they're given here; the book's unbalanced in favoring much more from his pre-NYC years (nothing wrong with that) and again this may mislead misinformed readers as to its actual coverage of many more early situations predating the group's rise to fame. I also got little sense of how he got along with his fellow group members--granted that two are his brothers--but how the three Clancys got along with Makem who was from Keady in the north and from a different region, musical tradition, and political regime seemed like the sort of detail that could have enriched the book.
   
   I guess a sequel is in the works. Like recent Irish memoirs by Frank McCourt and Hugo Hamilton, the autobiographical account stops suddently, at the height of a self-realization by the author in his formative years. I do not know if this book would have been published if McCourt had not led the way, but resilient Clancy's tale too deserves a wide readership for dispelling (as do McC and HH in their accounts--also see John McGahern's memoir) the myths of recent Irish life, while advocating a return to the more durable and more feminine myths that inspired Yeats, Behan, Synge, Joyce, and the Slieve-na-mBan/Sleivenamon that gives its rounded breasted mountain shape to the landscape that rose above Clancy's hometown.



3. The Clancy Brothers albums opened by ears to traditional celtic music in the 60s, so it was a treat for me to read Liam Clancy's account of how the group evolved. The family background and his personal development as an student, actor and musician were very enjoyable reading.
   If you liked Angela's Ashes, this will certainly appeal.



4. Liam Clancy's has great literary talent. His bio is a tribute to his family and to his native land. Catholic schools greatly contributed to his native talent for the stage----I am not sure why he makes a critical remark of the Church.



5. In our household, we were "bread and buttered" listening to the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem. The 33-1/3 rpm Columbia records were scratched and worn from overuse. We would play the records on family occasions and holidays. We would play favorite songs in the mornings during breakfast and as we made ready for school. In hindsight, I am surprised that the neighbors never complained or called the police.
   
   Tommy Makem died last summer. The two eldest members of the quartet, Tom and Pat Clancy predeceased him. Liam Clancy is the sole surviving member of the recording group. This book is a sketchy and incomplete attempt at an autobiography, but it is as good as we are likely to get from this Clancy. Its strengths far outweigh its deficiencies. Readers should count themselves fortunate that Liam remembered anything at all after so many long nights and sexual misadventures. Perhaps, Tommy Makem, who abstained from drinking for most of his life, should have been taking notes for him (Makem wrote some wonderful essays, but I do not know if he ever published a full length book).
   
   Liam Clancy was the youngest of eleven children. One of his problems when the recording group was formed in the USA was that his two much older brothers scarcely knew their youngest sibling at all. They had to introduce themselves to him when he arrived in New York. The Irish ballads and rebel songs (the Irish rebellions always seemed more successful in song than in reality) that the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem performed proved to be immensely popular. In addition the Irish diaspora, the authentic songs gained wide acceptance among fans of the Greenwich Village Folk Music scene. Liam Clancy became a fast friend of Bob Dylan.
   
   There is a lovely story of how Clancy dropped his given Christian name while working as an actor in an Irish theatre company. A fellow actor chided him for answering to Willie, telling him that it was an "English" sounding name. He adopted the Gaelicized form and has been "Liam" ever since.
   
   Pour yourself a drink and enjoy this book. Be thankful that the next generation of Clancy and Makem family members have taken up the songs that their fathers helped popularize internationally. Imagine how quiet our homes would have been if Clancy had kept up his father's plans and became an insurance agent!

5 comments about The Many Lives of Marilyn Monroe.

1. This is a fantastic book for people who know Marilyn and her life well. It generally does not cover basic facts in depth, as it seems to assume that the reader already has some knowledge about the details of her life. Instead, it analyzes what different biographers have said about her, comparing and contrasting them, and providing different perspectives and viewpoints from people who knew her.
   For those looking for the basics on Monroe, Barbara Leaming's book or Donald Spoto's book is perhaps a better choice, but for those of us who already know the main outline of her life, this book is genius and quite a find. I picked it up in the bookstore and I immediately fell in love with it. It is markedly different from other biographies, as it reads like an analytical essay instead of a chronological detailing of her life, and this format is marvelous for "Monroe experts," as there are so many theories that need to be discussed. She is fantastically neutral in her discussions, and presents the facts as they are and the speculations as they are. There is no bias. I would very highly recommend this book.



2. This was a very informative book with plenty of references to biographies on Marylin Monroe in the past.



3. Marilyn Monroe was born in Los Angeles in 1926. Her mother had mental health problems; her father was not in the picture for long. MM spent time in foster homes and orphanages. She became Playboy's first centerfold; she became the world's most famous blonde bombshell in post World War II America; she died at the early age of 36 on the night of August 4, 1962. Her most memorable movie roles were "Niagara:" The Seven Year Itch"; "Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend," "How to Marry a Millionare": "Some Like It Hot" and her final film "The Misfits" .
   Other than these basic facts most of Monroe's life is the subject of conjecture, prurient interests and mysteries galore!
   Dr. Sarah Churchwell is an American scholar teaching in England. This book is not a traditional biography of Monroe (born Norma Jeane Mortenson). It is, rather, a scholarly examination of her most famous biographers and the various theories they posit as to the life lived by the sexy star. Many of these biographies, opines Churchwell, are based more on speculation than facts. Churchwell examines the biographies by such famed authors as Norman Mailer; Barbara Leaming; Donald H. Spoto; Donald H. Wolfe and others. Churchwell also looks closely at Joyce Carole
   Oates fictional account of Marilyn's life entitled "Blonde".
   Churchwell explores the various theories on the marriages of Miss Monroe to James Daughtery; Joe DiMaggio and Arthur Miller. When playwright Miller wed Marilyn it was called a coupling of Egghead and Hourglass. Dimaggio probably beat her up. We see Marilyn Monroe through the lenses and the biases of her various biographers. We still do not know for sure:
   a. Whether she ever had an abortion or had at least 14 of them.
   b. Was a dimwit or had a sharp intelligence.
   c. Did she die of a drug overdose or commit suicide? Was she murdered by suspects ranging from the CIA to the Kennedy Family to the Mafia. Or was she murdered by her doctor and housekeeper or a Soviet Agent? We will in all likelihood never know for sure. Conspiracy theories abound.
   This is a good book to sort out what is fact and what fanciful or speculative in the life of Marilyn Monroe. It is a good book showing fine research and adds insight to our understanding of the enigmatic star.



4. This is one of the best books on Marilyn Monroe I have ever read, if not THE best. The author does a fantastic job of analyzing the various biographies of MM and strips away the myths, lies, improbabilities, and biased ways others saw her that have distorted her image and life for the past 40 years. Churchwell shows us that NO, Marilyn was not crazy, nor was she split into two people - Marilyn Monroe and Norma Jeane - anymore than Cary Grant was split into CG and Archie Leach (his real name). She shows us that MM was a complicated and intelligent woman and a successful actress who tried to improve her acting and her mind throughout her life. I deeply respect the author of this book for her objectivity, honesty, penetrating analysis, and scholarship, and for showing how so much of what has been written about Marilyn is either stereotypical, unfounded, nonsensical, or just plain untrue. I loved it!



5. Sorry, but I found this book written by an author who used other books written about Marilyn by other authors and "her opinions" on those. If you are confused by that statement, try reading this boring rehashed book of other books on poor Marilyn. Don't bother and waste your money. No lie.......ugh!

2 comments about Profiles in Audacity: Great Decisions and How They Were Made.

1. 
   This is a collection of vignettes explaining how some of the most influential decisions in history were arrived at; from Galileo's decision to publicly support Copernicus' solar-centric version of the universe to President Truman's decision to drop the A-Bomb to Bill Gates acquiring the rights to DOS. Though the book does cover events spanning a period from Cleopatra to Flight 93, 70% of the book is dedicated to American decision makers so for a strict historical survey for pedantic historians, it falls woefully short.
   
   However for the casual reader of history, it is a very interesting and engaging coverage of many of turning points of history and not merely the boring, behind the scenes red tape kind. "Decisions in Crisis" covers Elizabeth I's standing up to the then overwhelming might of Spain and JFK's finding a middle ground in the Cuban Missile Crisis. "Decisions to Venture" covers such diverse topics from the Lewis and Clark expedition and the Race for the Moon to Charlie Goodnight's first cattle drive and Ted Turner's creation of CNN. "Decision of Conscience" I found to be the most stirring with examples such as Gandhi's use of non-violent resistance, Branch Rickey's hiring Jackie Robinson to play for the Dodgers, W.E.B. Du Bios role in the creation of the NAACP, Daniel Ellsberg's decision to leak the Pentagon Papers and Betty Friedan's decision to look into and beyond her own dissatisfaction with what society prescribed a woman's life should be to what women had the potential to achieve. "Decision to Risk Everything" of course included such famous examples as Hillary and Norgay's ascent of Everest and Washington's Delaware Crossing, but it also includes such lesser known moments such as the Berlin Airlift and Nixon's decision to open relations with Communist China.
   
   The final section, "Decision to Hope", was the weakest. It does contain some excellent examples, such as Begin and Sadat's work for peace between Israel and Egypt (which is one of my first memories of world events as a child), Carnegie's philosophy of modern noblesse oblige. However, the other examples feel misplaced and the book strikes a very sour note here by including Chief Joseph' surrender at the Battle of Bear Paw mountain as a "Decision to Hope. "I want time to look for my children and see how many of them I can find. Maybe I will find them among the dead. Hear me my chiefs, I am tired, my heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever." How does this sound hopeful to anyone? After watching his tribe be decimated by U.S. troops, freezing temperatures and starvation in a conflict started by American settler's greed it does not sound at all hopeful to me. It sounds like surrender which is not an act of hope, but resignation. A "decision" forced down one's throat at gun point is not a decision at all.
   
   But that stumble aside, it is otherwise an good overview of some of the more momentous moments in history, especially the modern ones that shaped the world we live in today and can introduce even more knowledgeable history readers to historical figures not usually mentioned in the grand scale of most historical work.



2. Some of the vignettes were interesting insights into history. But it seemed like the plurality of them were over-hyped in the CEO-worshipping management book style of leadership assessment. If the decision led to a successful conclusion, it was a great decision and therefore the leader had audacity. Yet, some of these tipping points in history could just as easily failed. No audacious decisions that failed were reviewed. Even those that succeeded didn't mean that there weren't better decisions that could have been made. Some weren't even decisions at all. Did Galileo really decide to rethink the universe? Or did he just assess the many different mental models of the solar system and conclude that the sun-centered model (proposed earlier by Copernicus) best explained his observations?
   
   I usually recycle my books by passing them on to friends or family who might find them interesting. But I can not think of anyone to pass this book on to.

5 comments about But Enough About Me: A Jersey Girl's Unlikely Adventures Among the Absurdly Famous.

1. I picked this book up because of the cover. I loved seeing 80's hair do and I read the back to find it amusing enough to buy. I never really knew who Jancee Dunn was before I read her book.
   
   I enjoyed the quick read and liked how it bounced between her family and her work, it is a story of someone my age(36) and it mirrored experiences of coming of age during the 80's and early 90's. I loved it.
   
   Heartwarming and honest



2. I loved this book! I loved the throwbacks to old fashion, Jersey-Hair, and general 90's quips. I laughed a lot. The pieces on celebrities were like a bonus of reading a trashy tabloid inside a novel. It was unlike what I normally read, it was refreshing and very enjoyable!!



3. You do not need to be from Jersey to love this book. Anyone who spent their adolescence cultivating a thin, fragile veneer of coolness to cover an inner dork will relate to Jancee. I did not want this book to end. I can't wait for the follow-up on the rest of Jancee's life. Funny, touching, and entirely real. (Just like a true Jersey girl!)



4. I waited a while before I purchased this book. It was definitly worth the wait



5. I am from New Jersey so I was thrilled to read a memoir about "one of my own" become as successful as Jancee has become in the world of reporting. Once I got my hands on it I loved the New Jersyisms as well as the wonderful writing of her life as a writer. This book is perfect for anyone who is down in the dumps and needs a good laugh. Jancee knows how to deliver :)

4 comments about Don't You Remember?.

1. I couldn't put it down. It was impossible to predict what would happen next. The language is beautiful, the story so full of action I could see the scenes as vividly as if it had been a movie. In fact, I hope it does become a movie.
   
   Ruth, the woman from the past was drawn in such a strong voice I never doubted her existence.
   I was so engrossed in the action and the conflicts of the writer I never thought about whether I believe in past lives. The book didn't seem to try to convince the readers. It didn't need to. I was pulled in to the writer's life, her doubts, but most of all, her story. Miss Lyon's writing about her process and the creative process was beautiful.



2. George Ella Lyon has written a provocative, captivating, memoir. Her style is both eloquent and articulate. She truly takes you along in her journey through the unknown, and what was for her, a very personal soul passage. For one who also believes in synchronicity and the beauty of the inexplicable...I found this book to be a feast for the soul. George Ella is convincing, real, down to earth....and writes with the heart of her conviction shining through. Best read I have stumbled across in years! It is indeed, as it state on the back cover, a memoir for particular people. Anyone who loves words, will love George Ella Lyon. She is an artist at her craft,
   and her words are spellbinding.



3. All of our lives contain missing pieces, often presented to us as subtle longings, half-remembered dreams, or a deep craving for something we can't name or understand. Myth tells us that we (each soul) must drink from the Lethe, the river of forgetfulness, before entering this life; therefore, we begin with a faint sense of history and mystery that is carried with us. In her memoir, George Ella Lyon, conscious of bits and pieces of such a past, gathers them into an outline of a young woman whose life is lived with much secrecy.
   
   When the leads play out, the author takes up slender threads to weave a rich tapestry of a heart that cannot forget the meaningful events that shape and bring life its fullness.
   
   With great sensitivity and an imagination that is open to receive, George Ella Lyon allows this haunting story to unfold beautifully.



4. This was an amazing book. I actually read it twice and think that I'll read it again before long. It gave me so much to think about that I want to go back to clarify all of the events in my mind. I am recommending it to all of my friends.

4 comments about Hearts of Fire: Eight Women in the Underground Church and Their Stories of Costly Faith.

1. This was a truly inspirational book. These women of faith show true courage in their convictions and their walk with Christ. Each story is compelling and moves you to challenge your own faith!



2. Touching and heart-tugging. Certainly an emotional pull. But I must say, I greatly prefer another book of the genre, "Daughters of Hope: Stories of Witness and Courage." It not only covers women from far more countries, but it goes beyond the emotional pull. It gives clear prayer and activity responses, country by country, giving guidance as to what we can do. I don't want to know unless I also know how to respond.



3. Eight women in the underground Church have shared their stories of what their faith in God has cost them and their loved ones. They are each from different countries, and their individual ways of drawing persecution, and their sufferings are distinct. They are alike in that they each refused to deny the Lord Who saved them.
   
   I don't agree with all the women in the book. One of the chapters was on Sabina Wurmbrand. I appreciate her suffering and stedfastness in the Lord, but some of the comments, as well as some things I've read on her husband, Richard Wurmbrand who has suffered so much for Christ's sake, seem to be contrary to Scripture. Maybe I am mistaken, or maybe they are less than orthodox, but I can still glorify God in their testimony for Him.
   
   Ling was another woman who was tortured for Christ. She was a leader and preacher in the underground church in China. I believe that the Bible teaches against women preaching in mixed company, but I admire her conviction. I also realize that sometimes men are not available or willing to do things, and women are. Ling was willing, and she suffered much for Christ's sake.
   
   The other six women had one thing in common with each other and the previously listed two: they were all Christians. One woman suffered incredible physical and emotional pain after refusing to convert to Islam. One father tried to kill his daughter who became a believer in Christ from Islam after searching for the truth. Another woman lost her husband and two sons to those who resented the message of Christ.
   
   One thing I really appreciated about this book is that these are women of today. They are not women to inspire me from history, although they will be that for others. They are women who are living now, existing on this planet in my lifetime. These are the sufferings of today. I have not been chosen to suffer as they have, but whether my time comes or not, these women inspire me to cling to Christ, and remain faithful to Him whatever the cost. Due to the explanations of the extreme costliness of their faith, I would only recommend this book to adults.



4. I bought this book several years ago. Very few books that I have read have stayed with me like this book. I have read it 3 times. I find that the stories of the women in this book not only show their struggles and victories in Jesus but they continue to inspire me to step out of my comfort zone. I love this book.