5 comments about Hidden Power: Presidential Marriages That Shaped Our History.

1. I haven't read the Clinton chapter yet, but on a whole the book doesn't seem to generate any bias. Her treatment of Nixon and Carter's wife seem fair. Each chapter seems relatively short, though, considering the context of history. Almost as if more detailed research could have been done on each wife. Overall the read is entertaining and positively predictable, written in a well thought-out pattern. The analogies comparing each one to the other, strengths and weaknesses are of value.
   
   I am pro-Nixon, but I never really understood the gravity of Pat's dysfunctional situation. The Checker's speech made her seem so shallow that it propelled her into mediocrity for decades. I didn't read anything much of value with Nancy Reagan.
   
   The Bush Sr. chapter is informative because I never really understood Barbara's role before....he was a weak leader in comparison to her rock solid attitudes. I recall during Reagan's presidency a poll demonstrated that about 70% of the public did not know their VP's name was.



2. I found this to be a good book for those of us who were not around when many of these first ladies were. This book can also be a stepping stone to picking up a complete bio on one or more of them.



3. This book is a bit too shallow; there is really nothing new or deep in it. I looked for some new insights into our recent First Ladies, but all the author produced was commonly held, popular views of them.



4. This book concentrates on the Presidential Marriages in the 20th century, and how they impacted the shaping of decisions made in the White House by the Presidents. It has been said thatthe White House made some marriages and destroyed others. This is amply illustrated in this carefully researched book. The analysis of the Wilson marriages, Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt, as well as those who followed them, is very illuminating, and clarifies many of the events that occurred during the administrations



5. The reader will be engrossed from the first page to the last. Reads like a novel; but is factual. A real page-turner. I offer slight criticism with the overall scheme of the book: not including the Gilded Age presidents alluded to in the introduction. I agree that Mamie Eisenhower and Bess Truman did not play significant roles along with their husbands; but Florence Harding, Grace Coolidge, and Nellie Taft did influence their husbands....and significantly so. I hope that when a revision is done, the author will include chapters on these three presidential couples.
   
   The reader will be "hooked" after reading the first chapter on Woodrow Wilson and his second wife. Its refreshing to find that Mrs. Marton, the author, did not gloss over the cover-up that Edith Wilson perpetuated with Dr. Cary Grayson, Wilson's White House physician. Every stone is turned over, including the little-known fact that Grayson attended to Edith during her first marriage to Mr. Galt when she had a miscarriage; this is an important connection often over-looked by historians who have preferred to over-look the Wilsons' peccadilloes, including his affairs with the Princeton professor's wife and Mary Peck.
   
   Readers will be intrigued to learn about Woodrow's sharing of secret intelligence codes and allowing his wife to use them and the State Department documents which arrived encoded.
   
   The author does a good job explaining why it was Edith who turned Woodrow against his closest advisor, Colonel House, his personal secretary, Mr. Tumulty, and Secretary of State Lansing, and even Vice President Marshall...all of whom he desperately needed while desperately ill.
   
   Any serious student of presidential history needs this volume in their library. The reader will learn how a woman with only two years of formal education ended up secretly running the country in one of the most devastating cover-ups in our nation's history. Unlike the personal memoirs of Edith Wilson and Dr. Grayson, this is not a self-serving account.
   
   Not wishing to spoil the rest of the book by revealing too much, the reader will be engrossed with chapters on the other presidential couples to the present day. This is one book not to be missed.

5 comments about Who Do You Think You Are?: A Memoir.

1. I could not wait to get my hands on this book. I devoured it in a few days, which is a record for me, as I often get bored with (some) books, lay them down, never to be picked up again. This author pulled me in from the "get go". I kept thinking, "that happened to me", especially the hurtful words. I'm lucky that I did not suffer all the things the author did. However her mom changed, and mine has not. The ending give me hope, that perhaps our mother will one day accept our love. This may sound selfish, but it's somehow comforting to know . . . that you're not alone with your agony. Remarkable book. Brave author.



2. reading this memoir--I was done reading it in one day. I found there were times I put it down; when it got too close for comfort. I really found this book by accident..I didn't know anything about it until I was shopping for new memoir's at bookstore last weekend--and there it was. I am very glad I picked it up and read it. I will recommend this book to my best friend..and I think she will like it as much as I do. :)



3. No insight. A the ending - the "I'm the good person I am today because my mother was awful to me, and I wanted to be better than her" is a total cop out. How about that you might be a good person today ~in spite of~ the hate and violence your mother tortured you with as a child? Think about what a wonderful person you'd be like if you had a Good childhood? A supportive parent, a happy household, an understanding family. It's like justifying being spanked as a child as a good thing because hey, you turned out okay, so it must not have been so bad.
   
   There was no real exploration into the reason why her mother was so angry and hateful toward this one daughter and not the other two, why the three didn't get along or speak much. Why?
   
   This is a story suitable for a blog, someone posting about what it was like growing up. Not worthy of print though. Find it at the library. You will read it in one afternoon - it is not a weighty book at all and certainly not one that requires much effort on your part as the author didn't seem to work that hard. So many times I asked "but why?" and wanted to know more, things were hinted at but never explored further and my questions not answered. Could have been a good read but it's really just a quick story of growing up with an angry mother.



4. "I found this book to be amazingly captivating. I must be honest I did not expect to enjoy this read, but I was entranced from the first page. The book was a nostalgic ride back into my youth. Alyse Myers manages to deal with her formative years in an honest almost cleansing manner. The book shows us how we are in some positive and negative ways the products of our environment. The essence of who we are is shaped in childhood and Alyse shows her strength and determination in rising to the top." - Eva Johnston
   
   *I give it 5 stars, but my computer isn't allowing me to highlight all five.



5. This memoir is a quick read, full of regret and sadness for the mother (and father) who might have been. Parents let their children down regularly, that is just a fact of life. The character that Myers describes as her mother is not some abusive monster, but instead is an extremely lonely, isolated and depressed young widow who is struggling to support three kids.
   
   Not at all a nurturing mother, but then that did not shock or surprise me. She had a husband with numerous health problems, who (we learn at the story's end) married her mainly because he hated being in the army, and married men were allowed an honorable discharge because the low pay of an enlisted man could not support a family. She was essentially a single mother even before her husband died, since he was mostly absent and had a girlfriend. The mother-daughter arguments that are recalled by the author are frankly pretty typical stuff ("You're selfish!" "I hate you!"). Hurtful things were said by both, and the daughter was made to leave home at 18. The author envied "normal" families that were intact and appeared to be happier than hers, but ultimately she became a confident and independent woman with a wonderful husband and career.
   
   I ended this book feeling deeply sorry for the author and her mother; our parents are always strangers to us, even when we think we know them well.
   
   I also felt thankful to NOT live in a place like New York City, described here as so full of crime, filth, and unkindness, as to be a horrible place to raise small children.

5 comments about Appetites: Why Women Want.

1. I got so much out of Knapp's book on alcoholism, I foolishly assumed this would be enlightening as well. She seems determined to prove that every woman in America has issues. If you diet, for whatever reason, you have issues. If you eat what you like, you have issues. If you're vegetarian. If you eat junk food. If you work out. If you hate how you look in a bikini. If you LIKE how you look in a bikini. For god's sake, food is just one part of life. And there are actually women who do not have body issues!
   
   I'm currently trying to get in shape (note my phrasing there), and I'd thought this would motivate me. What was I thinking. I can just see Knapp, were she alive, questioning me about my diet and exercise, and then her comments afterwards. "She eats a quarter cup of M&M's a day...Yes, she told me that she read the nutritional info on the packate, but SEE? We're all slaves to the FDA and the LIES they cram down our throat! She's AFRAID to go for it and just take a handful of M&Ms and be FREEEEEEE!" Except that eating like that is how I got out of shape, and then it would be, "Oh, she doesn't like her body, because Vogue tells her she has to disappear when she turns sideways!"



2. Alice Walker once wrote, "Art unfailingly reflects its creator's heart. Art . . . comes from a heart open to all the possible paths there might be to a healthier tomorrow." Caroline Knapp's artistry was in writing and publishing her internal dialogues. This book appears to reveal her heart, a heart that was open to considering new and different possible paths to a healthier tomorrow. She may not have had all the solutions to the issues she raised in her excellent book, but I admire her tremendous courage to express her frustrations clearly and to think aloud to try and understand the motivations and causes for her behaviors. She expressed her best estimates of how she might improve her circumstances. This book is an excellent look at one [...] woman's cognitive thought processes about why she thought she was the way she was, and how she thought she might overcome her perceived problems. Whether you agree with her or not as to the causes of her issues and their possible solutions, if you read this book, you will learn something very valuable about the strong, and sometimes controlling, reasoning processes that likely flow through many women.
   
   Throughout this book (and her books 'Pack of Two' and 'The Merry Recluse') she discusses her difficulties with communicating with her mother, her father, her significant others, professors and people in general. She discusses how she did not believe that her parents communicated well with each other in key areas. She watched her mother silently accept roles that she was not certain her mother should accept. She saw her mother accept treatment from her father that she thought her mother should have responded to differently.
   
   When a woman chooses to attach her soul to another person's soul, and also agrees to "be silent to" or condone parts of the other person's philosophies or actions she believes to be in error - that prolonged, and potentially neverending, acquiescence can negatively effect her psyche. That degree of unceasing internal mental contradiction in major areas may manifest itself in either serious mental dysfunctions or physical ailments.
   
   It is more healthy for a woman to express her objections, even if those objections are not addressed and remain outstanding, than to be silent. Women must overcome any discouragement they receive from their family, friends, and significant others, discouraging them from expressing the ideas they think may lead to possible solutions. They should not always defer to the people closest to them because women often have the best access to the most accurate information about themselves. And even when their suggested solutions may not be better than the current course, when they raise their objections, it gives their community notice of issues that likely deserve alternate responses and further reconsideration.
   
   Thank you Ms. Knapp, not because you had all the right answers, but because you set a great example of a woman fighting resiliently to help herself and others, even when that self-examination was revealing and sometimes humbling. Even when she could not find sufficient motivations for herself, she worked toward and wanted other women to pursue their fulfilments and desires, and to become satiated. She wanted to stop the cycle of mothers unknowingly passing on negative patterns to their daughters. Caroline's voice was heard and I will always remember it.



3. Overall a great book if you don't want a completely factual account of women and dieting. It can be self-indulgent, ego-centric, and sprawling but the author's personality is likable and sympathetic so I enjoyed learning about the more personal side to this. There are other more factual books I would reccomend, though, like Women and Dieting Culture: Inside a Commercial Weight Loss Group or Hunger: An Unnatural History.
   But good book overall and I'd reccomend it.



4. I read this book as part of a feminist psychology class and I LOVED it. It is so enlightening and revealing.
   
   It is about anorexia, but as a reader you often forget this because it-- unlike most books on eating disorders-- focuses on the psychology of women and how society impacts women's desires and sense of entitlement.
   
   I DEFINATELY recommend reading this book... there is no doubt that it will change the way you think about your wants and needs and make you question what society has been telling and teaching you all your life.



5. Although Caroline Knapp is no longer with us, her contributions to the understanding of women's appetites live on in this book. Her amazing insight, powerful language, and personal experiences shed light on the unexplored domains of female hunger and desire. The book explores women's tragic quest of attempting to satisfy deeply internal desires by reaching for external and unattainable "fragments of hope that always promise transcendence over pain and longing and always disappoint." Feeling fundamentally incomplete, many women become trapped in an eternal loop of hunger, and repeatedly attempt to fill the voids in ways that only increase the appetite and longing. As Caroline beautifully expressed, the hunger that truly needs to be attended to is the "most central hunger, which is the desire to be recognized, to be known and loved because of, and in spite of, who you are."

5 comments about Fat Girl: A True Story.

1. This book is a really good example of where you can open up a can of worms with the subject matter . If you want to start a firestorm and make yourself a target, then go and write a book on a super sensitive subject similar to this. Lets see, words like; objective and perspective are not going to happen for a lot of the people who read this book. I read this book in one day, not because I wanted to, but because the book grabbed me and wouldn't let go (Similar to say: A roller coaster ride, a big ugly monster, or let's just say the truth). Give it a break people! it's a really superb read !



2. It was sooo boring for me. I only got 50 pages in and decided I wasn't gonna waste anymore of my time. She just names off foods and rambles. There's no plot line or anything and it's impossible to stay focused in my opinion. Not worth the money.



3. I listened to the audiobook and had to force myself to finish all five CD's because I wanted to see how it ended. Four and a half CD's full of lists of all the food she ate growing up and an abrupt, unsatisfying end. It's like she wrote down everything she possibly remembered from her childhood, whether it was relevent or not, and then had to finish the book to meet a deadline. Did she learn any lessons from her bad childhood? Does she try to treat her daughters better than she was treated? Has her self esteem improved any as an adult? What was the point of writing this book? To tell us that fat children are doomed to be sweaty, stinky, and unlovable the rest of their lives?



4. I have never been slim and so picked up this book with interest, but the endless descriptions of fat were disgusting and the stories about Judith's childhood were horribly sad. I cannot imagine what possessed her to write this book except perhaps a serious mental health crisis (to which she is certainly entitled based on the contents of this book).



5. I was blown away by Moore's honest,painful and moving account of her life as fat girl. Her honest and objective appraisals of herself, her parents and her extended family are fearless. She's also able to unexpectedly find humor in unlikely situations. This is one of the best books I've ever read. I couldn't put it down and re-read it immediately after I finished it for the first time. This is not one of those "feel good" recovery novel. Moore points out at the beginning of the book that it's not about eating disorders and that the Rockettes aren't going to show up and dance across the stage in the final, triumphant act. Thank God! It's just an ordinary life made remarkable through brilliant writing.

3 comments about Shoot the Damn Dog: A Memoir of Depression.

1. I have never been formally diagnosed with depression, yet like most people I guess, I have had spells of 'the blues' and feelings of melancholia at times. I have however a mother who has suffered from manic depression all her life and my second wife has been in the same boat for the past five years.
   
   Sally Brampton's book is high on my recommended list. Written with honesty, clarity and humor, it certainly gives a most important insight in to what it must be like to be seriously depressed.
   
   There are many books on depression out there. This one gets is.



2. This book about depression tells of the writer's personal experience, holding back nothing. I imagine she must have used the words "I cried" on every other page. It is a hard story to read emotionally-speaking but decently written.
   One thing I had a problem with was that she had enough money to live on without working when she was severely depressed, which is not true for most sufferers. Due to the sale of her and ex-husbands' home as well as the ex-husband being "there" for her through all of this, she was able to remain in her depressive state for several years, getting help from several therapists, a psychaistrist and 2 hospitals. Many don't. Most sufferers lose insurance and if they do get hospitalized it's in sub-standard facilities for the poor. Families are shattered.
   I also had questions as to why her severe depression could be 5 days of intense suffering and near suicide when her child was NOT on her child custody watch but with her dad, and then when it was time for HER to have the child for 5 days she could cleanup up her depression and alchoholism and be "Mom". Depression does not work like that! When you are in a severe depression you are that way day after day and cannot rally around for a few days and be lightly depressed! She seemed to also think that her child didn't know about how sick she was, but I dare say I'd like to read the book this child will write as a grown-up of these years with her sick mom!
   I felt sorry for her, especially that her depression was of the resistant-type to all medications, and understood a lot of what she was going through but just feel that any reader should read this book knowing that while the symptoms maybe similiar, Sally Brampton's experience is not a typical experience and that her finanacial status brought her many advantages in deaing with her depression that most do not and will not have.



3. Ms. Brampton has written the book that all depressive people and their families have been waiting for. She writes the truth about therapy and medication in a clear and readable manner. She tells her story without trying to make you feel sorry for her but to encourage others who face the darkness of depression.

5 comments about The Last Gift of Time: Life Beyond Sixty.

1. Carolyn Heilbrun wrote this celebration of life after sixty shortly after deciding not to carry out her long-determined plan to commit suicide at 70 and six years before killing herself at 77. To know that outcome increases the frustration and the spasm of anger at her -- how could she so exquisitely detail the joy she found in living over the last decade and a half of her life, and then one day slam the door on those joys through, I understand, an overdose of sleeping pills and a plastic bag around the head for good measure. The clue must lie in this book's last essay, On Mortality, and what Heilbrun seems to fear and foresee in that chapter, that at some increasing age indifference to life succeeds pleasure in life.
   
   Obviously a woman of strong views -- I was not familiar with any of her writing before Gift --, Heilbrun is never shy about expressing those views, but does so with a humor and civility too often missing in writing and intellectual debate. She has scores to settle, but often, in these essays, matters of more compelling interest: a faithful dog; the fairly nondescript house she buys in the country; her enthusiam for email and England.
   
   In the end I come away from Gift with two strong feelings, pleasure at being able to still enjoy some of those pleasures that Heilbrun enjoyed and an unsettling inability to understand why she later chose to stop doing so.
   
   Recommended.



2. If you are in your sixties, seventies, or beyond - or even if you are a precocious fifty-year-old, there is much to be had in this ultimately enigmatic series of essays by feminist, scholar, activist and mystery hound Carolyn Heilbrun. Thoughtful, introspective, funny and only occasionally cantankerous, Heilbrun strikes many a familiar chord in examining the oddly satisfying process of aging, if not gracefully, at least with some unexpected zest.
   
   Heilbrun wore many hats in her life - her book Writing a Woman's Life is now a classic feminist study. She has a huge and richly deserved reputation as a scholar of Virginia Woolf as well as the Bloomsbury era in general. In popular culture, Heilbrun is probably best known by the pseudonym Amanda Cross, author of the Kate Fansler mystery series. She spent most of her academic career at Columbia University and speaks in these essays of her dismay at her experiences there and her relief at finally retiring.
   
   Heilbrun is generous in sharing her inner life but never quite explains the puzzles. She was an ardent feminist, patriarchal enemy to the core. She deplored society's requirement that women dress the role and ultimately gave up dresses altogether. She slants towards androgyny and regards bisexuality as just a moving point on a line. She devotes a whole chapter to May Sarton, the poet, novelist and essayist who was her contemporary and her friend. Sarton was a tempestuous, oft ill-tempered lesbian who, much to her own dismay, found most public appreciation with the publication of her numerous journals recounting her rural life in New Hampshire and Maine.
   
   But despite all of this, Heilbrun was a wife and mother and lived a seemingly contented life with her husband. The fact that, at the age of 68, she bought a home of her own where she often stayed, sans husband, seemed to her quite ordinary. In her personal life, there seemed to be little of the cacophony that marked her work and her times.
   
   But the enigma of Carolyn Heilbrun lies mainly in her oft-vocalized determination to commit suicide at the age of 70 when, presumably, all usefulness and joy would be gone from life and ending it would avoid all of the nastiness involved in the endgame. But 70 came and went and she makes much in The Last Gift of Time of her decision to go on. Life, it seems, still had a lot to offer and that is what she offers us. These later years can be so rewarding that many women are quite shocked by this unexpected gift.
   
   But, having read the book, and being inspired by that message, it is a bit disconcerting to learn that in 2003, at the age of 77, Heilbrun actually did commit suicide. By all accounts, there was no hint that this was to happen. Her husband and children were profoundly shocked, as were her friends . On the day she died, a Tuesday, Heilbrun walked through Central Park with a friend - something the two had done every Tuesday for 26 years. All seemed normal. Heilbrun was her usual self. The only possible hint, and a very thin one, was that at one point Heilbrun said "I feel sad". When the friend asked what she felt sad about, Heilbrun responded "The universe". And then she went home and put a plastic bag over her head.
   
   Knowing the eventual outcome of Heilbrun's journey certainly changes the flavor of this book but it is difficult to say whether the message is diluted or enhanced. I, personally, was taken aback and re-read the book to see what I might have missed but did not find anything significant. It is still a book well worth reading and it has a lot to say to us "women of a certain age". But, despite its insight and its wisdom, what it mostly affirms is the unpredictability of life. And that, I suppose, is a good thing.



3. The titles of books Carolyn Heilbrun has written are exciting to those of us who are of the female persuasion and born before 1950, because women, especially older women, still get far too little respect in today's world.
   
   However, Carolyn Heilbrun's extremely privileged and refined upbringing seems to have led her to come late and reluctantly to a contemplation of the problems of women in general. Her love of fingerbowls and the way of life they represent, her concern that no man's skin be visible between his socks and his pantlegs, her outrage at recent acquaintances being on a first name basis, and her preference for a house of her own, not shared by her husband of many years, are just a few of the things that define a huge gap between her and those of my generation, just 20 years younger.
   
   At any age, it's best to either have a companion you cannot do without or for goodness sake have no spouse at all. Or suffer with your choice, no longer a happy one, but don't write a book telling us we should all profit from your example. It's sad she preferred to be apart from her husband, and I'm willing to pity her, but not to point to her as a model for the rest of us. Contrary to her experience and belief, a woman can be married--and actually living with a man--without losing her independence or her freedom.
   
   Ms. Heilbrun did learn some lessons during her lifetime, and you can clearly see some progress in her beliefs between 1964 and 1997, but in all honesty, she was quite reactionary in 1970, compared to the students and faculty at Columbia, where she taught, so she had a lot of catching up to do. She was very far from the forefront of liberal feminism, almost the opposite, when you consider her exposure to (and resistance to) the intellectual ferment of the 1960s.
   
   I'm 59 now, and I'm not about to take pointers in how to live out my sixties from someone as smug, self-centered, and superficial as this author. If the subject matter appeals to you, I strongly suggest you look elsewhere for intellectual stimulation.



4. Finding myself in my late 50's, unemployed and not likely to take on another full-time career, I was curious about Heilbrun's thoughts and opinions about life during her 60's.
   Heilbrun was in her 70's when she wrote this book in 1998. Almost 10 years later, I found kernels of wisdom in almost every chapter despite being far removed from her literary and financial stature.
   
   If you have can relate to the following, I think you will benefit most from reading this book: 1) have an understanding or appreciation of the stifling environment most women who were married during the 1950's-60's felt in their marriages or careers. 2) be near or in your 60's, and 3) understand the introverted personality.
   
   I could relate to her comments about transitioning from a life-long career to having a life full of choices and feeling unsure about how or what direction to take all of this available free time. A friend once told me, "Enjoy your 60's while your health is still good. When a woman reaches her 70's, it's probably downhill from there." I think this outcome was what Heilbrun deeply feared and couldn't admit.
   
   I found her admission of experiencing `political sadness' a foreshadowing. She seemed profoundly affected by the political and social damage our country (and probably the world) endures knowing the recovery could take generations, if it were possible at all. Perhaps her inability to cope or contribute toward repairing such damage was more than she could bear, which might have lead to her suicide in her late 70's.
   
   Her writing can be a bit 'literary'. I had to re-read several passages to be sure that "I got it." That's the main reason I didn't give the book 4 stars. Although she is a prolific writer and probably quite talented in her craft, I didn't enjoy stumbling over many of her phrases.



5. Heilbrun provides an up-close look into her accomplished, then increasingly unconventional life. The main theme of the book is that of re-evaluating her life beyond age sixty. After a thirty-year tenure as an English professor at Columbia University, she was fortunate to enjoy a comfortable income in her retirement. Yet this fact did not spare her from the questioning that often accompanies this momentous life passage.
   At age sixty-two, she published "Writing a Woman's Life," where she mused on aging, friendship, marriage, etc. Always a woman of strong convictions, Heilbrun had professed she would commit suicide by age seventy. But she surprised herself when she found her sixties to be quite rewarding.
   She credits close friendships with women and colleagues, for making her sixties her happiest decade. While happily married for many years, she also longed for solitude. It was that longing that led her, at age sixty-eight, to take the unusual step of buying what she referred to as her "small house." It was this haven that provided her the space to spend some of her free time contemplating, "To invite one's soul and encounter peace." She was fortunate that her husband understood her need. The first weekend after the purchase, she drove there accompanied by him.
   While her life was quite different from mine, I was fascinated by her insights, and her daring to claim the life she wanted, in her later years. Upon learning that she did indeed, commit suicide at age seventy-seven, I was a bit disoncerted. But after digesting the news, I felt an undeniable sense of awe. She took her destiny into her own two hands, literally. Some call that "self-determination." I don't believe she suffered from depression, only that she had a realistic world view, in her own words, "feeling sad about the universe."
   The book provides a lot of wisdom, from friends like May Sarton, and helps explain their close, but difficult, realtionship. There are many quotes and insights from other famous writers. Michael Norman, writing in the New York Times magazine, described the life of his eighty-eight year-old aunt. "It's no good," she said. "I'm living too long already. What's the point?"
   Heilbrun ponders, "This harsh question, 'what's the point' is judged by some as cruel, unacceptable in our culture. To me, it is a very real question, the question that renders living too long dangerous, lest we live past the right point and our chance to die."
   In a chapter "On Mortality" there is a poem by Christina Rosetti, "Song." This verse seems fitting for Heilbrun:
   I shall not see the shadows,
   I shall not feel the rain:
   I shall not hear the nightingale
   Sing on as if in pain:
   And dreaming through the twilight
   That does not rise nore set,
   Haply I may remember
   And haply may forget.

5 comments about Lobster Chronicles, The: Life On a Very Small Island.

1. This book chronicles the life of Linda Greenlaw, the author, during a lobster fishing season. Living on a small island off the coast of Maine, the author allows us into her downeast life. We learn some great information on the lobster fishing industry, as well as the lifestyles of the residents of Isle Au Haut.
   
   Some funny anecdotes and a glimpse into life off the coast of Maine make up this short, quick read, book. Being a resident of Maine, myself, I always like to read authors from here. I have yet to be disappointed.



2. I bought and read this book because my Grandfather, Asbury Arthur [Bob] Gray, was borned in Stonington, Maine; just behind the Opera house on Highland Avenue. His Aunt Millie's stove is still on displayed in the General Store and when I walked through the town for the very first time back in 2001, there were people who looked strangely like my Grandfather all over the place. He was a dear old man, with terrific story telling capabilities, many about the sea since he, like Linda Greenlaw, come from a long line of fishermen. There were tales of exploration, and of terror (like the Great Storm of 1873 where his Grandfather, James H Gray, and the crew of the DH Webb survived by hiding out in the Bay of Chaluer, off the coast of the Prince Edward Islands), and of family (although he lost his mother when he was only 10 and was forced to move to Bath and work in the Iron Works because his Dad and his two brothers were at sea). This book is every bit as good as a conversation with Grandpa Gray, the humor and the charm shines right on through. So does the boredom and the chowder... Thank you Linda for letting us share your little island and your great big hospitality! I enjoyed it immensely.



3. I laughed alot! Anyone who has ever lived in a small town will relate to this book. If not you will wish you lived in a small town just for the comedy of it! Linda is a good writer. If you have red any of her other books you already know this! I highly recommend this book!



4. In her debut memoir, The Hungry Ocean, Greenlaw recounted a monthlong swordfishing expedition off the coast of Newfoundland and discussed what it takes to be the world's only female swordfish boat captain. In this second memoir, Greenlaw confronts the joys and perils of living at home. Over forty, with her biological clock ticking, she returns to Isle au Haut, the tiny Maine island that is her birthplace. With hopes of reaffirming ties to her parents and starting a family of her own, she invests in a lobster-fishing business because it is a much "safer" career than swordfishing. But lobsters are scarce, and eligible men are even more elusive. Greenlaw writes about island life with the same plainspoken lyricism and self- effacing humor that elevated her first book to bestselling status. In the middle of the book, she begins to address her fear of loneliness and old age without a spouse or children, as well as the loss of her mother to cancer and the quickly dwindling island population. Unfortunately, she bails out before fully developing any of these compelling themes.



5. The Lobster Chronicles by Linda Greenlaw is just the sort of work that completely captivates me. For the most part, I find my life quite interesting, do find my life quite interesting and have been fortunate enough to do a lot of the things I wanted to do, and it is turning into a relatively long run, when all is said and done. One of the pleasures I get out of life is learning of other people, their experiences; both exciting, earth shaking, and yes, mundane. Hey, I know about me; I want to know about others. Ms. Greenlaw, by any standard is an interesting person! Her accomplishments are really a bit breath taking as told in the story of her time spent as professional fisherman in her work, The Hungry Ocean.
   
   It this autobiographical work we see a more calm, less dangerous (well, sort of) aspect of here life as she introduces us to her native island, a small hunk of rock off the coast of Maine. She has stopped being a Captain of a commercial fishing boat and has taken up lobster trapping, usually with a crew of one, her father. We get a very nice insight to island life; the closeness, harshness, realities of a very hard way of making a living. We also get a close up view of a way of life that may not be with us much longer. Chronicles such as this are a wonderful way to preserve a history of life in these far reaches of our country. This is something that should not be lost to future generations, even if they can only read about them.
   
   As far as I was concerned, this work was very well written. Granted, it does not have the polish of a "professional" writer, and granted, you may find a few flaws in grammar and syntax here and there, but who really cares? Her story is told in her own words, much as you would hear it if you sat and talked with her for a bit. I find this much more pleasing to the eye, ear and mind than many of the professionally written "autobiographies as told to." Her small village is absolutely infested with interesting characters, she is quite good at descriptive writing and you get a true feel of what it is like at the place and time of which she writes. I take this work to be an oral history, if nothing more, but a wonderful history and quite well done. I cannot imagine anyone with an ounce of imagination, of curiosity of how others live, or wanting to know of things they have not done themselves, being bored with this work. I actually read it in one setting, and I am a pretty slow reader. I simply could not put the thing down.
   
   All in all it was well done. We all have a tale to tell, each of us. Thank goodness there are individuals like Ms. Greenlaw who has the ability to tell theirs. Hope to hear more from this author in the future.
   
   D. Blankenship
   The Ozarks

5 comments about Miriam's Kitchen: A Memoir.

1. Well done, most interesting, all the various recipes, combined with memories from a time long ago. Have enjoyed it immensely.



2. Miriam's kitchen is a thoughtful, interesting, warm and homey memoir. If you are interested in material culture -- particularly food -- of various groups, you'll find it interesting. It's also a story about balancing identities -- Jewish, American, feminist, traditionalist, etc.



3. Elizabeth Ehrlich is a Jewish American woman who rejected, for many years, her connection to the practices of her Jewish faith. It is only through her discovery of her mother-in-law Miriam's kitchen and the foods prepared there that she learns to value the traditions that shaped her own family, traditions brought from the Old World and translated into the New. Through entries in her journal, through letters, memories, stories, and above all, through Miriam's recipes, Ehrlich recreates for us the story of her spiritual awakening and her self-guided journey into the lives of her foremothers, who nourished their faith and kept it alive and growing in difficult times, difficult places, through pain, separation, and even despair.
   
   This often funny, often heart-rending, always beautifully-evocative book is a powerful testimony to the importance of women's domestic contributions to the survival of their families, their communities, and their faith.
   
   Susan Wittig Albert
   for Story Circle Book Reviews
   www.storycirclebookreviews.org



4. I read this many years ago. I love the stories that the author tells about her life and her family as related to food and Jewish tradition. I could relate. The recipies provided in the book are delicious. I am keeping the book as a reference.



5. This book and the reciepies are a must have for any Jewish household. Fantastic story of family history and wonderful receipies from Russian Jewish past. The egg salad is absolutely fantastic!!!

5 comments about When Men Become Gods: Mormon Polygamist Warren Jeffs, His Cult of Fear, and the Women Who Fought Back.

1. This book was done before the April, 2008 raid on the FLDS property near San Angelo, Texas, which put the cult back in the news again following the events depicted here. It is essential background in understanding how the Texas stronghold of this religious sect might play out. Why this group appeals to women at all is a mystery to me, but it seems like a good deal for a man, as long as he does NOT cross the self-annointed prophet, who functions as God on earth to the thousands of members. The man can have many women, including teens. The women, or "wives" in a non-legal, spiritual sense, can't contradict or refuse to service their husbands or especially decline to let the husband accept another "wife" into the family. You've heard the name Warren Jeffs, the now disgraced prophet, but this book tells you about his damaged personality, his crimes against his followers, and his short time as the supreme leader. One surprise is that many of the people still living in the twin cities of Hildale, Utah and Colorado City, Arizona, the original home of the FLDS, are no longer following the Jeffs' prophet-producing line, or taking underage girls to bed. That's good news. The bad news is that many living members apparently practiced pedophilia, incest, and (in effect) pimping their daughters to curry favor, while abandoning and rejecting their teen sons in order to make more girls available for older men. It is unlikely many of them will ever be prosecuted in this life. If you have even a casual interest in the doings of the FLDS cult, this book will be useful to you. We have not yet figured out why so many people are susceptible to the divine claims of the David Koresh/Jim Jones/Warren Jeffs brand of psychopathology, and this volume does not address that question except to note that if you are born into that belief system, and isolated enough so that contrary views are never presented to you, it is pretty damn hard to break out. The HBO series "Big Love", about a man with three families in an urban setting, is well-written and well-acted by beautiful men and women. Some of the secondary characters represent the darker side of fundamentalist LDS life. This book presents more about the less pleasant folks, and less prominent are the articulate, educated plural wives and hard-working husbands seen in the television show.



2. Warren Jeffs is indeed a twisted man. But the author is either ignorant or has an unexpressed agenda. I've done some reading on the Mormon's enough to know that they excommunicate polygamists like Jeffs, or in his case, his father who started this sect.
   
   So, to include in the title of the book the phrase "mormon polygamist Warren Jeffs" is misleading. In fact, I understand it to be an oxymoron -- once a mormon becomes a polygamist, he is excommunicated, so can no longer call himself a mormon (since "mormon" refers to the Church of Jesus Christ of latter day saints -- the one with HQ in salt lake). But then again, the author may have done so purposely in order to sell more books which, after all, is the objective, true?
   
   I would look elsewhere for info on these Fundamentalist LDS groups and for info on the Mormons themselves.



3. First of all, I need to point out that indeed Warren Jeffs is not a "Mormon Polygamoust." He is a fundamentalist Mormon, which the author does enforce many times throughout the book. I wonder why this is part of the title...
   
   Anyway, I found this book very objectively written, and very respectful of the FLDS members themselves, which I applaud fullheartedly, however, the book wasn't as interesting as I expected it to be. It was full of legal jargon and drawn out courtroom scenes.
   
   This is certainly worth the read if you have read "Stolen Innocence" by Elissa Wall. It puts her story in a different light and very interesting to compare the two books.



4. I know, I know, I should wait until I finish reading this. But I am 2/3 of the way through this book, and it gets better every day. I can't wait another moment. I bought it because I worked with Mr. Singular in Denver 25 years ago. He was a great writer then, and he's better now.
   
   This book goes way beyond everyone's repulsion at the sex-with-a-minor charges or the polygamist-cult aversions most of us have. It drills way down into the history of all of the players in this drama. A saga like this doesn't grow and build for as many years as this one has unless it's complex and has a huge cast of characters with a variety of needs/lusts.
   
   It covers the willingness of the U.S. government to turn a blind eye for many decades (and still seems to be doing so, in many cases). It names names, and introduces us to the people who got passionately involved in exposing Jeffs and his cohorts for what they really stand for. And, perhaps best of all, Singular tells us the stories of the women who were (are) victimized by this man and his way of life. It shows us how they each came to the realization that the way of life they'd grown up with was wrong, and how they extricated themselves. It introduces us to others who have come in from the outside to protect them, and why.
   
   This freak has affected so many people--Singular also goes into great detail about the society of "Lost Boys"--countless "useless" male teens (these communities have an excess of men, who are useless because they can't carry children) he threw out of their homes and cast into the streets with no education, no skills, and no normal socialization experience--and the efforts to save them. Efforts that seem to be working.
   
   Others have written books on this subject, but I venture to say this is the best researched and most detailed. This book shows us how easily a religion becomes a cult. At the end of it all, which religion doesn't have a dark side?



5. The author explains how the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints (FLDS) church began. When people began following the teachings of Joseph Smith, and believed him to be a Prophet of God, they followed his teachings and were polygamists, because Smith told the people that a revelation from God told him that men were to take multiple wives in order to build up the kindom of God by allowing unborn soles bodies in which to incarnate. This continued until the United States outlawed multiple wives and began to imprison men who were practicing this. At that time the standing leader of the LDS (Mormons) said he had had a revelation from God that pologamy would no longer be accepted.
   
   Many men and women did not believe these revelations, and moved around hiding their pologmany. From this, two cities on the borderline of Colorado and Arizona were "born," and the people migrated to this region. Nestled away near the desert, this group lived in peace for years under the leadership of a President AND several men who made up the governing board of the FLDS church. Problems existed for women and children even with the governing body.
   
   Warren Jeff's was a man who liked to study Hitler, and how he controlled his victims. As the elder men died, Jeff's was put in as the current Prophet. Jeff's was able to disolve all the committee men, and ruled himself with no one watching what he was doing. Under his leadership, the people lived in total fear. All their money was taken and placed in a community fund that Jeff's controlled. Children were molested by Jeffs, both boys and girls, and it was not uncommon for him to knock on a member's door and demand they allow their 13 or 14 year old daughter to marry someone HE had picked out, stating that God directed him.
   
   During his reign, all pets were taken out of town and killed on one day, boys were kicked out literally on the streets for minor offenses in order to keep the young girls available to be married to old men.
   
   The police force, judge, county government, etc were all FLDS members and ruled by Jeffs. Men who complained were sent packing, and their wives and children were given to other men.
   
   Men, boys, women and young girls began to speak out, and eventually the FBI became involved.
   
   The author tells the story well, ending with the conviction of Jeff's for the rape of two 14 year old girls, and sodomizing a boy. It is well written, interestering, and answers a lot of questions that arose recently with the government taking 400 children from the compound.

5 comments about Dandelion: Memoir of a Free Spirit.

1. This book is not *just* about Hollywood Royalty from the 30's and 40's , although her whole family hails from that golden era. It's not *just* about love affairs with Rock and Roll Legends, but you will find kisses from the likes of Denny Laine( Moody Blues & Wings) & father of her son), Jimmy Page (Led Zeppelin), Mick Jagger (Rolling Stones),and Jackson Browne have graced her lips. She counts Roger Daltrey (The Who),Pamela DesBarres,Patti D'arbanville amoung her closest friends.
   
   However..This is NOT a book of casual name dropping. This is a memoir of a turbulent childhood, a peek at the demons that she faced,and the many legions of angels who have come to her rescue.
   
   Catherine James takes you on a journey that is simply amazing. For those who don't "like to read", this book is SUCH an easy read. It's like sitting down with her and listening to her chat with you.
   
   Catherine comes full circle and I enjoyed every single minute of it.
   I look forward to the sequel.. and Catherine? maybe Diane Keaton can play YOUR double in the film version? :)
   
   Pattie xo



2. I wanted to crawl into this book and give her a warm hug! Literally read in one night. So enjoyed being taken back to that amazing time in music history...it wasn't a "groupie" book, she didn't go out to meet musicians, she was forced out by the "witches". She is a compassionate survivor and didn't take the easy way out by self-medicating with drugs to numb her pain. Wished it was longer and look forward to her next writings. Buy this book and enjoy the trip!



3. I first found Miss James' story in a chapter of a "kiss and tell all" book about rock and roll groupies. Having been around the music business over half my life and being exposed to all of it's excess's, I was taken and intrigued as her story was much different than others portrayed. I was eventually led to this wonderful and inspiring book that I am writing about here.
   
   Hers is definitely a story about one who found the inner strengh to persevere. Yes, some of the people throughout her life can be dazzling to read about, Mr. Page, Jagger, Eric Clapton, etc. But it's a lot like the old nursery rhyme "oh who are the people in your neighborhood"? She just happens to tell us who they were. For some music and rock and roll is lived vicariously through records, signatures, brief encounters in the back of the bus or a lonely hotel room, other's stories, and for some it is a part of life like breathing. It just is. There is no explanation really. Why they are treated different and accepted into the fold will always be a mystery. I think all the orphans of the world who find each other in the lifestyle Miss James found a safe haven in must come from the land of miss-fit toys. No one truly wants a "charlie in the box" so we find each other and in doing so comes solace.
   
   If your looking for "heady" tell all stories about rock stars move on. If you are interested in a book that is truly human in context and real look no further. This is a story of a woman who found a way to succeed at all odds as a single parent in a time when it wasn't very popular to do so. We should all do so well.
   
   I have a feeling the story is not over.
   
   Michael Holt.



4. The story of Catherine James' life reads like a dazzling, colorful, dizzying, sometimes unbelievable, cult screenplay that the most darling of independent film-makers could only wish to create. Ms. James unabashedly and honestly recounts her amazing journeys through the worlds of delapidated Hollywood, her dysfunctional family, and 60s rock n'roll in such a way as to make it difficult to put her book down for wanting to know what will happen next. Certainly, her relationships with some of the most notrious men of rock n' roll (Jimmy Page, Mick Jagger) is titillating; however, it is her gentle voice, and strong presence in these, and other, very personal accounts that makes the story most interesting. Ms. James' trials, tribulations, and, ultimately, triumphs are relatable to women of all ages - you will find yourself laughing on one page and crying on the next, just as in the book of life. This book is highly recommended, not only for its wonderful entertainment value but for its many resonant life lessons, especially that of forgiveness.



5. What a lucky break to have stumbled across this book. I loved it. The brush with the gods of rock was interesting, but the real story was her grit and determination to make a remarkable and happy life for herself. I always thought that you can be anything you want to be and she proved that. Very inspiring!! Hope the future holds more books from Catherine, I for one can't wait....