5 comments about The Cathedral Within: Transforming Your Life by Giving Something Back.

1. Perhaps the most important points that this book makes are 1) If you can't build the structure, add a few bricks! and 2) Community Wealth and Social Capital are re-inventing business from the soul out!

   In this well-written book, Shore (Founder of Share Our Strength) uses the model of a cathedral to demonstrate that large dreams are community efforts that reach beyond personal lifetimes to accomplish, and that appear impossible until the collective brainpower of the community engages to find a solution. This metaphor addresses the "perfectionism" that sometimes stops people from making efforts towards social change. In the inspirational stories of ordinary people doing extraordinary things, readers feel the passion that rebounds of the pages. Echoing the human voice for meaning in an increasingly digital and isolated world, this book suggests practical ways for American wealth to be redefined, redistributed, and built upon foundations that include social interests. It is a blueprint for building ethics into today's business values and ventures that will create a social structure of community wealth.

   I read it in one sitting, underlined heavily, and have placed 39 page markers within its covers. The inspiration found between its pages has helped me redesign my own business plan towards the greater good. In short, read it.




2. Bill Shore's enlightening book, "Transforming Your Life by Giving Something Back" is not just about non-profits. It provides insight into every part of human life. He spikes the book with advice about marriage, child care, and friendships. The book, in my opinion, has less to do with non-profits and more to do with living a great life. It is certainly a must read by anyone who cares about humanity.



3. This is a book that touches the heart of both important social issues and the reader. Written in a wonderfully open style the author writes from a perspective of sharing rather than preaching. Bill Shore's approach of tying his view of how the issues of today's society can be most effectively addressed to his personal experiences, rather than theory and conjecture, brings substantial credibility to his writings.
   The issues addressed are those of scaling the resources of non-profit, public service, organizations to meet the growing needs of our society in the face of shrinking government resources. The notion of making non-profit organizations self-sufficient is well outlined and easily understood. "The Cathedral Within" is a book that left me feeling encouraged to know that there is not only room for improvemnt in our social structure but that it is being aggressively and effectively pursued.



4. The actual content of the book can be summarized thusly: (1) spend more time with kids if you want to affect their development, (2) don't starve young children because otherwise they won't develop properly physically and mentally, (3) run your not-for-profit enterprise just like a for-profit corporation and with just as much of a zeal for profits, except that you can put the profits into your own pocket as salary instead of paying it out to a bunch of shareholders and to the Federales as income tax.

   Padding these ideas out to 300 pages requires that the author tell you how famous his friends are, each and every one of them, and how much do-gooding his few non-famous friends have done. There are also long stories about the escapades of his 13-year-old son.

   Never does the author address the issues raised in the subtitle, e.g., how does a person balance his or her life between charity and selfishness? Shore's definition of "giving something back" is working at a multi-million dollar tax-exempt organization and paying yourself $400,000 per year. Nice work if you can get it but what about the rest of us?

   For a thoughtful look at the issue of personal charity read the novelist Nick Hornby's "How to be Good".




5. At first I thought the book was too preachy, but forged on and found it lively and rewarding, especially the examples of entreprenurial approaches to building nonprofit organizations and foundations.

5 comments about Mi Pais Inventado: Un Paseo Nostalgico por Chile.

1. La narracion es placentera y veloz para el lector. La voz es optimista a pesar de su cornucopia de penas (el golpe militar; la muerte de su hija; el destierro; divorcio; etc.) No abundan las innecesarias ornamentaciones y descifra las melancolias e inseguridades causadas por la complejidad de su pasado.
   Allende sostiene y siente el hibridismo que afecta a muchos Hispanos en los Estados Unidos. Es decir, ella logra concretar la nostalgia que sentia por su pais que ya no es suya y acepta cierta marginacion en un pais anfitrion al cual no esta totalmente acostumbrada. Esto compartimos muchos hispanos. Ni de alli ni de aca. Allende nos lleva con ella a Chile de una manera sencilla y personal. La honestidad de los alagos y de las criticas de sus paisanos es sincera y muchas de estas caracteristicas se pueden aplicar a los demas habitantes de America del Sur en gringolandia. El paralelo del Golpe Militar y el 11 de sept., es lo que empuja a Allende a encontrar cierta definicion que se universaliza para cualquier inmigrante en cualquier pais.



2. I picked up this book because I'd heard of Isabel Allende (and the late Salvador Allende), and because I thought it would be helpful in my Spanish studies. I quickly became engrossed in the book and, as they say, couldn't put it down (except to reach for my Spanish dictionary).
   
   Isabel Allende, author of numerous bestselling novels, was born in Peru, grew up in Chile, and then traveled with her parents to various diplomatic posts. Later, she was exiled permanently from Chile after the military coup of 1973. She writes about her native country as one who, having stepped outside her culture, can no longer return to it as a native, but sees it from the outside. She is a perpetual foreigner now, an outsider in every culture, and so she sees things others miss. In this book, Author Allende takes a nostalgic look back at her life, her family, her native land, its culture, its foibles and its great strengths. She also reveals a great deal of her own inner self, creaing a powerful bond of intimacy with her readers.
   
   This is a book which transcends time and place. Written in a simple, conversational style, it draws the reader in, engages, delights, and amazes. And it causes the reader to think and reflect. She is able to discuss world-shaking political events in the same intimate style, and caused this reader to reflect deeply on some of the political currents of our own time. The author has a sparkling sense of humor, and often got me to laugh, though her message is profoundly serious. I believe this book will be recognized as a classic. I recommend it highly. Reviewed by Louis N. Gruber.



3. Un libro que en lo personal me hizo descubrir la magia que puede haber en recorrer nuestras memorias mas intensas, esas que se marcan en nuestra infancia y adolescencia, cuando la memoria esta mas fresca. Esos recuerdos y nostalgias van enlazadas a la distancia y la aceptacion de una nueva tierra que nos brinda la oportunidad de estar aqui lejos de la otra y de alguna forma seguir cosechando recuerdos.
   Por supuesto que estas nuevas memorias y vivencias nunca reemplazaran los recuerdos magicos de ese pais inventado... o real del cual venimos.



4. El libro "Mi país inventado" de Isabel Allende es muchas cosas al mismo tiempo:
   
   Es un viaje a Chile: Isabel Allende nos cuenta de la geografía, de la política, de la cultura (especialmente del humor) y también de la historia reciente de este país Latinoamericano. Pero no es una guía que pretende reemplazar por ejemplo los libros de la "Lonely Planet". Si buscas una guía de ese tipo debes que comprar otro libro.
   
   "Mi país inventado" también es una autobiografía: Allende describe su infancia en Santiago de Chile. Cuenta de sus padres y parientes; especialmente nos deja saber muchas cosas sobre su abuelo. Pero al final solamente es una autobiografía muy rudimentaria (el libro de bolsillo solamente tiene aproximadamente 200 paginas).
   
   Sobretodo ese libro es una declaración de amor por "su país" (ella misma refiere varias veces a Chile como "mi país" - inclusive en su título ), por su patria. Sí, claro, escribe sobre la década del gobierno Pinochet en los anos 1970s, de las brutalidades cometidos por los militares etc. Sí, claro, nos cuenta de las características menos favorables de sus compatriotas. Y sí, claro, nos explica como a ella le gusta vivir en California con su marido y que bueno es para ella regresar "home" a San Francisco. Pero sin embargo después de leer "Mi país inventado" no hay ninguna duda donde reside su alma: en Chile.
   
   ¿Entonces, para quiénes fue escrito ese libro? Pienso que probablemente sea para los aficionados de Latino América y de Isabel Allende. Para lectores que ya conocen sus libros de ficción y que quieren saber más sobre Chile y Isabel Allende y de lo que Isabel Allende piensa de "su" país. A mi me gustó muchísimo leer "Mi país inventado".



5. This is a beautiful book. You will learn a lot about Chile and the author. Isabel Allende is a very interesting and fun writer. I was reading this book while commuting and I was often laughing alone in the train. She has that great sense of humor I some times miss from Southamerica. Great book.

5 comments about The Private Realm of Marie Antoinette.

1. This book is fairly small but it has some interesting tid bits about Marie Antoinette. The focus of this book is mainly on the royal's furniture and accessories. It doesn't go too much into Marie Antoinette's history. An interesting book for any Marie Antoinette fan.



2. If you wish to be propelled into her realm, then look no further. I have read many books about Marie Antoinette and this is one of my favourites. The basic text is accompanied by the most wonderful photographs, portraits and furniture details that I have seen anywhere. Highly recommended.



3. Beautiful book with nice pictures of several places on where Queen Marie Antoinette left her signature. Her rooms, gardens, Hameau, bodoire are beautifully described in this nice work. I recommend it for all who are interested in Marie Antoinette.



4. After reading the reviews on this book I was expecting so much more than what I got. Some of the pictures in the book are beautiful, but most of them are grainy and shot at strange angles. The pictures of the petit trianon, which were the pictures I was looking forward to seeing the most, were all shot in black and white and there are only 6 pictures of it total. You get absolutely no feeling for it whatsoever and this was the place Marie Antoinette loved the most and spent most of her time. Overall I was very disappointed and would not recommend this book.



5. i always thought marie antoinette was a empty headed selfish woman,but i find her to be a strong-willed ,compassionate and beautiful woman who loved her kids and her husband ,family.she showed great courage meeting her death.

5 comments about Red China Blues: My Long March From Mao to Now.

1. Jan Wong,a Canadian journalist of Chinese ancestry, in this illuminating volume writes of her experiences as an ardent young Maoist in the early 1970's who actually went to China to work and study.
   She hauled pig manure in a Chinese re-education farm, and at Beijing University she turned in a fellow student who had begged her help to escape to the West.
   Slowly she realized the evil of the Communist system in China and was repatriated to the West in 1978.
   Wong returned years later as an undercover journalist to China where she covered the Tianmen Square Massacre, in which three thousand pro-democracy students were mowed down in cold blood by Red China's army, on the orders of dictator, Jian Zemin.
   She also covered China's contradictory development into a capitalist state under a Communist dictatorship, or a Communist dictatorship with a capitalist economy...akin to Fascism!
   She covers the Tianmen Square Massacre of 1989, letting the the reader know of some of the lesser known details, and how the Communist army opened fire on the students after they began leaving the square:
   "A [...]girl was killed and they just brought her body back...After the third barrage I counted more than twenty bodies. One cyclist was shot in the back right below our balcony. There were two big puddles of blood on the Avenue of Eternal Peace. People carried the body of a little girl towards the back of the hotel. After twenty three more minutes, a few people gathred up enough courage to aproach the wounded. The soldiers let loose another blast, sending the would be rescuers scurrying for cover. The crowd was enraged. I grimly kept track of the time. An hour later, the wounded were still on the ground, bleeding to death.
   She speaks of the great poverty of the new Red China, with inequalities far greater than anything in the liberal democracies of the world, and crushing poverty in the rural provinces. Despite economic changes, China remains a brutal dictatorship, with no political liberalization or democratization having been allowed by the iron grip of the Communist Party.
   Peeople are still opresed in day-to-day life. People are not allowed to own dogs, and to deal with a fad of people acquiring dogs as pets in the early 1990s, special police squads swept through the neigbourhoods, strangling dogs with steel wire looped at the end of metal poles.
   The author recounts some regret at buying into the Communist lie, with the realization that "The Western world, especially Canada, is far more socialistic than China has ever been, with it's free public education, universal medicare, unemployment insurance, and government funding for television ads against domestic violence. China has made me appreciate my own country, with it's tiny ethnically diverse population of unassuming donut-eaters. I had gone all the way to China to find an idealistic revolutionary society, when I already had it right to home."
   She ends of on a positive note, predicting, in 1997, a great change in China , and the death of the Communist Party, and real democracy.
   Ten years later, this is not close to being realized, with a tightening of political control by the Communist dictatorship having taken place.
   Despite being one of the most brutal dictatorships on this planet, China has gained international acceptibility, without improving democracy or human rights!
   Nobody bats an eyelid at the Olympic Games for 2008 being set in Beijing.
   The worst abuses of the Communist regime has it's apologists in the WEst.
   The Stalinist Workers World Party in North America, (which has praised Stalinism in the Soviet Union, and applauded suicide bombings against Jewish women and chidren in Israel) congratulated the Chinese regime after the Tianmen Square Massacre, for having 'won a battle against imperialist and counter-revolutionary forces."
   The fact that such sentiments can be uttered makes one wonder how far the world has actually come.



2. Red China Blues is the story of a woman who, in her youth, idealizes communism. This idealization is partly a lack of understanding about how communism in China really worked, and partly rebellion against her own Canadian culture.
   
   As she goes to China and slowly comes to understand the horror of China under Mao, we too see and understand both the regime itself and the ways in which the people dealt with their lot. She wants so much to believe in the dream-China she's created in her head that it's painful and difficult for her to see reality. This is a sin most humans commit at some point in their lives, and many readers will wince as they're reminded of their own delusional moments.
   
   Ms. Wong does not attempt to censor any of her own sins. From simple arrogance to participation in active thought control, she tells us everything she did and leaves it to us to decide what to think of her. The same is true of the people around her: she honestly talks about the good and bad in all the people she describes to us. This lends a wonderful humanizing touch to the book and turns it from the story of a regime into a story about people *in* the regime, living as best they can. You will not be able to forgive some of them, while others will move you. Mostly, Ms. Wong leaves you to decide for yourself which people fall into which category.
   
   In other words, this is a book that lays out facts and lets you decide your opinion for yourself. She gives you the facts, tells you her opinion, and leaves the rest to you. For a clear, honest look at China's people under Mao and after his death, read this one.



3. If you want to understand China, you will need to read a considerable range of titles in order to see the country, its history, people, culture and so on from numerous and unique angles. Jan Wong's RED CHINA BLUES offers a very unique angle. Jan was born in Montreal. Her father owned a popular restaurant in that city and by the time he was thirty, he had made his first million. Jan herself, apparently suffering from an identity crisis, became disenchanted with Canada/Western culture and decided to head to China to find herself and her roots - during the height of Maoism.
   
   Young and impossibly niave, Wong hurtled herself into the Chinese world. She learned the language, demanded not to be given preferential treatment, shoveled manure on a pig farm/re-education camp, and worked in a machine factory. Ever so slowly, her idealism faded, but, as other critics have noted, this took a very long time. At one point, for example, she mentioned how at the machine factory the workers spent half their time going to political meetings as opposed to producing. One of the primary tenets or aims of Marxism (to which Wong subscribed) is to creat a "superabundance" so as to achieve economic surplus over material necessity. Only then will art, politics, philosophy, etc. be able to reach fruition. When factory workers ask Wong about conditions and money re a similar job in the West, she is reluctant to tell them. But such isolated inconsistencies didn't dampen her idealistic fervor; not for something like six years anyway. Wong returned to China in 1988, and from here the book really gears down. Because she looks and can speak Chinese, she is able to to go places and do things that real outsiders never could. Her visit to a labor camp is interesting and her first hand account of "the Tianmen Incident," (people being shot right outside her window) is, as you might imagine, chilling. This was either the first or second China book I read, and it made a lasting impression. I highly recommend it.
   
   Troy Parfitt, author



4. This is a beautiful book to read. It's well written and you can hardly put it down. Jan Wong let's us be witnesses of her life choices and their consecuences. It's interesting how and why she decides to go and live in communist China, how she strugles to get adjusted to that kind of political system and way of life. She then turns into a great journalist and let's us see some unknown aspects of modern China. It's a good book to learn more about China's history. I enjoyed it a lot!



5. An enthusiastic young activist, Jan Wong left Canada for Beijing in 1972, in hopes of simultaneously aiding Mao's cause and pursuing her ancestral roots. This well-written, enlightening account of her "journey from Mao to now" takes readers through her six years as a student and subsequent six years as a reporter in Red China's capital city.
   
   Wong was uniquely qualified to write this book, which privileges readers with deep insights into why things were the way they were then, and are now, in China. Having Chinese parents, but being raised in the West, rendered Jan part of both worlds. She experienced the Cultural Revolution and post-Mao China as both an insider and a "foreigner," resulting in a perspective on those periods that only a few can claim, and fewer still have written about.
   
   The first part of the book tells the story of the author's Beijing University days. In 1972, armed with only the vocabulary she had acquired in Mandarin 101, Wong left the comfort and security of her Montreal life to spend a summer in China. Inspired by what she observed in Red China, she found it a natural progression to move from worrying about feminist issues to supporting Maoism. So she petitioned and won permission to stay in the country to study at Beijing University for the next two years. Anti-establishmentarianism was "in," and "China was radical-chic" at the time, she explains. Western youth looked to the East for answers and antidotes to racism, "exploitation" of the masses, and materialism. Becoming a journalist seemed like the perfect job for a young woman seeking to change the world, so she decided to remain in China to learn Mandarin, Chinese history, and Maoism. Her goal was to bring knowledge of all that she thought China was doing well to the West.
   
   As a starry-eyed young Maoist, Wong did not realize how miserable people really were. Instead, when she discovered that she and the other foreign students were being given better rooms and special food privileges, they protested until they were allowed to eat the miserable starvation-level rations given to the rest of the students in their dingy canteen. Then she and her foreign friend petitioned to join their Chinese classmates in undertaking the required physical labor projects they had been exempted from. She was finally allowed to dug ditches, haul bricks, and harvest crops with everyone else.
   
   The author's first clue that Communist China might not be the paradise she had dreamed of came when the school asked her to end her friendship with a young Swedish man or be expelled. The school actually played a distressing mind game with her over this issue. From this experience she learned that in China people were not only unable to do what they wanted, but they were also not free to think what they wanted.
   
   Yet, Wong remains zealous in her attempts to prove that she is a good Maoist. In fact, Part One of the book culminates in her informing on two students who asked for her help to leave China for the US. At the time Wong thought she was doing the right thing by turning them in, but now she regrets her decision and feels great remorse for the terrible fate that probably befell these people after that.
   
   In Part Two, Wong returns to Montreal to complete her McGill University degree. Still supportive of Red China, she lectures locally in an effort to muster public support for the country and its political agenda. After graduating in 1974, Wong won a Canadian government scholarship to study at Beijing University, and off she went for more of the same. In addition to learning more about her school experiences and deepening understanding of what was happening on a personal and political level, the author meets and marries Norman Shulman---an American. After her studies end, she takes a job as a foreign correspondent for the New York Times. She finds that her Chinese appearance and fluency with the language give her a unique ability to get the local people to open up to her, when other reporters are unable to get interviews or comments.
   
   Wong reaches a turning point when Madame Mao and the rest of the Gang of Four are arrested. As she watches people rejoice in the streets, it dawns on her that the people hadn't believed in the Cultural Revolution for a long time. She feels betrayed and foolish because of her blind faith.
   
   Wong left China in 1980 to pursue a journalism degree at Columbia University, and then worked at various prestigious publications in the US and Canada for seven years. But in 1988, she was too curious to know what was really happening in China, so she asked her employer, the Toronto Globe, to transfer her. The third section of the book thus covers the late 1980s and early 1990s. The highlight of her career was covering the Tiananmen Square protests, the resulting massacre, and resulting fall out. This event served as the catalyst for shattering the last of Wong's illusions about communism in China. She declares herself no longer naïve and believes that she finally has a clear view of the "real" China.
   
   The last portion of the book presents some of Wong's most interesting interviews and perspectives on life in China, centering on human rights issues and social problems like how to uncover how many people really died in the Tiananmen Square massacre, poverty, the effects of the economic boom, retardation, drugs, prisoners, kidnapping women as brides, and the new robber barons of China.
   
   Wong left China in 1993 with no regrets. She concluded that without having spent 12 years living in and observing Red China, she would not have realized that what she was striving for all along was the socialist life style she enjoyed in Canada.
   
   Filled with interesting stories and well told, this book is a must read addition to your "good books about China" collection. As more and more people with Chinese roots return to this country, hopefully more voices like Wang's will emerge to give us perspective on what's happened between 1993 and the present, picking up where she has left off.

5 comments about Waiting: The True Confessions of a Waitress.

1. Oddly enough, I recieved a copy of this book, as a gift, three years ago. After rushing my education, recieving a Master's degree at 21, I found myself still employed as a server. Needless to say, I related to the story, which some may argue, is why I rated it a five. Most people take for granted, how many educated servers there are and how annoyed we get when you treat us like a "dumb server." If I have any hopes for this book, it's that some non-service industry types read it and get a better understanding of "the other side."
   I found this book to be a quick and easy read, but very enjoyable. She reiterates that common curtiousy goes a long way, whether you are a server or being served. Definately a must read for anyone that has waited tables and a should read for anyone that has or will ever eat out.



2. I love this book and am currently enjoying it again after first reading it several years ago. Not only does Waiting deliver a strong sense of what it is like to be a waitress, it's also a strong story about what it is like to be Debra Ginsberg and to some degree what it was like to be in Portland, Oregon in the 70's and 80's.
   
   Highly recommended.



3. This is a wonderful, fast-paced read that will take you into the life of Debra Ginsberg, a woman who worked as a waitress for twenty years.
   
   If you've ever worked with the public in any capacity, this book is for you! And, if you patronize restaurants, you'd best read this book so you can see yourself as a customer through the eyes of those invisible people who serve you.
   
   Waiting: The True Confessions of a Waitress by Debra Ginsberg is a hilarious eye-opener. You'll never see waiters in the same way again.



4. Debra Ginsburg's book is nothing less than an updated version of Melville's Moby Dick: an ode to the humanity of the ordinary working man and woman. The restaurant staffs (many throughout her life-long career waiting) are Ginsburg's shipmates. The great whale was for Melville a mirror by which we can look into the souls of ordinary working people, and this is what the working men and woman of her restaurants are for Ginsburg's great work of Genius. Ginsburg plays on the word "waiting" in a way that would have made Samuel Beckett (Waiting for Godot) proud (although Ginsburg is never heavy-handed with the pun), as True Confessions of a Waitress is also about people who are waiting for salvation from the miserable existence where they are forced to eke out a humble living while their dreams lie just out of reach. I read the book as part of a writers' seminar and fell in love with the book and with its author.



5. About: Ginsberg describes her long career as a waitress in restaurants ranging from her family's luncheonette to a country club. Plenty of vignettes about ill-behaved restaurant staff and customers here.
   
   Pros: The tales and interpersonal relationships she describes on the job can be amusing
   
   Cons: I read this book after reading Waiter Rant: Thanks for the Tip--Confessions of a Cynical Waiter and found that Ginsberg's work paled in comparison. The chapter on waitressing in the media seemed like a tacked on writing class assignment, and her style lacked any "oomph" to hold my interest.

5 comments about Harriet Tubman: The Road to Freedom.

1. The story of the ex-slave, Civil War `general' and black liberation fighter Harriet Tubman is the stuff of legends. Although in recent decades she has received more of the proper attention due her the fight she so ardently fought for the real freedom for blacks still is the wave of the future. Her early story, in any case, is the all to familiar slavery story of arbitrary beatings, random acts of senseless brutalization, separation from family and friends and the dreaded `sale' further South that those like Ms. Tubman from border state slave society in Maryland feared above all. It was as a result of one such beating that left Ms. Tubman permanently injured that she determined to in the late 1840's to seek the "Northern Star" and escape.
   
   If that was all to her story then she would not be different from the average one thousand or so slaves who escaped each year. But here is a woman with a difference agenda. After her escape she became a 'conductor' on the then bustling Underground Railroad, the route used by escaped slaves to head North to freedom. She repeatedly led, at great personal risk to her life, many slave expeditions from the South. As she was able to brag later she did not lose one of her charges to the hands of the slave owners.
   
   Another interesting part of her story is her relationship with the legendary revolutionary abolitionist John Brown. Apparently she was slated to join Brown at Harpers Ferry but illness forced her to forego that fight. Given her talents in leading slaves from bondage, her authority among plantation blacks and her knowledge of the terrain and travel routes in the South she could have made Brown's seemingly utopian plan for a slave insurrection and guerilla warfare much more plausible. Needless to say she held the highest regard for this white man ready to lay down his head for black liberation. Toward the end of her life she named a rest home for indigent that she sponsored with her gvernment pension in his memory.
   
   During the Civil War Ms. Tubman sought to aid the Union Armies as they made a beachhead in the South by acting as a scout and helping create a scouting unit made up of blacks that knew the area. She witnessed the brave fight of the Massachusetts 54th Regiment made up of Northern freeman at Fort Wagner and spent time under the command of the famous Kansas free state fighter Colonel James Montgomery, another intimate of John Brown's. Although she was recognized for her services she had to endure many hassles in order to obtain the full pension that her service to the Union cause entitled her. She nevertheless spent most of her life in poverty and maintained herself with odd jobs and projects. The real honors that Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, John Brown, the men of the Massachusetts 54th and those countless black slaves and freedman who fought in the Union ranks still await them in a more just and honest society. In the meantime read this informative book about Harriet Tubman's life and struggles to free her people and learn how to bring that day closer.



2. I partly agree with a former reviewer that this book lacks sparkle and suspense. In fact, if I were not already interested in this fantastic historical female figure (and slavery, in general), this book would not draw me in. I also agree that Clinton made the book tedious by her detours and sub-topic (if not off-topic) details--except that such coverage may increase the value of the book as an archival reference. She does wax somewhat eloquently in her Epilogue.
   
   But I am not so dismissive of the book as to give it the lowest rating. Her seemingly exhaustive research did sparkle (to me) when it revealed Tubman's social connections, and events with which I was unaware. Here are some gems that got my attention:
   
   1. The behavior of her first husband, John
   2. Her later remarriage to someone nearly half her age
   3. Her affirmation of and connection with John Brown
   4. How pro-slavery Maryland was
   5. Her torturous efforts to get a military pension for her
   dedicated service to the union army
   6. Both her devotion to the charity of other down-trodden African-
   Americans, both slave and free, and her intelligence in dealing with
   various issues
   7. The fact that a SINGLE and private reward for her capture would be
   $270,000 in today's currency and the total offered by all parties
   would add up to just under a million dollars
   
   Finally, what I found unsettling was Clinton's admitted speculations-interpretations (and from some she quoted), the passing of "stories," events "according to family lore," and other happenings "based on comments"--the quotes are from her book. Of course, this practice was not a major part of the book by any means, but still a minus. These parts are sort of like the unanswerable historical question, "Who created ice cream?" with each answer having its own logic.
   
   The rating of 3 is based on her craft as a writer, not on her skill as a researcher; for the latter I would give her a 4 or 5. I, too, recommend THE JOURNAL OF DARIEN DEXTER DUFF, AN EMANCIPATED SLAVE and THE JOURNAL OF LEROY JEREMIAH JONES, A FUGITIVE SLAVE. Also, though out of publication, I believe (but available at Amazon as used), is the engrossing young-teen-oriented book MARASSA AND MIDNIGHT by Morna Stuart. Finally (one has to stop somewhere), there is Milton Meltzer's ALL TIMES, ALL PEOPLES: A WORLD HISTORY OF SLAVERY. Of course, these recommended books are not about Harriet Tubman, but about similar conditions that Tubman experienced.



3. I was excited when I finally got the chance to read about Harriet Tubman, but when I started reading this book, my excitement went downhill. I don't know if the book just didn't capture my attention or if Harriet Tubman's life wasn't what I thought. Anyway I barely got through the book so can't say much about it except that I lost interest.



4. I got this book after a debate with a former co-worker about whether Harriet Tubman helped free 300 slaves or 75 slaves. He insisted it was 75, but I have read that it was 300 in several books and articles. He insisted that this book was a great source for research and facts, so I picked it up.
   
   Cons: I love reading about Harriet Tubman, but this book seemed like it should've made the subtitle the main title "The Road to Freedom" instead of using Tubman's name or picture. There were so many antecdotes that didn't have a thing to do with Tubman--stories about white people in black face to free slaves she didn't even know, presidents, and so forth. But what bothered me was all of the opinions the author gave within this book. Is this supposed to be a nonfiction book or a really long op/ed? (Example: On page 58, the author talks about how Jerry Henry was "far from an ideal candidate for rescue" and the story of him being saved from slavery by a crowd. But she uses adjectives like "menacing." If this story is supposed to be fact based, I need to know WHAT made him menacing, not that she thinks he was menacing. The note (in the back) says he had domestic issues with the same women several times, but without the back story on Henry, I don't feel it was necessary to put that bit of information in there. I don't advocate men hitting women, but I'm also skeptical of the charges considering Black men were being slapped with incorrect charges even moreso during slavery days. Telling half stories does not lend to Tubman's story at all.
   
   The author kept calling Tubman "Araminta." Once it was mentioned that her name was changed, I didn't understand why that was necessary. That's like calling Malcolm X "Malcolm Little" once he became a Muslim.
   
   Pros: This book made me want to read the story of Jerry Henry to find out about the uproar and danger people went to to save this man. But do you see how this could be a con as well? I'm supposed to be reading this story to find out about Tubman, but I'm finding out more information about OTHER people even though Tubman is on the front cover.
   
   After all the stories, either I looked over a page or it wasn't there, but I do not see how many slaves Tubman freed in this book. It says she was responsible for THOUSANDS of slaves being freed, which backs up my argument even more.



5. Sorry to disappoint, but this book is not really about Harriet Tubman. I would liken it to a college student majoring in the histrory of slavery, with a minor in Harriet Tubman. I wanted to know more about this very great lady. I was disappointed.

3 comments about The First Queen of England: The Myth of "Bloody Mary".

1. Mary I of England (1516-1558), the elder daughter of Henry VIII, has long been overshadowed by her younger half-sister Elizabeth. As it happens, Mary's "Bloody" reputation is a partly a construct of the following era, due largely to John Foxe and encouraged by Elizabeth herself. But many of the successes of the Elizabethan period, resulting in economic prosperity and flourishing of the arts, were actually continuations of Mary's reforms and policies. One of Elizabeth's advantages was sheer longevity, together with the country remaining Protestant. As a result, historians have traditionally had a rather foreshortened view of Mary's reign.
   
   In her new biography, Linda Porter aims to rehabilitate Mary as a good and competent monarch on balance, and as a pioneer among reigning queens. Porter sets out by explaining the woman that Mary became, examining the people and events that shaped her life--especially her increasingly complicated family and its drama. The resulting depiction of Mary, usually convincing and very well-written, is a worthy addition to historical studies of the Tudor era and queens regnant.
   
   From her mother Katherine of Aragon, Mary learned at an impressionable age that "conscience was the most important justification for behaviour that anyone could make." Katherine refused to step out of the way for Henry's dynastic concerns--she wouldn't even countenance retiring to a nunnery, though Henry, by declaring their marriage invalid from the beginning, actually foreclosed that option. Because Henry divorced Katherine in the end, Mary had to be declared illegitimate.
   
   Strangely--or naively--Henry didn't think that displacing Mary in this way would affect her negatively. But for the young lady who had yielded precedence within the kingdom only to her parents, being uprooted from her (as she saw it) God-given place was simply inconceivable. She objected to any perceived affront, and Henry in his lenience only made the matter worse by not forcing her obedience right away. "The delay raised false hopes and developed in her a pattern of opposition based on conscience and self-identity, where suffering almost became a goal in itself."
   
   Anne Boleyn's jealousy towards Mary grew as the king's divorce dragged on, and in 1531 she became so defensive ("Did she fear that Mary could still salvage her parents' marriage?") that she didn't allow Mary at court at Christmas. Even after Henry married Anne, Mary refused to recognize her as queen, and their encounters always degenerated into rudeness and reprisals. The moral victory was always Mary's:
   "A more subtle woman [than Anne] might have considered outmanoeuvring Mary by occasionally bringing her to court, treating her with kindness and consideration and letting her show the world that, if she continued to defy her father, she was just a sulky, jealous child and a disobedient daughter. The new queen, who liked to be the centre of attention, feared Mary too much to follow such a strategy."
   
   After Anne's death (which Mary may have helped bring about indirectly) and a brief euphoric period in which Mary thought she would be restored to her former position, Henry finally forced his older daughter to submit and acknowledge her reduced status. Mary endured another fifteen years of subjection, first to her father (although she got along quite well with Catherine Parr, her last stepmother) and then to her half-brother Edward VI, whose tolerance of her Catholic observance did not last.
   
   Against the background of this understanding of Mary's character, the events of the last six years of her life fall into place: She rose up with the support of the people to triumph over John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, who would have ruled in the name of his daughter-in-law, Lady Jane Grey. She resumed the practice of the traditional religion, whose beauty and mystery most people probably missed (Northumberland even reverted to the Catholic faith, a huge propaganda victory for the new regime). She married Philip of Spain somewhat reluctantly, it seems, and made it clear that her motherly relationship to her people would take priority. She encouraged trade and reformed the currency that both her father and brother had debased. As for her sobriquet, the level of violence during her reign, although inexcusable to our sensibilities, was not that different from other early modern regimes. As for Calais and its loss, the author glosses it over as ultimately untenable and not all that valuable (an explanation that is not completely satisfying). But when Mary's poor health finally overtook her, she brought about a smooth transition to the next regime by acknowledging Elizabeth as her heir.
   
   Only in the last thirty years or so has Mary I has been rehabilitated and recognized for her own accomplishments, by a series of sympathetic (but not hagiographic) biographers starting with David Loades (newer version), and continuing with Carolly Erickson, J. A. Froude, and others. Porter's biography is not just the latest of these, but also one of the best, with an admirable level of detail and accuracy (especially in the characterizations of supporting figures like Catherine Parr). It is a riveting book, and I finished it with the sense that the traditional smears had been peeled back to reveal something of the pivotal ruler that Mary actually was.



2. Periodically some historian writes a new biography of "Bloody" Mary I, queen of England from 1553-1558, seeking to rehabilitate her reputation. Her short reign was marked by a rise in religious reaction that resulted in some 270 deaths through judicial murder, the flight of some 800 important Protestants abroad seeking to save their lives, and largely alienated the English public from the Roman Catholic Church. In this book, author and historian Linda Porter sets out to show Mary as a cultured Renaissance monarch, moderate, but determined to revitalize England.
   
   Overall, I found this to be a disappointing book. I think that the author did a good job of showing how Mary had been cruelly treated by her father, and by the powerful men who ruled Tudor England before her ascension to the throne. However, once the narrative reaches Mary's coronation, that earlier treatment seems to be forgotten - as showing her to have been vengeful, or perhaps just another player in the Tudor blood sport of politics, would have undercut the author's recasting of Mary as enlightened monarch.
   
   Further, the author eschews any discussion of Mary's mental instability, for example not going into any great detail on Mary's two phantom pregnancies, or their significance. The author laid a great deal of blame for Mary's subsequent reputation on the person of John Foxe, the author of the Book of Martyrs, but fails to go into any detail on how one book could so overcome the "truth" of Mary's enlightenment.
   
   No, I must say that I did not find this to be a good, impartial book on Queen Mary I, but saw it as more of a whitewash of her flaws. Has Mary been mistreated by historians since her reign? Most certainly. But, was she an enlightened and humanistic ruler, one of England's best monarchs? I think that that is going more than a little too far. Overall, I do not recommend this book.



3. Dr Linda Porter has meticulously researched the tragic life of England's first queen regnant in her vivid and well-written book. For readers who only know the 'myth' of Bloody Mary, Porter's book offers a real glimpse of the all-too-human queen behind that myth. For those who think they know the 'real' Mary, they, too, will have a stunning surprise and fascinating read. We see Mary hurtling toward disaster after disaster, from the moment she's put in the care of her tutor, Jean de Vives; to the confrontations of long, obdurate duration with her father, Henry VIII; through the separations from her mother and her half-siblings; and headlong into a disastrous, love-struck marriage with Philip II of Spain. Mary's story has been much neglected by historians to date -- with the great Dr David Starkey even lumping her together with her half-brother Edward VI as the 'forgotten Tudors'. Yet Mary's reign (as well as that of her brother Edward) was a watershed, not only in English history, but in the history of the Protestant reformation movement that spread with England's nascent empire during her half-sister Elizabeth I's reign. Without understand Mary Tudor, we can't understand why and how Elizabeth and other monarchs acted after her. This is a must read for anyone interested in British history, family history, or the history of Catholicism and the Protestant reformation.

5 comments about Love, Loss, and What I Wore.

1. If I could, I would give this book more than 5 stars. What a clever idea to recall onel's life by remembering the outfits worn. Loved the delightful illustrations. Beckerman is a unqiue and talented writer/illustrator. Thanks for the memories!



2. I, like most of my women friends I've talked to, including my mother and my sisters, shape memories and moments based on the clothes we were wearing at the time.
   
   I bought this book in 1995 when it was first published and have referred to it several times over the years for inspiration and support. I found it in the "Self-Help" section of the bookstore.
   
   This little book does as good a job as anything I've read, at getting in a woman's head. Clothes are how we remember. Wearing our favorite clothes or shoes or carrying our favorite handbag gives us confidence and helps us cope.
   
   For a while, I kept a diary of drawings of outfits whenever I'd want to remember an important event. Ask me what I was wearing when I held my niece for the first time (navy blue A-line Liz Claiborne dress) or when I went to my first job interview out of college (a polka-dot suit I called The Stewardess) or the night I was first kissed by a jerk who would break my heart(a shirt that said "Keep On Truckin" in glitter... heh).
   
   A good friend's mother passed away a few months ago, and I bought a copy for her, since Ms. Beckerman mentions the death of her own mother. She also mentions marriages, divorces, babies, and career successes, and most importantly, what she wore.
   
   It makes a great gift for any woman. Or for yourself.



3. I had picked this book up and put it back down several times when I saw it at the book store. I am glad I finally bought it! It is an interesting idea, and one that I am sure many of us can identify with: a memoir built on memories of certain beloved items of clothing. Ilene Beckerman had an interesting childhood and has had a varied life as an adult. Obviously, her talents lie more in writing than in drawing--the sketches of the clothing are rather simple,but she does manage to convey what she felt like wearing each outfit. It doesn't take very long to read, and if read in one sitting you get quite a sense of her life. Sometimes funny, sometimes quite bittersweet, but always entertaining.



4. Delightfully wacky little book deliciously decorated. Even though I'm a male I loved the book and its many drawing/paintings of clothing and other things. It is interesting to know how the book came about and how its author was writing about her life for her children and using her creative ability to show them how her life was growing up.
   
   I learned of the book when reading Jane Smiley's book: "13 Ways of Looking at the Novel" and thought her comments interesting enough to buy the book and read it. And I enjoyed it very much. I recommend "Love, Loss and what I Wore" to everyone regardless of gender.



5. This book is a little gem. It is one of a kind. There is no other book like this on the market, not that I know of, anyway. Although the author is a bit older than I am and some of the clothes are outdated, I could still relate to her. She related her life experiences by detailing what she wore during those experiences. We all can recall at least one event by remembering what we were wearing!! At times, she appears kind of catty, which just gives quite a human element to the book. I myself have so many clothes I cannot get rid of due to sentimental reasons. However, after reading this book, I may do the same thing she did and draw them or take a picture of them and then give them away. This is a GREAT book!!

5 comments about Baby Catcher: Chronicles of a Modern Midwife.

1. This was quite possibly one of my favorite books of all time! I am an aspiring midwife and felt like this book spoke directly to me and encompassed my own thoughts on labor, delivery, and midwifery in the U.S.
   
   I would love to spend a few hours picking Peggy's brain and just listening to her talk. A WONDERFUL book!



2. Absolutely one of the best books I read of late. I was a labor and delivery nurse in the mid 70's when so many changes occurred. This book took me down memory lane of all of the wonderful experiences I had as I labored women before the "electronic age". Thank you Peggy and your women for sharing the most intimate part of their lives.



3. I love that Peggy begins her career as a shy, girlish candy striper & goes on to become the take-charge, seasoned veteran she ultimately is. I love that she chose what appear to be the most exciting, interesting, poignant & pivotal birth stories of her professional career to share with us. She gives the people what we want - action! I've read lots of hum-drum, normal homebirth stories, so I found it refreshing to be riveted at every page.
   BTW, Peggy, you got screwed & it's not fair! I was so spitting mad about her lawsuit that happened >20 years ago that I will rant about it whenever the topic comes up. A page-turner, but perhaps not for first-time pregnant mommies. If you're really into childbirth, like me, wait until your postpartum time, when you need something to get your heart racing & overemotional eyes pouring in happiness & sadness.



4. My best friend gave me this book as a thank-you gift for flying from Nor Cal (60 miles from Berkley, where most of the action is set) to Phoenix, AZ on a few hours' notice, five days ahead of schedule, in order to be her doula for her first baby. I had read it before I left for California again some days later.
   
   Fast, engaging, memorable life experiences follow a decades-long parade of shifting ideas of how women give birth in our country, from "all stirrups-and-forceps, all the time!" (slight exaggeration... slight.) to the reemergence of midwifery care and homebirth. The chapters tend to be short, which is great if you've only got a few minutes to squeeze in some reading. The stories are exhilarating, often hilarious, sometimes terrifying.
   
   One of my favorite books. I hope someday to meet Peggy and learn more from her as I also work with laboring women, and maybe even get to catch a few babies, myself.



5. I've read several births on midwifery and Peggy Vincent's is by far one of the most readable in terms of reaching a broad audience. If you reach for a midwifery book, in general you are pregnant and considering it as a birth option or interested in midwifery itself. There aren't a lot of general interest readers but Vincent's book is in a position to change it. It is both a memoir of a powerful personal journey and a piquant social commentary but beyond those two facets it is a testament to the power of women and the beautiful normalcy of birth. In fact, it's the stories of the women--both happy and sad--- that make the book so compelling, particularly because the author doesn't try to ignore or whitewash births that did not end as planned.
   I recommend Babycatcher to any pregnant mom who wants a glimpse of her own birthing capabilities and to any women considering midwifery. I also recommend it to anyone else who wants a moving, informative, often funny adventure into the exciting world of baby catching.

5 comments about Alicia.

1. I read a lot of Holocaust-related stories in middle school. As morbid as it sounds, they were so interesting, and so heartbreaking to read. There are quite a few more still sitting in my closet that I could review, but this was my favorite, and probably the one that got me into the topic. A really great story, particularly because it's a true one.



2. Raised from the age of five in Buczacz, which was roughly a third Jewish at that time, Alicia was sheltered relatively well from the anti-Semitism that plagued her town, as well as the rest of Europe. She had many friends, both Jewish and Christian.
   After the Hitler-Stalin Pact of 1939, whereby the two genocidal dictators divided Poland between them, Buczacz fell into the Soviet zone. The Soviets began a forced Sovietization drive, and deported thousands of people to slave labour, or their deaths, who they saw as 'enemies of the Soviet Union'.Alicia recalls being offended and hurt, on behalf of her Christian friends, for whose religion she had deep respect, when the Madonna and Child were removed from their customary spot in the classroom and replaced by scowling portraits of Lenin and Stalin.
   Alicia's second-oldest brother Moshe was shot by the Soviets after returning to Poland, from the harsh conditions in Russia, where he had gone for education.
   In June 1941, the Germans broke their pact with the Soviets and swept through eastern Poland on their way to Russia - Operation Barbarossa had begun. The Germans, however, had an even worse plan than the Soviets had had for Europe's Jews: it was known as Endlosung (aka The Final Solution).
   
   Alicia's father was shot, alongside 600 other Jewish community leaders, shortly after the Nazi invasion.
   Alicia, and her mother and brothers were forced to leave their beautiful home, and to settle in the ghetto.
   They lived under harsh laws whereby Jews were forced to wear armbands with stars of David.
   Jews who tried to leave the ghetto or to enter the synagogue would be executed.
   Alicia's brother Bunion was then executed by the Nazis.
   
   While visiting a Jewish family in the town, 12 year old Alicia was arrested by the Nazis along with thousands of other Jews, but escaped from the train to the death camps, together with a band of other young people.
   After Alicia's brother Zachary was shot by the Nazis She swore on his grave that if she survived she would speak for her silenced family.
   This book is a powerful and unforgettable fulfilment of that oath.
   It keeps us engaged and emotionally involved on every page, as we read of her struggle to survive, her irrepressible spirit, her many brushes with death. She never gave up her will to survive nor her humanity for fellow victims of the Nazis, many of whom she helped to rescue, many of whom died before her eyes.
   She witnessed such horrors as babies being shot in their cribs by the Nazis.
   While many of the Polish and Ukrainian neighbours helped the Nazis and joined in the killings, there were always those few that helped to keep their Jewish fellow humans alive, including a Polish family on whose farm Alicia worked.
   After the war, Alicia's struggle was not over.
   She was imprisoned by the Soviets and took part in the secret operation to smuggle Jews to the Land of Israel, across Europe, at a time when the British were keeping the Holocaust survivors out, often with brutal and violent methods reminiscent of the Nazis themselves.
   Alicia was on the ship Theodor Herzl, carrying young Holocaust survivors to Israel, in 1946, when it was rammed by British frigates, after which British soldiers then boarded the ship and attacked the survivors, beating to death six young Jews and allowing others to drown while trying to escape.
   This courageous girl, had struggled as part of the Jewish nation against three ruthless empires.



3. This eye witness account of the holocaust in Poland is so horrific it would be too depressing to read, if it weren't for the author's lucid, straight forward prose. Alicia Jurman was 13 years old when she fought for survival against literally impossible odds in southeastern Poland and witnessed the destruction of her entire family, friends and neighbors. Her survival was accomplished through truly incredible pluck, strength of character, resourcefulness, and unbelievable good luck.
   We already know (or should know) all about the horrors of the holocaust: the depth of depravity to which the human soul can sink; and we know that to forget this worst of all possible nightmares is to face another genocide in our lifetime (we already have in Darfur, Rwanda, Bosnia, and elsewhere).
   What distinguishes "Alicia: My Story" despite the unspeakable horror is this horror as viewed through the eyes of a girl who simply refuses to give in and give up. She is an amazingly strong girl who used everything she had to survive. And she tells the story in a matter of fact way that propels the narrative forward and keeps the reader turning the pages to find out what happens next.
   If one has never been exposed to what went on during World War Two, this excellent book is the perfect place to start.



4. An avid reader of Holocaust memoirs, I found "Alicia" an unforgettable story of survival.
   
   Only a child at the onset of World War II in her native Poland, Alicia Jurman soon lost both her parents and all four brothers -- murdered, in different ways, for one reason, being Jewish. It was only through a strange destiny that young Alicia kept surviving herself -- once being pushed through a gap in a train window, heading for a concentration camp; another time, falling unconscious and being presumed dead by the Nazis, only to be rescued by an astute and caring Jewish gravedigger.
   
   Yet even when a person is at her lowest, she can always find others even worse off. It would have been easy for Alicia to say she had nothing left to give; yet even during the most destitute and desperate of times, she shared food and supplies with other Holocaust survivors.
   
   It was also this loving attitude that made Alicia take action after the war, when she noticed a number of starving orphaned children roaming city streets. Only 15 and an orphan herself, Alicia took it upon herself to establish a Jewish "orphanage," moving some 24 youths aged 10 to 15 into a vacated apartment and securing financial help to get their new lives underway.
   
   Still a teenager, Alicia eventually sought refuge in Israel. But, as always, problems arose...
   
   Alicia Jurman is a modern-day hero, guaranteed to inspire readers for generations to come.



5. I just finished another very painful but interesting and shocking memoirs in "Thanks to my Mother" by Shoshana Rabinovici and started this book. It's absolutely shocking and heroic struggle to do everything possible to survive day-by-day and minute-by-minute the Systematic Nazi Plan to annihilate the Jewish People.
   Highly highly recommend to every one who is interested in Holocaust and to everybody to read and to learn what was really WWII about.