5 comments about Bad Girls of the Bible and What We Can Learn from Them.

1. Used this in an adult Sunday School class. More attendees than normal. Very well presented and received by the class. Thank you Liz!!!



2. this book is misleading in its title and anti-woman. I purchased it for use at a women's church retreat I was leading. Upon opening it I was dismayed to find it was chock full of fundamentalist mysogenist dogma meant to show how women need to remain in their "place" by exemplifying the "sinful behavior" of these women. I promptly returned the book. Buyer beware before purchasing these books.



3. I actually liked this book better than I liked Slightly Bad Girls...I feel as if the Biblical characters were easier to identify with than the ones in SBD. Unfortunately, I still do not enjoy Ms. Higgs writing style--I feel as if she over simplifies too many things and the whole "girlfriend talk" just isn't my cup of tea anyway. That said, I would recommend this book to someone looking for a light devotional read.



4. I would recommend that all Godly women read this book. It will touch your life in some way. I'm sure there will be many women delivered from this book.



5. This book tells a real world story similar to the story of each of the "Bad Girls" of the Bible, then tells the actual biblical story for each. This is followed by though-provoking questions for modern-day women to think about how we can apply this to our lives.
   
   For women who wish to stay in a walk with God, and sometimes feel weak in today's world, this book shows that we are not abnormal, but can learn from mistakes that women made in the Bible.

5 comments about The Hiding Place.

1. this is my favorite book of all time. corrie ten boom is one of the best examples of a human being expressing christian love.



2. I laugh at the kids saying it's boring. "Well my school made me read it and I didn't like it! Waahh!"
   
   My school made me read it(twice I think) and I love(d) it. I can see the reason for one saying it's boring, but this a AUTOBIOGRAHPY. Not always life moves so fast. Never once did I think it was boring. Buy it.



3. I was fortunate to meet Corrie Ten Boome in Rome, Ga. when she gave a lecture! Later, My husband took me to Haarlem, the Netherlands to see her home,when I was going thru a particularly hard time in my life, as he had heard me speak of her and her brave story so many times! She and her family, her sister, showed the most extraordinary courage and strength of faith in the most horrible circumstances. Her father's explanation of death:..."Just like I gave you your tickets, The Lord gives us our ticket when we get on the train"....an example of how he always gave his daughters their tickets right before they got on the train to Amsterdam....A must read.. Different aspects will mean different things to different people. Also, as I have re=read it over the years, it has given different encouragement to me in different circumstances. Please don't miss this book.



4. This book is beautiful inside and out. The outside is burgundy leather? bound with gold stamped letters. Very classic looking. The story itself is so well written, Corrie ten Boom draws you into her family. To hear how God worked miracles in spite of German occupation and concentration camps, and the lack of money and resources, was very faith building. I highly recommend this book.



5. The Hiding Place should be read by EVERY Christian. Corrie and her sister's testimony in this book is just like reading the Bible's testimony of the new Believers! Need to feel inspired? Read The Hiding Place.

5 comments about Autobiography of a Face.

1. a little wrinkled, but the text is what matters and it is a great read.... if you are into depressing stories....



2. In Autobiography of a Face, Lucy Grealy has written--not remembered-- a story based on her myriad attempts to attain a widely accepted form of physical beauty. (This is noted and emphasized in the book's Afterword by Ann Patchett, a longtime friend of Grealy's.) Why this fact is important to Grealy and, vicariously, to Patchett is explicitly stated: Grealy wanted to be appreciated for her writing, not for surviving what was certainly a hellish ordeal. What Patchett also makes clear in the Afterword (and in Truth & Beauty: A Friendship) is that Grealy's book was not made a bestseller due to her beautiful sentence struture. Nor was it due to some sweeping truth about life evidenced in what I must refer to as Grealy's novel. Instead, Autobiography of a Face sold well because people wanted to read about Grealy's pain. Real, remembered pain; not fictional pain. Real hospital visits, real operations, real life. The questions asked of Grealy at her readings make this obvious. By writing a fictionalized account of what happened, Grealy gave her fans a taste of what they wanted, a taste that they couldn't conceive of as fiction, because without that element of truth, the book falls apart.
   
   Patchett claims that Autobiography should stand as great literature outside its voyeuristic appeal. Indeed, Lucy Grealy was an accomplished poet in her lifetime, a feat that very few can claim without some degree of nepotism or croneyism (although I'm sure the Iowa Writers' Workshop didn't hurt). Unfortunately, the beauty and elegance of form so easily found in her verse does not translate to her prose. Her sentences, while by no means awkward, are not stunning, not moving. She could be sitting with her peers, casually relating the events of her life-- but, as she insisted at the anecdotal reading Patchett describes in the Afterword, Autobiography is not an autobiography. It is fiction. And, as fiction, it is nothing more than a laundry list of voluntary tortures, all in the name of love (or sex, or acceptance, depending on the stage of the narrator's life). The climax, as it were, is but a comfortable murmur after a grotesque surgical storm.
   
   Grealy's life story is phenomenal and heartbreaking, but only because the tale is her own. No fictional character can command our sympathies as readily as flesh and blood. For Grealy to insist that we judge her novel outside of its truth is for her to strip the book of its power-- to render it incomplete, a face struggling desperately to find a body.



3. I originally had to read this book for a school project, and I wasn't expecting much since I usually don't find non fiction very interesting. But this book wasn't bad, it was pretty good. This girl Lucy, at nine, crashes into another kid's head playing a game during recess, and her face begins to hurt way more than it should and then swells up. She goes to the doctor and she finds out she has a tumor in her jaw, and that its cancerous. However, this book is really not about Lucy's cancer. It's about her life and the effect that the cancer has on it. At first, she really doesn't mind that much. She likes all the special attention that she is getting, and doesn't care what she looks like, even with one whole third of her jaw removed. Later however, she becomes very insecure about her face and becomes obsessed with multiple reconstructive surgeries that never work, convinced that she can never be loved with a face like hers. She finds it easier to spend time with the horses she works with at her high school job than with people. She eventually gets her face fixed (somewhat), but she thinks it's all wrong, that its not really her. I liked this because it was informative without being "whiney" and I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys biographies about people overcoming adversity. It is also a good book for high school girls who are insecure about their looks, because it shows them how lucky they really are to be "whole". I suppose something like what happened to Lucy can really mess you up, but she comes out fine in the end because she learns how to deal with her appearance issues. It's a good book.



4. As Ann Patchett says in the Afterword, this is a literary "autobiography," created, as much as remembered by the author. Lucy's life and suffering are a small part of the story. The author's courage, articulateness and beautiful prose make this a good read.



5. An amazing story of this girl's experiences growing up disfigured. I too was an "outcast on the school playground" and was "last to be picked for Gym games." I could relate to her story. What strength she had to endure so many, many surgeries.

5 comments about Persepolis Boxed Set.

1. I was really expecting the film that came out of this book and I have finally seen it. It is one of the greatest disappointments I have lived in a movie-theater for quite a while, all the more because I was expecting a lot from it. But I should have known better. The subject is too serious to be treated so lightly, yes lightly. What are her father and mother doing in Iran for them to have that much money, that comfort if not luxury, that durability that enables them to survive all regimes, all revolutions, all coup d'etat, when it is not simple religious putsches, and where did they get the money to enable her to live for several years in Vienna? The whole film becomes a collection of clichés, most of them purely existential. Let me give a couple. Cliché, the quotation of Lenin or Bakunin or some other names that bring nothing to the mind. Cliché, her boyfriend in Vienna who discovers he is gay and the relation is finished because of it: you have to be seriously concentrating on sex and only sex to make friends with someone and drop him as soon as he discovers himself unable to fulfill the sexual part of the relation. What about his personality, his originality? What about love and friendship in all that? Then the next one is seen in two directions and each one is a cliché: on one side he is a saint who ends up in bed with another girl; on the other side he is a monster who exploited the girl all along. She sure was a sucker and a dummy. But what does it bring to the film, to the story, to the ideas the film conveys, if it conveys any articulated idea? The point is not to say that the West sold weapons to both Iran and Iraq. That's normal since we are in a market economy and business is business: if I don't sell my weapons, my neighbor will sell his. So, what must I do? After all a French exocet missile was very effective in the Falkland Islands war in the 1980s ... against the English. If Kellog refuses to sell his corn flakes to me, I will buy the corn flakes of any other brand. But what were the causes of this war? Why did Iran and Iraq manage to start a war between them two instead of finding a normal solution through discussions and negotiations? The film seems to express some kind of nostalgia for the good old days when there were two clear cut sides. Unluckily the old USSR has disappeared, but not one word about the support Iran provided, along with the CIA among others, to the anti-soviet fighters in Afghanistan. This film is simplistic but it deals with extremely important issues, so it does not have the right to be that simplistic. Politics cannot be reduced to that superficiality. And the future of Iran is not in Paris. It is Tehran.
   
   Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine & University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne



2. I read these books consecutively - having bought them as a box set - and I really enjoyed them. It gives us a genuinely intimate portrait of what life was like growing up in Iran, first under the Shah's right-wing dictatorship, then during the Islamic revolution which led to a clerical state and through the war with Iraq. The two-part memoir takes us from 1980 when Marjane was 10 years old through the 1990s when she's become a woman who had endured exile at a young age and a return to her country.
   
   Because these are illustrated novels there isn't as much depth as there would be in a traditional novel. The characters aren't fleshed out in the narrative because we have the visual element available. And the visual element is wonderful. Through the relatively simple drawings the fear, turmoil, frustration and even humor of Marjane and her friends and family are easily identified and enrich the story tremendously.
   
   At first I had a problem with the writing style - with the direct and simple prose. However, the more I read the more I became comfortable with the style, pacing and rhythm.
   
   I would definitely recommend that these books be read together as a valuable introduction an overview of the history and traditions of Iran, as well as for the wonderful story of a little girl growing up in an impossibly complex and frightening environment.



3. In Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi tells a story in words and pictures of her life in Iran. The first book covers Satrapi's life from early childhood, until 14, when she leaves to study in Austria, and the second book covers her time in Europe, and her return to life in Iran up to her late 20s. This period covers the last years of the Shah, the revolution that overthrew him, the consolidation of the Islamic Republic, the war with Iraq, and through to the present. A tumultuous time indeed.
   
   You would expect any account of growing up in Iran in the last generation to be heartbreaking and terrifying, and Satrapi's story is, but it is also funny in a grim sort of way that can only be told from inside a nightmare. Most impressive is that the author does not spare herself. She writes as unflinchingly about her own flaws, petty cruelties and bad decisions as she does about those of all those around her. The lessons learned are not idealized, and sometimes they are only partially learned, so her travel through life feels very real and very human.
   
   Part of the appeal of the story to Westerners, of course, is that Marjane is a very modern Iranian woman. Raised in a very modern family that is upper middle class by Iranian standards, she struggles with social mores and the education system and we root for her because Westerners (particularly Americans) love stories about individuals overcoming adversity to become their own person. But that doesn't explain all of the story's appeal. What makes it so satisfying is the insight into the issue of modernity, and how it manifests through the life of a interesting and all too human character. We come to understand that being modern and being Western aren't the same thing. The West is an undeliably strong influence on Marjane and other modern Iranians, but in the story, simply copying Western ways proves unsatisfying at a minimum, and sometimes disasterous.
   
   Ultimately, the story is about finding -- actually creating -- a life that is both modern and Persian. It is a tortorous path, and one that Marjane often has to tread alone. Marjane's friends follow the regime's draconian moral code in public, but break out the party life in private. Yet Marjane eventually comes to see this as a kind of adolescent rebellion against a parental force that cannot, at present, be overcome. An incident that illustrates this is her revelation to her closest friends that she's having sex with her boyfriend. Their shock and disapproval jars her into the realization that modern is a relative concept even amoung modern Iranians.
   
   Marjane weathers her trials and emerges with a sort of wisdom. We admire her for it because she earned it the hard way. But we also hope, fervently, that people like Marjane will thrive, for they are the ones who will lead Iran into the future.



4. I loved every minute reading this book. Being a comic or graphic novel, whichever one prefers, I was both invested in the life of Marjane Satrapi as well as the illustrations. The drawings really brought the whole story to life with her incredible enthusiasm of how the expressions on the faces really matched what was being said. The story of her life is so compellingly told that one is caught up in her passions and pains.
   
   I just loved it! I laughed with her. I cried with her. I cheered her on! She is a woman with a unique voice, both in her experiences of standing up for herself by being straightforward and blunt (and quite rational in her reasoning), but also in her own narrative. It is swiftly told, but not leaving it too general or to overlook any of the details. Being a Westerner and having little knowledge of Persian history, it was actually a very welcome introduction to what has happened in the Middle East. She is roughly my age so I identified with her and the time period she grew up in (despite the social climates being so different).
   
   Satrapi tells the story of things from her point of view. What I did enjoy about it was that she was fond of her own country, but also recognized its own shortcomings. Her fears were real and she stood up to them when she felt it most necessary. She challenged authority at every corner. And, if you ask me, she won!
   
   But I think what also moved me was that is was told in a graphic narrative. The illustrations, as I said, were spot on. I think her style of art supports her story and helps relate the happenings much better than if were just a book. To me it made the book more enjoyable and humorous.
   
   It has just been released as a movie and I am excited to see the film as it matches the style of book perfectly. I don't see anyone who reads even the first 20 pages would be able to stop. I am glad someone suggested the books for me to read as I now want to buy a copy for myself.



5. What a fantastic graphic novel! If you normally don't read graphic novels (or comic books), don't be afraid, the pictures won't hurt you and the stories are only enhanced by this format. Buy the box set because the first book will only leave you wanting more.
   
   The books are composed of short stories of events in the author's life. Some of them seem really simple, but they all have an underlying message. It may be simply pointing out the joy of moment's of rebellion (getting an Iron Maiden poster was a huge deal to this girl!), or much more serious commentary on the imprisonment and execution of family or friends. Each story is short but each provides a picture into life in Iran in the late 1970s and 1980s.
   
   I confess to know nothing about Iran or its history. These books have introduced me to a culture that is both old and new. A lot of the extreme conservative movement is really quite young as you learn in this book and the stories show you that the people of Iran are like any other. Marjane wants what any young girl wants these days - freedom to pursue her dreams and self-expression. It is surprising to find that many Iranians felt this way in the 1970s. You also start to understand the patriotism that people in Iran have - not necessarily for the tyrants in charge but for the culture that has existed for so long. It is similar to how many feel today in the U.S. - you can be a patriot despite disagreeing with the policy of the country's leaders.
   
   The illustrations are very simple in form but have a great impact. For example, you feel the oppression that beards have when drawn as almost a wall of black bearded chins. The emotion is conveyed very well in these simple drawings.
   
   I recommend this book to anybody, even if new to the idea of graphic novels. By the way, some of the best literature comes out in this format.

5 comments about Candy Girl: A Year in the Life of an Unlikely Stripper.

1. 224 pages of one-liners.
   
   Don't waste your time if it's depth you're looking for.



2. A great summer read. I breezed through it in a few hours. Funny and super interesting. Everything you ever wanted to know about being a stripper and everything you didn't want to know, too. I loved it.



3. This book has become one of my favorites and Diablo Cody has become one of my favorite authors. Witty and relatable, she writes an informative and honest account of her experiences in the sex work industry. Although the reviews and book descriptions are frustrating/patronizing ("Whats a good girl like Cody doing in a place like this?") the book itself presents a fair look at the industry from the inside. Definitely reccomend if you're looking for a new take on sex work or an intelligent and hilarious and witty read.



4. Wow, so you are saying that the sex industry doesn't treat women well, that they make more money off of the women than the women do...and that one becomes a hollow shell stripped (Ha! -pun) of dignity and self worth? Really? Huh - that is like the frst time I have ever heard that. Never could have figured that out.
   
   Did this author not get enough attention as a child? Lookit me, lookit lookit...you're not looooooking! This is girls gone wild (with a brain, I'll give her that) written down - someone who flashes her goods because she is just so, like WILD and free man! Everyone knows this girl - upper middle class family and self styled rebel who is just so "real". The one you lose touch with after college because you are tired of hearing about it -you know, a self perpetuating drama queen. We all have one in our lives at some point. The dirge like forced "wildness" gets tiresome pretty quickly.A bit of self examination as to WHY would have saved this book, but apparently lifting rocks and looking under them is too much work. Instead we get a daily diary of..and then this happened...etc....No hint of any reasoning behind any of it.
   
   It has it's moments, but the material is stretched so thin it gets tedious. This would have been a great essay - novel/memoir length = no. There is no payoff for reading this book - there is no structure...it's just random items slapped together. A memoir does require an arc, not just writing it down. It doesn't string together in the end. Kind of reminded me of Gloria Steinem's Bunny expose - which covered similar ground...but which was much more incisive.



5. I loved this book! Not only was it hilarious, it also gave an interesting look into a world I knew nothing about. I laughed out loud at many parts of this book--Cody is truly talented at getting humor on paper! I have passed this book on to others, both men and women, and they have all also enjoyed it. Highly recommended for summer reading!

5 comments about Life Without Ed: How One Woman Declared Independence from Her Eating Disorder and How You Can Too.

1. This book literally changed and saved my life. I read it in the last hospital I was in being treated for an eating disorder. Never had I read anything I could relate so much too. The way Jenni seperated herself from her eating disorder was a new way that I had never tried and became interested in. After practicing and reading the book several times I became pretty good at seperating myself from my eating disorder and have been going uphill and working towards my recovery since.



2. Ed is anybody's bad internal object - in my case (100 lbs overweight) Ed is the exact voice of my mother. Or, as comedian Kathy Griffith might say, Ed is the devil! SO USEFUL to have this finally quantified, their entire script written out! Takes the wind out of satan's sails... Sorry about going all huckabee on yer face - this book nails it.



3. As a nutritionist specializing in eating disorders, I am always looking for books to recommend to patients. Life Without Ed is the only book I know of that truly tells the story of how the writer recovered from her eating disorder. Too many of the books out there devote most of their pages to describing the horrors of the eating disorder, but say very little about how the author recovered. Life Without Ed is different. Jenni describes in helpful detail how she recovered, what worked, what didn't. If you want help recovering from your eating disorder, this is the book for you. This is also the book that should be on every professional's bookshelf. Marcia Herrin, EdD, MPH, RD, LD, author of The Parent's Guide to Eating Disorders: Supporting Self-Esteem, Healthy Eating, and Positive Body Image at Home.



4. Life Without Ed: How One Woman Declared Independence from Her Eating Disorder and How You Can Too
   Good book. Recommended. Gave it as gift. Delivery prompt.



5. I find this book an excellent resource for anyone who has an eating disorder or knows somebody who does. It offered me an insight into what my ED daughter is feeling and battling internally and gave me very practical ideas on how to support her and talk with her. She uses the same approach that Jenni uses and talks back to the emotional 'voice' that an ED can present and this approach is extremely useful in her recovery.

5 comments about One Writer's Beginnings (The William E. Massey Sr. Lectures in the History of American Civilization).

1. This is an outstanding memoir. In telling of her own development as a writer Welty devotes much time to telling the story of her parents, and their families. She writes of them with respect, understanding and appreciation. She also by telling the story of the families gives a picture of the American world of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
   While Welty does not devote most of her pages to describing her authorial practice she does provide insightful passages into her overall development. Here is a key one
   
   " But it was not until I began to write, as I seriously did only when I reached my twenties, that I found the world out there revealing, because ( as with my father now)memory had become attached to seeing , love had added itself to discovery and because I recognized in my own continuing longing to keep going , the need I carried inside myself to know- the apprehension first, and then the passion, to connect myself to it. Through travel I first became aware of the outside world ; it was through travel that I found my own introspective way of becoming part of it."
   
   Welty in the opening section of the work tells how she learned to listen not simply to, but for the stories which she would make literature out of. In the second section she speaks of 'Learning to See' .and the third is devoted to 'Finding a Voice'.
   Again I was impressed by her ability to write even of minor characters in her life with perception and sympathy.
   A fine work.



2. I found this book interesting as it brought me into a world that existed for a young girl in 1925. It's well written and not too taxing. If one is interested in how to write about themselves it's a great tool. (Although it doesn't give directions, it shows by example).



3. I was assigned this book twice in college, when it first came out, and I still don't know why. It's a very nice memoir of growing up in the south, but there's little that has to do with actual writing. The same can be said for a documentary I saw of the same title - Welty is a very intelligent and charming lady, and the book and documentary tell a good deal about her early life, but that's about it.
   
   If you wish to learn how someone actually became a writer, and all the challenges of living such a life, you'd be much more rewarded by Somerset Maugham's "The Summing Up," Louis L'Amour's "Autobiography of a Wandering Man," the letters of Keats, Irving Stone's biography of Jack London, and "Women Writers at Work," in which there's a twenty-two page interview with Welty. (In fact, you can find it in the Interview archives of the Paris Review website.)
   
   So again, nothing against the author or this book as a memoir, and if you love her stories, then definitely go for it, but if you're thinking of assigning it for a writing class, or simply looking to see how someone became a writer, there are better books to learn from.



4. For someone like myself, who is fascinated by the writing process, there is no book I value more than this book by Eudora Welty. The book, beautifully illustrated with family photographs, consists of three lectures delivered by Miss Welty at Harvard University in April 1983. A paragraph written by Miss Welty and inserted at the beginning of the book, in my view, perfectly illustrates the eloquence and subtleties of biography:
   
   "When I was young enough to still spend a long time buttoning my shoes in the morning, I'd listen toward the hall: Daddy upstairs was shaving in the bathroom and Mother downstairs was frying the bacon. They would begin whistling back and forth to each other up and down the stairwell. My father would whistle his phrase, my mother would try to whistle, then hum hers back. It was their duet. I drew my buttonhook in and out and listened to it - I knew it was 'The Merry Widow.' The difference was, their song almost floated with laughter: how different from the record, which growled from the beginning, as if the Victrola were only slowly being wound up. They kept it running between them, up and down the stairs where I was now just about ready to run clattering down and show them my shoes."
   
   One Writer's Beginnings is divided into three sections, representing the three individual lectures: Listening, Learning to See, and Finding a Voice. As I read "Listening," I felt another good title for it would be "Observing." Miss Welty knows her two parents as, I believe, few children know their parents. Her acute powers of observation--the differences and similarities between these two important people in her life, their separate tastes and talents, the daily habits of their household--are insightful and fascinating to read. This section makes clear how reading and being read to were as regular a ritual in her life as eating three meals a day. I love her observation that "It had been startling and disappointing to me to find out that story books had been written by people, that books were not natural wonders, coming up of themselves like grass." The author's observations about her life and the people around her are both sensitive and incisive. I quickly realized her reason for calling this chapter "Listening." She does not merely take in the literal content of words. Since childhood, apparently, she heard the cadences of words and the less obvious message of their inner meanings. This has been a particularly helpful revelation for me. With my strict German background, I tend to respond literally to what I hear and see, to what I read and write. Even journalism today does not limit itself to mere reporting, and I gained enormously from reading Miss Welty describe this aspect of her writing. What she does so well is to convey her own feelings inherent in words rather than merely their factual content. In short, she trusts what she hears, she trusts her inner voice that listens... and this is the source of all her writing.
   
   Thus, it is not surprising to learn that Miss Welty was unable to feel comfortable with organized religion, that her reverence for the holiness and mystery of life was found in the great churches she visited and her contemplation of the King James Version of the Bible with its beginning offering: "In the beginning was the Word."
   
   In the section "Learning to See," Miss Welty describes her love of traveling--road trips in the car for shopping sprees, to visit grandparents. She writes of how Ohio (where her father grew up) had her father "around the heart" as her mother adored West Virginia from whence she came...before her parents settled in Jackson, Mississippi, where Miss Welty lived her entire life. She observes and gives examples illustrating that her father, the optimist, was the one prepared for the worst, and her mother, the pessimist, was the daredevil. How many children see their parents that clearly? In this chapter, we learn a bit about the personalities of Miss Welty's grandparents. Her observations are replete with her love of them...not merely factual recountings of their backgrounds.
   
   Perhaps it is here that another of Miss Welty's distinctions lies--her love of the people about whom she writes. Her love and respect for them is as plain between the lines as it is in the words she uses to define herself and her family in this revealing biography. My heart opens as I read her memories on the page, so filled with love are they.
   
   It is clear I love every page of this small book, but I confess that my favorite chapter is the last one--"Finding a Voice." I love it best perhaps because it tells of one particular rail trip Miss Welty took with her father and reveals how the support for her becoming a writer came from her mother. She shares her feelings about her college experience, her discovery of poetry, and a host of helpful comments to do with her writing. I love that she writes: "I was always my own teacher." She shares her belief that a writer should remain "invisble," not "effaced" but invisible. A good example of this is her description of a soldier who had unexpectedly stepped off a halted train and was walking across a field into the distance. Rather than describe what she felt in watching him disappear, Miss Welty writes from the soldier's point of view: "...I felt us going out of sight for him, diminishing and soon to be forgotten." Another helpful reminder for me was her discovery that "...all begins with the particular, never the general."
   
   There is too much of value in this book for any review to convey it adequately. However, I cannot end before quoting her last brief paragraph: "...I am a writer who came of a sheltered life. A sheltered life can be a daring life as well. For all serious daring starts from within."
   
   There could be no better ending to this treasure of a book.
   
   by Duffie Bart
   for Story Circle Book Reviews
   reviewing books by, for, and about women



5. "Listening," "Learning to See" and "Finding a Voice," Eudora Welty entitled the three chapters of her autobiography "One Writer's Beginnings." And while these may be steps that most writers will undergo at some point, Welty's compact memoir is notable both because it allows a rare glimpse into the celebrated writer's otherwise fiercely protected private life and it illustrates the roots from which sprang such extraordinary protagonists as "The Ponder Heart"'s Edna Earle and Daniel Ponder, Miss Eckhart and the Morgana families in "The Golden Apples" and, of course, the anti-heroes of her Pulitzer Prize winning novel "The Optimist's Daughter," Judge McKelva, his second wife Fay and (most importantly) his daughter Laurel.
   
   A native and -- with minimal exceptions -- lifelong resident of Jackson, Mississippi, Welty received her first introduction to storytelling as a listener; and early on, learned to sharpen her ears not only to a story's contents but also to its narrator and its protagonists' individual nature: "[T]here [never was] a line read that I didn't hear," and "any room ... at any time of day, was there to read in, or to be read to," she notes in "One Writer's Beginnings," adding that the discovery that all those stories had been written by someone, not come into existence of their own, not only surprised but also severely disappointed her. Equally importantly, family visits to relatives brought out the born observer in her; each trip providing its own lessons and revelations, each a story onto itself -- the seed from which later grew her manifold unforgettable literary creations. At the same time, her father's interest in technology introduced her to photography as a means of capturing visual impressions, one moment at a time; and when traveling around Mississippi as an agent for a state agency (her first job) she learned to use that camera as "a hand-held auxiliary of wanting-to-know" and discovered that "to be able to capture transience, by being ready to click the shutter at the crucial moment, was [then] the greatest need I had." Not surprisingly, her photography was published in several collections which have found much acclaim in their own right.
   
   Thus, from early childhood on, Eudora Welty not only had a keen sense of the world around her but also, of words as such: of their existence as much as the interrelation between their sound, physical appearance and the things they stand for. Encouraged by her mother, a teacher, and over her father's worries (he considered fiction writing an occupation of dubitable financial promise and, worse, inferior to fact because it was "not true"), Welty embarked on a writer's path which would lead her to award-winning heights and to a reputation as one of the South's finest writers, with as abounding as obvious comparisons to fellow Mississippian William Faulkner in particular; a literary debt she acknowledged when she wrote that "his work, though it can't increase in itself, increases us" and "[w]hat is written in the South from now on is going to be taken into account by Faulkner's work" ("Must the Novelist Crusade?", 1965).
   
   An approach that Welty herself developed early on was to consider the publication of her short stories in periodicals merely a step towards each story's final shape, and she generally revised her stories before including them in their various collections. -- Not only a keen observer, she was also a writer endowed with a sharp sense of humor and satire, and with the gift to brilliantly use location, localisms, accents, patterns of speech and customs to make a point.
   
   Yet, "[t]here is no explanation outside fiction for what its writer is learning to do," Eudora Welty maintained in "Writing and Analyzing a Story;" explaining that each story references only the writer's vision at the moment of the creation of that very story, and the creative process itself: nothing that can be "mapped and plotted" but a product taking shape within the process of its creation as such, thus giving each story a unique identity of its own. And considering her reluctance to comment on, or to explain her own fiction writing, the insights into that creative process's origins she allowed her readers in "One Writer's Beginnings" are all the more to be treasured.

5 comments about Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic.

1. I cannot praise this graphic novel enough. I was so impressed with way Bechdel wove her memoir together, building from one memory into the next. At first I found some of her writing potentially pretentious, something I have seen in the writings of other memoirs where the author wants the reader to know how much they know, to be impressed with the use of precise vocubulary, and the manipulation of time to unfold a story. Usually, these don't work because they are not used effectively so much as for effect. Bechdel, however, has no pretense. Vulnerable and transparent, how she tells her personal story is so powerful it breaks your heart and inspires you soul all at the same time. Her use of the same image, with a slightly different perspective, is not merely clever but perfection. If I could beg her to write about her relationship with her mother, I would. But what would be the point? Then I would want to know more about her relationships with her siblings, with her lovers, with her neighbors. I could never have enough. It is enough to hope for more.



2. Perhaps it is inevitable that I'd fall for this book, given that I'm a fan of comics --Art Speigelman, Chris Ware, Lynda Barry, Megan Kelso, Gilbert & Jamie Hernandez... and of course Alison Bechdel, whose Dykes to Watch Out For strip I've followed for a long time. Compared to that strip, this book has a more gentle pace and wry wit. It says as much as written biographies in a surprisingly compact way. The ending disappointed some, but surely real life is harder than fiction to tie up in a tidy bow.



3. An absolutely brilliant, hard to put down and very moving story. I go back to it often and think about it always. Beautiful, witty, hilarious.



4. I knew she was a cartoonist but did not know the memoir would be in cartoon form. It was reasonably well written but her family members just didn't come alive for me.
   As a lesbian, I found it especially upsetting to read about yet another woman who felt like she had come home when she put on her father's clothes.



5. I live an hour away from Beech Creek, Alison Bechdel's tiny hometown and the setting for much of her graphic memoir Fun Home. I've always found the area oppressive: dark, looming mountains casting perpetual shadows on impoverished, dying valley towns. But after reading Fun Home, I revisited Beech Creek, to see Bechdel's childhood home and the grave of her father Bruce, and to remind myself of how cruelly ironic life can be.
   
   Bruce Bechdel, a man who loves literature (in his early days he identified with F. Scott Fitzgerald; in his final days he reads Proust), an aesthete with a taste for the baroque detail of the Victorian era, and a creative and versatile designer of interior and exterior landscapes, is born and lives in rural central Pennsylvania, running the family funeral home and teaching at the local high school. He never quite fits in. Always sun-tanned and exquisitely dressed (no plaid hunter's shirts or chewing tobacco for him), persnickety and a bit prissy, but at the same time speaking with a back-country twang, Bruce seems uncannily out of place in Beech Creek.
   
   And he's a closeted gay man, who has occasional affairs on the side and otherwise sublimates his repressed sexuality by obsessively restoring the Victorian-era house in which Alison grew up. The tension of his closeted life makes him aloof, prone to violent temper tantrums, controlling, and sometimes cruel to both wife and children.
   
   Alison's Bechdel's memoir of him, and the way in which her own identity both became the inverse of his and yet in many respects parallels his, is a sophisticated narrative that underscores just how complex personal identity is. Alison is who she is, just as her father was who he was, because of the convergence of Beech Creek, sexuality, alienation, fun, repression, the need to be creative, the yearning for affection, the factuality of history and the re-creation of memory. There's no formulaic happy ending here, no artificial structuring to make more sense of the relationship between herself and her father than there really was. Instead, what the reader is offered is a profound, sensitive, bittersweet effort to explore memory in search of identity--an effort which throughout is punctuated by Bechdel's references to both Proust and James Joyce--and an appreciation for the ironies of fate which make us who we become.
   
   Other reviewers have mentioned that they read the memoir at one setting. I found it so intense that I could only take it in small portions, and even then I sometimes felt overwhelmed. For in sharing her own identity-forming memories with us, she invites us to plumb more deeply into our own. And both exercises, although potentially liberating, can also be harrowing.

5 comments about Lucky: A Memoir.

1. This book is powerful. I think every high school student should read it, boys and girls. The topic of rape needs to be discussed and understood by young and old people alike. This book really portrays all parties in a "human" light and it's truth is what makes it so powerful. I can't say enough good things about the writing style and the ease of reading, all the while, it draws you in and keeps you interested. Fantastic book!



2. Lovely Bones led me to this book. I really didn't want to read a book about rape, but I'm glad I did because it is so much more. The story is delivered masterfully and written with skill. Read this book for the writing.



3. 
   I don't recommend this book to anyone who enjoys prose or literature. Sebold's use of a stripped down, matter-of-fact tone desensitizes her story. Though her rape was a traumatic event, I couldn't feel for her. Perhaps it was her intent not to draw out feeling to avoid pity but personally, I think it was uneffective in conveying her complete story because a memoir needs an emotional plot as well.
   
   I wanted to put down this book before I was even half way though there were still many unfinished subplots like the conviction of her rapist.
   
   I would expect this book in the children's/ preteen section if it weren't for the detailed account of the rape.



4. Lucky is a thought provoking book that helps readers understand rape from the victim's perspective. Written in an honest manner, it explores the rational and sometimes irrational reactions of everyone involved - whether victim, friend, or family member.
   
   Seabold opens the book with a vivid description of her brutal rape. Initially, this makes it a difficult read because it forces readers to live through a brutal act. However, it also helps to expose a reader's preconceived notions and biases. Seabold describes her struggles to return to a normal life and she honestly discusses societal issues that favor the criminal and penalize the victim. This is a good read for anyone looking for some insight into a difficult issue.



5. From the opening pages, Sebold tells the reader a truly horrifying story of her rape in accurate and quite graphic detail. And whilst horrified at what she has endured, you want to read more - to see how someone survives an attack like that, and what life is like for a rape victim in the hours, days and week afterwards. I couldn't put this book down - a combination of great writing and admiration for the author, made this a compelling read.

5 comments about Shattered Dreams: My Life as a Polygamist's Wife.

1. I could not put this book down. I went from one heartbreaking chapter to the next. I am so glad Irene has found happiness and a good man to love.
   
   I am LDS and feel she missed the mark a bit in her accuracy. However, I understand she was recounting doctrines as she believed or was told. People continue to fail to understand that LDS people do not recognize any off-shoots as "LDS." Either you're maintream or you are as different a religion as Catholics or Baptists. If you are not a baptized member of the LDS faith, you are not LDS, period. Our church is in NO way affiliated with FLDS or any other sect practicing polygamy. It is an error to refer to them in any way as "mormon."
   
   This book so clearly illustrates what is lost when people fall away from the prophet and start their own churches. Doctrines like polygamy are turned into something that does not resemble in any way the way plural marriage was practiced by the actual LDS church.
   
   I cringed as I read about how Irene starved for affection from Verlan and the trauma each new wife brought. I know that God wants all his children to be happy and that no matter what, no child of His is ever forgotten. Irene needed these experiences and probably wouldn't give up 1 of her many children to be the person she is today. She should be proud that although there were many difficult years of adversity, she emerged from it a good person and has found happiness. She is an inspiration to anyone who didn't (or doesn't) live in an ideal situation that there is always hope beyond your circumstances.



2. I also read Irene's other ex-sister wife's book, "His
   Favorite Wife". I found it to be very interesting how
   they could all have the same husband. At times I felt
   sorry for Irene, but at the same time, its liked, 'hey,
   wake up, you are in America", women should not not be
   suppressed like that, all in the name of believing in that
   religion they were brought up with.
   For all those people, who cannot comprehended how and
   why they lived the polygamy life, read this..a clear
   understanding, but, yet, totally its all about choices
   they could make, if they were not fanatics.



3. I struggled throughout the entire book to find some empathy for Irene and her situation. I never found it. She made a choice to marry into a polygamous relationship, and she spent about 375 pages too many complaining about it. She forever complained about not being the special wife, the favorite, and so forth, but does she forget that she was Verlan's second wife?? It should make for a very short discussion at our book club.



4. This is one of the best books I've ever read and I've read alot. I felt like I was right there with her going thru the joy the pain and anger of being trapped in her religous hell. I kept wanting her to see the light and get herself and her babies and get out of there. I also found myself feeling somewhat sorry for her husband at times because all and all he was somewhat caught up in the trap also along with the other wives. I would definely recommend this book to anyone who likes a down to earth author with warmth and humor.



5. Irene's account of polygamy in general and how she survived and overcame it is an incredible life story. A talented producer and director need to get together and turn this into a blockbuster movie for the world to see and understand what happens to people when their lives are planned from the minute they are born, and their thinking controlled. I agree with another reviewer that this book should be in all book clubs.
   Should any movie producers be lurking, my choice for Irene would be Jennifer Garner....and not only for the facial resemblance. I believe she has the talent to take the viewer from the lowest of Irene's trials to the heights of her exuberance, and everything in between. I also think Jude Law, if he would dare, could excellently portray the sometime witty, charming,religious,strict,overbearing,cold,and kind Verlan LeBaron. If anyone should want to make this book into a film, they must not deviate from the story and its locales. To do so would ruin it.