4 comments about Children of the Storm: The Autobiography of Natasha Vins.

1. This is an autobiography of a mid-twentieth century Russian girl, Natasha, and her family from Kiev. It is an adult book that children with 5th grade reading level can also enjoy. Children of the Storm recounts her father's imprisonment, her schooling and questioning of Christianity, and all that happened to them in the years of Soviet crackdown of Biblical Christians. Fast-moving, very interesting, well-written. I highly recommend it.



2. This is one of the best-written and most gripping Christian autobiographies I've read in years. I started it in the afternoon, managed to put supper on the table for my family and get the kids in bed, and finished the whole thing. My father is a Baptist pastor and we regularly prayed for our fellow believers in the persecuted church, so it was especially moving for me to get a clear picture of what life was like for the Vins family as they tried to minister in the Soviet Union during the years of Communist oppression. I would recommend this book for junior high students on up. It would be an excellent book for families to read aloud and discuss together, or for Sunday School teachers to share a chapter or so with their classes during a reading time each week (they'd keep coming back for sure). The book really makes you evaluate the depth or your own Christian commitment in the light of what Natasha and her family endured.



3. I opened the book for the first time Sunday afternoon in the car, and finished it on Monday night. Natasha tells of her girlhood, and the persecution her family endured for Christ. I really appreciated her telling of how she came to the Lord; until she graduated from high school she was a "Christian" because her parents were, and wondered how important it was. Then she understood the gospel and her parents faith became her own, and she lived for Jesus. She has an engaging manner of writing, perhaps because she writes as one real person would speak to another, not with studied eloquence.
   
   I was encouraged by the testimony of the trials and severe hardships her family went through. It made me reflect on how easy I have it here, and what I am willing to sacrifice for my Lord. I would encourage Christians, young or old, to read "Children of the Storm."



4. Children of the Storm is a touching story. When you read it, your appreciation for God will grow and the problems you have will seem smaller. We are blessed beyond measure to live in the United States of America.

5 comments about Skywriting: A Life Out of the Blue.

1. Jane Pauley's struggle with bipolar disorder takes a backseat to her life as an anchor-woman. We are charted through an exhaustive and rather drawn-out summary of her rise to the top, her life as a wife and parent, and oh yes, the small role bipolar disorder seemed to play in any of it.
   
   Perhaps this won't bother you if you're a great fan of Jane Pauley but since I have my Bachelor's degree in psychology I found her analysis of herself somewhat irritating and naive. If you happened upon this book looking for information about bipolar disorder, you'll be much disappointed and would be better off reading "An Unquiet Mind" by Kay Redfield Jamison. If, however, you're only looking for a memoir that would be more aptly titled "Jane Pauley: My Life as an Anchor-Woman," then, by all means, look no farther.



2. A beautifully written account of Pauley's illness. As I have a son with bipolar disorder, I found this memoir very reassuring. I have hope that my son will, with the right treatment, reach his potential.



3. 
   While bi-polarism introduces the book and recurs, the theme is really Jane's career.
   
   Jane was catapulted to fame not by experience, her knowledge of public affairs, or even her rolodex, but by her looks, youth, midwestern charm and ability to make interesting conversation. She tells the story of this unmerited rise in a straight forward fashion. I remember Jane and Bryant as unrehearsed, positive, informed and amazingly entertaining. Despite the lack of a resume, she clearly rose to the occasion.
   
   The photos of her family, childhood house and home made clothes show the simplicity of her roots. The text reveals that she never lost this quality. Despite my enthusiastic read, I didn't give it 5 stars because Jane gives the issues all too light a treatment. Ironically, I held back 2 stars for the very simplicity I admire in Jane.
   
   One of these issues is the zeitgeist of Jane's rise. It illustrates role of women in news in the 70's. A sweet non-threatening personality was preferred over experience not only by the network execs, but also the audiences. She describes the fairy tale but the analysis is inadequate.
   
   Jane gives us some old fashioned values in discussing her style which is not to create gotcha moments or invade an interviewee's privacy. She alludes to the competition to "get". She does not discuss how this change is driving the personalities of today's journalists, and ultimately the character of the news, nor the outlook for a future personalities such as Jane.
   
   I'd like to know more about the issues raised in Jane's "brush" with Princess Diana. The American from the Great Plains and the British Aristocrat indeed had a lot in common. Both were plucked up at young ages and put before cameras with little training or preparation. Jane relates the story and the feeling in her plainspoken way ... and that is that.
   
   It looked like the Today show was to be a marriage of 3. All the signs and rumors were there and there was no straight talk from the execs with Jane. Jane, writes about juggling and guilt of a mom with a career. She did a pleasure/pain calculus and had the resources stay home. With career drop out of successful women being a hot media topic, I'd be interested to know if uncomfortable situations like the one Jane found herself in (Jane, not Bryant, Willard or Gene) are the common trigger for this reported phenomena.
   
   Jane writes of her children, but not of her marriage. This is provocative, because it seems so out of character... or out of the character that I believe her to be. Gerry is not just any cartoonist, but, one of the most controversial ones in my lifetime.
   
   There is more to know about Jane's bout with bi-polarism too. It is the stated theme of the book. It appears as an isolated thing in her life, which it surely could not have been.



4. The book is bland and one should borrow it from the library. Jane may
   have had good intentions to come out of the closet on mental health issues but the book seems like she is guarded and protective of her
   image, her husband's celebrity status and her future employment prospectives. I do not think she is insightful enough about her experience and how her celebrity and wealth affect the entire process.
   I believe a waning career (mid-life crisis) and the onset of menopause
   had something to do with her health crisis. Menopause hormonal imbalances
   can create as much havoc as post-partum depression--including bouts of
   mania and psychosis. Not enough details in the book to help anyone or
   feel that you know Jane.



5. I'll be honest. I had Jane confused with Katie Couric when I picked up this book, but I'm certainly glad I got it. I was never a watcher or fan of Jane Pauley during her NBC years, mostly I suppose because I was always at work when she aired on the morning show. I did see a few of her Dateline shows probably, but don't remember much about them. But I was hooked from the first page of the first chapter. "The room was nice." Nice is a word my folks always used, a very "midwestern" word, perhaps - bland and hard to argue with. Yes, Jane is so obviously a midwesterner. Her Indiana upbringing rang a lot of bells with me and my Michigan childhood. SKYWRITING surprised me with its insight and absolute honesty. I believed her when she told how her phenomenal success just happened to her, that she never really aimed for or aspired to that level - it just came "out of the blue," as her subtitle indicates. Of course, I don't think her apple-pie good looks or natural charm hurt her any either. She just happened to come along at a time when network TV news was just discovering the value of a gorgeous women - "eye candy" for the news consumer. Look at today's morning major network news shows, with babes like Ann Curry, Meredith Viera, Diane Sawyer, etc. And the same is true on cable networks - more beautiful girls/women than I can remember or name. But perhaps the most interesting and compelling aspect of Jane's story is her treatment of her struggle with bipolar disorder. I noticed some of the book's readers complain that she doesn't go into enough detail on that aspect of her life and career. I will chalk that up to modesty and a sincere wish not to hold her family up to microscopic examination. (There is bipolarism in my family and I know it can be very difficult to deal with and is a delicate subject to talk about.) Since I haven't followed Pauley's career that closely, I'm not sure if her daytime talk show is even on anymore, but I don't think it is, because my wife watches so many of those shows, and I don't think Jane's is one of them. So maybe that "new career move" she talks about toward the end of the book didn't pan out. So what. I'm confident that Jane handled it. She's got class, this woman. I read this book through in just two sittings, so it must be "compelling" reading. Good job, Jane, and I wish you all the best in your life. - Tim Bazzett, author of ReedCityBoy

3 comments about 101 Things You Didn't Know About Jane Austen: The Truth About the World's Most Intriguing Romantic Literary Heroine (101 Things You Didnt Know).

1. This little book, while infinitely readable, was also packed full of wonderful scholarship. I read the book after I finished the last of the 6 main publications of Jane Austen and found its organization so conducive to bringing together themes and tropes in the novels. Dr. Hannon has found a very fine balance between interesting and salacious details (like the romantic interests in Austen's too-short life) to literary scholarship (most interestingly for me, her discussion of the treatment of parents in the novels, and how they don't paint a very fine picture of marital bliss). With Jane Austen, you either get silly books full of fluff, or boring attempts to keep the work as scholastic as possible, but Dr. Hannon has found a nice way to blend these two situations for both types of readers -- serious scholars and Janeites.
   
   I didn't expect to read this book as a narrative, straight through from beginning to end, but I did, and loved the way information was organized and presented. There is a references page, but very little citation within the text. Most of what I read, though, was familiar, and only really revolutionary in the way it was brought together to concentrate on recurring images, themes, and tropes in the works (including all the Juvenilia and other unpublished/unfinished novels). Section headings include "Bad Boys," "Prudence and Romance," and four sections on "Fine Naval Fervour." Inbetween are also sections frm Austen's life rather than her novels, such as "Arrested for Shoplifting," and "Dedicated to the One I Hate." There is also a ton of accessible information on publishing and the market (from the gothic to marriage market novels). Fine book, and any fan of the the novels or new-to-the-field scholar would find it packed full of fun information and prompts for further study.



2. This book is small, square in shape, and paperback. It is not overly impressive on a bookshelf (if we are talking aesthetics), and there are no illustrations or images.
   
   Usually, when purchasing non-fiction/biographical material on Austen, I like them to be well presented and with interesting illustrations or examples, and this book falls short in that aspect.
   
   However, for a true Austen fan, that shouldn't encroach on their decision too much. The content is well-researched, combining extracts from the novels, Jane's letters and wider reading to give a thorough look at all aspects of Jane's life and that presented in the novels.
   
   The information presented under each "thing" i.e of the 101 things, is bite sized, making this a good book to read on the side, picking up here and there.
   
   In conclusion, this book is not essential for an Austen fan, however it is insightful and worth a read. Again, I would prefer better presentation.



3. Most biographies of Jane Austen will reveal the quiet life of maiden Aunt Jane, who scribbled in secret, loved to dance, and lived her entire life in the country removed from the chaos of the world. Did you also know that she was also romantic, tragic and mysterious? Patrice Hannon's 101 Things You Didn't Know About Jane Austen: The Truth About The World's Most Intriguing Literary Heroine,is a gem of little Austenisms quite suitable for gift giving. Despite having one of the longest and most misleading titles of any book about Jane Austen of recent memory, the contents are as appealing as the easy to read format. In Jane Austen's 18th-century world, acquired knowledge was considered one of the most powerful and important skills of a polished society. Today we recognize the same benefits, but want our education to be forthright and expeditious. For anyone interested in the knowledge of Jane Austen's life and works in a compact and fact driven format, this book can serve as a great resource and quick reference. Categorized into seven parts Birth of a Heroine, Brilliant Beginnings, Silence and Disappointed Love, The Glorious Years, Heroes and Heroines, Untimely Death, and Austen and Popular Culture: From Eighteenth Century to the Twenty-First, this illuminating guide takes you through all aspects of Jane Austen's life journey and writing experience, revealing common facts, new insights, and minutia. If you are interested, as I was, to know which heroine most resembles the author herself, who were the real Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy and why Jane never married, you will not be disappointed in this bright little book that is well researched, engaging, and incredibly practical. Posted by Laurel Ann, Austenprose

5 comments about Writing in an Age of Silence.

1. It's rare that I'm impressed sufficiently by a book to contact the author, but "Writing in an Age of Silence" is such a book. As a Chicago native who lived in Kansas for many years, I was awed by Paretsky's ability to finely convey both areas so well, positioning both within her own formative experiences. Fans of V.I. Warshawski know that Paretsky has a wickedly sharp, funny pen, but here she turns that talent inward.
   
   One caveat: those not familiar with Paretsy's other work might experience "Writing in an Age of Silence" differently, of course. In that case, I encourage you to read more of her work so that you can get a better sense of her voice. She's a remarkable writer, regardless of genre.



2. I'm not much of a mystery fan, but I do love memoirs, and I am political. Paretsky's observations about the Patriot Act and FISA and other atrocities of the so-called War on Terror are actually conservative in the best sense of the word. These observations, made initially to those guardians of public trust, librarians, come at the conclusion of this book.
   
   I found the first part an interesting study in what produces an activist with strong opinions. Paretsky grew up with four brothers and a father who favored them. She wasn't even encouraged to go to college, although the family borrowed money for the boys' education. She was justly indignant and worked in the civil rights movement of the sixties and became an ardent feminist while in graduate school.
   
   She eventually got a doctorate in U.S. history, but the mystery writing was harder, and that's really the crux of this memoir. What enables a person to write, to voice unspeakable concerns, whether they are personal or in the public sphere? Paretsky has struggled and she speaks out whether about the role of women in history or the neglect of women mystery writers (she was a founder of Sisters in Crime) or of our First Amendment rights.
   
   I going to take a look at some of her mysteries now, because I know I won't be assaulted by a lot of sexist and racist presumptions. And I'm going to send this memoir to a social worker I know on the South Side of Chicago.



3. There are many things I didn't know about one of my favorite mystery writers, Sara Paretsky. She is nearly the same age as I; her writing began as a way to find her voice in a family beset by violence; she has four brothers; her mother was a librarian. Some of these facts are strikingly similar to my own experiences, making the reading of this memoir, for me, like sitting down with a friend from long ago.
   
   Paretsky's early years were influenced by the rise of feminism. She was told that if she wanted to go to college, she would have to attend the university where her father taught in the town where the family lived.
   
   She vowed to spend her summers away from home. In 1966, she went to do community service work on the South Side of Chicago. Anyone who has read her V.I. Warshawsky novels will now see where and how the best-selling series began. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was organizing in Chicago during that same summer, and Paretsky was "on the periphery of his great work." The civil rights movement and Second Wave Feminism deeply influenced Paretsky's life as well as her writing.
   
   She chose to invent a female private eye radically different from a previous American icon of the genre, Sam Spade. Unlike this male "loner," Warshawsky is intimately involved with her community.
   
   In 2002, Paretsky began speaking to library associations on the curtailing of civil liberties by the Patriot Act. She delivered her lecture, "Truth, Lies and Duct Tape," the night before the U.S. attacked Iraq, at the Toledo, Ohio public library. She had been asked by the library not to deliver the controversial talk because people were turning in their tickets. "My upbringing has made me particularly vulnerable to angry criticism," she writes (and so has mine), "to the implied fear of being a bad daughter, not submissive enough...I gave this talk, but my knees were shaking so badly I had to grip the podium throughout." The five hundred people in the audience gave her an ovation.
   
   As a librarian, writer and feminist, this memoir moved me and made me feel as though I had found a kindred spirit and sister. If you have any interest in American history in the past fifty years and in the writing life as it pertains to women, do yourself a favor: read this book.
   
   by Linda Wisniewski
   for Story Circle Book Reviews
   reviewing books by, for, and about women



4. Please....enough already with the bleeding and the political jabber...the world is ready for more V.I. adventures....



5. Fascinating information on what's going on today in the USA! Well written! A courageous book in this age of information control. A must read!

5 comments about Memories of a Catholic Girlhood.

1. As an off-again, on-again admirer of Mary McCarthy, I sometimes wondered if she ever had a childhood or just appeared full-blown, rapier-witted and sword at her side. While never doubting her talent, reading her was frequently as pleasant as drinking a glass of vitriol.

   Mary indeed had a childhood, and unusual it was. I am sure it marked her forever to lose both her parents within a week of one another to influenza at age six. To add to the horror, the family was traveling by train to start a new life in Minnesota. Mary, herself, was deathly ill with the virus, and that colored her impressions of the tragic event.

   Some reviewers and the book jacket describe her childhood as "Dickensonian," I presume referring to Oliver Twist. I disagree, as Mary came from a well-to-do family that didn't lack for the material things of life. She lived with an aunt and uncle from her 6th to 11th year and was tremendously unhappy, claiming she didn't have enough to eat, was dressed in hand-me-downs and frequently beaten. Yet all photos of this time depict a well-dressed, well-fed child. At age 11, she was taken to live with her benevolent, wealthy grandparents in Seattle. From that time on, she received the kindest attention and was expensively educated. My doubts about those five early years are because Ms. McCarthy all her life was an implacable, unforgiving enemy when her feelings were aroused.

   The memoir is beautifully written with sharp and fascinating characterizations of her family. She appends each chapter with an epilogue taking an adult's eye-view of her childhood impressions. It is most effective. You are constantly reaffirming her brilliance. Well worth reading.




2. I have always held a fascination for people who grew up with a real sense of religion that later fell away from the faith. I bought this book expecting something akin to the movies that are so prevalent nowadays about the catholic schoolboys smoking and getting caught by the nuns and hit with a ruler across the wrists. Instead, I was greeted with an amazing tale of Mary and her sad loss of her parents, pitiful existence with her aunt and uncle and twisted "saving" by her West Coast relatives.

   The childhood she had was less than perfect, I agree, but the fact that she survived it and lived to create such a wonderful literary account of it almost makes me appreciative of her having to go through it. The chapter on her grandmother is so reminiscent of my own mother that I had to laugh out loud at times.

   Well worth the read and the struggle through the many latin references and unfamiliar religious practices.




3. That Mary McCarthy's childhood was difficult and unpleasant is well recognized. She has created a worthy and literary memoir from the material gathered during the years before she was claimed by her benevolent Seattle grandparents from the truly draconian aunt and uncle who kept her for 5 years prior to that. Somewhere along the way, this child who was probably difficult and moody - and certainly intelligent and scathingly witty - developed the ability to step outside herself, observe what was happening, remember it, then later write about it. The result is a classic memoir that deserves to be read by writers as well as the general reading audience. Funny, heartbreaking, sarcastic, bitingly acerbic - and always excellent.



4. This is the type of book that I think of as a conglomeration but not really a book. That is, she had published several magazine articles, then gathered them together and made a book. I find that style difficult to get into. She glossed over too much; so many years were packed into just a couple pages.

   It irritated me after I kept reading and reading, and she kept criticizing and criticizing the people who raised her after her parents died. I sure didn't blame her for criticizing her father's side of the family. But her criticism didn't end with them. She didn't have many kind words for anyone.




5. In this memoir Mary McCarthy's childhood appears to be marked by two contradictory principles: orphanhood and board study at a Catholic convent. Convent life appears to her as a revelation of the aristocratic principle in life. The Catholic nuncs she encounters are dazzling intellectuals, preoccupied by themes such as purification through sin and the fate of the romantics. The identification of the nuns with the romantics is stressed, and is based on their shared antimodern nonconformity, the spirit of loss and failure flickering at the side of the happy, straight road of Protestant civics. The exact opposite of the romance of Catholicism lies in the prototype exemplified by Uncle Myers, the "rootless municipalized man who finds his plasures in the handouts or overflow of an industrial civilization." The purposeless emptiness of modern municipal life is contrasted with the beautiful heroics of medieval European history.
   
   Yet from the pretty orderliness among the girls at the convent isnot only derived romance, but at times also misunderstanding. When Mary rehearses a "loss of faith" drama to gain popularity, her faked doubts lead to a real breach of faith: "Why can't the universe be self-sufficient?" In order not to disturb the expectations of the nuns, she will be forced to fake her period. The limits between the real and the pretended, both spiritual and organic, seem troublesome inside the convent.
   
   Mary McCarthy's love of Latin language and culture came about at college, where she represented the opposing forces of law and anarchy in the classic play "Marcus Tullius" as a reflection of her own mixed heritage. To her surprise, though, she sides with the Protestant, "law and order" Preston side of her family, which is hardly shocking to us if we take into account the abusive, stingy character of the McCarthys she knew: "The injustices my brothers and I had suffered in our childhood had made me a rebel against authority, but they had also prepared me to fall in love with justice, the first time I encountered it."
   
   As a minute analysis of a developing psychology, we find in Mary McCarthy's memoir a description of her central conflict betwen that which she can give and that which her community needs and expects. Either with the nuns at the convent, at the boarding school before graduation or with her Protestant relatives, Mary finds the need to take refuge in pretension and lying so as to repeatedly restore the precarious balances of peace of the communities she seeks to inhabit. From this psychological need of absolute, unconditional integration we can perhaps trace the origins of her vocation as a novelist: "My whole life was a lie, it often appeared to me, from beginning to end, for if I was wilder than my family knew, I was far tamer than my friends could imagine, and with them, too, as with my family, I was constantly making up stories..." In her view this dilemma is also a designing feature of adult life, or "the trap of adult life in which you are held, wriggling, powerless to act because you can see both sides."

5 comments about If You Don't Have Big Breasts, Put Ribbons on Your Pigtails: And Other Lessons I Learned from My Mom.

1. I review sales and marketing books for a living, and this is without a doubt one of the best sales books I've read. Not only is it full of well-grounded, sound business ideas and principles, it's also hilarious! I love Corcoran's style, wit, chutzpah, and self-deprecating humor.
   
   Whatever business you're in, you'll find something of value in this easy-to-read, laugh-a-minute, book.



2. Yes - I have a personal connection to it because of the tie in with my background. Barbara started her real estate agency on a bootstrap just like me! BUT this book should not just be read by real estate business owners. It's witty, relevant to any business owner and beautifully crafted. While I of course admire Barbara for what she did turning a $1,000 investment by her boyfriend into one of Manhattan's largest real estate groups - my admiration grew when I read this sensational book.



3. I ordered this book thinking it was different from Use What You've Got & Other Lessons I Learned from my Mom, which I bought in hardcover and enjoyed. It is not, it is the same as the older book. They simply retitled it.



4. Should be required reading for anyone in real estate sale, new to the business or a seasoned agent.



5. Barbara's wit is as enjoyable as her wisdom. A very easy read, this book puts a fun spin on the typically boring side of business management.

5 comments about Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions: Second Edition (Owlet Book).

1. I love this book, it is by far the best book about rebellion ever. I recommend it to all my special friends. Huggs and kisses to my friend Gloria.



2. There was often grumbling in certain circles that Gloria Steinem had so much attention paid to her because she was pretty. If that was the only factor, Steinem's popularity would have waned, not because she lost her looks (she never did) but because of the fickleness of the media and the "next pretty face." Steinem is smart, brave, funny and a damn good writer. "Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions", her 1983 book of collected essays proves it in spades.

   In early 1993, I had the privilege of seeing Gloria Steinem speak at Mount Holyoke College. I had to take the bus from UMASS to get there, and the place was packed. They closed the doors at one point saying it was too full, but they ended up letting most people in. When Ms. Steinem took the stage, she urged all those who were standing in the back to come up and join her onstage so that they could sit. This is the kindness and warmth that Steinem raidates. Many people in the audience were clutching copies of her books for her to sign. As this was the era of "Revolution from Within," that book was everywhere. But I also saw many copies of "Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions" as well. By then the book was 10 years old, but I can understand why people held onto it. This is a great book of essays written over the years. The book touches upon topics such as abortion rights, Jackie Onassis, Alice Walker, Steinem's college reunion, Steinem's own relationship with her mother and the famous expose of Steinem's undercover work at the Playboy Club in the early 60's. Having a journalism background, Steinem's prose is clear and concise. This is no rhetoric-filled theory-based polemic, but a balanced and fair look at the world from the perspective of an extraordinary woman. Also included in this collection is the wonderfully wry, "If Men Could Menstruate." The second edition of this book has some updated comments from Steinem that reflect on the essays more than a decade after the book was published.

   For all those who condemn feminism yet really know nothing about it, read this book. For those who are looking for a book of unique, well-written and enlightening essays, read this book. For those of us who discovered this book long ago and have fond memories, read it again.




3. Gloria is a witty woman who tells it like it is. Her adventures are funny and thought-provoking. I particularly enjoyed the story in which she was a Playboy bunny back when there were PLayboy clubs with bunny waitresses and coatgirls. She encourages women to step outside the box and think for themselves.



4. This courageous book should have all those mean-spirited feminism bashers running for the hills. Some popular accusations against feminism is that the movement has created a so-called backlash against men. If this imaginary backlash exists, however, I have yet to see any examples of it. The backlash against women and feminism (led by a minority of cowardly, insecure men and women who hate their own sex) is what Steinem details in in her powerful memoir/essay collection. She takes her readers back to a time when sexism against women was a fact of life and full work still only got them half pay.
   
   Honestly and empathetically, Ms. Steinem takes us through her own evolution--from a journalist proud to "write like a man" and ashamed of covering "womens' issues"--to a passionate activist, willing to take on every issue. If you've ever wondered why all the ranting, women-hating anti-feminists STILL abhor Gloria with such irrational fervor, read this book. She presents each of her points in a perfectly calm and reasonable way. Never is there an attempt to force her readers to agree. Gloria Steinem, does not blame anything on men or make any affront on their dignity. She simply questions, unobtrusively, why certain inequalities still exist.
   
   If you're looking a feminist's account of "life in the trenches," you won't be disapointed with Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions. Gloria is an inspiration for everyone to reach their full potential.



5. This review is not a review of the whole book. For focus, it is a review of "Ruth's Song (Because She Could Not Sing It)," a memoir essay written by Gloria Steinem about her mother who suffered from serious mental illness throughout Gloria's entire life. But before I focus on that essay, I want to mention that this book also contains an essay "Alice Walker: Do You Know This Woman? She Knows You" written in 1982 before The Color Purple won the Pulitzer Prize the following year.
   
   If you are trying to decide whether you want to buy this book, pick it up in the book store and read Gloria's essay on her mother's detailed history of mental illnesses. "Write what you know" is a common adage, and it rings true here. If you want to understand what energized Gloria to take on a life of advocacy promoting women's rights and equality, reading this essay will help you easily understand how her personal suffering has given her such robust motivation for so many years to combat the forces Gloria believes led her mother to become mentally disabled, to varying degrees, for all of Gloria's life. Gloria starts by inquiring into the mysteries of what led her uncle and mother to shut down and completely change from the outgoing and incredibly bright people they were in their young adulthood (her uncle a brilliant electrical engineer, and her mother a math teacher who once taught college calculus) to meeker and lower functioning older adults. She notes that the family was concerned about her uncle, but not as engaged in trying to remedy her mother's ailments.
   
   Gloria lives with the hindsight that she did not know in her youth how to possibly help her mother better, "Assuming there to be no other alternative, I took her home and never tried again," and "Perhaps the worst thing about suffering is that it finally hardens the hearts of those around it," and "For many years, I was obsessed with the fear that I would end up in a house like that one in Toledo. Now, I'm obsessed instead with the things I could have done for my mother while she was alive, or the things I should have said to her. I still don't understand why so many, many years passed before I saw my mother as a person, and before I understood that many of the forces in her life were patterns women share." Gloria spent many years growing up with only herself and her mother in the home while her mother suffered from agoraphobia (primarily suffered by women), terrors, delusions and many other cognitive deficiencies. Her mother suffered from depression and other mental roadblocks, spent time in sanatoriums, was drug dependent, and could not work outside the home.
   
   Please, please read it if you or any woman you care about has either suffered from mental illness, or if they "became a different person" at some point in their life. I have a female relative that all my uncles could not understand why she "changed so drastically" and fell into never ending depression, drug dependency and general dysfunction. But I understand many of the likely reasons for those declines, declines that our extended familial environment contributed to more than most of my family ever realized or were willing to acknowledge.
   
   Gloria's mother, Ruth, sold her only home so Gloria could go to college. She encouraged both Gloria and her sister to leave home for "four years of independence she herself had never had." Before certain events happened to Ruth, Ruth was one of the first female journalists and went to dances when her religion and community told her the music was sinful. Why does Gloria share this private and painful family history? I believe she wants to help teach other women how to tell their own stories. Each woman is best at telling her own story. But when they cannot or do not sing their own song, sometimes others sing it for them, to share their beauty. Gloria concludes with, "At least we're now asking questions about all the Ruths in all our family mysteries. If her song inspires that, I think she would be the first to say: It was worth the singing."
   
   A beautiful coincidence: my mother's mother was a musician named Ruth.

5 comments about Terry: My Daughter's Life-and-Death Struggle with Alcoholism.

1. This story holds a grip on me that I can't get over. Maybe I am like George McGovern myself in that I too can't explain what causes a beloved child in the family to grow up and self destruct. This story haunts me in that I am watching my own daughter at the age of 43 create similar suffering for every member of her family and friends who love her. I relate so strongly to the McGovern family on every page of this book, even to our own happy 50th wedding anniversary last year, that it frightens me based on Terry's tragic outcome just a year after the McGovern's celebrated their Golden Wedding Anniversary. At the same time, I am so grateful for McGovern's advice as to what he would have done differently, especially in the last several months of Terry's life. I just bought several books for family members, and one to donate to a Milwaukee area hospital Women's Pavillion library that has every subject covered but alcoholism! This book documents one of the most heart rending accounts of alcohol addiction that I could ever imagine. Your tears may stain these pages, but Terry is continuing to help others, like me as she did in life through the courages words of her father.



2. 'Terry' is the heart-wrenching tale of the life and death of Terry, daughter of George McGovern. I was reduced to tears in the book's first 40 pages as he recounts her tragic death. The book was very personal to me because I have lost a daughter (in an auto accident) and alcohol abuse and dependence have disrupted my life. Of course, the setting is familiar to me as a resident of the Madison area (indeed the Teresa McGovern Treatment Center is located adjacent to my favorite local place to walk). And McGovern's quixotic 1972 presidential campaign was the first of many political campaigns upon which I have worked.
   
   Teresa McGovern simply could not stop drinking and in the end effectively drank herself to death. The book tells the excruciatingly sad tale how this bright, sensitive girl grew into an alcohol dependent. Despite untold attempts by herself and her family to get her to stop drinking, in the end the booze won.
   
   The book is a cautionary tale for 'recovered alcoholics' - Terry did stop drinking for some 8 years and had several other substantial bouts of sobriety. In the end, sobriety was more painful than drinking despite the incredibly painful consequences of her drinking. If you think you have the booze beaten, remember that it lurks in wait for you.
   
   The book does highlight the lack of any predictably succesful treatment for alcoholism. She tried many times to get cured, although she did not, apparently, try any non-AA programs. In one section McGovern simply records police, hospital, and detox center reports as she was taken repeatedly to detox. At the end of her life she was basically drinking to the point of incoherence and incontinence every day. One does wonder why the authorities did not attempt to have her committed involuntarily - but whether that would that have worked is highly doubtful.
   
   One thing McGovern does not mention is the woefully inadequate insurance coverage for AODA treatment. Even if you have insurance, it is likely that your policy severely limits the amount that will be paid to cover treatment.
   
   A powerful, honest, deeply felt book. The reader wants to reach out to McGovern and remind him that, in fact, he did try to help his daughter, it didn't work and her death from alcohol abuse really was not his fault. To drink or not to drink - only the drinker decides.



3. This is a brave story for Senator McGovern and his family to tell. By writing this book they have taken some of the shame out of alcoholism and told a real account of the devistation alcoholism takes on the alcoholic and everyone that comes in touch with them. I really appreciated their taking the time to write this helpful book.



4. This is an incredibly sad book. I remember George McGovern's run for president as well as the excitement of that time. Reading his take on it around his daughter's alcoholism changes the memory to one much more personal. It's also a really good portrayal of the decent of the alcoholic. From being a good, daddy's girl, to passing out in the snow. The story is all there and true blue. There is some advice from George to other parents of alcoholics. What he would do if he could do it all over again. I recommend this book to anyone with an alcoholic in their lives, but it's not for the faint of heart. He doesn't pull many punches.



5. This time when I saw this paperback book in one of my favorite bookstores I decided I would buy it. I have a friend that said she had a hard time putting it down. I would say that I would rather put it down--and not pick it up again. I had a hard time plodding through this memoir. I did find the last part of the book where notations are made of the last few weeks of her life are the most interesting part of the book..the most moving and memorable parts. Otherwise this book was a big waste of my time. :(

5 comments about Diary of a Provincial Lady.

1. This was a simply written and quite charming novel. Whilst it did give an insight into the lives of a moderately wealthy English family in 1931, it lacked plot and real structure and for this reason I am unlikely to read more by this author at this stage - especially when there are simply too many other great books out there to read. A gentle, easy read but a little disappointing.



2. I reread this every year or two, and love it each time. Admittedly,a product of its time and place, capturing life among the genteely-poor gentry in an English village between the wars(WW's I & II). The diary format makes the provincial lady's narration of and commentary on the events around her doubly funny, as she struggles to run her household and not be driven crazy by nice but dull husband, snobbish wife of husband's boss,disputes among servants,quandaries about children, etc.--and to find time to keep a sense of herself as a professional writer. Not deep, but funny and often touching.



3. Am determined to write impressions from this book in the style of "the Provincial Lady" herself. Am doubtful however as to the outcomes of this effort as my highest labors would not reach the dry frank witticism she displays.
   Provincial Lady does her best to satisfy the wishes of silent husband (... "Robert, this morning, complains of insufficient breakfast. Cannot feel that porridge, scrambled eggs, toast, marmalade, scones, brown bread and coffee give adequate grounds for this, but admit that porridge is slightly burnt...."), intimidating cook, beloved children (... "Robin - whom I refer to in a detached way as "the boy" so that she shan't think I am foolish about him..., "Vicky,.... Enquires abruptly whether, if she died, I should cry?"), Mademoiselle (the nanny), Gardner and all kinds of friends and neighbors including the tiring Lady Birkenshop, "our vicar's wife" and the hated Mrs. B. ("query: Is not a common hate one of the strongest links in human nature?... answer, most regrettably, in the affirmative.")
   This is the same women world. Husband is as usual quiet and does not give any consolation and the Lady struggles to please everyone and not forget herself and her own wishes (and health) on the way. How very sad to discover it was the same (woman) world even 70 years ago ... Book is so very candid and manages to capture the ever lasting nuances of human behavior ("Mem: Candid and intelligent self examination as to motive, etc., often leads to very distressing revelations...."), little lies, social pretenses and the day to day struggles. Funny and entertaining yet can be tiring at times - since the day to day life is indeed tiring . Very very British and thus charming.



4. This charming book was written in the period between the wars, and tells of the daily trials and tribulations of the Provincial Lady - dealing with the servants, nosy neighbours, the horribly snobbish local 'upper class', the husband who hides behind the paper. Always told with style and wit, we observe life for the lady in question as she tries to balance the accounts (never a success - where does it all go?), help out at the local Women's Institute, keep her wardrobe up to date and deal with such important issues as modern parenting, keeping one's brain active when living outside of London, and the delicate balance of letting the husband know not too much or too little.

   The stand-out thing about this book is the character descriptions and her take on everyday life. If anyone ever tells you people were much nicer/politer in the good old days, just refer them to this book, which shows that there was just as many selfish, impolite, venal, self-centred and downright rude people in the 'good old days' as there are today. We just need to hope that we can deal with them with as much style and aplomb as the Provincial Lady would.




5. According to her, this is a single volume that contains "The Diary of a Provincial Lady" ONLY. The editorial review from Amazon states that this edition also includes several sequels. Apparently it does not. Still worth the price, according to Mom; she found it absolutely delightful.

5 comments about Like Sound Through Water : A Mother's Journey Through Auditory Processing Disorder.

1. I find the events surrounding Ben's development tragic. With a psychiatrist father and nurse mother, they ignored SIGNIFICANT signs. Toe walking, unintelligable speech at THREE, severe separation anxiety, textural issues with food, sensory overload. This book makes the case for effective early intervention, being an effective advocate for your child (stop denying and placing blame on the husband) and finding the right resources. Newsflash: APD is NOT new and the lack of evaluators and educators who were unfamiliar with this learning disability is alarming.
   This book was self-indulgent. One got tired of reading the distances traveled to get Ben evaluated and help. If that's what it takes when you have a special needs child, then that's what you do. Glad I got it from the library and didn't pay.



2. My 3rd grade son was just diagnosed with auditory processing disorder and I found this book to be informative and a pleasure to read. My son's condition isn't as severe as the author's son's; however, I could identify with her frustrations before the diagnosis. The author brought up 2 new treatment strategies that I was unaware of-Fast ForWord and Earobics. I have already recommended this book to friends and would highly recommend it to anyone interested in APD.



3. Because I couldn't NOT find out how their journey turned out, I was up until midnight last night with Karen Foli, Ben, and their family. Besides being Every Mom, Foli is a solid thinker, a strong communicator, and a mystery writer. This book unfolds like a popular novel, so you stand right next to the protagonist as she unravels the issue of APD, finally getting diagnoses and treatment.
   This book is on my short list for young teachers, along with Freaks, Geeks and Asperger Syndrome: A User Guide to Adolescence, Expecting Adam: A True Story of Birth, Rebirth, and Everyday Magic,Change Your Brain, Change Your Life: The Breakthrough Program for Conquering Anxiety, Depression, Obsessiveness, Anger, and Impulsiveness, and Why Gender Matters: What Parents and Teachers Need to Know about the Emerging Science of Sex Differences. Like many of these books, Like Sound Though Water reflects how rapidly improving technology can and should change the way we teach. Like all of them, this book will help teachers empathize with families. APD can be very frustrating for everyone, including harried classroom teachers. When you've worn yourself out trying everything to hook a kid, it's easy to blame family or the kid himself. This book will help you keep your eyes open for other causes for classroom difficulties.
   Okay, now I'm going to get on my soapbox: I think one of the reasons I had to stay up so late reading this was that I was internally screaming "Someone get this kid to an audiologist!" I was totally not surprised that the first person to recognize processing problems was a lady who ran a little church basement kindergarten, and I firmly believe that if Foli had Ben in a public school first, the problem would have been identified sooner. Public school teachers are required to have more training and diversity in our student population is not just country of origin. We've seen more.
   Anyway, great book for all readers but especially parents, teachers, and medical folks.



4. The book was insightful, easy to read. I couldn't put it down. The book is written from the family's perspective as their child is identified with a disorder. It relates the family's stuggles for correct diagnosis, treatment and support. A must read for early childhood specialists who assess and work with young children with special needs.



5. I thought this book was a great read - I read it non-stop to the end. If the author were to write a second book updating her son's story, I would definitely read it. This is a compelling book for any parent not just those whose children have APD.
   
   In fact, I'm not sure that her son's APD is particularly typical. Her son clearly demonstrated language problems from the outset, whereas I believe many APD cases are quite subtle. So, like the other reviewers, I would say don't read this as a textbook for APD, but more as an interesting story of how one family dealt with their son's challenges.