No comments about Beach Music.

No comments about The WaveDancer Benefit.

No comments about My Life in Books.

5 comments about My Losing Season: The Point Guard's Way to Knowledge.

1. "Parents and players. I would like to introduce our special guest speaker for this year's high school athletics awards banquet. In his brief three-year career, former Coach Henry Terwilliger amassed an amazing won-lost percentage of .367. Even when one of his teams had a player recruited by the state university, it lost more games than it won. Now, of course, Coach Terwilliger is a successful automobile insurance salesman. But he's agreed to kick off our banquet tonight by offering a few inspirational words for the future from his vast experience while distributing business cards in the back of the auditorium."
   
   How often I yearned to hear an introduction like that during the years I attended numerous high school athletic banquets with my kids. Instead, it was always a presentation by some coach who was a winner--the kind of leader to inspire everyone else to also become a winner. Don't they know that somebody has to lose? And, more importantly, don't they know that losers learn more than the winners? They just have less fun learning it and more reluctance sharing those experiences. That's why we need this book by Pat Conroy.
   
   Anyone who has had the guts over their lifetime to get out there and compete at anything knows you have to lose more than you win. A good baseball hitter swings and misses at three times as many pitches as he hits. Individually, he loses two or three times for every time he wins. But he becomes a winner if he uses those losing swings to learn about the pitcher.
   
   Conroy's brilliant memoir of his lost 1966-67 season as a senior point guard for the Citadel uses basketball instead of baseball to make that same point on a larger scale. As a result, it becomes much more than a sports memoir. It becomes required reading for the game of life. Forget Coach Terwilliger. Just read Conroy instead.



2. If you are a Conroy fan, this book will give you an insight into his life. Expands on The Great Santini. I throughly enjoyed this book even though I am not a basketball fan.



3. I watched "Great Santini" and I cried. Someone else knew what I had felt. Pat had succeeded where I had failed. My Dad expressed his disgust regularly with me while I was at home. I was insufficiently manly for him from grade school to high school. I preferred the library to giving someone brain trauma on the gridiron. I got an appointment to West Point and it was complete repudiation for him. I just wanted him to be proud of me but he saw it as me eclipsing his star in the most spectacular fashion. He didn't make it to my swearing in on the Plain-he was busy. This book was validation for me. I guess I can't be clinical in my dissection of this piece but it did it for me. I had read it while I was in a mudlogging trailer in the Permian Basin. I just had to have my own copy. Yes, I recommend it.



4. Probably 98% percent of sports books are about winners. I mean, how many athletes want to lay out their worst moments in public for all to acknowledge. Conroy takes on the challenge as he writes of his basketball career at the Citadel. Instead of reading one painful chapter and laying the book gingerly aside, I had to read more. He captivated me by opening up his increasingly ravaged emotions and presenting that rare description of what the athlete goes through who fights like heck, yet loses game after heart-wrenching game. Amazingly, Conroy succeeds so well, that I surmise some non-athletes could pick up the book and be entertained. Some say Americans are so consumed with the winner mentality, the happily ever after syndrome, that we will not dare enjoy a book that reveals the dark side. This book proves them wrong.



5. Pat Conroy's work is normally a little negative and down beat for me. However this book grabbed me by scruff of the neck and pulled me through it.
   
   It is authbiographal and because it is so well written,unlike many others I have read, it is utterly compelling.
   
   I really enjoyed this one.
   
   J. Robert Ewbank, author "John Wesley, Natural Man, and the 'Isms'"

5 comments about The Water is Wide.

1. Captivating,sad, uplifting, discouraging and delightful all in one. The pages fly by. Shared it with my girlfriends and we had a great discussion regarding education in in the US. A worthwhile read!



2. This book is about a passion very few teachers possess. I am a former special education teacher and a huge fan of Pat Conroy. I saw the first movie version of this book starring Jon Voight when I was in highschool. Since Conroy writes a book about every decade, (not often enough!), and I've read them all, I decided to go back and read this one. Regardless of the content, Pat Conroy always paints a spectacular picture with words. This book is no exception. As a former teacher, much of my time was spent trying/failing/creating new methods to reach my kids who possessed a wide range of learning styles. This is great reading for anyone but especially teachers. Educators will chuckle in agreement that there is at least one "Mrs. Brown" in every school, chain of command is gospel and quite likely a "Dr. Piedmont" resides at the top.



3. I read this book over a year ago, and I still think of it as one of the best books I have ever read. I admit I am not a "well read" individual, but I read a book or two a month and this one continues to stand out. I agree with other reviews that it is a must read for teachers. I personally found the book so appealing because it left me laughing, then crying, then angry, then sad. It pulled and tugged at all of my emotions and made me see that I have given up too easily on some things I have wanted changed in my own life. Pat Conroy had to be creative and innovative to get through to the children as well as their parents. I believe he learned as much from the kids as they did from him. I was inspired by his story.



4. We enjoyed this book, gave us an insight as to how poor and neglected our neighbours are right here in our own country.
   Plus it was well written and kept your interest.
   A quick and informative read, yes, we recommend it.



5. I read a news article about Pat Conroy and his book, The Water is Wide. I was instantly intrigued. I bought the book, read it and could not put it down. Since the book is written about his exploits as a teacher to "colored children" in a southern atmosphere and dealing with attitudes of a more southern nature, I'm surprised that he got as much accomplished as he did in his 1-year term as a teacher. All of the characters portrayed were painfully believable. This book tells it like it was during the 60's. I would definitely recommend the book for everyone who has an open mind, a sense of humor and is not afraid to delve into life's realities.

5 comments about The Lords of Discipline (Library Edition).

1. Just a few days after I was admitted to attend The Citadel, over a decade ago, my mother picked up this book and read it cover to cover in no time at all. A couple days later she handed it to me, wishing that I would read it... and decide to attend college elsewhere. I read the book cover to cover, enthralled and fascinated the whole way through, and when I finished the last page my resolve to attend the school that had inspired this book had only grown stronger.
   
   The Fourth Class System Pat Conroy describes in this book is entirely accurate, as he went through it himself and thus knew it first-hand. Much has changed since Conroy was there, but I can personally attest to the fact that the brotherhood he depicts in this story between the protagonist, Will, and his roommates is a perfect an example of the type of relationships that still evolve between cadets who share that same experience to this very day.
   
   Conroy describes the difficulties the South Carolina Military Institute had in acclimating to racial integration in this novel. I can tell you that I attended The Citadel shortly after gender integration had been mandated by the federal district courts, and many of the same emotions that Conroy describes in this story were running through the Corps of Cadets during my tenure at the military college of South Carolina. The struggles of the school during my time there were not so much rooted in some terrible dislike of females, or even a gender bias as to the abilities of male versus female, but more a resistance to change of any sort... just like what Conroy depicts in The Lords of Discipline as the first black student attended college there amidst a tremendous backlash from within the Corps of Cadets (not to mention from many Alumni as well). Of course there are always going to be some racists and chauvinists at any college or university in the United States, this isn't something exclusive to a Southern military school, but Conroy really does a good job of demonstrating how so much of the resistance against these historic changes came not from hatred but rather from a desperate attempt to hold onto a tradition and a way of life ingrained in the South Carolinian culture of antiquity and state pride.
   
   Conroy also beautifully depicts the emotional travails of the cadets at SCMI, as they struggle with popular backlash against the Viet Nam War... all while contemplating what their lives have in store for both those who take their commissioning into the United States armed forces, as well as for those who opt to remain civilians upon graduating. Conroy so genuinely conveys the true sentiment of the young men who really faced this tough decision through his characters in this novel. I only know how accurate his depiction is since I was a Cadet at the Citadel on 9/11/2001, and I graduated at a time when the War in Iraq was only just a year underway.
   
   Pat Conroy exposes the psyche of a living institution along South Carolina's Ashley River in The Lords of Discipline. This is an excellent novel with more non-fiction to it than meets the eye. Who will represent the school's standard of the complete man (or "complete person" these days) - the citizen/soldier who wears the ring with deserving pride; who will fall short of expectations and bring shame upon the school; and who "should" never have the opportunity to enter the school's gates in the first place? Pat Conroy captures the true essence of this Southern military school in The Lords of Discipline - not simply for the way it was 40 years ago, but for the way it has always been, intrinsically and inescapably - forever and always.



2. Was looking for a good book to read on vacation and this one did not disappoint. It brought back my own memories of going through hell week many years ago but their lives as 'plebes' made mine look like a day on the beach. Nothing really bad to say about the story except that I would say the last 100 pages went a lot faster than the 1st 400 (maybe like a 3 hr. movie that could have been 2 hrs.).



3. I think this is one of the best books I have ever read. It does tend to be long and wordy, but his descriptive style is excellent, the characters are real to life and seem to jump out of the pages.
   The plot is moving and the ending is gripping. I would highly recommend this book to anyone, and I am not easily satisified.



4. The Lords of Discipline is one of the best novels dealing with male love and friendship that I have ever read. Mr. Conroy has created as realistic a portrait of young adult companionship and comradely as I have found, to date, in literature. This long novel has many themes and characters, but the text is really about its narrator, Will McLean, and his years at a military college, known as "the Institute."
   The strengths of the book are many, but here are a few that come quickly to mind. The voice of its protagonist, Will, is one of the novel's most enjoyable features. Will is articulate, sarcastic, and funny as hell. He is also inwardly shy, unsure of his place at the Institute, in his own circle of friends and relationships, and a man capable of great decency and gross baseness. In short, Will is a boy learning how to become a man. Like all of us, it is Will's interior life that is the most honest and interesting, and it is his moments of introspection where the novel really achieves greatness. However, Conroy has interwoven this high literature with one of the best suspense stories I have seen in recent years. I could not stop reading once I hit the last 150 pages. The novel propelled me along to its conclusion. I had to keep reading, even when at times I did not like what was happening in the text.
   Another profound element in the novel is Conroy's evocation of Charleston SC. After Will, Charleston is the most developed character in the text, and it is easy to feel and see the city that plays such an important part in the lives of the characters.
   Every once in a while I found Conroy's prose to be flowery to no real purpose, but it doesn't detract that much from the novel, and at times it was breathtakingly beautiful. Another weakness was that the ending lines of the book are straight out of a clichéd film. But it was what the reader wanted, and needed, as a conclusion for this intense novel.
   When I left the world this novel created I missed it characters. I think about them, I find myself revisiting them. In this sense, Conroy has created a triumphant work.



5. After reading The Prince of Tides I knew I'd like this book because I love his writing style. He grabs you and has such eloquence in portraying the characters. I think, as a woman, this is such a masterpiece because I feel like I got a glimpse into the male mind.

5 comments about The Great Santini.

1. He died of oxygen deficiency the same way a 1956 Graduate of The Citadel Frederick G. Schenkel, My cousin, Died in a 1962 F-4 Phantom accident off the coast of South Carolina.



2. This is the third book written by Pat Conroy and his first novel. Like all his books the themes are semi-autobiographical. In this book the author's childhood suffering at the brutal hands of "The Great Santini," his father's nickname for himself, is described in sickening detail. But the reader is left with admiration for this boy who finally can fight back and is on his way to a new life at age 18.
   
   I am married to a fighter pilot(who calls himself the world's greatest fighter pilot)and in all the years of his service I never saw or heard of the kind of drunken and obscene behavior by the Marine pilots that is depicted here. I can only assume that Santini himself was often the instigator of these events and proud of himself for arranging them.
   
   As a new fan of Pat Conroy's work I intend to read all his books in chronological order. So you may see another review by me before long! In the meantime, why don't you join the club?



3. It's not all that common for this reader to get fully absorbed into a world populated by completely fictional characters, but Pat Conroy's classic The Great Santini quickly proved to be an exception. It's a book as brutally honest and unvarnished as its titular character, Marine pilot Colonel Wilbur "Bull" Meecham (aka the Great Santini), in whom Conroy has created one of the most fascinating, believable, and flat-out hilarious characters in literary history. First seen moving with his family to the military town of Ravenel, South Carolina (a stand-in for the actual military town of Beaufort), Bull Meachem is a figure both larger than life and utterly human, a warrior with no off switch and consummate alpha male who seems most in his element when pounding beers with his men or pounding on some local toughs who attack his eldest child on the street. He's also a walking contradiction, beholden to the prejudices and enmities of his time but still gripped with a profound sense of fairness, and a seemingly loving father who only rarely manages to show his children any genuine affection. Depending on your particular viewpoint, he could represent either everything that's wrong with this country or everything that's great about it, but in Conroy's hands Bull's always more of a character than a caricature of an archetype. Even while finding a large share of Bull's actions and pronouncements objectionable, I always read just a little faster when he was the focus, which is a testament to just how sharply drawn a character he is. Whatever your societal views, it's hard not to like an unapologetically masculine guy like Bull, who lives for male camaraderie and the thrill of unfettered flight and, yes, the chance to kill a few Commies that the Marine Corps offers.
   
   Despite its title, though, The Great Santini is far from a one-man show. While he remains the dominant figure, Bull shares the spotlight with the other members of his family (those older than 12, anyway): his oldest, Ben, a brilliant basketball player whose feelings toward his father range from ambivalence to outright hostility; Ben's younger sister Mary Anne, a self-described weirdo and social misfit with literary aspirations whose biting sense of humor serves as an ever-present defense mechanism; and Bull's wife Lillian, a product of the Southern gentry who tries tirelessly to preserve at least the appearance of peace in her house. The story eventually comes to encompass a whole universe of minor characters as well, from educators to clergy to poor blacks, who make up the fabric of a pre-integration Southern military town, but in the end the focus remains squarely on the Meechams and their frequently stormy existences. To say that Bull isn't in touch with his inner child or his feminine side would be an understatement: he tends to run the family in much the same way he runs his Marine unit, with a constant focus on discipline and a push to succeed at the expense of all other considerations. Naturally, this approach can sometimes grate on the rest of the family, especially Ben, whose conflicting drives to please and defy his father should be familiar to just about anyone who remembers being a teenager. Ben's struggles to find his own way and deal with the overwhelming shadow cast by his father's influence eventually come to form the center of the book, making it equal parts coming-of-age story, family drama, and slice-of-life comedy.
   
   Although his pen can run over a bit, especially in the book's later going, it's still beyond disputing that Conroy is an enormously skilled writer, who brings the same level of insight and precision to his description of an inconsequential high-school basketball game that he does to a beer-soaked Marine gathering. Conroy shows a keen insight for the twisted humor and atavistic rituals that make up male bonding, as well as for the dynamics of a mismatched family held together at least in part by intimidation and relentless discipline. He's also deeply plugged into the devices people use to get by in daily life, from Bull's macho bluster to Maryanne's biting humor to Lillian's relentless emphasis on manners. Of course, it also helps that The Great Santini boasts great dialogue laden with cutting and frequently off-color humor, a (mostly) affectionate portrayal of small-town southern living, and characters who are almost frighteningly real. The book doesn't rely on any contrived plot devices, or even much of a plot at all, to keep pages turning, instead getting by on Conroy's significant ability to draw readers into a different time and place (different for me anyway), capturing the rhythms and events large and small that make up both military and family life. Even those who don't consider themselves military types would be well advised to give The Great Santini a read.



4. Just fabulous. No one can write realism like Conroy writes it.
   
   This coming of age story involving a young man and his overbearing and probably neurotic father combines nerve shattering angst with Conroy's trademark humor.
   
   The contest between Bull and Ben reflects not just that specific relationship but the challenge each of us faces when our very nature wars between our selfish controlling tendencies and our more rational compassionate side. Depending on any specific instance, one never knows where honor lies.
   
   Hard lesson for Ben to learn but learn it he did.
   
   Amazing storyline. Amazing writing. Amazing book.



5. As Advertized, did not note it was from UK, but that is fine. Nice book in great condition.

1 comments about South of Broad Unabridged on CD's in Box [Author of Prince of Tides].

1. All of Mr. Conroy's works are superb but I think for sheer enjoyment, this is the best.

5 comments about The Prince of Tides.

1. Good stories in the five book series. A little wordy, at times slow, but all and all interesting enough to keep purchasing the next book in the series. The greatest reason not to "like," the series more is the end of the final book. The ending was very disappointing. It seemed to break from the well thought out progress through the first four books. The fifth book seemed like the author was forced, less coherent, wanted to finish a long job, tired of writing so much. The final chapters of the last book were "Cute." Different. and that's all they were. It's almost as if the author abruptly pasted on the last portion of the book. If you aren't interested in the whole, long, well worked out world the author created with three dimensional characters, and just want a shallow, different ending.
   
   I wish the author would rethink the last book sometime, and do a major revision. It has the potential to become a "Classic," of it's very unusual type.



2. Every writer dreams of writing a book that people will love like they love Prince of Tides. As a professional writer I have never reached these heights. But, as some have noted, a truly great book is a rare achievement. If you're an avid reader, out of the hundreds of books you've read, how many would you classify as masterpieces? Probably only a few. I, too, consider this one of the better books I've read. I must also say that there are very few books I read more than once. This is one I really look forward to reading again. I have no idea how Conroy could express so perfectly the emotions of this man and his siblings without going through something like this personally. However, I have no idea what Conroy's growing up years were like. The narrative/prose, the commentary, the dialogue, the plot and sub-plot, the character development, the conflict, the metaphors---everything is just right. Did Conroy labor for years over this, or did it pour out of him like a verbal fountain? I don't know. All I know is that this is great writing.



3. I am a visual reader who is swept away by the scenes taking place in my own head as I read. So it takes something really extraordinary to make me aware of the way language flows on the page. Conroy is that kind of extraordinary. This is his best novel ... and maybe the best novel written in the decade of the 80s.



4. 'The Prince of Tides' is my first Pat Conroy novel and it may very well be my last. Having seen the film adaptation some twenty years back, I thought I knew what the story was about. Wrong, very wrong. The dysfunctional South Carolina family is not only a bit messed up, the author throws in an endless array of the most fantastic elements: wife beating, children beating, a suicidal master poetess, a lover who's husband is a world-renowned violinist, a son who becomes a militant reactionary, a "Free Willy"-type episode involving an albino porpoise, and a brutal rape of family members that was broken up by a pet tiger. Er..., is that all you can think of Pat Conroy? Shouldn't you have included a cousin who was a ballerina turned astronaut before curing the President of tuberculosis?? Although Pat Conroy writes some beautiful prose with awesome dialogue 'The Prince of Tides' reads like he made up the story as he went along. Yes, this is a vicious insult. But after reading 500+ pages of this drivel I think it is justified.
   
   
   Bottom line: even Oprah would pan such a over-the-top soap opera of novel. A total mess.



5. Conroy writes with exceptional poetry and describes the South with such passion. He creates characters with immense intensity and life, regardless of how flawed they are. Prince of Tides is not a joyful book. While there are uplifting scenes, there is a pervading sadness. The topics of suicide, abuse and despair bestow a melancholy that cannot be redeemed regardless of how many inspiring anecdotes Conroy includes, though there is an underlying hope that timidly presents itself. I found Prince of Tides to be Conroy's darkest book, but as always, I appreciate his extraordinary writing. He narrates Tom Wingo well, exploring the history of his troubled family. Between his abusive father, his delusional and infuriating mother, his unfortunate brother, his suicidal sister and the tragic things that happen to them, it is no wonder Tom is a deeply unhappy and conflicted man. The history of the Wingo family is splendidly detailed and instilled with a magic that only Conroy can convey.

5 comments about South of Broad.

1. Conroy continue's with his usual ability to draw you into a family and its make-up. a good "beach" read.



2. 
   
   Only Catholics looking for a weird thrill would compliment this book...When I finished it (difficult) I felt as tho I'd been shilled....what a waste of time!....Stay clear of this one!



3. The characters, although written to be unconventional, are actually rather cliche figures. The narration is fast-paced, but the plot is unconvincing. The all-knowing narrator is often sarcastic and arrogant in his tone. Yet, he is also a principal member of the group. In that context, he tends to be rather passive and ineffectual. The inconsistency does not work, in my view.



4. I just finished reading South of Broad by Pat Conroy. Wow! His treatment of the tragic family interwoven with the beauty of Charleston, his own Catholic upbringing, and arrogance of the Charleston aristocracy as well as the complexities and contradictions of the South was both haunting and extremely beautiful. I am a huge fan of the Great Santini and My Losing Season and had forgotten what a great story teller and lyricist Pat Conroy is. His skill and the beauty of his language "hooked' me to the point that I quickly read The Prince of Tides and The Lords of Discipline and The Water is Wide. I believe South of Broad can well take an honored position in this Pantheon. It is such a shame that we have been deprived of Conroy's gifts for 14 years. I am too old to wait for 14 more so please Pat give me some more of you beautiful, quirky, and yes, tragic Carolina low country.



5. I loved this book. For the thousands of residents of Charleston, and the millions more (like me) who wish they were, this book takes you to a wonderful part of the south in the very interesting 60s-90s. I highly recommend it.