1 comments about When Montana and I Were Young: A Frontier Childhood (Women in the West).

1. This is a remarkable book. It is a primary account of a child's life growing up in Montana and Canada in the early part of the twentieth century. Margaret (Peggy) Bell's life spanned some 94 years, from 1888-1982, and her story is as exciting and troubling as any account one is likely to read, fiction or non-fiction. That the book is edited by Mary Clearman Blew makes it not only highly readable but lends it undeniable credibility.

   Bell's account of growing up on the high plains of Montana and Canada is a rare, first person account of life on the frontier with it's numerous hardships, grinding poverty, and ultimate struggle to retain her mind and spirit that will break your heart and make you shout for joy...sometimes within a few paragraphs or pages. In a straight forward, honest, almost stoic manner she describes the many life lessons she learned and discusses a subject that is rarely seen in print in the literature of the period: the abuse, sexual and otherwise, she experienced at the hands of her uncle and stepfather. This is an amazing book that chronicles the life experiences of a resilient woman in a man's world that lived to understand who she was, where she came from, and what it all meant. That she could tell such a story without self pity or sentimental, touchy-feely themes is remarkable. Brutally frank, honest and ultimately uplifting.

5 comments about Dylan and Cohen: Poets of Rock and Roll.

1. What makes this book such a unique and significant contribution to its genre is that it is written with the insight and sensitivity of a spirit that seems deeply attuned to those of its subjects. Not only does the reader come away with a better understanding of the historical times and political contexts that shaped these men, and the personal struggles and psychological bents that motivated their writing, but also with a clearer understanding of what attracts their devotees to their work.
   
   Throughout the book, Boucher weaves explorations of various aspects of the lives and cultural context of Dylan and Cohen that strongly affected them and their work. These include the civil rights movement, drugs, women, sexuality, God and religion, what it means to be reluctantly identified as the voice of a generation, and -- particularly for Cohen -- the holocaust. Boucher also explores the influence of other artists on their work, from Woody Guthrie for Dylan to Lorca for Cohen, as well as the influence that Dylan and Cohen had on each other.
   
   Just as Dylan and Cohen make poetry an accessible part of popular culture, with equal skill Boucher makes philosophy of art and interpretation accessible as well. He points out that our experience of lyric poetry is informed by the questions we bring to it and he explains that the richest experience is to be had when the most appropriate questions are asked. Boucher uses the theories of several philosophers such as R. G. Collingwood, Henry Jones, and Michael Oakeshott, to identify which questions are most appropriately asked of particular works at particular moments in the artists' creative development. He also shows the fruitlessness of asking the wrong kind of questions of a particular poem, as is the tendency of many thinkers. He describes various forms of artistic expression: pseudo-art, or art as magic; art as the expression of emotion, or imaginative art; and inspirational art, or poetry which delights in images. He then demonstrates how, at various stages in Dylan's artistic development, his work takes all three forms of expression, whereas Cohen's work primarily takes the form of the last two. He then offers examples from their poetry to illustrate which form(s) of expression is/are being inhabited by a particular work and he supports his demonstrations with quotations about their work from the artists themselves.
   
   Finally, Boucher helps to bring the period to life for his reader by including several pictures of book covers, concert and film posters, magazine covers and various photographs. The overall result of the book is that Boucher successfully positions his readers to have a richer experience and a deeper understanding and appreciation of the lyric poetry of Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen.



2. This is an excellent study of the music and lyrics of the 2 greatest rock "poets." Boucher explores whether or not their lyrics even qualify as poetry and keeps the subject interesting! He effectively delves into their psyches,as well, without getting hung up on personal, biographical details which have been over analyzed in other places. I found the final chapter "The Religious Experience" to be some of the best writing that I've seen on Dylan and Cohen's spiritual journeys. I highly recommend this to fans of either man's work.



3. The irate and intemperate person signing himself pepidude in a previous review seems incapable of being able to appreciate an argument or of understanding the nature of the exercise that David Boucher has undertaken. It is a thematic book with a wide range of references, not a book of facts about Bob Dylan.The author introduces us to the complexities of issues relating to the difference between popular music lyrics and poetry, between origins and originality, the poetry of imagination and inspiration and much more. Anyone interested in ideas and issues, and in theories as well as facts will find this book immensely stimulating and fascinating.



4. David Boucher has written a book that examines in detail the contribution of both artists to the worlds of both literature and rock & roll. In his intoduction he looks at the progress of Cohen from serious poet to rock & roll recording artist and performer. This transition cost him status in the literary world but aided by the legendary "golden voice" and some consummate musicians it allowed him to reach a hitherto undreamed of audience.

   Dylan, whom he refers to as "The Changing Man" in Chapter Three, was the chameleon-like performer who picked up, and discarded new personas and new musical styles at the drop of his very famous hat. The obvious example here is the infamous "electric tour" where Dylan was heckled and called "Judas". This abuse was, the book shows, not only for his perceived betrayal of the acoustic folk movement, but also a reaction to the contempt with which Dylan treated his audience. Dylan had always been a confrontational performer, and his response to such attacks was to become louder and less acoustic than ever. What David Boucher also shows is that this signified a shift from the community centred ethic of the folk movement to the excessive individualism and nihilism of the Beat poets who through the drug culture wanted, like Rimbaud, to experience the extremes.

   In other chapters the myriad influences on both performers are examined as well as their involvement with political and religious organisations. Finally David Boucher gives us an insight into the road travelled by both men in search of their own personal salvation.

   Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen are complex men and complex performers. To listen to, or to read the works of either man is always challenging. In this book the author has written an analysis that is equally challenging exploring, as it does, the anger and the angst of the 1960s and beyond. I enjoyed every minute of the challenge.




5. David Boucher's masterly work 'Dylan & Cohen' is essential reading, not simply for devotees of these 'Poets of Rock and Roll' but for anyone with an interest in the history of the radical cultural, political and musical changes in the last century.

   It is clear from this eloquent book that neither Dylan nor Cohen wished to speak for anyone but themselves and equally clear that the strength of their work would be seized upon by a generation looking for a new direction. Thankfully they both continued to write through their tribulations and we have a bank of some of the most evocative music to continue to listen to.

   I urge you to buy this book but with a word of warning: you won't want to stop reading once you've started.

5 comments about Ambushed: A War Reporter's Life on the Line.

1. Stewart does give a number of experiences in shocking & vivid detail, but I was hoping for more time spent on the experiences of the people in Africa, opposed to HIS experience of Africa and five entire chapters on his own experience of being shot.
   The horrible experiences of the people he sees deserve much more attention than a decadent (an example on page 159) Western reporter who meets an unfortunate experience. On top of this he brings slanted and self-admitted ignorant views on Africa ("The more I discovered, the more I grew angry and disgusted at Africa's recent colonial experience, but I still knew little about African history" page 35).
   Stewart makes a few blanket accusations against the West for all that is wrong in Africa ("Europe demonstrated to Africa that self-serving greed outweighed all else" page 129) with no mention to the equally ruthless Arab slave traders who oppressed Africa before the white man. The book makes Stewart seem more self centered than compassionate. His criticism of the west is best re-directed to his own book: "the West's luxury and comfort comes before the human rights of African citizens" page 130.



2. Ian Stewart's "Ambushed" is a commendable book worthy of use as a introduction to life behind the lines, however it falls short of the actual horrors of war. Stewart's writing is linear, easy to read, and palatable for most readers and the stories he has to tell are courageous. However I am a bit reticent to give his book four or five stars because he, albeit probably unintentionally, doesnt portray the soul-crushing horrors of war as they really are. Having worked and witnessed the atrocities in Sierra Leone, the DRC, and Cambodia myself I sympathize with Ian but I can assure you his book is a trip to Disneyland compared to the actualities of the situation in these war torn countries. I'm glad that his book brings light to the Sierra Leone situation (which fortunatly is being extinguished) to the public. If one wants a more to real life of todays modern and barbaric wars I suggest reading Jon Steele's "War Junkie". This horribly named book was written by an ITN news photographer but he should have been a journalist. Jon has covered twice as many wars as Ian(not that this is a comparision) however no book has ever given me nightmares or brought more emotion to what really happens behind the lines as his book has. Read it with caution, I can still smell the stench of Rwanda's murdered...



3. In this book you get the information you will not see on any TV station. You recieve first hand the experience of a war reporter. The author is very good about telling you the situation before he travels to his destination. He doesn't hold anything back. He makes the story come alive with his descriptions.
   My favorite part of the book was his recovery period. He had to work so hard to find out who he truly was and what he had to overcome was amazing. It opened my eyes to the dangers that reporters face to bring us the news.



4. I read Freetown Ambush published by Penguin Canada. If this is the American version of the same book, I highly recommend it.
   Stewart's description of Ivory Coast and the disintegration of a society is compelling and the descriptions of the inside workings of the AP is very interesting. The touching story of his recovery is short and sweet. His writing style keeps moving and he explains the confusing situation in West Africa very well.



5. When I first picked up Ian Stewart's "Ambushed: A War Reporter's Life on the Line" I had some trepidation. I worried I would finish it with the same feeling I had when I read "All the President's Men." I enjoyed that book, but I had a feeling it was only really compelling to people interested in history, politics or journalism. Not that those topics are boring - they just don't always have much heart or soul.
   With Stewart's book, I was pleasantly suprised. Although a good portion of the book focuses on the political climates he faced as a war correspondent, it also gets to the heart of how war affected people in the places he covered. With relative grace, Stewart manages to balance the bare-bones reality of war with the personal struggles he had covering it as the Associated Press' West Africa bureau chief. He brings real emotion to the book by describing both fighting in the streets and the reactions of children who see it every day.
   But the real heart of the story is apparent in the final third of the book, after Stewart has been shot in the head by rebels in Sierra Leone. As he describes the rehabilitation process following his injury it becomes more and more evident what war reporters really face. It's really compelling to analyze, along with Stewart, why those journalists do what they do and whether it is worth the sacrifice.
   In the simplest terms, the book is interesting because it tells one person's story in a way that most people, not just journalists or history and politics buffs, can relate to. By showing how Stewart covered war and how he dealt with it personally, "Ambushed" opens a window into war that most of us will never get to experience first-hand.

5 comments about Canoeing With the Cree (Publications of the Minnesota Historical Society).

1. The late CBS News Correspondent Eric Sevareid's highly regarded adventure chronicle Canoeing With The Cree has been given new life in an enjoyable audiobook production released by Holton House Audio. The story, as written by the late Mr. Sevareid, is one of an epic journey through the Canadian wilderness during the summer and fall of 1930. Sevareid and his friend Walter Port, both just teenagers, set out from Minneapolis, Minnesota, in an attempt to do what no one else had ever done before: canoe over 2,200 miles north to the Atlantic Ocean.
   
   Holton House Audio chose Mr. John Farrell to record Sevareid's epic tale, and it has chosen well. Mr. Farrell's pleasant baritone displays a wide range of emotion that consistently matches both the intensity and innocence of Mr. Sevareid's story, and Farrell's reading style adds what almost seems like visual and sensory components to the recording. At times, as I listened, I could see and sense the stillness of the Canadian wilderness that Mr. Sevareid experienced, while at other times, the tone in Farrell's voice led me to imagine the deafening roar of crashing rapids. I could sense the perils that Sevareid and his friend faced on many occasions. Also, Mr. Farrell's ability to give characters in the story their own unique voices added yet another enjoyable aspect to this quality recording.
   
   I found it refreshing that Canoeing With The Cree was exciting, and yet profanity-free. The recording would be a great addition to any public library's audio collection, and it would also be appropriate for use in High School English classrooms. I intend to start using it in my own Alternative Education High School class this fall, and will make this wholesome and engaging story a regular part of my curriculum for many years to come.
   
   Eric Sevareid's Canoeing With The Cree is a great story, and it's been well told by Mr. John Farrell. I highly recommend this new Holton House Audio recording.



2. This story is about two high school boys who decided to take a canoe trip during the summer of 1930. Not only is it an adventurous tale but it is a lesson about survival and the determination to accomplish a goal. It is well written and very descriptive making the journey very realistic. This is a must read especially for teenagers who love the sport of canoeing.



3. "Eric Sevareid made his name as a CBS news correspondent. But at a young age, Sevareid experienced an adventure most only dream of. Sevareid detailed the journey in his book "Canoeing with the Cree". Now to mark the 75th anniversary of Sevareid's journey, two Minnesota men plan to make the same trip." Tim Post
   
   In 1930 two young men paddled their way from Minneapolis to Hudson Bay in Canada. A trip of 2200 miles. Everyone told them it could not be done. Eric Sevareid, then a 17 year old, fresh graduate of high school, and his best buddy, Walter Port, planned the entire trip. They garnered financial support, collected supplies and a canoe and paddles and off they went. Five months later after trials and tribulations, they made it to Hudson Bay. Their journey is documented by Eric Sevareid, who gathered the weekly diaries he sent to their local Minneapolis paper, and in 1935, he wrote this book.
   
   I stepped back in time to the 1930's when life seemed to be more innocent and the world a safer place to be. Sevareid who went on to become one of the most revered journalists of our time, wrote in an unpretentious manner, and we can feel the excitement of their adventures. They traversed unknown land and water. No one, it seems, had ever accomplished this trek. Even the best canoeists in the country failed. How then, did these two young lads accomplish this journey? Intelligence and good luck, I'd say. They questioned everyone they met, took upon themselves to digest all of the information and made decisions based on their best judgement. And, most of the time they were correct. They had no radio, no maps( this was uncharted country), little preserved food except for hardtack, but they had their ingenuity and the assistance of all of the people they met.
   
   The North Country was mostly woods. Camps, small towns and two larger towns had been established for hunting and trapping. Most of the humans they met were Indians who were kind and generous. As a matter of fact, most of the people they met were in awe of their journey and shared whatever food, equipment and conversation they were capable. The trip was amazing when we look at the obstacles they faced. Water, roaring cold water, sometimes rapids, sometimes falls, no maps, only the word of mouth of strangers, and cold brutal weather at times. Or hot humid weather with flies and gnats. They discovered all sorts of wild animals but were never in real danger. They had their tent, two paddles, food, water, ponchos and several blankets. This seems like a story of new adventurers discovering a new world, and in fact this is what they were. Two 17 year old lads set out on an adventure and one day after another they found one. Extraordinary when you think about it.
   
   Since the time of Eric and Walter, several other duos have made the trip by canoe. However, they had maps, food that could be kept for months and the best of camping equipment. This is not to lessen these young men's courage, but to think 78 years ago, this was accomplished with such primitive arrangments and care.
   
   This was an exciting read and one page after another flew by. The book was difficult to put down. Easy, simplistic writing. but some of the most important writing I have found. The boys parents and friends did not hear from them often and at times, I am sure the parents were worried. But the two lads persevered and the trip was taken.
   
   Highly Recommended. prisrob 06-26-08
   
   Not So Wild a Dream
   
   The Eleanor Roosevelt Story



4. 2250 miles in a canoe - a great adventure and a book worth reading. I can't add much that isn't already perfectly described in this book.
   
   At the start of the trip during a brief stay in Fargo, North Dakota, a friend and doctor named Frederick Gronvold sets the boys on their journey in a proper frame of mind. "Don't let anyone, no matter who he is, convince you that your trip can't be completed. You have youth and strength, and courage too, I hope, and with a little common sense you can do it."
   
   When the journey finally ends and the boys share their tale with the adults at York Factory, they are asked why? Bud responds simply, "Oh, for pleasure, I guess." A journey simply for the sake of the adventure. It is an idea lost on some of the adults listening to the boys. "Pleasure! What a jolly funny kind of pleasure!" Better yet, maybe the idea isn't lost. Colonel Reid continues, "Oh well, that's youth. Things look different when you're young, I suppose. My word, I almost believe I envy you."
   
   Enjoy the beginning and the end; enjoy the pineapples and everything in between. Enjoy the journey simply for the journey; it's an adventure that is perfect for any reader of any age!



5. Enough youthful daring and preparation on a wonderful journey which showed the better nature of people for the exploits of two tough and bright young men. A wonderful journey, with some historical photo's that help illustrate the accomplishment. A wonderful quick read.

4 comments about Epic Wanderer: David Thompson and the Mapping of the Canadian West.

1. I first saw this book in a store in Banff, at the tail end of a 10-day hiking trip through the Canadian Rockies. I didn't want to lug a book home, so I ordered through Amazon. Perhaps I like this book because I hiked a bit of the area it describes, but more important to me is the astonishing story of David Thompson by itself. To get from the east coast to the west, we get an airline ticket. Thompson routinely traveled thousands of miles each year in the late 1700's and early 1800's - mostly in canoes, hauling thousands of pounds of goods to trade for thousands of pounds of pelts and furs. Most astonishing is that armed with only a compass and sextant, Thompson and his little teams found their way across a continent to trade with native tribes. They did 100 miles in a day with nary a thought. What engages me the most is Jenish's ability to weave multiple sources including Thompson's diaries into a compelling you-are-there story of the crossing and mapping of the Canadian west. My highest compliments to the author.
   
   If you like adventure and the tingle of learning how men and women (Thompson had his wife and kids with him) did things we'd never attempt today, you'll love this book. It'll make you want to get up and go do something outdoors. It'll make you realize we have fallen behind in 200 years. We are lazy, and we are missing the adventures of our world.



2. David Thompson first crossed the Continental Divide in 1807 and devoted the next five years to the fur trade and exploration in the Columbia River drainage. He was the first person of European descent to explore the entire length of the Columbia River. His journals and maps laid the foundation for European resource exploitation and subsequent settlement of Washington State, western Montana, and southeastern British Columbia. In fact, all exploration in the Columbia River drainage was largely British rather than American during the first half of the nineteenth century. Writings and symposia on David Thompson are predictably increasing in both Canada and the United States as we enter the bicentennial period of that exploration.
   
   Parts of David Thompson's long life are enigmatic and seemingly contradictory. "Epic Wanderer" is a journalistic account of the known facts. It is not as insightful as "Sources of the River," the book that has emerged as the definitive account of Thompson's northwest explorations. However, "Epic Wanderer" does provide a more complete account of David Thompson's life after he left the active fur trade and settled in the vicinity of Montreal. Since Thompson died in 1857, this eastern experience represents more than half his life. During that time, Thompson experienced considerable success in several endeavors, but a financial collapse left him and his wife to die in poverty.
   
   David Thompson was a skilled surveyor. His maps were more accurate than those of his contemporaries. Overlooked by those who focus on his contributions to western expansion is the fact that before and after his time in the Northwest, he made important surveys on the eastern border between British Canada and the United States. The first period was as an employee of the North West Fur Company. The second was an official survey conducted jointly by the two countries.
   
   Because David Thompson was a contemporary of Lewis and Clark, today's writers often compare them. This is only partially valid. The latter was a military expedition of exploration that spent only a few months west of the Continental Divide. David Thompson was a fur trader working for a commercial company and spent five years criss-crossing the area. He had the desire and talent to explore, but trading had to come first. As he advanced his trading territory, his journals recorded an expanding knowledge of the territory and its inhabitants, plants, and animals. Thompson's maps are much more accurate than those developed by Lewis and Clark, partially because he had more time to refine them.
   
   As intriguing as Thompson himself, is the fur trade itself and the native peoples involved. Thompson was very dependent on the local natives who guided him, aided him in establishing trading posts, and helped him expand his trade. Charlotte Small, Thompson's wife for 57 years, was half Cree. Together they bridged a period of European-Indigenous relationship that is the subject of intensive research today.



3. D'Arcy Jenish's "Epic Wanderer" is a life of David Thompson, a British fur trader who spent nearly three decades exploring and mapping the Canadian West from Hudson's Bay to the Pacific Coast.
   
   Thompson was apprenticed to the Hudson's Bay Company out of a boy's school in London in 1784, at the tender age of 14. He grew up in various trading posts around Hudson's Bay, followed the fur trade across the Canadian Prairies, helped open up routes across the Canadian Rockies, and was the first European to explore the entire length of the Columbia River from its source to the Pacific Ocean. More importantly for the history books, Thompson had a gift for astronomy and surveying that he used to provide accurate mapping data for huge swaths of North America.
   
   The heart of this book is the narrative of Thompson's travels across the interior of the continent, on trips that often took years to complete, accompanied by fur company employees, French voyageurs, and Indian guides. Jenish does a good job of providing the context for Thompson's travels: the competition between rival trading companies for access to new sources of fur; the rising tensions between the young United States and British Canada over the North American continent, and the inevitable frictions between European intruders and Native American tribes.
   
   The last third of the book is Thompson's return to civilization in Eastern Canada after 1812 and a slow spiral into poverty for a man never quite able to adjust to life away from the wilderness. Thompson today is remembered primarily as a footnote in Canadian history. Jenish's history goes far to rectify Thompson's undeserved obscurity.
   
   Jenish wrote primarily from Thompson's journals and other contemporary sources; it is sometimes difficult to tell from the narrative where Thompson leaves off and Jenish has filled in the story with supposition. Examples of Thompson's maps are provided in the text; what is lacking is a modern map, and one big enough to read, so that the reader may follow Thompson's travels.
   
   This book is recommended to those interested in an early and largely forgotten explorer of the interior of the North American continent, crossing a landscape now almost unimaginable outside of a few major Canadian parks.



4. Excellent work and very comprehensive. The one gripe I have is that a book about exploration should have maps to show the reader the places discussed. The book shows the (historic) map drawn by Thompson but the print is so small as to make it nearly unreadable. Aside from that, this is THE book to own if you have any interest in learning about David Thompson. A detailed Canadian map (naming lakes and rivers) would make an excellent additional purchase to fully enjoy Epic Wanderer.

No comments about Madness, Betrayal and the Lash: The Epic Voyage of Captain George Vancouver.

5 comments about Running in the Family.

1. Ondaatje seems to be trying too hard. The language is overly flowery and the plot is often lost beneath the mound of words. It does have a few good moments, some funny, some touching. But in general, I spent most of this book irritated by the grandois manner of the author, as if by writing in a vague and pretty-fied manner, his words will sound important and deep.
   Maybe it's just me, but I find that vague does NOT equal meaningful.



2. I read this book for a Canadian fiction class and really liked it. The language was so interesting and different from anything I had read before. It is a wonderful story about a wacky family. There are good times, bad times, funny stories, tragic stories, and just plain wacky events. It really makes you want to take a look into your own family and find out all of the "juicy" details. I really liked the book and I would recommend it to anyone looking for an interesting story.



3. fans of michael ondaatje's poetry will no doubt like this book; however, do to the hit and miss nature of each chapter, i doubt that this book would win him many new fans. an impressionistic collage of place & family members, this book is closer to the ethic of poetry, forsaking narrative structure for short pieces that jump here and there to paint a family in an exotic place and time. plenty of good prose, but lots of the pieces are too random and are just not interesting. worthwhile, but not highly recommended.



4. Considering that this is in fact an autobiograpy, one can not judge it's contents. After all, you can not judge ones life, either you like it or not in a sense of discussing literature. But, what you can discuss is the manner in which that biography is written. Ondaatje present's life of his family trough generations who lived on Ceilon (Shri Lanka), in a series of random images, which are more like picture, than prose. Many times he stops to grasp certain individual and present his little history, his life, which than influenced the rest of the family in some perverse way. When reading this book, experienced reader will find such compositions that corresponds in that what crtics call 'modern', others will find interesting and compelling story, which never grows in boredom, with fluent narrative style that keeps ones eyes fixed on pages long after the lights went out.
   Comparing the Ondaatje with other authors of the modern world,
   Ondaatje lacks the one thing that he "must" have when presenting himself in a way he does. By focusing himself merely on a problems of his own, of a personal character in every (which, of course, includes this one)book, he voluntarily forgets that there is other life, other world going around him. When tending to write intelectual prose, one should, at least in one way, give some focus on that matter too.
   But, when all this comes to conclusion, if you like (auto)biograhies - buy this one, if you don't, skip it. It's simple as that...



5. This book was just so enjoyable and hilarious but yet so beautifully written. From the beginning till the end Ondaatje opens up to the reader (in a journal entry) this magical and beautiful world. Onddatje's adroitness to include the reader right there in the conversations he has with various family member will bring you to tears. His captivating sytle takes the reader back in time with him trhough such tear jerking and amusing experiences.

   This memoir will give you a deatiled verbalization of each city and place in Ceylon, so that the reader has a clear picture of what it was like to actually be there. His simple structure of setting things up, will make you feel the temperature and jungle like atmosphere by his entailed descriptions.

   Ondaatje reminds me of Stein in certain passages because of how he holds nothing back from the reader. It's as though he's sitting down and talking to you while showing photographs and stories of his exuberant and loud family.

5 comments about A Brief History of Anxiety (Yours and Mine).

1. I really liked that this book covered many aspects of anxiety, and I know that "History" was in the title, but I was hoping that the author would go a little into how she deals with her own anxiety. I guess I should have read the reviews better and got a better understanding of what the book was exactly about before I purchased it.



2. The book started out with a bang, grabbed my attention, thought we were "kindred spirits". Then it fizzled. She suggests many things about our culture/society, why we are so anxious and what can help anxiety (meaning, community) but never comes right out and says what she thinks (except about medication). I liked hearing about her personal struggles with anxiety, and I found the first two chapters the best. I think she lost track of her purpose in writing the book at different times and I lost interest. Her negative views on medication are justified AND medication has also helped many people with mental illness.



3. About: Pearson describes her struggle with bouts of anxiety and its treatment as well as provides a history of anxiety (and its treatments).
   
   Pros: Short, not poorly written. Sources cited
   
   Cons: Nothing Earth-shattering. Pearson provides some poor examples; i.e. Melinda Doolittle from American Idol when discussing personality, and who's going to remember her in a few years' time? Leading me to think this book will not survive the test of the ages. Discusses a poem by Auden and doesn't share the text. While sources are cited, they are solely in the back matter in a "sentence...source" format, where citation-sequence (superscript numbers) would have been easier to look up what sources she cites and where.



4. According to the 2002 World Mental Health Survey conducted in 18 countries, anxiety has emerged as the most prevalent mental health problem across the globe. The U.S. has the highest levels of anxiety, Shanghai one of the lowest.
   
   Pearson sheds no useful light on why the disparity, or means of ameliorating the sometimes paralyzing condition - I know from experience. Instead she rambles through her life like some addled old lady.
   
   Pearson's anxiety has not been cured by medicine. Therefore, I suggest strenuous exercise, filling her daily life with challenging and exciting activities, and ceasing her wasteful introspection.



5. This brief memoir of Ms. Pearson is the way that she struggles to understand the disease that cripples her at times. Anxiety is the fear of a certain danger (which is often unrealistic), accompanied by a sense of dread. In the opening chapter, the author describes her fear of a pandemic flu outbreak in end-of-the-world terms as she stockpiles food and water. She name-drops famous persons who have struggled with anxiety through the ages to normalize the illness. Ms. Pearson writes in a humorous, conversational tone. For those wishing a primer on the disease, there is no better book.

1 comments about The Hanging of Angélique: The Untold Story of Canadian Slavery and the Burning of Old Montréal (Race in the Atlantic World, 1700-1900) (Race in the ... (Race in the Atlantic World, 1700-1900).

1. A case had been built against Marie-Joseph Angelique based on innuendo, insinuation, hearsay and Angelique's bad reputation.Under severe torture, the 29-year-old woman, who previously proclaimed her innocence admitted to setting fire to the home of her owner. This fire consumed 46 buildings in Old Montreal. After the grisly execution Angelique's corpse was left hanging for two hours for all to see, then was burnt. That should have been the end of Angelique but 270 years later she has arisen. Thanks to Afua Cooper.
   In fact through her thorough research Ms Cooper delves into much of the historical occurences of the time. She puts to rest that myth that there was no slavery in Canada. She opens wide the doors of an unjust justice system.
   This is not just Black history but Canadian - even world history. It should be required reading for all students of history.

1 comments about A Dog Came, Too: A True Story.

1. "Long, long ago, two native guides, an explorer, and seven voyageurs set off to find a rout across Canada to the Pacific Ocean. A big brown dog traveled with them."

   Thus begins a children's picture book about Alexander Mackenzie's expedition to the Pacific Ocean in 1793, as seen through the eyes of their faithful, though nameless, working dog. The story is simple, moving, and true: Mackenzie and his voyageurs were accompanied by a dog, who proved to be extremely useful, and had several adventures. The dog got lost along the journey, and was sadly missed. I'm not a dog person, but I was still touched by the simple storyline. It matches my rough recollection of the history, from Mackenzie's journals.

   The watercolor illustrations are nice, and score big on accuracy; these voyageurs wear cloth shirts and trousers, not buckskins and roadkill hats, and are clearly influenced by Peter Rindisbacher's paintings from Red River in the 1820's. When they carry their pieces over a portage, they are shown correctly using tumplines rather than packframes. Mackenzie and his clerk are both dressed as befits their station, in 1790's style. (The Natives are in cookie-cutter buckskins, though.)

   The illustrations advance the story just as much as the text. I loved the illustration of Mackenzie and his men searching for their dog at Friendly Village. I also enjoyed the picture of unfriendly Natives checking out Mackenzie's spyglass and sextant as the voyageurs prepare to beat a hasty retreat; meanwhile, the explorer is busily painting his name on a rock on the Pacific shore.

   This is a great book for gently introducing kids aged 4-7 to fur trade history. It's primarily a dog story, not a history book; Mackenzie isn't named until the final page.