5 comments about Self-Made Man: One Woman's Year Disguised as a Man.

1. I enjoyed this book as an adventure, wondering the whole time--will they buy it? Will she get away with it? And generally she does, though many think Nora's male double "Ned" is effiminate or gay.
   
   But this is not just some silly prank. The author gives the process a lot of thought, and she offers interesting reflections on the unique challenges of manhood. In spite of her own story as a lesbian who studied feminism in college, Ms. Vincent approaches manhood with an open and sympathetic mind.
   
   I found her insights as unique as her experiences.



2. Being especially interested in the study of masculinity, I was excited to read this book after hearing about Vincent's initial concept and consequent project. I held off buying the book for awhile, and only purchased it after it came out in paperback. After completing the book a few nights ago, I must say that I almost wish that I had forgotten to read it. In reading the book, I was expecting a courageous account of how difficult it was for a woman to navigate male culture in disguise, and further, how her ensuing journey would complicate simplistic understandings of gender roles in contemporary American society. Instead, I got gratuitous condescension heaped upon a wide variety of underdeveloped-male "characters" - the working-class man in particular, and the emotionally handicapped male in general. Vincent's work is by no means insightful, lacks any real tension, and was tedious to read. The only worthwhile part of the book was the author's discussion of her nervous break that resulted from her experiment. It was the only part of the book that seemed somewhat honest. Yet, while this final discussion elicited some emotional response from me, I could not help but feel a little manipulated - was this addendum a desperate move to add credibility to the banal observations that littered Vincent's work? I grant that Vincent's experiment was a courageous one, too bad the author could not break out of rigid stereotypes about both men and women to actually add something worthwhile to discussions of masculinity and gender in a world where such discussions are sorely needed.



3. While this book had some moments where it contributed something, it read much more like one long rant about how tough it is to be male, and how tough it was for the author to go undercover and attempt to be a male. Her skewered prospective of the absolutely miserable lives of her blue collar teammates (she all but encourages they to smoke and drink themselves into an early grave because they have such hopeless lives anyway) is just one example of her strangely slanted view of the world.



4. Good read, but the conclusions she reaches are a bit questionable. Largely, this is a good book if you want to know what it is like for a woman to pretend to be a man. It is not so good if you want insight on what it is like to actually be a man. Let's look at each of her experiences:
   
   1. Dating. She engages in primarly in either trying to pick up strangers or dating people she meets on Interent match sites. Naturally, she encounters much rejection with the former, and bad experiences with the latter. Well, what did she expect? It is always best to try to meet people in friendlier social settings and spend some time with them before asking them out. Naturally, this is not an option for Vincent, as her own social circles are closed to her as far as this experiment goes.
   
   2. Sales jobs. She tries out being a man in the workplace, but the problem is that she ends up working the worst type of job out there - the door to door salesman. The firms she applies reject no one, and everyone works strictly on commission, so her co-workers are not exactly the cream of the crop of society. Vincent complains about off-color and masogynistic behavior at work, and, again, what did she expect? These are very seedy environments.
   
   3. Monastery. Vincent joins an all-male community, and therein lies the problem. These people are not normal. The brothers actively shun females and choose to live a life of chastity and largely solitude (even pets are not allowed in the monastery). Naturally, these men will have issues.
   
   4. All-male retreat. A bunch of guys with daddy issues go to a retreat and try to get in touch with themselves and so forth. Again, this is not normal, and most men do not do this and have no need for this. So naturally, she is going to encounter guys with emotional problems.
   
   Here is a quote toward the end of the book. "Being a guy was. . . a series of unrealistic, limiting, infuriating and depressing expectations constantly coming over the wire, and you just a dummy trying to act on the instructions." Seriously, I do not know a single guy who thinks this. Now, naturally, for a woman pretending to be a man and not knowing how to act in certain situations, yes, this must be how it feels. But this is not what "being a guy" feels like to an actual guy.



5. Critics of this book argue that Ms. Vincent began at the outset of her cross-dressing, gender-bending adventure with a biased, anti-male outlook. This may well be true, as Ms. Vincent, if not biased against men, certainly battles with an almost omnipresent cloud of arrogance. However, it is foolish of the critics to expect an unbiased accounting of an event that in itself eliminates any possibility to be unbiased. This is not a distant observation of animal packs, but an author putting herself within the experiment and attempting to gain knowledge and insight into herself from her deceptions.
   
   On that subject, Ms. Vincent's year-and-a-half dressing and acting as a man seems to yield relatively few strong insights for outside readers. The analysis Vincent gives: That men act differently around men than women, that men are held to a different standard and that oftentimes this different standard damages men's images of themselves, that men are often not the single-minded, sex-driven animals some (like Ms. Vincent) believe them to be, fails to break much new ground. If anything, Vincent's triumph is illuminating these ideas with biographies and interactions with real people. One comes away from a first reading sympathetic towards the many men Vincent meets, condescends upon and redeems while incognito. The male supporting characters - not Vincent's fictional man - ultimately become the most intriguing and thought-provoking characters in Self Made Man, a fact that ultimately supports Vincent's argument that the "modern man" could use a good second analysis, for what first appears in Vincent's varied characters rarely holds true beneath the surface.

No comments about Yves Saint Laurent: Style.

2 comments about Personal Record: A Love Affair with Running.

1. It seems like a trend for writers to write their memoirs wrapped around running these days. This one is interesting in its own way like the one written by Haruki Murakami. But if you are looking to improve your running and all that, pick up the one by Katie McDonald Neitz.



2. ... A very good, often funny, fast-paced read. I picked this book up partially because of Rachel's work in Running Times. This book will not give you any insight on how to train better, eat better, or race better. However, all that said, it reads very quickly and gives the reader a lot of insight into many of Rachel's vast experiences. Rachel is very well respected in the running community and it's comforting to know that a lot of what goes thru her mind about running - and about life pass through my mind as well. It's nice knowing I'm not the only one out there he is a little freaky about lacing up the shoes! The book is only 165 pages and perfect for a flight if you want something light, yet somewhat introspectful, and of course entertaining! Lastly, one very interesting thing I took away from this book was about the thing that really gives her satisifaction at the end of the day. I won't tell you what it is, but it's really nice to know it gives here such honest joy!

5 comments about The Translator: A Tribesman's Memoir of Darfur.

1. This book is mesmerizing in it's simplicity. The story is told so matter of factly that it is chilling. I have read several books about Darfur, yet this one really made me understand the historical and geographical reasons for its brutal upside-down reality.



2. Normally "I couldn't put it down" is something I say about a novel. This true account of the author's life in the Sudan, Darfur, was spellbinding. I've been concerned about Darfur for such a long time - concerned and confused. I just didn't understand all the nuances. This personal account helped clear up a lot of that confusion as well as connect me with the real people and the heartbreaking realities. Please read this book!



3. I just finished Hari's book and must say that I believe it deserves no less than seven out of five stars! Although Hari is responsible for helping dozens of journalists write the articles they needed to get the story of Darfur to the world, I don't believe anyone can come close to Hari's first hand account. In Hari's book we learn of the culture and lifestyle of the Zaghawa (those natives of Darfur who are targeted by the government of Sudan)--a complex people with ancient traditions and a keen knowledge of survival. We learn of their rich family tradition, hospitality, generosity and wisdom. This introduction to the Zaghawa makes their situation real and urgent to the Western reader and is most important if one is to understand the consequence of the genocide. Hari is a master at subtle and poignant prose. He writes in a simple manner that is as keen to letting the reader in on the details that make the landscape of Darfur come alive as he is at keeping together the big picture. His humanity is magnetic and his recounting of violence and tragedy unforgettable. I would recommend this book as required reading for any political or history classroom. It is easily read and its message is profoundly communicated.



4. Daoud Hari's powerful, penetrating, concise eyewitness account brings the life-or-death struggles of his people into our minds and hearts.
   
   His descriptions of horror can make you weep or retch, yet the book is infused with humanity, dignity, and even humor--a testimony to the worst and best humankind has to offer. Daoud Hari has witnessed utmost cruelties and survived unspeakable crimes which struck down his family, his village, the region of Darfur, and which continue to corrupt and cripple the nation of Sudan, as its tribal citizens are wiped off the face of the earth or turned into unwelcome refugees.
   
   Overwhelmed by the senseless loss of his brother, the escape of his aged mother into the wilderness to hide, the dangerous roaming of his aged, noble father, the author sought to do something meaningful in the wake of madness that engulfed everyone and everything he knew. Armed with the ability to speak Zaghawa, Arabic, and English, and with intimate knowledge of Darfur's geography, Hari became useful to aid organizations and journalists. He became determined to help bring to the outside world the stories of those who died, who killed them, how, and why. The courage and humanity of journalists and other individuals who gathered eyewitness accounts of the genocide in Sudan comprise an essential part of his story. He also supplies significant insights into the historic and cultural contexts of the strife in his country.
   
   In a growing field of compelling books on the urgent, deplorable, confusing situation of war and genocide in Sudan, Daoud Hari's _The Translator: A Tribesman's Memoir of Darfur_ stands out in its ability to pervade the reader's conscience. Moving us beyond feeling outraged and overwhelmed by man's inhumanity to man, we develop a deep connection to the author and feel moved to do something to help.
   
   Related readings: _They Poured Fire on Us From the Sky: The True Story of Three Lost Boys from Sudan_ by Benson Deng, Alephonsion Deng, and Benjamin Ajak, with Judy A. Bernstein (PublicAffairs, a member of the Perseus Books Group 2005, 311 pp) _What is the What, The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng, A Novel_ by Dave Eggars, 2006 (Vintage 2007, 339 pp) _Emma's War, A True Story_ by Deborah Scroggins, 2002, (Vintage 392 pp)



5. Daoud Hari has written a painful, unglossed but also celebratory novel of the Darfur region of Western Sudan, and with his understated approach, genuine character, and very unexpected humor, reminds us that Darfur was a place well before it was a tragedy.
   
   This approach allows Hari to engage his readers on a personal level: he asks them to consider their response to losing their cities and their children; he reminds them of the simple connecting power of cellular telephones, and the vital necessity of friendship. Few individuals presented in Hari's narrative escape as caricatures of evil. Instead, their histories are contemplated, their motivations explored, and the Sudanese government's pitting tribe against tribe is revealed as a manipulative orchestration that will make a man a soldier one week and an enemy the next.
   
   But what makes The Translator most remarkable is that its author exists. Hari does not take credit for much, but his grace, his honesty, and his willingness to learn the individual stories in the murderous epidemic that dominates his land, demonstrates him to be of a completely singular character and a person whose love and friendship will, for some, hold back a end that we might wrongly feel to be inescapable and, for Sudan, inevitable.

5 comments about Forward From Here: Leaving Middle Age--and Other Unexpected Adventures.

1. I usually try to read at least one book per week and, also, listen
   to one book on tape or CD . . . it was difficult to find the time to
   do the listening while away, so this past week I instead managed
   to read a second book . . . its review follows:
   
   Turning sixty is something I can relate to, in that I'll be celebrating
   that birthday next June.
   
   Anne Morrow Lindbergh in FORWARD FROM HERE describes
   how she went through a similar experience . . . as she enters
   the period her mother once described as "the youth of old
   age," the author details the many unexpected surprises
   she has encountered.
   
   Her observations were amusing at times, yet also
   oh-so-insightful--such as this one:
   
   * As I grew older and older, I got more used to the idea that death
   would happen to everybody, including me, but that in my case it
   would not happen for a very very very very long time. By the time it
   happened, I hoped, I would be so old that it wouldn't bother me. This
   is not quite true yet, but again, I think I may be getting there. I hope it
   takes me a while longer. There's no need to rush.
   
   As I journey on, I carry my lost loved ones with me: my sister, my mother,
   and all the others. I have learned over the years that I can do this, that
   love continues beyond loss. It continues not abstractly but intimately,
   and it continues forever. My experience has also made me understand
   that loss is inevitable, and that loss, too, continues forever, right along
   with love.
   
   I also liked what the author had to say about pets of all kinds . . . she
   devotes two chapters to birds . . . however, it was this observation
   about her dog that especially caught my attention:
   
   * Many of our visitors, seeing that we had a dog, entered the house
   with loud voices and waving hands, making a noisy fuss over him. This
   kind of behavior just caused the poor dog to slink off into a corner
   and stay there until the visitors left. Helen Wolff came in without
   commotion and then sat quietly and drank her tea, like the well-behaved
   guest that she was. The dog came over to greet her, eventually, sniffing
   her hand and wagging his tail, probably grateful for her good manners. She
   told me once that she felt it was better to let animals or children come
   to her, if they wished to, rather than the other way around.
   
   The part of FORWARD FROM HERE that most caught my attention
   was Lindbergh's account of how she discovered thirty years after
   the death of her father (famed aviator Charles Lindbergh) that
   he had three secret families in Europe . . . upon this discovery,
   she then went to meet them--discovering that her new extended
   family was far more complicated than she had ever imagined.



2. This is one of the best books that I've ever read. I've ordered others for my friends.



3. FORWARD FROM HERE will delight you if:
   
   --you remember with great fondness the writings of Reeve's mother, Anne Morrow. Making allowances for the generational differences, their styles and subjects are similar: family, nature, the written word per se, etc.
   
   --you have read and enjoyed Reeve's other books. I found her UNDER A WING more tightly focused and thus, to me, more engaging; and NO MORE WORDS more frank and moving. But FORWARD FROM HERE has much of the charm of a lovely, simple dessert,what Anne Morrow Lindbergh called "something sweet at the end of the day." I was happy to have this book waiting at my bedside table for several nights, and only wished it a little longer.
   
   --you are actively engaged in "moving forward" from 60-plus. The book deals honestly but cheerfully with a generous handful of the standard challenges of ageing. We are also offered time-tested insights on matters such as parenting, reading, writing, and modern drugs(pro and con).
   
   --you want to know a bit about Reeve's reactions to her father Charles Lindbergh's three secret simultaneous mistresses and families. (The "Lone Eagle" indeed!) Of course this long-hidden aspect of Charles Lingbergh's otherwise much-celebrated life might well be the subject of a complete and probing book of its own, written not out of prurience but with the intent to better understand the puzzling psychological and emotional temperament involved. But Reeve Lindbergh will not, I think, be the one to write such a book.



4. What a pleasure to read! I am not quite finished with this Kindle book and the more I read it, the more I'm enjoying it. Lindbergh is a sensitive, thoughtful, writer and I can relate to her experiences on so many levels. I, too, am a woman of a certain age, a mother, grandmother, potential (me, not her) writer. Her perspective on life, the natural world, her family just drew me in and I found myself wishing she were my friend.
   
   Thank you, Reeve, for a lovely reading experience. I'm recommending this for all my friends and if they don't buy it, they're getting a copy for their birthdays or Christmas/Chanukah.



5. Forward from Here is Reeve Lindbergh's best book yet. Funny, tender, compassionate, profound, Lindbergh reveals herself to be an accomplished and graceful writer--something you might already suspect if you have read her earlier books, Under a Wing (about growing up Lindbergh, with two extraordinary parents, Charles Lindbergh and Anne Morrow Lindbergh) and No More Words (about her mother's decline and death). In this book, Lindbergh (an author of books for children) explores the happiness and hazards she encounters as she journeys from middle age into her sixties--the "youth of old age." "I might as well enjoy the view as I travel along from my birth to death, inhabiting this being I call myself," she writes. "I may be a passenger on the journey, or I may be the vehicle itself, but I'm definitely not the driver. I'm here, but I'm not in charge."
   
   Maybe, but she's not just along for the ride. In this collection of nineteen personal essays, she laughs at the pleasures of her rural Vermont life--the joys of reading, writing, raising lambs and boys and encountering turtles--and takes a sober look at the challenges of living in an aging body. The vanities of youth are gone (she quotes her beloved sister Anne, now dead of cancer: "After a certain age, there's only so good you can look.") and she is making "friends with reality." Not sure that she wants to wear purple, with a red hat that doesn't go, she looks back on a time when she wore lavender eyeshadow and white lipstick (do you remember doing that? I do) and laughs at herself. In fact, she knows that's the best thing to do: "laugh at myself when laughter is called for, weep when I need to, and feel all of it, every bit of it, as much as I can for as long as I can."
   
   As far as feeling all of it goes, the most remarkable essay is the "Brain Tumor Diary," an account of the months (July 2006 through May 2007) when Lindbergh was dealing with a brain tumor--benign, thankfully, but large, intrusive, undeniably there, and needing to come out. It was a difficult time for her and her family. The saving graces were her writing and her focus on daily life: "Dailiness outlasts despair," she says. "For a while the rhythms of daily life may seem to be submerged, even drowned in disaster, but that is never true." The "Brain Tumor Diary" is a report from the front lines of daily life, lived in the face of possible disaster.
   
   The Lindberghs are no strangers to life on the front lines and in the public eye. Reeve and her siblings have had to deal with as many as fifty men who have claimed to be the Lindbergh child kidnapped in 1932. But there is more, and in her final essay, she writes movingly about the way she felt when she learned that her father, the picture of rectitude, a "stern arbiter of moral and ethical conduct," had three secret European families and seven children. Indignation, anger, rage at her father's deception and hypocrisy, shame--it's all there. But in the end, there is compassion, and even humor:
   
   I certainly could have done with his [my father's] endless lectures on the Population Explosion...A man who fathered thirteen--I think, I still have to stop and count us!--children, haranguing one of his daughters about world population figures? Give me a break!
   
   And in the end, knowing her father to be at once "deeply intelligent and incredibly energetic," and "angry, restless, opinionated...obsessed with his own ideas and concerns," she has to admit that the multiple families made a certain kind of sense: "No one woman could possibly have lived with him all the time."
   
   "I'm hoping that as I get older I'll get braver," Lindbergh writes at the close of this splendid and moving book. I'm hoping that Lindbergh will take us with her as she bravely explores her future, forward from here, and that soon we'll be able to read the next chapter of her journey.
   
   by Susan Wittig Albert
   for Story Circle Book Reviews
   reviewing books by, for, and about women

No comments about The Longest Trip Home LP: A Memoir.

4 comments about The Elfish Gene: Dungeons, Dragons and Growing Up Strange.

1. Mark Barrowcliffe's "The Elfish Gene" (no connection to Richard Dawkins) is a story about obsession. Not just any obsession, but the kind of seductive inner-world obsessions that are common to men - a positive force for the species, but dangerous for those on the edge of the male personality curve tending towards Asperger's-like behavior or mental illness ala "Zen and the Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance."
   
   Growing up around the same time as Mark, I remember the delight of D&D from that era (although the author dwells overmuch on the original rules which were quickly forgotten once the 1st edition AD&D manuals came out) - and like Mark, I also remember how my hobby also dovetailed with fantasy in all its forms: Books (Tolkien & Moorcock), Music (well, maybe not Hawkwind, but certainly Rainbow and Rush) and Occultism (Aleister Crowley and H.P. Lovecraft being the most popular.)
   
   I guess what sets Mark's gaming story apart from everyone else's (besides the fact that it's set in Britain) is the extent to which he let his obsessions eclipse him, and the unusual amount of self-loathing that accompanies his retelling. Too much of anything is rarely good, but it's clear that once one gets past the general build-up and introductions that Mark's fantasy hobby life was a rich source of creative and social pleasure for him as an unremarkable kid growing up in working-class England. His self-loathing, however, is mainly in retrospect - taking the form of a man who feels a need to distance himself from his past in order to prove that he's a Well Adjusted Adult Now who can Look Back On His Past And Mock Himself For It.
   
   "The Elfish Gene" includes a fascinating character study of Mark's two best friends - Billy (the rationalist pedantic wit) and Andy (the socially domineering dungeonmaster) along with key issues of Great Concern to any young man growing up - betrayal, adolescence, girls, adulthood and the 800lb gorilla called Reality. Of important note is that Mark's Cure, which not all of his friends discover, is to find an outwardly-directed life as compelling as his inwardly-directed one beginning with the opposite sex. It is interesting to note that while Mark gradually slides towards normalcy once discovering this, his relationships with women seem rather shallow, not rising anywhere near the level of his fantasy life. This differs from his best friend Billy, whose own gaming obsessions indirectly lead to years of personal misfortune only to eventually become Born Again - giving the appearance of trading one obsession for another.



2. For the record, I have never played Dungeons and Dragons. What's more, I wouldn't have the slightest idea where to even start playing.
   
   Fortunately this didn't keep me from understanding the basics of what is going on in "The Elfish Gene: Dungeons, Dragons and Growing Up Strange," which is basically all about coming of age in 1970s England with the help of then-new-and-impressive Dungeons and Dragons. Mark Barrowcliffe gives the constant impression that he was intensely annoying and possibly insane, but it's a fun little read about the passionate obsessions of youth and the appeal of ubergeekery.
   
   In the summer of 1976, Barrowcliffe was aspiring to be cool and edgy, with a burgeoning interest in the opposite sex. Then he discovered wargaming in school.
   
   And by attempting to weave more fantastical stuff into his wargames, he inadvertently fell in with a new school club that was playing an utterly new kind of RPG -- Dungeons and Dragons. Soon Barrowcliffe was not only a gaming fanatic for anything fantastical, but was also enamored of "Lord of the Rings," Michael Moorcock, Led Zeppelin and anything else with a faraway fantastical edge. Suddenly everything else in life went to the wayside to make room for a strange world of dungeonmasters, elves, magic-users and primal bad guys.
   
   Unsurprisingly, that level of obsession tends to cause a bit of annoyance -- from family, friends, and members of the opposite sex (well, what do you expect when you greet a "slattern" with a cry of "What, fair maiden?"). And Barrowcliffe soon discovered the downsides of D&D as well as the upsides -- including oblivious parents, dabblings in chemical "magic" and an egomaniac dungeonmaster -- as he struggled through an adolescent's rapidly changing world. Hoo boy.
   
   "The Elfish Gene" is fundamentally a book about "growing up strange" -- it's definitely saturated in Ye Olde Role-Playing Games from beginning to end, and Barrowcliffe's obsessions are undeniable ("I'd already begun to suspect that the D&D system might not be the EXACT recreation of real life that I'd taken it to be"). But in many ways, it's the adolescent journey of a highly imaginative adolescent who's struggling to find his place in the world, and uses D&D (and many accompanying games) as the doorway to that.
   
   And Barrowcliffe is fearless in exposing all the dorky, dumb things he did as a teenager. It takes some real guts to show the world that you were once immature, irritating, enslaved by the concept of "cool" and tended to dress like a total dork. Fortunately he's able to strike a nice balance between self-deprecating mockery (both then and now) and rosy-hued nostalgia for the 1970s, his hometown and the feeling of being an overenthusiastic young boy ("I think the idea that women might fancy good-looking, well-adjusted men who are nice to them is too much for the average fantasy-head to bear").
   
   But despite his adrenaline-charged forays into strange worlds full of mystical beings (and apparently a lot of ethereal maidens), the real drama here is in the real world. Barrowcliffe roams through shops, makes (and loses) friends over his beloved D&D, and has it shape every single part of his persona. Most shockingly, he gets kicked out of his first group by the chilly, egomaniacal Porter, and though he finds a haven with older gamers there's still plenty of tension and conflict. Call it a cautionary tale for people who try to misuse their dungeonmaster power.
   
   But despite the clashes between gamers (usually because of Porter's inexplicably dislikes), Barrowcliffe crams the book with funny story after funny story. You can't make this stuff up -- chemical "fireballs" in a bathroom, RPGing with cosmetics, purple prose, teenage Nazis, and the distinct lack of breeks. And he has a knack for funny, wry prose in any situation ("I will make your flesh sing a song of ecstacy such as will echo through the caverns of your soul. Happily shalt thou spend thy sweet seed." "Right, cup of tea?").
   
   "The Elfish Gene: Dungeons, Dragons and Growing Up Strange" is an off-kilter, ubergeeky memoir of adolescence in the world of Dungeons and Dragons, and Mark Barrowcliffe knows how to keep it fun and interesting.



3. As a 30-something male who spent a good deal of my teen years playing wargames and role-playing games, I'm squarely within the target audience for this "growing up geeky" memoir by English novelist Barrowcliffe. However, much as I desperately wanted to revel in the trials and tribulations of his '70s Coventry youth, I just wasn't ever able to connect with them. It's kind of obvious to say, but when a memoir doesn't work for me, it's because I'm not really enjoying the company of the author.
   
   My problem lay in the combination of his obsession with D&D and his total social ineptitude. Don't get me wrong, I'm fully aware of the obsessions of youth and had my own ones, however that never really turned me into the complete idiot that is Barrowcliffe at ages 12-15. (To be fair, he repeatedly admits with hindsight that he was an exceedingly annoying and foolish kid -- but that doesn't make his antics any less cringeworthy.) Maybe the problem is that he only had one obsession, whereas all my gamer friends have multiple obsessions, ranging from sports to music to cars to politics to art, etc. By this standard we were more "well-rounded" than Barrowcliffe and his cohort, even though we were still generally social outcasts. The difference was that we generally didn't worry too much about it, and made plenty of good friends through other interests. So my experience with gaming kind of contradicts one of the book's main themes, which is that "normal" kids don't play RPGs and engage in imaginative play.
   
   It's also somewhat illuminating to me that he basically ditches D&D after reinventing himself as a heavy metal fan, and immerses himself in a different social space. None of the gamers I know ever really stopped gaming by choice. For us, there was never any problem gaming on Friday night, going to a punk show with a girl on Saturday, and playing football on Sunday. It wasn't until we reached our 30s and had more career and family commitments that we had to let go of RPGs, simply because it was impossible to schedule regular 8-hour gaming sessions.
   
   And for all his elaborations on how D&D dominated his life, Barrowcliffe rarely succeeds at explaining what makes it so compelling. Quite the opposite, his descriptions of gaming sessions sound utterly awful. Then again, I didn't start playing until I was in my late teens, and the overall tenor was a whole lot more mature than the chaotic, backstabbing sessions described in this book. Some of the gaming stuff he describes is amusing, but mostly it's just kind of sad. In the end, I guess the book is perfectly fine as a memoir, I just had a very hard time relating it to my own D&D experiences. Certainly there are some funny anecdotes, interesting stuff about the early days of RPGing, some quite good stuff about coming of age in England in the '70s, as well as a rather heartbreaking story of friendship lost. But mainly, the book just made me wish that one of my old gang of gamers could find the time to DM a cool mid-level campaign for us.



4. Barrowcliffe, Mark. "The Elfish Gene", Soho, 2008.
   
   Retrospective and Aware
   
   Amos Lassen
   
   Coming from Soho Books is Mark Barrowcliffe's, "The Elfish Gene" which takes a look at the adolescent male with his insensitivities, insecurities, and selfishness. Our male here is British and the book looks at those oddities of British life in the 1970's. Early male maturity is a series of wonders, sorrows and joys when boys become men physically and begin the road to adulthood. Many run from the reality and wretchedness of life and lose themselves in imaginary domains ("Dungeons and Dragons", for example. They, in this way, can achieve a sense of status and power.
   This is Barrowcliffe's memoir of recovery from an addiction to an imaginary world. It is at times funny and at times sad but it is always interesting. Gaming can become addictive as we all know and there is not a lot written about it. Barrowcliffe looks at gaming in a fresh and literate way and is style is both funny and light. As he describes the game of "Dungeons and Dragons" there is a great deal of excitement. As he rolls the dice not only the writer gets rush but the reader does as well. The humor is self-depreciating and his take on coming-of-age is wonderful.
   When e was twelve years old in 1976, Barrowcliffe had the chance to become "normal". He chose not to and while his peers rebelled, he was busy, along with twenty million other boys at that time, pretending to be a wizard, an evil priest or a warrior. He and his generation surrendered to the fad of role-playing and at that time they became outsiders. Today, these same boys are the leaders of the world but then they were geeks, Barrowcliffe gives us their story in a way that is both nostalgic and relevant.

5 comments about Looking For Trouble: Adventures in a Broken World.

1. A trip back in the pages of history and geography that is made relevent by todays front pages.



2. I love books like this: Accounts of travels by intrepid adventurers who take you far into diverse societies and let you experience the pleasures and dangers without having to put up with all the inconveniences. Peters has lived an interesting life and his career in the army truly was one of looking for trouble, which often resided next to adventure. Peters' candor is quite refreshing and one finds oneself wishing that everybody in national office should be required to read this book. He vividly shows how you can't understand third world societies without getting out into them. He slams the diplomats who stay hidden in their embassies or Foggy Bottom as well as some jerks at the Pentagon. The tales told in this book are made even more relevant by Peters' ability to write well. All in all, a very good book. A necessary book.



3. This is a great book by a tremendously talented writer. The geographic range of Peters' journeys is vast but his tone is engagingly familiar, like an old friend holding forth on the world as he met it, and as it met him. While his medium is language, Peters has the perspective of a visual artist, able to capture a single moment that distils the zenith and nadir of a country's history. He is equally capable of finding the humorous heart of any situation, no matter how unpromising a prospect that may seem. This book is brimming with great stories, poignant moments, and more passages than I can count that made me laugh to near tears. Humor leavens the keen eye Peters casts on a threatened and threatening world. its too often reckless governments and their hapless agents.
   
   I'd advise anyone considering the book not to be put off by a review or two here that perhaps imply it will appeal to only those of a distinctly conservative bend. The author's insights will surprise, delight, engage, and yes, sometimes provoke those of all political persuasions because Peters himself met the world head on, prepared to be surprised, delighted, engaged and provoked.



4. I always enjoy reading Ralph Peters' writing. He has such a fresh take on the subjects he writes about that it can be jarring. However, once you take the time to think about it you are better off having considered his thinking whether you end up agreeing with him or not. This book has the especially nice benefit of being funny as well as insightful, informative, and challenging. Peters can write in a delightfully entertaining fashion while writing about matters that are serious at their core. This is no mean feat. I mean, how can you not love a chapter on the War on Drugs called "Elvis, Buddha, and the Burrito of the Apocalypse"? When you read the chapter, it is even funnier.
   
   This book is a memoir of his travels around the world doing his work as an intelligence officer for the military and covers the years 1990 to 1996. The story is not told sequentially, but in a way that helps us understand our present situation in the world. We get a tour of parts of the old Soviet Union. Peters is wonderful in showing us how the cultures that the Soviets tried to suppress reasserted themselves after the USSR contracted into Russia. He is also free in his analysis about why America has so much wrong about this region (and other regions) of the world.
   
   We even get a tour around the world when he worked for McCaffrey in battling drugs. Peters is willing to name names and discuss how the organizations responsible for fighting the War on Drugs are more interested in protecting their bureaucratic empires than in coordinating their forces and fighting effectively. Of course, Peters has also said the same things about the Pentagon many times.
   
   This is an excellent read that will entertain you as well as give you insights into areas of the world I don't think you can get anywhere else and you also get fresh insights into America's politics.
   
   Recommended.
   
   Reviewed by Craig Matteson, Ann Arbor, MI



5. What a treat to have this insight - through the brilliant eyes of Ralph Peters - into a decade or more of change across a part of the world that was considered rough when the Polo brothers crossed it and has improved little since. As an intelligence officer dedicated to his own education, Peters, often accompanied by military colleagues, recounts his stories and observations during days spent crisscrossing the "broken world" of areas that would soon break away from the former Soviet Union, and of the rough border areas - places like Turkey, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the Balkans.
   
   This is a work unlike Peters' more recent books in that it focuses on his travels and adventures rather than on geopolitical forecasts and military analysis. In that aspect it quickly captures even the most casual reader and zips him though the pages with the pacing of an old-fashioned adventure yarn. However, those readers who have become spoiled by Peters' excellent writing will get their fill and more in this book. His lyricism, skill with metaphor both biting and poetic, scalpel-like analysis, and ability to turn an awful situation into side-splitting humor season every page.
   
   One of the most valuable aspects of Peters' book is the x-ray vision it provides into a decaying Soviet system that is now rising out if its coffin like Dracula. Following Peters into Georgia, for example, with the border hostility, internecine rivalries, and revanchist Russian spirit - visible even then - makes one realize that his observations are as pointed and relevant now as they were at the time.
   
   Looking for Trouble wanders around a part of the world that few know - none with Peters' perspicacity - and are rarely visited, yet that are burning fuses on today's powder-keg politics. Want to understand present day Georgia-Russia issues? Look here to find root causes. Same with Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia.
   
   The truths that Peters reveals are as appealing and valuable as is the beauty of his presentation. This is a must-read book for anyone who has a spirit of adventure, a sense of history, and a desire to learn about the issues that stampede across our headlines and threaten to overwhelm.
   
   Buy this book immediately. It is too good to wait! Then make sure you get a couple and send to your friends. You will be their new hero just as Ralph Peters will be yours.

5 comments about The Real James Herriot: A Memoir of My Father.

1. This book is a fun one to pick up on a rainy day or just to get a little uplift



2. I thought this was a well done biography. However, there is a bit of repeating of what was in Herriot's/Wright's books. All in all a good read.



3. The book arrived in a timely manner in excellent condition. I am enjoying reading about the life of this gifted, gentle and compassionate man and his family and the descriptions of the countryside and the people of Yorkshire/Glasgow and that area. A good read to help me appreciate and aim for a slower, gentler pace of life.



4. This is a good peek into the true life of James Herriot as written by his son. His son gives his own views and anecdotes of James Herriot. I have really enjoyed reading it and getting to know the author and his characters better.



5. How often do we find that the man behind the myth isn't all he's cracked up to be? Well, that most definitely is NOT the case in this loving biography of the world's best-known vet, James Herriot, by his son Jim Wight. (If you're wondering about the different last names, it's because James Herriot was actually a pseudonym for James Alfred Wight, known all his life as Alf.) This is a tribute to a cherished father and, as the author notes, best friend who always considered himself "99 parts vet and 1 part author," which must be why he remained the decent and down-to-earth individual he was, unspoiled by fame and fortune that would have turned the head of a lesser man. I was moved to find that the individual was as nice if not nicer than portrayed in his books and as appreciated by his friends and family as he was by his fans. Anyone who loved the other main characters in the series, namely Siegfried and Tristan, will also enjoy discovering more about them as well. This is a wonderful, heartwarming, well-written biography of a remarkable human being by one of those who knew him best.

5 comments about Coming of Age in Mississippi.

1. This book was chosen by my book club. It was a very slow read, and didn't flow well.



2. I found this book very honest & interesting. I gave it to a friend who said the same thing. I wish she had written more books.



3. Liquidate-4-me never shipped my book. it took over a month to get my refund..Lame



4. In several books I've read regarding Southern History and slavery, this story actually surpised me. Without giving much detail, she becomes famous overnight. Ironic, but to drive into Jackson, Ms. you would never guess just how dangerous a place with was, in fact, all along the Delta and Mississippi was dangerous. She's a born fighter. Good book, takes off towards the end.



5. A must read for anyone interested in first hand accounts of the Civil Rights movement in the United States.