Everybody Was So Young: Gerald and Sara Murphy: A Lost Generation Love Story Review

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(More customer reviews)If anyone could be said to have lived a charmed life, it would be Gerald and Sara Murphy. They were wealthy, artistic and talented, with three beautiful, loving children and a circle of friends who became famous and accomplished in their own right. They gave wonderful parties that are still remembered a half-century later, were generous to those in need, and best of all, Gerald and Sara loved each other deeply, with an affection that grew as they lived their lives to the inevitable, bitter end.

Anyone who has read into the lives of Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Picasso and the other expatirot residents of Paris in the 1920s will recognize Gerald and Sara, perhaps unfavorably as hanger-ons who supplied the money the others lived on. That unfair assessment is turned on its head in Amanda Vaill's dual biography of the couple.
The Murphys were more than a bank account who gave parties; celebrity bottom feeders more interested in status than in accomplishments. They were something of an oddity. Both were from wealthy families, yet both wanted more than the family life they craved. Gerald had an eye for art, music and decorating; it was amazing to learn he was first to boost many artists who later became famous; "Grandchildren," he said as he showed them a copy of "Meet the Beatles." "Pay attention. These young men are going to be very, very important."
From their village in the Antibes, which was a backwater when they discovered it, they befriended people like Hemingway and Fitzgerald, John Dos Passos, Archibald Macleish, Lillian Hellman and Dashiell Hammett as well, while Gerald became famous in his own right for his finely detailed studies of mechanical devices: a watch, a machine, of a boat deck and smokestacks.
But if there's anything experience teaches us, it's that no one really leads a charmed life. It's all filled with day-to-day worries, irritations, tragedies and, with luck, some glory. But Gerald and Sara came close -- the 20s were their time -- and it's a fine thing to finish a biography of someone and find that you like them even more than before.

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The Last Time I Wore A Dress Review

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(More customer reviews)Daphne Scholinski wore the label of "inappropriate female" for much of her life. As a tomboy youth, she was often mistaken for male. On one grocery trip, a clerk caught the "boy" for using the women's restroom. When the clerk confronted Daphne's father, instead of correcting the clerk, her weary father slapped her hand: "Bad boy. I told you to stop doing that."
In 1981, at odds with her raging father and abandoned by her free-thinking mother, 15-year-old Daphne was committed to a psychiatric hospital, at which a treatment plan was designed to help her identify as a "sexual female." Over one million dollars (you read that right) of insurance money was spent on three years of make-up lessons, encouragement of flirtation with males, and points for hugging male staff members. Daphne was indirectly blamed for all her family's troubles and told that her depression and confusion were symptoms of her improper gender identification. Desperate for a mothering relationship, she latched onto nurses, begging to be adopted by the most compassionate one, and attempting suicide when her efforts were rebuffed.
In a series of institutions, Daphne busied herself working the system to earn more privileges. To entertain themselves, she and other patients competed to shock the staff and get unusual diagnoses added to their charts. Their every movement was already analyzed and reduced into psychobabble, so why not? Daphne often embellished alcohol and drug abuse to make her case more interesting, but she realized she was out her league when she was transferred to rehab. All the while, a host of therapists and staff failed to identify sexual assault in Daphne's life, both before and *after* entering treatment. At age 18, when Daphne's father's insurance money ran out, she was discharged as no more "appropriate" a female than when she entered, but without a traditional high school experience or preparation for the world, and a few more years of victimhood under her belt.
Daphne Scholinski survived institutionalization with her intelligence, sense of humor, and sassy rebellious spirit. Every time she was transferred, she felt hope few her new situation. She writes that she knows she was lucky to be middle-class and be offered treatment, instead of being kicked onto the streets. As an adult, Daphne channeled her traumatic past into an artistic career, and now lives as Dylan Scholinski in the San Francisco area (Dylan's identification as male occurred after the 1997 publication of this memoir). I only discovered Scholinski's gender identity when I started composing my review, and in many ways, Daphne's "actual" gender identity is irrelevant to this story of the failure of the mental health system to help a depressed youth and her family.

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At 15, Daphne Scholinski was committed to a mental institution and awarded the dubious diagnosis of "Gender Identity Disorder". "The voice of Daphne's teenage self--bewildered, frank, aching, and defiant--is so vivid it's like hearing a confidence whispered across a dormitory room deep in the night".--"Harper's Bazaar".

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Running the Books: The Adventures of an Accidental Prison Librarian Review

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(More customer reviews)This was not the book I expected.
I'm not totally sure what I expected, but I think it was something funny: something about a librarian hanging out with pimps and drug dealers, scattering literature across the infertile soil of a prison's worth of undereducated, life-hardened, embittered minds. I was looking for some uplift, here, something about how books can save even the toughest cases.
What I got instead was reality. Avi Steinberg, who falls into prison librarianhood mainly because he is avoiding the expectations of his strict Orthodox Jewish upbringing (Doctor or lawyer or rabbi, oh my!) but not making enough money as a freelance obituary writer (Another career I never really thought existed, though of course it does), does indeed hang out with pimps and drug dealers, but it isn't really funny. These are not the cartoonish pimps that floated through my mind, a cornucopia of platform shoes and ostrich feather hats and 70's jive lingo; these are actual hustlers, men who make their living off of the exploitation of women, men who are cold and calculating and violent no matter how charming they appear. And because they are human beings, they are also emotionally stunted victims themselves, sufferers of abuse and neglect and generational poverty; their less savory characteristics are simply their best defense against the world that surrounds them.
Although there is very little about the saving grace of literature and words and books, Steinberg does paint a vivid and touching portrait of the criminals he dealt with every day for the years he worked in Boston's South Bay prison, as well as a harsh and unflinching one. These people are complex, despite society's desire to affix simplistic labels and shove them into an appropriate drawer labeled "criminal" or "convict" or "scum." Some of them -- many of them -- are cruel and violent and dangerous, as evidenced by the encounters Steinberg has with them on the outside, once they have been released; two that he recounts in the book are a mugging, and a depressing encounter with a pimp and a hooker, both of whom he knew from the prison; Steinberg plays up to the pimp's ego before he realizes that by doing so he is encouraging the violent exploitation of the drug-addicted woman whom he knew and had friendly feelings towards. But there is also incredible sadness in these devastated lives; though there are no instances of the kind of violence usually depicted in Hollywood movies about prison life (another shallow prejudice broken by this book), there is certainly violence and turmoil, and many of the people Steinberg meets are dead before the book's last page.
What was most clear from reading this book is that Steinberg is an outstanding memoirist; he gives some wonderful background, on himself, his acquaintances within the prison, and prison itself, both the system and the specific institution he worked in. He has remarkable insight, leading me to pause frequently to consider a particular passage or idea; one of the most telling for me was the simple observation that American prison spending has multiplied even while spending on education, and on libraries, has fallen to almost nothing -- a trend that continues and accelerates in today's economy. And he is a great storyteller, able to bring the people and places to life. This was a great book, one that I think anyone would enjoy who had an interest in books or prison -- and I would wager that pretty much everyone has an interest in one or the other, if not both.
A small personal note: as a sometimes reluctant high school teacher, it was fascinating to me personally to read about Steinberg's experiences trying to teach a creative writing course as part of his librarian's duties, because the things he struggled with, and the mistakes that he made and the successes that he had, are very similar to my own experience. Not that I would compare high school students to criminals . . . but the reverse is actually a reasonable comparison; these criminals are in many ways like high school students, and it was very interesting to see.


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Twelve by Twelve: A One-Room Cabin Off the Grid and Beyond the American Dream Review

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William Powers' memoir "Twelve by Twelve: A One-room Cabin Off the American Grid and Beyond the American Dream" is an intimate account of his journey to find answers to the questions: "Why would a successful physician choose to live in a twelve-foot-by-twelve-foot cabin without running water or electricity in rural North Carolina?"and "How can we learn to live in harmony with each other and nature?"
Dr. Jackie Benton (not her real name), a mother, peace activist and "wisdomkeeper" who mostly lives off the produce from her permaculture farm, struck Powers as someone who had achieved self-mastery in confusing times. To avoid war taxes (fifty cents out of every dollar goes to the Pentagon) she accepts only eleven thousand dollars instead of the three hundred thousand she could make as a senior physician.
Powers needing a way out of despair from a separation from his young daughter and a decade of challenging international aid work accepted Jackie's offer to stay in her cabin next to No Name Creek for a season while she traveled.
He said Jackie's 12 X 12 and her unique approach to living in todays world seemed full of clues toward living lightly and artfully. He hoped it would help him learn to think, feel and live another way.
Having worked in Africa and South America Powers asked Jackie how we can stop the northern economies pillage of the Global South's forests, mines and oceans. He later came to synthesize Jackie's vision as "see, be, do." Before acting on a problem we must "BE." Take time in solitude to reflect, meditate or pray. Only when we SEE with clarity can we act ("DO") fearlessly. Powers says this blending of inner peace with loving action is sometimes called God, intuition, the "still small voice," grace or presence. He knew Jackie was right, "The world's problems cannot be solved at the same level of consciousness at which they were created."
At first it was difficult for Powers to live without a shower and toilet in the 12 X 12. He said Jackie did not leave an "Idiot's Guide." However, as the weeks passed in the 12 X 12 he found a deeper appreciation for the preciousness of water and the natural world. He said, "Instead of listening with one ear, as I sometimes do when faced with deadlines, with multitasking, I used both ears. Real listening is prayer."
Jackie's instructions were to "simply sit" and "to not do, be." Her stack of hand written cards with sayings or questions like "The Strenuous Contours of Enough, Trade Knowledge for Bewilderment" and "Simplify"
brought him into mindfulness and deepened his daily life. She said earlier, "The joy of simplifying one's material life is you don't have to work long hours to buy and maintain a bunch of stuff."
Concerning anger Jackie advised, "When you become so enmeshed with the fullness of nature, of Life, that your ego dissolves, emotions like resentment, anger, and fear have no place to lodge...you still feel these emotions but more like a dull thud against the mind...When you see worthiness, praise it. And when you see unworthiness, trace it. Don't judge. Trace anything you don't like in someone else back to their unique history; then trace it back to yourself because anything you dislike in others is somewhere in you."
Jackie's "wildcrafter" life and her eclectic neighbors of organic farmers, biofuel brewers and eco-developers helped Powers synthesize the wisdom of indigenous people. Their idea is not to live better but to live well: friends, family, healthy body, fresh air and water, enough food and peace. To ask what is enough? To see how genuine well-being is not linked to material possessions and productivity.
Powers' chapter on "Noise and War" reminds us that humans have slaughtered one hundred million of our species in twentieth-century wars. Powers fears America with its massive military industrial complex with 721 official military bases in foreign countries, and over one thousand unofficially, has chosen empire over democracy.
Powers and Jackie's story show how we can reshape ourselves in the face of globalization. We can decide what get globalized: consumption or compassion, selfishness or solidarity, war or peace.
Their penetrating insights offer clues for a smaller footprint, the joy of ordinariness and a more meaningful life.

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Tiger, Tiger: A Memoir Review

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(More customer reviews)This is one of the most visceral and heartfelt books I have ever read. It is a brave and painful book, difficult to read but beautifully wrought. From the time she was eight years old, Maugaux Fragoso was sexually abused by a man named Peter who is 51 years old when he meets her. The abuse lasts for years and years. Peter grooms Margaux, enchanting her with his home that is filled with animals like hamsters, iguanas, a dog and rabbits. He plays with her as if he was a child. He charms her, acts like a father and pretends to give her unconditional love. However, all this time he is truly a predator, attempting to begin the sexual abuse that is initiated in earnest when Margaux is eight years old.
Margaux becomes completely dependent on Peter and believes that he is the only one in the world that loves her. At times, however, she acts out in ways that indicate she has been abused but the adults in her life do not take notice. She has fugue states, terrible anger issues, spends the nights with Peter. Margaux's mother is seriously mentally ill and encourages her relationship with Peter. Her father is physically and emotionally abusive to Margaux and to her mother. Her father, at one point, suspects that Margaux is being sexually abused, but shows no empathy. In fact, if she were to admit her abuse, he'd put her on the street. When Margaux is in high school, a social worker is called in because people in the neighborhood are suspicious of Margaux's relationship with Peter but she defends him. It is not that different from Stockholm Syndrome.
As a therapist, I understand the trauma that Margaux was experiencing and her need to believe that Peter was her love. "I was Peter's religion" she says. She would put on alter-personalities to please Peter and also to believe she had some control over him. One of these personalities is a "bad girl" named Nina. Nina acts rough and tough and streetwise with a foul mouth. She punishes Peter. At times their relationship becomes physical and Peter tries to choke Margaux, gives her a black eye and punches her in the face. "I like being Nina". "It seemed as though Peter's other self Mr. Nasty was dependent on Nina and that he needed her to survive. The favors she gave him made him feel guilty and caused him to owe favors in return. This all amounted to me being in charge" Margaux needed to feel some element of control because in reality she was under Peter's control entirely.
Peter tells her that "all men like young girls whether they admit it or not. Most guys are just dishonest about it". "If you were to openly admit, yes, I find young girls attractive, you'd be burned at the stake." Peter also tries to get Margaux to believe that she is his only 'love' but she finds out that, like other pedophiles, this is not the case. There have been others, he has been in jail, and is chock-filled with secrets that gradually come out. He brainwashes her over and over again with lies and twisted love.
Margaux begins to believe that only someone like Peter - old, without teeth, perverted - could love someone like her. She is an outcast at school and doesn't know how to interact with young people her age. All of her life is spent trying to please Peter. "What did kids my own age talk about? If they'd seen me with Peter, who would I say he was? My father? He was so old he could have been my grandfather."
I encourage anyone who is in the field of trauma or sexual abuse to read this book. If you or someone you know has been sexually abused, read this book. If you want to read a beautiful memoir written by a brave and courageous woman, read this book. It is without comparison in its forthrightness, pain and hope.

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The Killing Zone: My Life in the Vietnam War Review

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(More customer reviews)Although a combat veteran of Vietnam, I had (or thought I had) put the war behind me for the first dozen years back. Then I ran across Fred's book, saw that it dealt with D 1/14th and bought it. And read it. And read it again.
I humped with Delta on a few occasions in 1969-70 as a fill-in enlisted FO (Recon Sgt) and remember the stories from some of the short-timers about the mythical period of a year previous when the company left the roads and entered the jungle. Fred was part of that transition period.
When my wife first started asking me about Vietnam in the late-80's, I gave her "The Killing Zone" as a primer. I told her after she finished she would have a sufficient background to understand my story. The same situation occurred with my son in the early-90's when he was in college. I now pick up copies whenever I find them in the used bookstores to give to civilians who want to hear "war stories", with the proviso that they read the book first.
As I write this I realize that I am not a proper person to provide a review of this book, since it is like trying to judge a prequel to my own experience. So I will only say that it is a totally honest book. If you are a combat veteran, you will recognize it. If you are a civilian or a non-combat troop, you will come away with a greater appreciation of what the war was like at grunt-eye level.
Mike Medley

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'The best damned book from the point of view of the infantrymen who fought there."-Army Times
Among the best books ever written about men in combat, The Killing Zone tells the story of the platoon of Delta One-six, capturing what it meant to face lethal danger, to follow orders, and to search for the conviction and then the hope that this war was worth the sacrifice. The book includes a new chapter on what happened to the platoon members when they came home.

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When Broken Glass Floats: Growing Up Under the Khmer Rouge Review

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(More customer reviews)I read this book immediately after I finished "First They Killed My Father." Both are autobiographies by young women who were children at the time of the Khmer Rouge's rule of Cambodia. Rather than being redundant, I found that this book complemented the other.
Both girls were daughters of relatively privileged families who were part of the forced evacuation of Phnom Phen. The author of this one, Ms. Him, was a few years older, and this slight age difference provides some different perspective. In addition, Ms. Him's family evacuated in a different geographical direction, which also affected her family's displacement over those years. The author shows how, as a child, she demonstrated incredible determination and courage in the face of the most horrendous conditions imaginable -- she even escapes one work camp as she was near death from dysentary.
This book provides another necessary and compelling autobiography of a horrible time in history.

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The Reading Promise: My Father and the Books We Shared Review

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(More customer reviews)Alice Ozma's memoir, The Reading Promise, had my attention from just the brief snyopis I happened upon months ago. Alice's father, an elementary school librarian (which helps explain how the reading promise was even possible) and Alice decide to challenge themselves to read each night for 100 consecutive days. Once the hundred day challenge is complete, Alice and her dad decide to take it a step further and try to read for 1,000 nights without a break. And, upon completing that challenge, the two continue The Streak (as it is called) until Alice leaves for college nine years later.
While I wish that more of this book would have been about the books that were read, it is really more a memoir of Alice's childhood and a tribute to reading aloud and its importance. Alice's father, Jim Brozina, writes a forward for his daughter full bits I flagged to read and re-read later.
I do read to my daughters each night, yet I will admit that I have skipped some nights because it is too late when we get home from something, or someone is sick, or (and this I feel bad about) we have had some behavior issues and taking bedtime reading away really hits 'em where it hurts. I have also not practiced my reading ahead of time which makes me feel like a slacker compared to Brozina who read ahead each night before reading aloud to Alice.
While this book is a memoir, I would also consider it a tribute to Jim Brozina and his dedication to his daughter. Sadly, Brozina retired before he was ready when the schools he served chose to believe that reading aloud to children was unimportant and unnecesary. Instead of igniting a passion in children for reading, Brozina was supposed to teach computers, and as this book was published, Brozina is now looking to being elected to the school board. To carry on his love of reading aloud, Brozina now visits the elderly in nursing homes and reads aloud to his captive audience.
At book's end there is a list of many of the books that were read aloud during The Streak. Ozma admits not having kept records of what was being read, so it is possible that some titles were inadvertantly omitted. I enjoyed looking through the list and getting a few ideas for my own nightly read alouds. While I need to update my list, I did start a notebook for my girls chronicling the books we read aloud together. My mother, when I told her this, didn't understand the significance of this, yet perhaps someday this list will lead to a memoir about how reading aloud impacted our family.
I loved this book, and even more than that, I loved Jim Brozina, Alice's dad, for his love of reading and his ability to instill this same passion in his own child.


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The Good Daughter: A Memoir of My Mother's Hidden Life Review

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(More customer reviews)If you like true stories that read like fiction, memoirs that carry through generations, and an astonishing amount of family secrets and suspense unfolding against an incredible and often heartbreaking historical background, READ THIS BOOK! I literally could not put this memoir down...
While I really enjoyed Darznik's rich details about life in Iran throughout the 20th century, this is really a story about women-- in turbulent, dangerous times, in impossible situations, caught between traditions and modern expectations. It is also the complex and intimate story of an extended family and the relationships that stretch and strain between them over several decades.
I cannot recommend this book enough!

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Little Princes: One Man's Promise to Bring Home the Lost Children of Nepal Review

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(More customer reviews)Imagine the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Thousands of people displaced and in danger. Families separated and unsure where to go or what to do. A government in chaos, unable (at least initially) to be of any assistance. Then imagine that this chaos had lasted an ENTIRE decade. That some of these families were so poor and so desperate to keep their children safe, that they sold just about every possession they owned in order to PAY to try and keep their children from being conscripted into a rebel army that had formed in opposition to the government. Then imagine that, far from being the safe haven they had imagined, these families never heard from their beloved children again. As days turned into weeks, then into months that turned into years, they realized their children had just disappeared.
This is the situation in Nepal. From 1996-2006, Nepal suffered through a horrible civil war between the monarchy and Maoist rebels. The country was torn apart. Elementary-aged children were abducted by the rebels to serve in any capacity. And of course, as is so often the case, an even darker force came into play. Using fear as their weapon, child traffickers took thousands of children to "safety" - taking enormous sums of money and then turning around and either abandoning them hundreds of miles from home, or using them to make more money in donations that they pocketed while the children lived in squalor.
Little Princes is the story of one man who went to Nepal to volunteer for 3 months because he thought it would sound impressive. Conor Grennan decided he was going to take a year off and travel the world, using the volunteer time to make it sound better to his friends and family. However, he found that when when his 3 months as a volunteer were over, he left a large part of his heart behind. So he went back. And then he went back again, with a mission to help these "orphaned" children find their parents again.
I found Little Princes extremely well-written and incredibly heart-warming. Grennan was able to make Nepal come alive, and the children just leapt off the page and right into my heart. I giggled at their antics and I cried with their pain. I empathized with Farid and Conor as they struggled to help these children in a place where the government was often corrupt and where things run on "Nepal time" - so much slower than our own. And then, after I finished reading the book (within a day), I went to [...] to learn more.
I cannot recommend this book more highly. It's fun and heart-breaking, it's informative and it has a wonderful message to send. You CAN make a difference, one person at a time.

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The Devil in Pew Number Seven Review

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(More customer reviews)When my husband told me we would be receiving this book to review I was very excited and this book did not let me down. It had me from the very first page. In fact, I started it in the evening, read until 1:30 in the morning, got up at 6:30am to read some more and finished it by about 10am. It was that good.
Let me give you a little bit of info about the book and then I will tell you why you should definitely read it, too. This is the true story of Rebecca Nichols Alonzo and her family. She was born into a little community called Sellerstown. The book shares about about her parents' love story and travels as traveling preachers before she was born, but the main story mostly takes place at the Free Welcome Holiness Church in Sellerstown, North Carolina where her father took over as the pastor in 1969. A man that attended the church decided to make it his mission to terrorize the family until they left the church, as he had lost a lot of control over the congregation when Rebecca's dad came to town. He tried to accomplish this through numerous bombings of their house and church, threatening phone calls and mail, sniper fire and even trying to pay someone off to run the pastor down with a car. Throughout the entire story Rebecca's parents stand steadfast and instead of teaching their children to be fearful and hateful, they repeatedly encourage them to trust in the Lord and forgive their enemies.
I knew that I would like this book from the very beginning, but this book turned out to be so much more than I had even hoped it would be. This book truly addresses the issues that hold us back from forgiving, and the true toll that anger, bitterness, and lack of forgiveness can have on our own lives and walk with the Lord. This book made me step back and take a look at the condition of my relationships present and past. I realized that I am not as good at speaking "the language of heaven" as I thought I was. That is something that God is now working on in my heart because of Rebecca's courage to tell her story and share the wonderful lessons of forgiveness that her parents taught her and her brother. I am so thankful for this book. I plan on reading it again and again so that these lessons are never far from my mind. I am grateful that Rebecca had the courage to share her story and I hope that you will pick this book up and be blessed by it as well.

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2011 Retailers Choice Award winner!Rebecca never felt safe as a child. In 1969, her father, Robert Nichols, moved to Sellerstown, North Carolina, to serve as a pastor. There he found a small community eager to welcome him-with one exception. Glaring at him from pew number seven was a man obsessed with controlling the church. Determined to get rid of anyone who stood in his way, he unleashed a plan of terror that was more devastating and violent than the Nichols family could have ever imagined. Refusing to be driven away by acts of intimidation, Rebecca's father stood his ground until one night when an armed man walked into the family's kitchen . . . And Rebecca's life was shattered. If anyone had a reason to harbor hatred and seek personal revenge, it would be Rebecca. Yet The Devil in Pew Number Seven tells a different story. It is the amazing true saga of relentless persecution, one family's faith and courage in the face of it, and a daughter whose parents taught her the power of forgiveness.

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