Interviews Books

The priests who wrote their stories for this book are so real and inspiring that I wanted to be able to meet them all in person. I loved reading about how they overcame struggles in their vocations in order to find the true and deep Joy and Love that initially attracted them in their inmost hearts. This would be a great gift for any priest to have on his book shelf, or for anybody interested in understanding the personal side of the vocation to the priesthood.

At the time this book came out (1993), there really wasn't a lot of literature available about this important rite of passage for women. In spite of a wealth of books on sexual topics, there had been precious few written about the initiation into sexual activity and what it really meant to women. In the course of writing this book, Ms. Bouris sent out a thousand questionnaires and got back over 150, from women from all walks of life (though in spite of having tried to get a broad racial mix, only 9% of the respondents were African-American, 3% Asian, and 3% Hispanic, with the remaining 85% white). The women were of a wide variety of ages, professions, geographic locations, and religions, but the one thing they had in common was the experience of first sexual activity. The mean, median, and mode age was seventeen (the oldest was 26), and though a number of the women reported having their first and only experience with their husbands, only three were actually wedding-night virgins, in spite of the outright lie and historical revisionism some people bandy about, how almost all women allegedly saved themselves for marriage until the women's liberation movement started in the late Sixties. Also contrary to the fantasy depicted on tv, the movies, and in romance novels, most first times were not ideal, romantic, or earth-shattering.

The book is divided up into the categories "Wedding Nights--or Almost," "Pressure from All Directions," "A Conscious Choice," "Just Get It Over With," "Violation in All Its Forms," "Women Loving Women," and "The Romantic Minority." Many of the women who responded to the questionnaire were pressured into having sex, had insensitive partners, lost their virginity as a result of childhood sexual abuse or date-rape, didn't anticipate how their bodies and minds would respond even if they had planned their first encounter and had thought they were ready physically and emotionally, had sex just because they felt they were the last virgins left at their age or because they didn't want to have an awkward self-conscious painful clueless first time with someone they truly loved, wanting to get it over with with no one special, and had bad first times because they were too embarrassed or ignorant to communicate with their partners about their needs and wants. Very few had the ideal romantic first time, married or not, depicted in romance novels and the movies. You never find a movie or romance novel where the first time is painful, fumbled, awkward, regretted, or anything less than beautiful, perfect, and fireworks going off in the background. And yet for all of the sad stories about young women who had their first sexual experience before they were ready or had their right to decide when to become sexually active stolen from them by child molesters or rapists, there are also positive stories. We also have a great chapter on lesbian first times (including some women whose first times were with men but felt their more significant sexual awakening came from being with other women); it's high time society dropped the notion that one can only lose one's virginity as a result of heterosexual intercourse. I highly doubt that a woman who has been with another woman for 20 years and had several female lovers before that would still consider herself to be a virgin just because she'd never slept with a man.

The book concludes with a chapter on the term "losing your virginity." For awhile now I haven't really been fond of the term, but couldn't really pinpoint just why till reading this book. It's a feudal patriarchal anachronism, centered on women and the control of their sexuality. How often do people talk about men losing their virginity? It's a holdover from an era when women were property and it would be considered grounds for divorce or a lowered dowry if the bride were found to not be a virgin, and when people believed that the absense of blood automatically meant a woman was not a virgin. And many women don't feel they lost anything when they became sexually active; rather, they gained something powerful and special. The term also focuses on the physical event and not the emotional change that occurs, and reinforces the ridiculous double standard many people still have about women's sexuality, wherein women are expected to be virgins until marriage, not considered marriage material if they're not, yet men are expected to bring all of their prior sexual experience to the marriage and aren't considered real men if they haven't slept around. Who are they supposed to get all of this experience with if "good girls" aren't supposed to be having premarital sex?

The book concludes with a discussion on what we can learn from these shared stories, such as how to better teach the younger female generation more positive things about their own sexuality, how readers who may still be uninitiated can guarantee having the type of ideal first time that those in the "Romantic Minority" chapter did, the concept of fulfilling sex without heterosexual intercourse, and teaching both boys and girls about responsible consensual sex. This book is actually a very good tool for promoting waiting until one is ready (whether or not one is married when it happens), far more effective than any preachy moralising or inaccurate scare-tactics and lies used in the "abstinence-only" programs so in vogue now, programs which foster that same type of unhealthy and unrealistic either-or paradigm of sexuality that many of these young women had to deal with and ended up making unwise decisions because of it. It's a shame such an important book is out of print.

This book represents a twenty plus years journey of two meticulous social scientists through documents of marine anthropology, direct observations of coastal dwellers in the Caribbean and Eastern United States, the life histories of artisan fisherman and the history of Puerto Rico. The authors place the traditional, ancient occupation of fishing within the context of modern globalization to make clear how modern national and international economic trends affect individuals in terms of labor, community structure and family relations.

Griffith and Valdés Pizzini frame their field observations within an exhaustive review of marine and coastal research studies as well as allusions to the writings of Gabriel García Márquez and Octavio Paz. The use of this resource evokes in the reader emotions that favor identification with the book and with the subjects whose life histories are used to document the book.

The authors reflect a detailed knowledge of Puerto Rico’s coastal space, fisher family cycles, labor turnovers and fishing techniques which they use in a wider context to make comparisons with other Caribbean Islands and the U. S. Coastal environments. The field observations unmask the role of women in what they call “the entire social universe that is controlled and governed by women in fisher domestic circles.” The book presents the government efforts to organize fishers and describes the adjustments that they make according to their own circumstances and the external factors affecting them.

The dynamics of coastal affairs and the diversity of forces impinging upon fishing reveal throughout the book the multiple conflicts that exist in the sea fronts of Puerto Rico and most coastal areas of the world. Activities and social sectors that demand more space for development, recreation, business and international trade covet the finite nature of the coastal line.

Applied professionals and academicians should read this book. Managers of coastal affairs and policy makers could also acquire the needed perspective for understanding the economic interests and social trends affecting development of the coastal sector, its resources, communities and people. Academically speaking the book is a required reading in the areas of sociology, marine anthropology, labor relations and social change. No scholar interested in the Caribbean should miss reading this enlightening book.

Gleaned from more than 450 hours of live radio interviews, Fly Fishing Is Spoken Here is a handsome volume that belongs on the bookshelf of every literate fly fisher. Interviews with the likes of James Prosek, Ernest Schwiebert, Valerie Haig-Brown, Joseph Humphreys, Robert Linsenman, Fen Montaigne, and ten others provide a unique perspective not only on these individuals but on the sport they clearly love.

Credit editor Stephen Sloan, perhaps best thought of as the Larry King of the fishing world, for recognizing the unique vitality of the spoken word and capturing its essence in these interviews collected from his weekly nationally syndicated radio show, "The Fishing Zone." That this collection originated as dialogue, with all the spontaneity and flow of conversation intact and preserved, ensures that each of the interviews captured bears an immediacy and honesty seldom retained in conventional narrative about the sport. It's surely no accident that the effect of reading this book bears no small resemblance to the sport it explores: it's somewhat like immersing oneself in a trout stream, fly rod in hand, and enjoying the unpredictable process of discovering the treasures that lie within.

And credit publisher William Trego with creating yet another beautiful limited-edition volume from his Meadow Run Press. The heir apparent to the Derrydale Press of an earlier generation, no other publisher of sporting titles today produces books of such consistently high quality and beauty, and this volume certainly adds to that well-deserved reputation. Slipcased and with original paintings and drawings by the subject of the book's opening interview, James Prosek-a young artist hailed by The New York Times as "a fair bid to become the Audubon of the fishing world"-this is a book with, believe it or not, heft and beauty significant enough to outweigh and obscure its hundred-dollar price tag. Each of the 750 copies is signed by Sloan and Prosek, ensuring that this book is certain to remain in high demand.

I have used this book in the development of focus group research projects. It is a well organized and clearly written guide to focus group research. I recommend it highly!

I've carried this book around with me for the past six months re-reading some chapters more than a few times and I think I can honestly say Follow For Now is just brilliant. That seems to me the only way to describe it. Brilliant interviews of brilliant people served up in a brilliant package.

First off it's a book jam packed with so much cutting edge thought you may feel like an alien extracted your brain and replaced it with a biologically engineered multi-core processor. It can also be compared to a bar in a subbasement at MIT and shooting the bull with a collection of professors, computer geeks, multimedia gurus and severely gifted students.

The problem is the aliens may never land and I don't think there's a bar below MIT filled with Road Scholars. But we do have Follow For Now and it's Roy Christopher's brain child.

These interviews were originally online at frontwheeldrive.com. Roy Christopher started an amazing website and decided to put it in book form. It's like a syringe filled with knowledge injected directly into your spinal column. Science, technology, media, music, culture, literature--kind of candy bowl filled with a cornucopia of information and everything you never thought to ask.

They say in philosophy it's not the answers but the questions that mean the most. Roy Christopher asks those questions and does all the work for you. Your job is to let it all seep in and try not to lose your mind while you enjoy the spectacular view.

This is a superb book which successfully discusses the trials and tribulations as well as the rewards of women having both a successful career and a family.

For those who are new to Derrida and those who read his works, I strongly recommend this book.

I have read over a dozen works by Derrida, about the same number of journal articles and was even fortunate enough to attend his lectures in Paris. Despite this, I find his work still demands the highest level of concentration and diligence, much like the writers and thinkers he reads in turn including Heidegger, Celan, Levinas and Marx.

His work can appear confusing, paradoxical, esoteric and strange. That's why this book is so highly recommended for the beginner. Here, Derrida is required to address questions and issues off the cuff in a discursive, conversational style. These are based upon transcribed conversations with the highly respected French psychoanlyst Elizabeth Roudinesco. Although Derrida's tools of esotericism are still at work, the awesome power of his intelligence and the touchstones of his ideas shines through clearly.

Roudinesco is no slouch here either and what I enjoyed so much here is how she manages to stretch Derrida, leading him into cunning dead-ends (mutually agreed ones of course) and even identifying (to my mind at least) several weaknesses in Derrida's strategies, especially in the area of political engagement and intervention.

And what topics they picked to discuss. They cover issues such as anti-semitism, the "death" and mourning of marxism in Europe, reproductive technology and same-sex couples, animal "rights", along the way cautioning against the politics and abuse of "political correctness" and politics itself.

The ideas portrayed are revolutionary in the best sense of the word, thoughtful and thought-provoking. Notes are provided for each dialogue, pointing the reader to background information to the references made by both, including page references to Derrida's and Roudinesco's work that provide an expanded discussion of the topic.

Each page excited me with the possibilities opened up in thinking. For this alone, the sheer pleasure of reading two great thinkers at work, it receives my highest recommendation.

This strong precise outlook reflects different aspects of different sides of the business spectrum. It's a truly positive look at successful businesses and the great minds behind them. Grove, Smith, Lynch, Rowland, & Volcker all share insights & directions in a volatile era. With Gretchen Morgenson, Senior Editor at Forbes magazine, letting these truly gifted individuals openly express ideas, predictions and success fortitudes. Forbes Great Minds made a lasting impression on me. It was great to listens to these fascinating people in an informal interview. To pick up one new idea and one new lesson is worth the time spent, but too generate the detailed information they provided is extraordinary.

Perhaps you saw one or more of the programs in the PBS series. If so, then you will especially want to have a copy of the interviews on which that excellent series was based. If you saw none of the programs, here is the "companion" to them. The executives interviewed:

Andrew Grove (Chairman and CEO, Intel Corporation)

Fred Smith (Founder and CEO, Federal Express Corporation)

Peter Lynch (Former Manager, Fidelity Magellan Fund)

Pleasant Rowland (Founder and President, Pleasant Company)

Paul Volcker (Former Chairman of the Federal Reserve System)

Gretchen Morgenson has done a skillful job of assembling and editing the material produced by the five interviews. What I am especially pleased about is that the tone of each is informal but the responses to questions are crisp and insightful. The questions asked are probably the same ones you would ask if you could sit down with each of the five, one-on-one. For example, here is a brief excerpt from the Smith interview:

Q: Can that view or perspective [ie one which differs from traditional wisdom] be learned or can it be taught? Or is this something you think you are born with?

A: I think there's a lot of luck and I think it's probably intuitive that's mostly there to begin with. I do think that you can teach people to think in those [non-traditional] channels, however. One of my favorite terms is "Kaleidoscope Thinking," which I believe was coined by the former editor of the Harvard Business Review, Rosabeth Moss Kanter, and what she was trying to get across with that phrase is of you have a business problem and you turn the kaleidoscope a it over, then sometimes perhaps you'll see it in a slightly different form than you had seen it traditionally....That I think you can learn. And whether you're interested in doing it, that's something else.

"Kaleidoscope Thinking" helped Fred Smith to conceive of what eventually became Federal Express. The same thinking process also helped him and his associates to make that concept a reality.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants the next best thing to having a one-on-one conversation with each of five of the greatest business thinkers in the late-20th century. You may also wish to obtain copies of the video and/or audio cassettes.