Educators Books

Very entertaining. I read the book in two sittings. Captures the spirit of old school , why we ride. Felt as though I was along on the ride. If you enjoy riding a bike instead of posing as a biker, you will enjoy this book. Thanks Tiger.

The Ghost Of Scootertrash Past: Memories & Rants Of A Longrider is the personal testimony, stories, rants, and insights of Mark Tiger Edmonds, a motorcycling professor who cruises the road with a Scrabble game and Oreo cookies in his motorcycle's saddle bags. A flavorful, unique, and often surprising memoir of dirt roads, Zen and the art of motorcycle riding, the hazards of camping, and so much more, The Ghost Of Scootertrash Past is a thoroughly attention engaging read and recommended for motorcycle buffs and Americana enthusiasts.

Now maybe I'm not the the best person for putting out an unbiased opinion on this book, seein' as how I actually make an appearance or two within the pages (I'm the one of those who picks & patches him & the bike up a couple of times - made it to Tennessee to pick him up in his truck in about 11 hours).

But I'm not tapping away here to write a review, but rather to clear some things up:

1) He really does talk like that - it's called vernacular - they're called colloquialisms - it's not "poseur misuse of grammar", it's legitimate misuse of grammar that he was more careful about in the first book - not knowing how poseur book critics would take it.

2) He really is a professor of English (at my alma mater) - the colloquialisms don't get in the way, as he doesn't use them while grading papers of inconsiderate, psycho, crapweasel children (though the fact that it gets straight under the skin of administrators is a bonus).

3) Such of his stories as I'm personally able to speak to (having known him for only 15 years) are the gods-honest truth - I've patched too much fiberglass for them to be anything else.



4) Forget what I said about being biased - it's a great book - go buy one for yourself and a couple for your friends right now.

....Go on, what are you still reading for? I mean it - right now!

I read this book before reading Edmonds' first one, "Longrider". Both books are stories, vignettes, of his experiences putting more than a million miles on two wheels riding the US and Canada. While both books are enjoyable and the various stories engaging, I found "Ghost of Scootertrash Past" a better read with some caveats. I quickly became annoyed with his poser misuse of grammar. It just comes across as phony. The stories in "Longrider" were more disjointed but his voice more authentic. There is an art to story telling, and Edmonds does it well. Now I would like to try some of the roads/rides he describes.

After reading Professor Schiavone gripping GOD FROM AFAR,I was seized by the power of his memoirs with a feeling of malaise: that disturbing fin du siecle malaise that alas, seems to bid farewell to one century, and greet the new one with a deep sense of existentional despair. For in this written memoir Professor Schiavone has had, unlike most of his colleagues, the courage to warn us of the current parlous state of our most cherished institutions of higher education and unflinchingly delineate its implications for the new millenium that hardly bodes well for our country's intellectual (not to mention moral and ethical)preeminence as a nation of poets and scholars. Within its impeccably edited pages the reader learns of the political and moral rot that was hertofore hidden from public eye by the academic power elite, who, within a generation, took over one of our most cherished educational institutions (CUNY) and made it a stygian cesspool of corruption, incompetence, and more disturbing, out right disregard for truth, integrity, and the professionalism that we as a nation so revered and associated with higher education. Fortunately, Professor Schiavone, now retired from the City University of New York (CUNY),has left us a legacy in what must have been an agonizing experience, his memoirs, which now brings to light what must be firmly addressed by those who now ascend or sit upon, the besmirthed throne of academia if we are to survive as a nation dedicated to those traditional values and disciplines that was once a great cathedral of our culture, our much vaunted system of higher education, the rock that we all so dearly clung to as a means of perpetuating the great accomplishments of the past with the promise of a golden tommorow. Professor Schiavone is to be commended for his painful journey through the past thirty years of his caree in which he fought the iniquities that he found all too common around him, and emerged, with the dignity and strength, to warn us of what awaits us if we, as teachers, parents, and civic leaders, do not take heed of the impliations for the future that his memoirs so elegantly address. Would that our politicans now running for public office and giving lip service to the decline of the American system of higher education, refer to GOD FROM AFAR as they legislate policy for our nebulous future!

If misunderstandings proliferate and spread like an alluvial fan throughout the world to give us a false or naive understanding of the events we assume to know, then God From Afar is here to wake us all up and and clue us in to what it is REALLY like in the atmosphere of the educational environment. In two words: Absolutely Shocking. In one really twisted and psychologically enthralling word: Fascinating! One, like myself, would be inclined to think of the collegiate world as one of being a very stimulating and intellectually pleasing garden where the inhabitants stretch out behind tall shrubs and among the placid lakes, but this is not the case. As James Shiavone describes his long pursuit that yearns for the gratification one gets from teaching fresh minds in the classroom, we learn that there is actually quite a bit of turmoil behind the staff room doors. From the constant squabbling, to inane jealousies and rumours, to the physical altercations and trumped up charges, we see that the base apsects of human nature can take hold of even those we assume to be our most respected leaders. But it is Professor James Schiavone's valiant effort and endearment toward his students and passion for teaching that wins out overall. Even under the intimidation of hierarchal threats he does not back down and holds true to the cause he believes in, which has been long forgotten by most administrators, and that is teaching - the last thing that seems to be on the minds of those who have elected to be in this position. And through it all, what we see time and time again are those who reach a status rank only to grow sluggish, unenthusiastic, inflexible and self-serving. Those select few who attain power and leave no room for change or the little man, but what they expect from their often trite and narrow, little concerns. This book offers the reality of a cankered situation, and exposes it in a way so that we may bring remedy to a growing epidemic. Because invalid assumptions that go unchecked, only serve to help those who are helping themselves at the expense of the naive multitude. And this book brings these issues to light, and in a way you might say that with this book Professor James Schiavone is still in the classroom.

I am delighted that Professor Schiavone has decided to reissue his groundbreaking book, GOD FROM AFAR for the new millenium. His book gives me hope that God is closer than we think. After the educational debacle of the last century I am hopeful that the words of Dr. Schiavone will be heeded and seriously considered by politicians and academicians alike-especially in the upcoming election where education is such an important issue. In his memoirs, the professor tried to warn us of the corruption rife in academia-apparently they fell on deaf ears. Now with the issuance of the 2000 edition, there is hope once more that the education of our students at all levels, and especially at the college level will be taken seriously by those who should care the most. He has courageously tried in his memoirs to delineate the political atrocities of the past century which has left our system in shambles-a whole generation of students semi-literate and unable to cope with a more complicated world which requires the ability to think, to write, and yes, to read. To read his book is to find out just what happened and how it can be averted or corrected. The professor pulls no punches-he places blame and praise on those who deserve it-alas, he who is without spot may throw the first stone. Now in retirement, I welcome the reissuance of his GOD FROM AFAR and hope that its far reaching implications will be heard and felt in all parts of the nation where politicals, greedy for power and election, are touting their theories about education with one eye on the ballot box and saying little that is substantive about how to remedy the current debacle. It behooves all in academia and in politics to read his impeccably edited book carefully, to quote him generously, and to heed his words with alarm. When may we expect a follow up to GOD FROM AFAR? Certainly the talents of the author should not stop with his retirement- he must be ever vigilant that his words will make a significant change in a system, alas, gone awry.

In GOD FROM AFAR, Professor Schiavone narrates a fascinating account of his decision to attend college and become a teacher, the first in his family to do so.. Beginning with his birth, he includes heartwarming sketches of growing up in a close and supportive family, his parents children of immigrants. He encompasses his transition from a high school teacher to college professor, earning full professorship, and becoming the author of several text books. Readers who cling to the notion or naive enough to believe that the world of pedagogy represents the pinnacle of human elements in the realms of character, integrity, and human relations will find this account disillusioning. Professor Schiavone tells of his travails with honesty and reality. In the first segment of his memoirs, the author tells of his beginning years in New York, New Jersey, and Florida. He pays tribute to mentors and model teachers. Schiavone spent thirteen years in Florida and relates his interaction with students there and reveals his sensitivity to them. It was in Florida that he had diverse experience: TV, high school, and university . However, Professor Schiavone combatted and transcended personal jealousy so bizarre that it would defy veracity if it were not for his probity in narration, along with supporting material. This man who simply wanted to teach was to meet and surmount even greater obstacles upon his return to New York City and appointment at a CUNY branch. Academicians who have fallen victims of machinations perpetrated by administration and colleagues will commiserate. Professor Schiavone's story will be a revelation to others . Despite documentation, there may be readers who will simply not believe the bizarre mode of behavior that is permitted and condoned in academe. . There are readers who will be shocked that minuscule mentality extends beyond "local" officials. Others might recall that revengeful comportment is designed to control , tarnish, intimidate, and eliminate EMPLOYEES WHO CRITICIZE THE SYSTEM. This author documents that even the "college designee" was a pawn and puppet of the administration. . Professor Schiavone does not limit his disclosure to finagling against him personally. With clarity and honesty, he questions the process by which reappointment, promotion, sabbaticals, and tenure are granted. He tells of the positive and negative aspects of tenure. This man's pursuit of equity evoked wrath since it robbed "masters" of the chain that bound their "slaves." . GOD FROM AFAR is a revealing and compelling account of a college professor's sojourn in the academic arena. It is a saga of one man's battle with and victory over an "academic Bastille."

Anthony Winkler is a really gifted author and he has a talent for clearly reproducing the essence of raw Jamaica, even if it is a Jamaica that existed before I was born. He also wrote "The Lunatic" which I need to find and re-read again as well. He is a white Jamaican who currently lives in Atlanta, GA.

This book "Going Home To Teach" recounts his experiences when he returned home to Jamaica to teach back in the 1970s. Those were tumultuous times for Jamaica, when Michael Manley was in power and socialism was the philosophy du jour. Many people left, while Winkler was coming back. The book has a lot of pathos, humour, and drama; but what really makes it impressive and relevant to me are the observations on Jamaican, American and English culture. Here are some samples. I don't necessarily agree with all his observations, but I think they are worth noting.

On being white in Jamaica, specifically referring to his American wife's experience:
"To be white in a black country with a long English colonial history is to be a pariah, an ambiguous entity. It is to be simultaneously respected and despised, to arouse suspicion and curiosity, to evoke defiance, rudeness, envy and condescension. It is to be separated from that inalienable birthright every white American enjoys in his own country; the expectation of being treated with indifference in a public place. When you are white in a black land like Jamaica, you are no longer merely a man, or a woman, or a child. For good or ill, you are also immediately transmogrified into a living symbol of a detested colonial past."

On Jamaican and American attitudes towards economic roles:
"The American nation is essentially a confederation of economic tribes known as businesses and corporations, each with its own totemic history, identity...when you work for an American corporation it defines you, moulds you...and eventually changes your values and perceptions...Americans are reared with the expectation that a large part of their personal identity will eventually be defined in adulthood by an economic role. One becomes what one does...Jamaicans DO their careers, their occupational pursuits; Americans BECOME them...This wedding of personality and occupation is a most peculiar trait for Jamaicans to comprehend mainly because they have inherited from their own cultural experience a deep-seated dislike for ready-made economic roles. Jamaicans revel in the expression of an idiosyncratic self, and reject any occupational role that brings with it blanket expectations of the self. Why this is so no doubt goes back to our experience with slavery when we waged and endless war of passive resistance against the slave master's desires and struggled hard to repudiate what he wanted us to become."

On "getting on bad"
"This expression has a peculiar meaning to the Jamaican, and no known equivalent in America. To `go on bad' is to employ the behaviour of the lower class in a sphere of life where it is outlandishly inappropriate. One cannot `go on bad' in a true democracy like America, but only in a society that separates people into classes by a strictly prescribed code of manners. Under the Englishman's colonial blueprint, the ragged brute in the streets is expected to rant and rave over grievances and raise his voice in profanity, but not the tuxedoed gentleman at a formal dinner. And should the gentleman so behave for whatever reason other than rare excusable drunkenness, he is said to have `gone on bad.' His sin is not so much bad behaviour as it is a degenerate hybridisation of manners-bringing the lower-class brute into the drawing room- and the penalty is social expulsion. He simply will never be invited back."
The unfortunate thing is that many times, getting on bad is the only way to get anything done! He notes this in the anecdote that follows this quote, which I won't replay here.

It's a great autobiographical novel told from a point of view that I haven't even considered too much; that of the person who is born in Jamaica and is just as Jamaican as I am, except that he is white. It is an accurate snapshot of Jamaica in the 1970s as well. Well, I assume that, since I wasn't born then :D At any rate, I highly recommend it. Also read the rest of his books: "The Lunatic" "The Painted Canoe" "The Great Yacht Race" and "The Duppy". I have read them all except for the last one, those I have read have been very good also.

If you live in the Caribbean you will be able to identify with all the occurrences. If you used to live in the Caribbean, this book will bring back all the memories. If you have no Caribbean connections, then you will be highly amused by the "peculiarites" of the natives as Mr. Winkler cleverly reveals the culture and personalities of the island

I was a schoolgirl in Jamaica, during the 70s, the period Mr. Winkler writes about and I can attest that all the things he says are true. The book is hilarious and poignant at the same time, capturing all the things that make Jamaica a difficult place to live in, yet an impossible one to stay away from. He captures the crazy drama of everyday life there, with humor and beauty and sadness. The scene in the patty shop when he asked by two people behind him in line to judge which is the blacker one, is one of the funniest things I've ever read.

Just seeing his name on the book spine was enough to make me pick up the book.

Over the years, Anthony C. Winkler's rollicking novels of Jamaican life have given me considerable pleasure and insight into Caribbean sensibility. He writes with a great affection for the island nation's people, reveling in their culture and contradictions, equally amused by and compassionate toward all the social strata. However, I'd been curious about the writer himself since first reading THE LUNATIC years ago, after a St. Kitts-born friend and mentor pressed the book into my hand with a smile, saying "You must read this!" The brief bio in his books mentioned he was a native Jamaican and scant else. Who was he? I wondered to myself about his background, his roots, his understanding of Jamaica.

GOING HOME TO TEACH answered my questions and delivered a lot more. At heart, it's Winkler's memoir of his mid-1970s stint, when Michael Manley's "democratic socialist" administration ruled, as an instructor at a government-sponsored rural teacher training school. His return is part altruism, part nostalgia: As the author of successful, widely used college textbooks, he's got tidy sums squirreled away in American banks, so he can afford to return home and work for a pittance. On the other hand, at the time he's thirty-something, divorced, and he's spent thirteen years away from home to study and teach in the U.S., whose society bewilders him.

The meat of the book, though, is both personal and general. Winkler is a raconteur, a griot--a natural born storyteller--and he regales you with stories about his family (particularly his eccentric grandparents and crazy aunts), his encounters with hidebound administrators and bureaucrats, striking students, madmen, and the impossibility of finding competent repairpersons. And then again, there are his observations on American society and culture, the contrasts with Jamaica, and the cultural idiosyncrasies that he attributes to the history of slavery and English colonial rule. GOING HOME TO TEACH is a dense stew of memorable people, incidents and conclusions, richly seasoned with rib-tickling anecdotes.

Indeed, what makes the book really work is Winkler's humor and humanity, his conversational tone, his equanimity whether describing the absurd or the nearly tragic. He's not shy about his foibles, his family's or his countrymen's, and completely droll even when revealing the unpleasant side of paradise. Be cautioned about reading this book in public: you risk indelicate stares for laughing out loud, as I did particularly as I was reading his account of "night life"--the panoply of insects and other critters--in the Jamaican countryside.

There's also the bittersweet. Winkler's ancestry is European and Middle Eastern--which adds up to "white"--but he's Jamaica-born and bred (patois is his "native tongue" much as any other Jamaican's), and that's the land he loves. It results in a certain "double consciousness," which I find ironically analogous to the lot of "Black Americans":

"To be white in a black country with a long English colonial history is to be a pariah, an ambiguous entity. It is to be simultaneously respected and despised, to arouse suspicion and curiosity, to evoke defiance, rudeness, envy, and condescension. It is to be separated from that inalienable birthright every white American enjoys in his country: the expectation of being treated with indifference in a public place....

"The hardest thing about growing up white in a black country is the nagging feeling of not belonging.... Jamaicans of all races who have lived abroad for any length of time also suffer it after returning home, but for the white Jamaican the feeling of not belonging is a cross he must bear even if he has never set foot out of his own country."

If you're already a fan of Winkler's writing, I believe you'll also love this book. If you're not already acquainted, this should be a fine introduction to the man and the land. A highly recommended, rewarding read.

This is an excellent essay of a determined survivalist. Graduation was
followed by next day enlistment in the USMC; he never looked back. Howey
took on every task with determination, rising to Lt. Colonel by doing more
than expected by those above and below him. He never asked others to do
something that he would not do himself, including self sacrifice for a
normal living. After 32 years of intelligence/counterinteligence and three tours in Viet Nam, he changed vocations and became an exemplary
teacher of high school students. He explained the real world and how to
interpret; lessons well learned and well taught for our future leaders.

Fascinating story of a young man whose determination and dedication to excellence enabled him to enrich his life by living all over the world and to rise through the ranks of the U.S. Marine Corps. In every opportunity he was given from the Viet Nam jungles to the Pennsylvanian classrooms, he performed his best with many benefiting from his efforts. His observations on war, politics, the media, education are as interesting as his life. Thank you, William Howey, for your service to our country and our youth. Keep up the good work!

Wow! Mr. Howey's tell all book about his experiences as a Marine and as a high school teacher is outstanding. I felt like I was right there in Vietnam fighting the VC with him. This book contains many experiences that show how brave our soldiers were in this unpopular war, and how inept our politicians and the media were in conducting it.

In the education arena Mr. Howey discusses his life after the Marines as a high school social studies teacher. His experiences provide hope and optimism for our youth. However, we cannot let inept and self-serving politicians destroy two valuable institutions -- the military and public schools.

Once you pick up this book you won't be able to put it down!

Hard Knocks and Straight Talk: From the Jungles of Vietnam to the American Classroom Howey's book is captivating. An ordinary American has an extraordinary life of service to our country. He served as an active US Marine for 32 years from private to Lt.Col. including 3 action tours of Viet Nam. His career endeded with 15 years as a HS teacher. Howey's life lessons learned are shared as straight talk that all Americans need to hear.

That is the new book by Alice Gunther!! Not only is she a great friend, but she is truly a great writer! Her gift at story telling and putting these very necessary words to paper will be a treasure to the home school community at large for a long time to come! This is a book to give anyone you know who might be interested in home education, and then get one for all the grandparents, brothers, sisters, aunts and uncles that want to know why you might choose this wonderful lifestyle of home schooling your children. You will not be disappointed to hear about all her delightful adventures of a home educator on Long Island. It was a privilege and a pleasure to read such a heart warming and intellectual book on a topic so near and dear to me and my family. Congratulations Alice my friend!

Brimming with love and generosity, this book offers practical ideas and enthusiastic encouragement to all homeschooling mothers, novices and veterans alike. There are ideas for a huge variety of social opportunities: all kinds of clubs, arts and crafts, drama (the Shakespeare play alone is hugely inspiring), and growth in the faith. This book is a beautiful guide to hospitality, for mothers as well as their children. The picture painted of the rich and happy social lives (which is what most people mean when they ask about "socialization") of these families is proof enough that homeschooling does not produce socially stunted children, but Alice Gunther also addresses the questions most of us face regarding "socialization" as "learning to interact with others in the world."

I think it will be the definitive book on the subject. A marvelous book!

This is a wonderful book, for it not only helps parents deal with the "What about socialization?" question they get whenever they mention the word "homeschool", but it also helps homeschooling parents understand the value of building up a strong community of like-minded parents and families for their family to interact with joyfully.

Practical as well as theoretical, Haystack Full of Needles helps new homeschooling parents to begin a group; helps answer the question--what are the essential parts of a gathering?- (coffee being one of them), and what kinds of things to talk about.

But Haystack is not just for new homeschoolers. I am a veteran, and found many good and practical common sense suggestions to put immediately to use in my own group.

Valuable, practical, filled with common sense, useful, uplifting and encouraging, I hope all homeschooling parents will read this book.

Have you ever had a friend so wise, so creative, so full of good ideas, such a gift to your circle of friends, that you've found yourself repeatedly telling her, "You know, you should really write a book"? Alice Gunther is that friend, and at long last, she has written that book. Even as she was writing it, her ideas were bearing fruit in my own home and homeschooling circle: inspired by her Shakespeare chapter, I organized a Shakespeare Club for my children and their friends. I've never been a natural hostess, but Alice makes it seem easy.

What makes Haystack Full of Needles so compelling is that it is much more than an explosion of the myth that homeschoolers lack "proper socialization"--it is a vivid, lively, and detailed account of how homeschooling families can build community and friendship. The perfect blend of personal narrative and practical advice, Haystack Full of Needles is an inspiring heartwarming chronicle of the growth of a lively homeschooling community. At first, readers will wish they could live in Alice's neck of the woods and be a part of all the marvelous events she describes, but by the book's end, they'll be overflowing with excitement to put Alice's ideas to practice in their own homes, parishes, and homeschooling communities.

Great read packed with info. I've always wanted to know more about her, not just the vague references made in books about Keller and Sullivan.

The long-forgotten story of Laura Bridgman is riveting: She was the first deaf, blind and mute American to learn English and she did so through the ingenious efforts of Samuel Howe. If author Elisabeth Gitter had done nothing more than reintroduce this story to the world, her book would have been worthwhile. But Gitter does much more. Both Bridgman and Howe were enormously complicated, infinitely fascinating characters and their relationship was unprecedented in human experience (quite a statement, but it's true!). It is incredible, and in many ways, heart-wrenching, to watch their storybook relationship develop and devolve. Gitter wisely tells the story without literary flourishes; it's so remarkable, it doesn't need any. The author is also scrupulously fair to her subjects (few characters in history go from appealling to detestable, and back again, more quickly than Howe) and provides just the right degree of historical background--enough to inform the reader, but not enough to slow down the narrative. A nearly perfect book!

I have read quite a lot about Helen Keller and Annie Sullivan over the years, and I have read a bit about Laura Bridgman. I have read enough to know that "rescue from darkness" comes at a cost and is often not done for the greatest good of the "victim". In Helen and Annie's case, Helen's world was infinitely enriched by Annie's total dedication to her pupil. In return, Annie created a family and garnered recognition for herself. Unfortunately, in Laura's situation, the trade-off was not as well balanced.

Samuel Gridley Howe was a man on a mission to achieve recognition and status among the liberal Boston elite in the early 1800s. His goal was to find and educate an intelligent blind and deaf child and thereby establish himself as a distinguished philanthropist and expert in education and the social sciences. He believed that Laura was a means to that end.

While educating a blind deaf girl may have sounded like an unselfish project in 1837, the horror of Laura's reality is clear today. Laura was often isolated from other children and adults to help make Howe's experiments in education "pure." When Howe felt that he had no more to gain from her, he left her with very limited companionship. So, unlike Helen, her education and socialization, and hence her maturation, stopped when Howe lost interest. As a result, she suffered great loneliness and depression.

Gitter provides a great deal of information about Howe that seems to indicate that he had a narcissistic personality. Her revelations about Laura show that she had great potential for learning and growing that was left untapped as a result of her unnecessary and cruel seclusion from the world.

This book is very well written and clearly reveals the historical and social context of the lives of Laura and Howe. I highly recommend this book for anyone who has even the slightest interest in the subject area.

Elisabeth Gitter has introduced the 21st Century reader to Laura Bridgman, "the original deaf-blind girl" in her well written and sensitive portrayal of "this pitiful little girl" who "became the most celebrated child in (19th Century) America." Along with her teacher and mentor, Samuel Howe, founder of the first school for the blind in America, Laura became an inspiration for the indominability of the human spirit. Yet, as Gitter wisely and perceptively shows, the multi-faceted character behind Laura's public persona was often overlooked by Howe in his zeal to show the world that, in his words, "obstacles are things to be overcome", and that Laura Bridgman was the prime example of the veracity of his statement. With her extraordinary knowledge of the Victorian era in which the story takes place, and her exceptional command of the written word, Gitter has brought Laura Bridgman the honor and dignity she was often denied her life.

When a friend recommended Seafood Twice a Week, I assumed I was getting a topical cookbook for my favorite protein source. My assumption was incorrect. This book is far more than just a seafood cookbook.

Indeed, the book is filled with many delicious recipes, but there is a wealth of information about the nutritional components of seafood as well as its important health benefits with respect to heart disease, diabetes and other chronic illnesses... particularly those of an immune or inflammatory nature.

Chapter Two provides a complete review of the safety concerns that have been addressed over the past several years with respect to seafood consumption. Taking safety a step further, Chapter Three deals with preparation of various categories of seafood. My favorite portion of that chapter addressed ways to make intelligent selections at a seafood counter. Armed with that information, I was able to abandon my usual practice of deferring to my husband the duty of shopping for seafood. But I do believe I will "forget" that the book includes details and pictures explaining how to dress a lobster. He does it so well.

Not since I read an Amish cookbook from the early 1900s have I found a cookbook that offers how-to's on topics related to procurement rather than preparation. Seafood Twice a Week carefully addresses "Concerns for the Recreational or Subsistence Angler" as well as issues of environmental contaminants and naturally occurring poisons from various seafoods.

Of course, there are those luscious recipes. No matter the occasion, you are sure to find several selections from which to choose. For that special event, why not try oyster champagne stew? If your friends are coming over for appetizers this weekend, you might want to tease their palates with hot crab and artichoke dip or shrimp-stuffed celery. The next time you're asked to bring a dish to a summer gettogether, you can't go wrong with such delights as island fresh cucumber salad or Chinese seafood salad.

The authors have given the seafood lover a wonderful gift. I have tried more than half of these recipes, and most are quick, easy to prepare, and easy on the budget. All have been beyond good. They are delightful alternatives to my worn out recipes. Nutritional information, diabetic exchanges, and suggestions for substitutions are included with each recipe.

Evie Hansen is a leader in seafood education. She is a published author and teaches year-round. She claims that her seafood experience is both practical and professional. Her fisherman husband has provided her with plenty of fish and seafood on which to try her recipes. She has appeared on television and has written articles for local newspapers as part of her crusade to better educate the public about the benefits of seafood.

Cindy Welke Snyder, MPH, RD, has written many consumer-related articles and is a frequently requested public speaker. Twelve of her over twenty years of nutrition experience were spent at Virginia Mason Medical Center in Seattle, Washington, where she counseled patients and families on various nutrition and disease states. She has also worked with female athletes and women with eating disorders.

The authors suggest Seafood Twice a Week. I could enjoy it every night of the week with this little book and its large selection of tasty choices.

by Lee Ambrose
for Story Circle Book Reviews
reviewing books by, for, and about women

A useful book with 135 pages of recipes, with additional information on nutritional and health benefits, preparation tips (e.g., shucking an oyster), and safety instructions for the cook and angler. Recipes are easy and uncluttered, with very tasty results. The book includes separate chapters on appetizers, soups and stews, sandwiches, salads, finfish, shellfish, microwaving, and baking, and special occasions (for example, oyster stuffing and Thanksgiving salmon, an everyone's favorite (?), a Sunday dinner of "Halibut Pot Roast."

One complaint is that there are not enough baked fish recipes (nor are there menu or wine suggestions). However, this is an excellent introduction to the whys and hows of some delicious fish dishes. With numerous tables (including nutritional and texture comparisons, and cooking and grilling techniques), index, and nutritional and diabetic exchange information for each recipe.

This cookbook is excellent! I love all the recipes I have tried! They are fairly easy, full of flavor, and healthy! I enjoy eating fish but have had limited variety growing up. This book maps out the similarities between the flavor and texture of different fish, which makes it easy to try new kinds. Plus, it tells you how to substitute different fish for each recipe.

I recently started cooking for myself, and I have found this book to be the most helpful cookbook! It tells you how to shop for, how to prepare, and how to cook any type of fish. Plus, it provides a wide range of cooking ideas from grilling and baking to stovetop and microwave. It even provides helpful tips so that you know what temperatures and such to use if you want to try your own seasoning or sauce.

A must have for any fish eater, and for those who need to be fish eaters! These recipes definitely make eating fish very enjoyable!

YUM! YUM! YUM!

Seafood twice a week makes cooking delicious fish on
Tuesday night in twenty minutes a snap. Fish is very fast to cook and with this book it is always delicious. I now enjoy a much wider variety of fish. And I make restaurant quality meals in twenty minutes.

Also each kind of fish tastes best with a recipe designed to go with its distinct flavor. The author tells you which fish their recipe goes with best. Usually three or four choices of fish per recipe.

I can also use a recipe as a guideline if I don't have all the ingredients at home and it still turns out great.

I really do use this book twice a week and just bought five copies to give to family and friends.

Abildskov perfectly portrays the heartbreak of loving more than one can be loved. In liquid prose, she both startles and cajols, rendering a painfully honest tale of heartbreak. I read this beautiful book in a single sitting.

This is a lovely work about a women's journey to find what love might mean- and no way is it trite. Ms. Abildskov is placed in a foreign country with new stimulations, finding for herself that love can show itself in a variety of forms and yet hasn't she maybe felt love before without recognizing its subtle ways? I hated to have this story end. I held myself back reading- trying to let each moment penetrate my feelings as they might have Ms. Abildskov. Her descriptions are as beautiful as they are heavy, letting me visualize and feel the weight of her emotions.
A lyrical non-fiction memoir that left me feeling like I had been granted a gentle good-bye:
"Are you sorry to go? I ask
Kind of, one woman says
In a way chimes the other. But it's time, you know what I mean? You can't stay forever. I mean this isn't real life." (page 115)
Stay inside the real life Ms. Abildskov recreates and savor the moments. I for one was very sorry to go.

I picked this up because I thought it was about teaching in Japan. Having taught abroad (China and Egypt), and having taught many Japanese students in the US, I thought it was a travel book about the teaching experience.

It turned out to be something very different. It is common knowledge among expat teachers, that some US men teach abroad to meet women, who "unlike American women, know how to treat a guy". As I got beyond the introductory pages about sensing and "watching" Japan, I wondered if this book was about the reverse, liberated American women shattering a taboo and having sexual exploits in a foreign land.

Further into the book, there is more insight. This is a highly sensitive person, looking for a place, affirmation, love, or maybe permanance in a world that hasn't offered it to her. Needs transcend her awareness of the wake she leaves behind. Despite her deep love (or is it need) for one man, she entertains two others. The man she loves wants her in some way, but is emotionally unavailable. Of the other two, one is married, and the other, as a worker in a noodle factory is not a serious suitor. I would expect that both have emotional scars from their relationship with the author. None of the three men speaks English well enough to have a normal, let alone nuanced, conversation with her.

The book chronicles, after 7 years retrospect, her memories of the encounters, from her observation, along with a backdrop of the intrigue of a foreign adventure.

I would recommend this to anyone going through a romantic breakup. Like a conversation with a fellow sufferer, it could offer a balm. The pain comes through the detail of obsession for the lost. The writing is very good, and I like the remembered conversations italicized and not quoted, since there is no way they can be exact. For those looking for a travel adventure, or insight into teaching English, this is not the book.

The cover is great. The oragami figures in subtle colors clearly evoke Japan.

I could NOT put this book down. Ms. Abildskov has created a story of such difficult beauty and courage, such clear and striking insight, such sweetness and humor and fury, every page took my breath away. A journey, from the moment I opened the book to the wee hours of the morning. I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

"Gloria Estefan has reached a point in her life where everything she does is amazing! She's the best!

I haven't read the book but I've seen the movie and I'm DYING to read the book. I loved the movie ans the song with Gloria Estefan and 'NSync go so well with the movie!

She had no idea where to begin. Her marriage having just collapsed, she arrived in New York City in 1980 with her two boys and a crate full of violins. Music of the Heart (by Roberta Guaspari with Larkin Warren) is a story about Roberta Guasparti and how much music impacted her life and the lives of those she came in contact with. Roberta began playing the violin at age nine, and through her life, her violin has been the only instrument that, through playing, she found peace, sanity, and control for a once shattered life. Being a violin player myself, I can relate and understand how much music can impact someone's life. Through this book, I can see how important music is to Roberta, to me, and others as well. One life-shattering thing that Roberta went through was the finding out of her husband's affair. The Guaspari family was living in Greece at the time, and the night before they were supposed to catch a flight back to the United States, Roberta discovered her husband and another lady at 2:00 in the morning on a beach. She was literally devastated. Her husband then announced that he didn't want her to be a part of his life anymore, and the only thing she could do for the next couple of days was lay in bed, stare at the spinning ceiling, and cry. Starting out again in America, she stayed with her parents until she could get back on her feet again. After realizing what more life had to offer, she eventually moved out on her own with her two sons Nick and Alexi. They ended up in East Harlem and music became a huge part of her life again. She began teaching kids of all ages at a public school that met many difficulties. Having a low budget to work with, she had to give more time, money, and energy that she ever imagined. But her school kids, their progress, and getting back on her feet brought her happiness again. This book reminded me of how much I love music, especially violin music. That is what first got me interested in this book. If you are interested in any sort of music, or want to know how much it can affect you, I would suggest Music of the Heart.

As devastating as it must have been for Roberta to 'lose' her husband, this unfortunate turn of events in her life ended up saving and improving immeasurable young lives in East Harlem. Often something that seems to be tragic is actually a blessing in disguise and Roberta's dedication to the violin and teaching has made and continues to make a huge difference in the lives of many children. This is a touching story of the life of an American-Italian woman and how she was able to affect the lives of young people. I greatly recommend it - especially to those in power of cutting funds for music in public places!

This is an outstanding biography of a person who, because he never held high political office, is less well known than he deserves to be. In reading about Webster's life, one also learns much about the political controversies of the early United States--how many know, for example, that George Washington had bitter political enemies while President, or that the War of 1812 was so unpopular in New England that it prompted many there (including Webster) to discuss seceding from the Union? This biography deserves to be widely read.

If you're ready for a reprieve from contemporary biographical sleaze, read this fine biography of Noah Webster, a good and moral man who held his family and country in balanced respect. You have lots to learn from this book if all you know about Webster is the dictionary. What surprised me was a life that spanned the years from colonial times to the mid-19th century. This was a man who never held high elective office but was an influential friend of those who did -- Washington, Franklin, John Adams and Madison. He spent months traveling up and down the East coast, espousing his beliefs in the ideals of Federalism. He advocated tirelessly for an American language and literature independent of the British tradition. To protect himself against piracy of his highly popular reader for schoolchildren, he campaigned successfully for copywright legislation. For this reader, whose last course in American History is a blurred memory, the "times" part of this story was as fascinating as the "life." I was reminded of the chaos of the country in the interim between the Revolution and Constitutional Convention, of Shay's Rebellion, of the acrimonious regionalism that nearly tore apart the young country, of the XYZ affair, and the threat to a fragile democracy of the War of 1812. I was made to recall the inadequacies of early American education and the perils of public health before urban sanitation systems. In this carefully-researched portrait, Unger presents Webster sympathetically as an American Renaissance man, curious and informed in fields from law to medicine to philosophy to lexicography. One of Yale University's early graduates, he spent his life educating himself. Because Webster was such an assiduous diarist and letter-writer, the book also provides a rich portrait of his family and private life -- his devotion to his wife and children, his frustration with a ne'er-do-well son, his financial concerns, and his delight in hearth and home. The culmination of the story is the dictionary, the product of a lifelong belief in the necessity of a uniform American language to unify the disparate voices of a young nation. Webster the scholar devoted years of careful research to this project, both at home and in Europe. His efforts secured his mention in history books. Harlow Unger's book fleshes out the man and his times with substance and grace.

I found this fantastic book on the clearance stack at Border's. I became aware of Webster's importance from references to him in other books on the Founding Fathers. However, it wasn't until I read Unger's work that I fully appreciate how important Webster really was. Soon after graduating from Yale, the Connecticut native embarked on a lifelong dream of improving the educational system of the fledgling country to both unify it and to instill the young with the moral and intellectual virtues necessary to maintain a free republic.

The first step was to have America adopt an agreed upon spelling convention tailored to the US to replace the current chaotic spellings borrowed from Britain. After years of hard work, he succeeded in getting his spelling books adopted in practically all schools within the US. The book later was nicknamed The Blue-Backed Speller and was the standard in American schoolrooms throughout the 19th century. To protect his creation, he successfully petitioned national leaders and all state legislatures to enact America's first copyright protection laws. In the course of his campaign he befriended George Washington, Ben Franklin, James Madison, and John Jay. An ardent nationalist, Webster wrote a widely read political tract in 1785, Sketches, calling for a strong national government to replace the Articles of Confederation. This work would have a powerful impact on the Convention of 1787 as Washington summoned Webster to Philadelphia to meet nightly with him and other attendees to solicit his views on how to craft the new constitution.

In 1793, he returned to the national political scene to take the lead in countering the French representative Citizen Genet, who, on behalf of the revolutionary government, actively attempted to convince the American citizenry to overthrow President Washington in order for the US to support France in its struggle against Britain. (France's malevolent intentions included having the US become a French vassal state. ) Couching his speeches in the ideals of the American revolution, Genet gained quite a bit of popular support. However, Webster exposed the ruse and denounced American supporters for Genet as dupes. He publicly defended Washington and his administration's stand on neutrality against the onslaught of the anti-Federalist press, who sympathized with Genet.

Besides serving in local politics, Webster led scientific inquiries with help from Benjamin Rush to combat infectious diseases (a world first) and to abolish slavery. Toward the end of his life, he embarked on his greatest achievement: a new, comprehensive dictionary of the English language. His endeavor comprised decades of research which included his learning several languages, both old and new, and traveling to the national libraries of France and Britain for etymological histories of words. His achievement won him stunning praise from the world over.

A family man, Webster's indomitable character was forged by his strong Calvinist beliefs. This book traces the life of a most remarkable individual and too sadly neglected Founding Father. The book is written in an easy style and an obvious result of a great deal of research. A must for those seeking to appreciate the reason behind America's success over the last two centuries.

In his preface, the author notes that Noah Webster is so famous for his dictionary that it's overshadowed his many other achievements. Too true! I was amazed to learn of Mr. Webster's achievements in politics and education reform, particularly the influential role he played in shaping the U.S. Constitution. This book is a Must Read for anyone who wants a deeper and more accurate view into early American history.