Educators Books

A terrific read from someone I had the honor of knowing in 90-91. Best wishes and keep the books coming!!

Ted

A big shiny crisp apple, minus the worm, for Ms. Powell for having the courage to reveal the reason for America's teacher shortage. Written with honesty, wit, and poignancy, Ms. Powells' story is told in the "We have to laugh to keep from crying" tone well-known to teachers. Using varieties of apples and apple recipes as metaphors for the categories of students, parents, co-workers, and administrators that all educators will recognize, Ms. Powell relates her story in episodic style, interweaving the optimism and idealism of a teacher with the reality of teaching. I can attest to the fact that her experiences with cowardly, inept, unethical, cruel administrators is not unique. While Americans pay lip-service to the importance of education, a thread on anti-intellectualism runs through the fabric of America culture, manifested in placing the blame for all of society's ills on teachers. Demoralized sheep in teachers' clothing willingly act as doormats in exchange for job security until they can finally retire, while unethical educrats go to any length to protect their lucrative positions and self-perceived importance. Superintendents as CEOs, principals as middle managers, and teachers as blue-collar workers [produce] assembly-line students as products, destroying all humanity and joy in the educational process, thereby guaranteeing an endless supply of minimum wage workers and cannon fodder... Her stories and her message are lucid, and all too true. We must hope that this book will serve to inspire other educators to reveal the truth about education; we must heed the advice of this "brilliant eccentric," and demand school reform before education, and democracy, is destroyed in America. As Thomas Jefferson said, "A nation that expects to be ignorant and free...expects what never was and never will be." I recommend this book to all educators,including administrators.

Rotten Apples - what an understatement! I was a child of the public school system in central Louisiana, were I received a minimal education.

Ms. Powell's book broke my heart and brought back unpleasant memories. Reading it was an emotional roller coaster for me - elated for her in one paragraph and saddened in the next. I felt her pain and frustration. She hit the proverbial "nail on the head". GOB is alive and well on the state, parish and local levels, to a degree that an outsider could only imagine. "...cronyism, nepotism, rascalism...".

Two of my siblings are educators; both have left the public school system - citing many of the same problems that Ms. Powell writes about. I've worked in state and local government most for my career. I have seen it and experienced it first hand.

I thought the book was well written, retrospectively weaving a tale chapter by chapter.
I especially liked the way she used different apple themes to describe each chapter, which offered some comic relief.

Woe to the NON-GOB.

Rotten Apples - what an understatement! I was a child of the public school system in central Louisiana, were I received a minimal education.

Ms. Powell's book broke my heart and brought back unpleasant memories. Reading it was an emotional roller coaster for me - elated for her in one paragraph and saddened in the next. I felt her pain and frustration. She hit the proverbial "nail on the head". GOB is alive and well on the state, parish and local levels, to a degree that an outsider could only imagine. "...cronyism, nepotism, rascalism...".

Two of my siblings are educators; both have left the public school system - citing many of the same problems that Ms. Powell writes about. I've worked in state and local government most for my career. I have seen it and experienced it first hand.

I thought the book was well written, retrospectively weaving a tale chapter by chapter.
I especially liked the way she used different apple themes to describe each chapter, which offered some comic relief.

Woe to the NON-GOB.

Rotten Apples - what an understatement! I was a child of the public school system in central Louisiana, were I received a minimal education.

Ms. Powell's book broke my heart and brought back unpleasant memories. Reading it was an emotional roller coaster for me - elated for her in one paragraph and saddened in the next. I felt her pain and frustration. She hit the proverbial "nail on the head". GOB is alive and well on the state, parish and local levels, to a degree that an outsider could only imagine. "...cronyism, nepotism, rascalism...".

Two of my siblings are educators; both have left the public school system - citing many of the same problems that Ms. Powell writes about. I've worked in state and local government most for my career. I have seen it and experienced it first hand.

I thought the book was well written, retrospectively weaving a tale chapter by chapter.
I especially liked the way she used different apple themes to describe each chapter, which offered some comic relief.

Woe to the NON-GOB.

Unless you enjoy seeing the US Army trashed save your money. Very twisted view of the WWII Army and those belonging to it. I agree with a previous writer that had the author been a officer doing his job his men would have been trained properly. As a retired Army officer and combat veteran I found the book offensive to say the least.

Doing Battle is an excellent book for these troubling times. Though obviously a prickly sort, Fussell his kept his critical faculties intact and properly skewers ineptitude, careerists, rationalizers, martinets, and soft-headedness. The center-piece of this autobiography is Fussell's experience as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army in France and Germany in WWII. Fussell takes aim at the military - recounting the caprices and cruel arbitrariness of his own service with a scalpel-like pen.

Fussell also has little use for the beer-fueled sports culture that now dominates the American cultural landscape. He is first and foremost a defender of elitism - not an elitism based on social or economic class, but based on what and how one thinks and comports oneself in doing the tasks of daily life. Doing Battle is about honor and integrity, with Fussell having been lucky enough, or bright enough, to have had a series of teaching jobs that allowed his convictions and sense of honor and self to survive largely intact.

Fussell writes beautifully and movingly. He also lays himself bare in Doing Battle. It is a rare book in that it is scholarly as well as a good, quick read. The influence of Mencken is clearly felt. You put the book down at the end regretfully. You then begin the processs of recommending it to your special friends - the ones that you think will "understand."

I recommend the book highly.

Other reviewers here seem to be approaching this book from the perspective of WW II experiences, or from reading Fussell's war books. I chose to read this book because I had already read two of his other extremely entertaining and thought-provoking books, "Class" and "Bad". This book is never boring. It took me awhile to read it, because every few pages I would have to stop and think about things he had said. One can always depend on Fussell for honesty and frank discussion. I am happily making my way through all his books, and look forward to reading "Uniforms" next. His discussion of the hot summer spent in training near Gainesville, Texas, was especially interesting to me since I grew up in a town 30 miles east of Gainesville. This book is worth reading.

His name must rhyme with tussle else the students he had at Connecticut College were not very good at poetry.
Very important point: his own description of his book "Class" (see especially p. 280 in "Doing Battle") describes it as straight irony. "Except for a page or two the book is unrelentingly facetious, packed with exaggerations and palpably irresponsible assertions, and I was astonished to find how many readers took it seriously." Beware of taking "Class" seriously!
I have to thank Paul for a very interesting autobiography. It continues to amaze me that biography makes so much clearer than does an author's straight forward critical work. You certainly need both. But a sense of the person who writes makes what they write so much more sensible. This book is more enjoyable than some other autobiographies. Still, it leaves me in a quandary. Much that PF says strikes home but there is always a sense that PF lives within a particular narrative (by the way, he critiques those that talk in terms of narratology on pp. 212-213 "The all-but-universal worship of science, social science, and analytic philosophy would soon encourage the half-educated to pepper their discourse with terms like narratology, disciplinarity, engendering, and interface." "Half-educated"? I have a t-shirt that says, "The truly educated never graduate." (Of course this places me in a class.) Today there are books with titles like these and I would hardly refer to the authors as half-educated. It feels almost like C.S. Lewis in "Words" critiquing their misuse. But new words are invented all the time and come to mean things by their use. I wonder if someplace PF critiques the concept of "meme". Clearly, PF's classical education is way superior to mine. He would certainly join the defense in the war against grammar. I have a programmable thermostat that I can't figure out how to work.
But I am partial myself to the narrative I suspect he follows. I was never in battle though I am retired Army. Should I try a book called "Doing Peace"? Imagine having a full career in the military without ever being in battle? Assuming I could talk about the experience would annoy PF far worse than Glenn Gray. At least Gray was within miles of such action.
As an update years after reading this book and leaving the above as my review I have to point out that I appreciated Paul's participation in the special "The War" and found his experiences especially profound. It certainly made my appreciation of "The War" the greater having read his book years before and seeing the images in "The War" brings home the descriptions from his book. Thanks again Paul.

"Doing Battle: The Making Of A Skeptic" By Paul Fussell
Little Brown And Company, Boston. 1996.

An exceedingly well written biography of an intellectual of the last half of the 20th Century. Well written, as to be expected of a person with so many degrees in English. I do not think that he likes "vocational" degrees, such as engineering degrees, but I suspect that he enjoys using modern word processors that engineers have developed. However, this well written book presents the life story of person, who appears, sometimes, as an anarchist, or perhaps a nihilist, and sometimes a hypocrite, and sometimes as a loner.

For example, on page 97, he describes the members of the Army Specialized Training Program (ASTP) as very angry young men "...who had been luxuriating in colleges." Of course, Paul Fussell had not been "luxuriating" in Pasadena where his father was building a new house while the rest of the nation was selling apples on corners during the Great Depression. While at Pasadena, he attended Pomona College, (of the Claremont Group of five colleges ... one of my daughters graduated from Scripps College), snuggled in a New England look-alike green belt in brown California. Because Paul Fussell was privileged to attend such a fancy college when most Americans did not go on to "Higher" education, the author had the opportunity to become an officer in the United States Army. From this seat of wisdom, he was able to judge the combat performance of the 29th Infantry Division, a National Guard Unit...which, in turn, prompted a reply in Joseph Balkoski's book "Beyond The Beachhead".

Most of Fussell's book, "Doing Battle", deals with his career in academia. I do not think that the author was ever happy. At the beginning of his career, the author was "...condemned to an atmosphere of insignificance and ineffectiveness..." at a mere girls' school. (page 213). Interestingly enough, the comments of that famous (infamous) Senator from Wisconsin are confirmed in Fussell's book. Universities were godless places. Fussell reports that a Catholic professor was surprised to find so many atheists.
Page 203: "...what a pederastic paradise for some graduate students Harvard had been." Heidelberg was more efficient than American universities. After I finished his book, I could only think of the comment I learned in the United States Navy, "My heart pumps purple panther piss for him."

I have 2 boys 12 and 14. I hunger for books on this subject. I liked this book better than others. I chaff at the sterotypes necessary in this sort of book although Gurian handled this issue gracefully. The book is dense on theory and philosophy and more articulate and complete and thought provoking than most. I liked his list of characteristics and attributes of the fine young man. The sections on practical hints, while much more complete than most other books on the subject could certainly bear some fleshing out especially for parents who not are well connected with adequate male models. It made me grateful I have a great husband and a circle of good friends.

Basically to make a long story short he gives boys
*bunk" all the traits of monstes which have to be controlled by
channeling boys even further into this behavior by saying it's
"normal".In REAL life there are plenty of quiet,well mannered
boys and sex crazed rocus girls.This book has nothing to do with
reality,and is based on Gurian's subjective beliefs about
boys or as he puts it "male brains".Brains are brains and they
vary from person to person,once more he doesn't seem to understand their is more to a ^BEING^ than mere biology.
People can teach their children,both boys and girls that they
have self controll and will to succeed.Both girls as well as
boys need information which will lead them toward success in
life,not just boys.Much weight to succeed is put on boys in
his realm.This ideal of 'masculine' *gag* perfection is not good for boys,because it's a ONE SIZE FITS ALL type of
mentality.
What he's doing to kids and also adults is criminal.

I find Gurian's cross-cultural perspective fascinating, and he does a better job in this book than in "The Wonder of Boys" of suggesting actions that can be taken and changes that can be made to help our young men. As a mentor and a clinical psychologist who works with children and their families, I see far too many boys trying to figure out how to become men with little or no input from men. Growing up just happens as boys grow older, but maturing is another matter; maturing or developing into adulthood requires guidance and/or examples to follow. Mothers do all they can, but boys need men they respect who will teach them how to become men, or at least lead by example. This is highly recommended for mentors, educators, and parents.

One of the best features of this book is the fact that Michael Gurian. having lived in other cultures, researches his material through the scientific process aas well as by investigating other cultures in how they relate to boys. In so doing Gurian discovers some common elements and some differences. Some of these differences are surprising and offer our own culture something to thnink about. It is hard to focus on what is good about this book because one would have to summarize all its chapters. Perhaps a strong element of "A Fine Young Man" is the structure of those chapters. Guriam presents the thesis of the chapter. He presents cross-cultural references, scientific reseach and personal histories. He then offers some practical "how-to's". For those of us who work with boys, especially adolescents, this practical aspect is quite important. While Gurian's style makes this "easy" reading, one finds oneself pausing numerous times and talking to oneself about what one has just read. Gurian inspires the reader to bring "his" own life to the process. I thought this book would be a releif from the spiritual and theological reading I have been doing. Yet I found myself reflecting frequently on Gurian's insights, the implications of the research he discovered and the stories he presents. I found myself journaling about these times.

This book has solid practical value, but it also has a deep spiritual challenge to those of us to want to help our young men grow into healthy and faithful adults.

This book was written not only for youth but as a tool that parents, teachers, and community members can use to engage in the difficult task of guiding youth, especially young men. The author states that "Adolescent boys may appear to be self-sufficient, but they actually need their parents and elders desperately." This profound statement by the author summarizes the book in the fact that without mentor's youth can not survive. Besides providing information for family and community members the book also addresses many male behavior traits by describing biological reasons behind them. Scientific studies conducted on neurological development have asserted that female and make brains have significant differences. Within males testosterone plays a much more profound role in male development and behavior which sheds some light into the aggressive actions of male youth. However, the author doesn't simply focus on neurological development as a means to scapegoat the fact that males tend to be more aggressive then females thus their behavior should be excused, but rather suggest that this theory might explain in more depth the reasoning behind typical family dilemmas.

The book outlines ways that parents, mentors, and community members can keep aggression from becoming violence, such as focusing on education and how the media effects aggression in young men through development from preadolescence to late adolescence. The author states that adolescent boys are society's most undernourished population in regards to mentoring and that focusing a little bit of time and effort is going to pay of immensely for these young men and how they ultimately affect society.

This book was clearly written for individuals who want to broaden their knowledge surrounding at risk male youth. It has clear goals which are outlined throughout the book and it provided a solid basis for understanding what needs to be done in ones home, community, and elsewhere to aid in the development of at risk youth.

Even though at times I did not agree with the physiological causes for assertive male behavior I was able to understand that extensive research within this area has been completed and this book is based on that research. Although the neurological development of males is drastically different then females, I believe that it does not excuse aggressive behavior. Overall I thought this book was well written and had some excellent alternative view points. I would definitely recommend it to another mentor.

I bought this book back in March and it set on my shelf until this past weekend. I wish I hadn't waited so long. Many issues Jordan addresses in the book spoke directly to my own personal AND professional situation, especially the concept of "shedding."

If I had one criticism of the book, it would be his use of quotes..a bit of overkill, I think.

This is an excellent book. I'm looking forward to getting the next two books in the trilogy.

Jordan gives his own thoughts on music, supported by some inspirational, funny, sometimes historical quotes from musicians and those who have spoken on music. When I first bought the book some years back I remember being struck by how it spoke to me as a musician and how many times I wanted to return to its pages. I stupidly loaned it to someone. It will never be loaned again! Jordan does touch this musician's soul and made me think about what it means to me to be a musician. I often take this little book away with me when I'm on conferences for inspiration and comfort. Don't hesitate - buy it!

Being a student, I feel very lucky to have read this book at the young age of 16. I am now 21. It has changed the was I conduct forever, and I cannot not say enough, how much this book has influenced my life.

There are many quotes in the book from other people. I LOVE them. Some people think Dr. Jordan was just doing it to "fill out his book". I disagree. He put the quotes in because he thought they were things a musicians needed to see. AND may I say that he probably spent hours upon hours documenting the quotes correctly.

Bravo Dr. James Jordan! I appreciate your book more than you will ever know!

As an inexperienced conductor, I am extremely lucky to have read this book early in my development as a conductor. It really does speak of the core of real music-making - the heart. And it teaches you how to excel in this area of humane musicianship and pitfalls that all musicians do always fall into.

A great book! and I would like to recommend it to any serious mucisian and especially the conductors.

I just wanted to say that I had to read this book and write three, two page essays on it. My only problem was, there was nothing to write about. He says the same thing different ways. I really don't see what people are getting out of this book. If you're a human being with emotion and you understand music's emotional neediness, then you don't need this book. I don't usually write negatively about things, but this book just upset me because there are people actually buying into everything and paying for a book that common sense would tell them already. If you have half a brain, you don't need this book.

I really enjoyed Richard Feynman - A Life in Science. The book is an interesting account of Feynman's life, and teaches a lot about physics as well. I feel that the author felt it was necessary to write about Feynman not only because of his scientific discoveries, but because of his view of the world, and how he brought that to science. The book is very interesting. It goes into detail about Feynman's career and life, and gives us details about all of his personality quirks. Richard Feynman is best known for his work in quantum electrodynamics, which he won a Nobel Prize for in 1965. He also worked on quark the theory of superfluidity and was a member of the Manhattan Project during World War Two. Feynman was famous for his lectures and teaching. He taught physics because he found it fun, and he conveyed this in his teachings. We should read this story because it teaches it about physics and the way the world works, but more importantly, because it presents us with Feynman's optimistic interesting view on life. I think that if we all learned a little of Feynman's philosophies, we would all be much happier and simpler people.

This book, written by John and Mary Gribbin, gives a great insight into the life of a truly amazing genius who was told the importance of understanding the way things work from childhood. Melville Feynman, Richard Feynman's father, raised his son to be a scientist and succeeded. Richard was inquisitive throughout his life. It is clear that his curiosity led him to work on solving problems that were new to him, even if they had been solved before. Feynman was not a social outcast like many scientists are believed to be, and the Gribbins weave in some interesting personal stories about Feynman. Richard Feynman had a wonderful life from the standpoint that everything in his scientific life worked out well, and he rarely seemed to have any major obstacles in his work. The topics that Feynman studied were difficult to understand and may be impossible to understand without having him to explain. The Gribbins do an excellent job of explaining the difficult and sometimes abstract things that Feynman worked on or discovered. Feynman had a knack for problem solving ever since he was young and magically (by thinking) could fix radios. It is clear that Feynman enjoyed the area of study he was in, and "he never knew when he was working and when he was playing" (p 250). His sister Joan said of him. Feynman did enjoy what he did and was always ready for a challenge either from a teacher or from a colleague that was stuck. Feynman lived a very interesting life and not only worked on physics but took up painting, traveling, and playing the bongos. The renown of Feynman was amazing; he knew people from all over the world that were amazing and unique. The life of this man was full of incredible discoveries that continued through his old age. Feynman was thankful for every day he had, especially after he was diagnosed with cancer. Feynman's last words were, "This dying is boring" (p 258). He loved life, and he knew his legacy would continue saying, "I've kind of spread me around all over the place. So I'm probably not going to go away when I'm dead!" (p 258). Feynman was right about his legacy because he contributed so greatly to science and society.

John and Mary Gribbin have done a splendid job in explaining the life and works of Richard Feynman. It is a short book of only about 300 pages, but it briefly explains every important part of Feynman's life. Starting with his childhood the book shows what influenced him to become a physicist and how in an early age he learned the meaning of knowing the name of something and actually knowing something.
The book goes through Feynman's education, his career as a physicist and his contributions to science. Along with that the book gives explanations of what was going in the world of physics before, during and after Feynman. This is the part where anyone reading will have problems because there is so much physics explained that a person needs to have a prior knowledge of basic physics and an intermediate knowledge of the atom to actually understand what Feynman did that made him a legend. If one cannot understand Feynman's contribution, there is no point in reading the book. Other than this, I have no complaints about the book.
The book explains one thing most impressively, i.e. it establishes how Feynman is an unusual physicist. Most usually do their best work by their early thirties, but Feynman made major contributions until he was middle aged. He received his Nobel Prize for his work on QED, but his other major contributions are in gravity, weak interactions, strong interactions, super fluidity, atomic bomb and he also led a major role in the investigation of the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster. Feynman enjoyed life to its full extent; he made adventurous trips, played bongos, and actually had fun in doing what he was doing.
The book establishes that Feynman was no ordinary genius. The most important thing about him was he was never too proud and never let his genius get to his head. He was one of the most down to earth and honest person. He didn't accept mistakes from others but was still willing to accept his own mistake. He was willing to share his knowledge with anyone who wanted to learn and had this `feel' about him that one could not help but get influenced by him.
It looks like John and Mary Gribbin had to give the public a taste of the life of one of the most influential physicist who throughout his life was enthusiastic, adventurous and never backed down from a challenge. If you want a basic overview of Feynman's life with insights in quantum physics, I absolutely recommend this book. But if you are the type that cannot handle physics, this book is not for you.

There have been multiple biographies and compendiums honoring the lovable supergenius Richard Feynman, and his mindboggling accomplishments. This one is mostly a collection of snippets and anecdotes from previous books, but it probably gives the most concise and comprehensive coverage of Feynman's life and his vast influence on science. Granted, this particular bio does have a few flaws, especially in its rather breathless idolization of Feynman and his brilliance, to the point where the reader wonders if the gentleman had any flaws at all. Also, this book keeps trying to glamorize how approachable and lovably eccentric Feynman was, but these aspects of his personality don't really come through here, as John Gribbin can't quite make Feynman's hobbies like playing drums, or his love of teaching and reaching out to the masses, seem that amazing. But in any case, this is still a perfectly enjoyable biography because Feynman's brilliance in physics, and all the other intellectual endeavors he tackled, really does shine through. Gribbin also fleshes things out with pretty good coverage of Feynman's extensive contributions to physics, such as almost single-handedly inventing quantum electrodynamics, with the necessary background knowledge into modern and historical science. Despite a few problems with the structure of the biography, the person it's about really makes an impact with the reader. That can't be said about too many Nobel-winning eccentric genius physicists. [~doomsdayer520~]

I can't remember ever reading a biography quite as enjoyable. The authors are to be congratulated for their perfect blend of scientific and personal anecdotes. You won't find any of Feynman's lectures here, but you will come to understand why Feynman is so revered. The author's write, "Does the world really need another book about Richard Feynman? We think so, or we wouldn't have written it." I agree with them, and I'm sure you will too. A wonderful book.

Read THE SCARLET PROFESSOR, an engrossing true story
about a college professor embroiled in a sex scandal . . . Newtown Arvin published groundbreaking literary studies in his 37 years at Smith College, and he cultivated friendships with the likes of Lillian Helman and Truman Capote . . . a social radical and closeted homosexual, he somehow survived McCarthyism.

But in September of 1960, his apartment was raided and his
collection of erotica was confiscated . . . it was then that his

troubles began . . . he was brought to trial, and in doing
so, he also named names of other so-called pornographers.

I found this part of the book particularly fascinating, in that
it helped give me a better feel for America's moral fanaticism
during that time period . . . even if you're not a fan of
biographies, you might find yourself pleasantly surprised
if you give this one a chance.

There were many memorable passages; among them:
The following day he [Newton] wrote to her again:
"I realize how good I ought (and must) be to you in
order to make you happy and keep you by me. I wish
that I could be a god and a saint and a knight and a
good companion for your sake." If Arvin was to fail as
a husband, it would not be for want of trying.

[from his journal] Reading of student papers, bluebooks,
etc. a form of torture, though inescapable at best. What
gives the extra turn of the screw is, of course, the
debased English in which most of them are written.
Reading them is a matter of rubbing an iron file over
one's teeth, or holding urine in one's mouth, or having the
racket of a bulldozer in one's ear for an hour or two on
end. Physical tiredness inevitably ensues.

The sudden seizure of his secret history completed the
shattering of Arvin's world. When he saw police returning
with the slender volumes, opening them, flipping through
their limited pages--beginning to decipher the penciled
hieroglyphics that unlocked his innermost life--it was as if
there was nothing left of him to take or preserve. He was
in utter panic, shaking his face fallen.

Newton Arvin was a distinguished literary critic, scholar, and college professor whose influence on the early days of American literary studies is still felt today. In 1960, as the age of McCarthy's witch-hunt mentality drew to a close, Arvin and his friends were targets of a police raid, where relatively mild homoerotic materials were seized. The men were arrested and accused of having a "smut ring", leading to their felony convictions, as well as the loss of their jobs and the shame of being revealed as homosexual in 1960. Werth's biography is not only about Arvin's personal and literary life, but is also about America at this time, the puritanical crusades it supported, but which proved their own undoing. Werth's writing is a bit dull during the first half, but as it progresses, and Werth explores Arvin's life in relation to his friends (including his once-lover Truman Capote) and to the world, it becomes a fascinating story of a man who fell from grace, but who didn't let it destroy him. Not only is this a compelling sliver of gay history, but it also showcases the lives of intellectuals in a country where intelligence is progessively devalued.

I picked this book up after reading Arvin's classic bio of Herman Melville (which is itself worth checking out). Werth's treatment of the tale is reminiscent of the genre of non fiction I like to call "The Expanded New Yorker Article". That's fine, I love the New Yorker, but the weakness endemic to the genre is the feeling that 150 pages would suffice (and you're reading a three hundred page book). Regardless, I read the whole book and don't regret it.

Werth's treatment of Arvin's tortured feelings about his own homosexuality are sad. Arvin's own betrayal of his friends and lovers at the hands of the authorities is pathetic. The fact that the "Homosexual Scandal of Smith College" (of which Arvin was the primary figure) dates to 1960 is astonishing.

It's impossible not to have sympathy for the man, but the bottom line is that he snitched on his comrades(i.e. he named names and testified for the prosecution in a co-defendant's appeal), and that taints his legacy.

I would imagine this would mostly appeal to young academics (and would be academics). That probabaly explains why there are 13 reviews of this book on Amazon!

This book was given to me as a gift so I felt an urge to read it right away. It was a B+. It's about the literary life of Newton Arvin who was shattered by a scandal in 1960. I was born in 1959 so it was interesting to me to read of what was going on at the time. It ventures into the closeted homosexual literary elite. This book gave me other book ideas that I really want to read like: The Scarlet Letter by Hawthorne, Letters & Leadership by Van Wyck Brooks, Roderick Hudson by Henry James, Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman, Memoirs of Hecate County by Edmund Wilson, Other Voices, Other Rooms by Truman Capote, and other books that were actually written by Newton Arvin. This book is a great book for any aspiring writer and/or a lover of literature. A few lines that captured me in the book that will give you a flavor for it are:
It seems our worst fears are always more than justified.
I shan't advise you. If I were you I would follow my impulse or interest, and get to work.
He recoiled from loving and from being loved, which, taken away, left little worth living for.
He felt more trapped in Northampton...which, if nothing else, had made small-town life easier to bear by fostering certain illusions: stability, permanence, and a sense of home.
He craved solitude, a place of his own as a tranquil and sacred abbey.
'You know how much I love you'...'It is a luxury only to allow oneself to SAY it from time to time.'
...if I ever really began a 'letter' to you it could have no imaginable end--or even beginning--for it would just have to circle for ever and ever, like a great wheel, about the one central fact...
Like most of us aging and lonely people, what he wants is it get away from HIMSELF & unfortunately you take yourself wherever you go!
In short, there are sunny days, and there is memory, and--hardest of all--there is choice.
...the deepest betrayals usually came not from one's enemies but from one's friends and associates.

Barry Werth's "The Scarlet Professor" is a rather dry but thorough account of Newton Arvin's self-destructive collision with the stultifying socio-political reality of post-WW II America. As a communist homosexual, his well-deserved place as a respected national scholar and critic was a train wreck waiting to occur in that era of various mass hysterias. The J. Edgar Hoover/McCarthy era, in fact, becomes the more fascinating part of this decades-long drama; we are along with cadres of feds'n'cops as they coordinate and close in on the laughably Mitty-esque "ringleaders" in the series of "smut" busts. How simple things were when the nation was so self-righteous that police squads fanned out across the land to root out stacks of gay pics and mags in people's private homes. The most lasting and valuable upshot of all this high-sounding puffery was the Mapps v. Ohio ruling that disallowed use of any evidence seized in the warrantless busts these over-zealous Christian soldiers performed.

America's puritanical silliness aside, the book relates Arvin's personal failings, self-loathing, doubts, and travails as being the focal catalyst of much of what has become conventional wisdom regarding Hawthorne, Melville, Whitman, and Longfellow. Of each, Arvin was able to discern a specific experiential and/or psychosexual linkage with himself; it is this synthesis that acts as Arvin's Rosetta stone in deciphering the deeper deconstructions of his authors` lives and works.

I'll leave the more esoteric literary arguments to others. Read this as a historical document of an era rapidly fading from America's contemporary memory - so long as you don't take stone bosom-covering AG Ashcroft too seriously. He would have fit right in during those strangely paranoid fifties.

I think that this book gives an excellent, detailed look back on a greatly unknown black American explorer, William Henry Sheppard. Pagan Kennedy opens our eyes to history that is left out of history books. The Presbyterian missionary attempts to convert African tribes into "civilized Christians", but in the end fails because of his mishaps and disliking by a white missionary. I recommend this book to anyone interested in studying black American explorers, or anyone looking for information on the Belgium Congo.

Pagan Kennedy told the story of a African American missonary who wanted to convert the uncharted parts of the Congo to christianity. William Sheppard, the missionary, was very determined to complete his goal of converting the Congo even if it took his whole life. I Could not put the book down. The book was basically a detailed sum up of what really went on in the Congo. At some points in the book it almost seemed fictional because it was so hard to believe what was happening to him amd the people who were with him. The book was a very good read, but at some points hard to understand but that added to the suspense of the book. Overall the book was a very fun an interesting book to read. I recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn about the Congo or who wants to find a good book to read.

Black Livingstone is a remarkable tale, illustrating hardships, history, and the dignity and determination associated with two courageous explorers. Pagan Kennedy accurately portrays 19th century Africa, and shows the light and beauty of the "dark continent". Readers are bombarded with delicate representations of barbaric and striking images. In turn, it enables the reader to experience a deeper feeling of empathy for the abused Africans. This novel raises questions as to whose way of thinking was most primitive. This ironic twist reveals that perhaps the most civilized are the most barbaric by nature. The character Sheppard shows the Pontius Pilate in all of us. That no matter how much we want to strive for goodness, our weaknesses and dark sides, can get the best of us. The novels descriptive nature allows readers to see the intimacy Sheppard shared with the Kuba people, as well as the lack of intimacy he did share with his wife. A notable highlight of this novel is demonstrated when a more tasteless and uncouth side of Sheppard is shown. It showcases the human nature of Sheppard, and most men in general. Although not a difficult read, this book is recommended to those who care for the well being for the human race.

The life and work of William Sheppard should be better known. He was an African-American who escaped Jim Crow in the U.S. to become a missionary in Africa. He co-founded a Christian mission in Africa where they had been none before and for a time ran it single-handedly. He was also an amateur anthropologist/ethnologist and became the first foreigner to establish contact with the Kuba people of central Africa and to describe their culture to the outside world. On top of all that, he documented the cruelty of the King Leopold's Congo rule. Unfortunately, it is not clear that "Black Livingstone: A True Tale of Adventure in the Nineteenth-Century Congo" by Pagan Kennedy is up to the job of elevating William Sheppard to his rightful place in history. The book is well written, worth reading, and might be valuable to anyone interested in Africa, the Congo, or Christian missionaries, but a lot of the story is missing and is filled in with generalities from Sheppard's time. It may be the case that original documents concerning Sheppard's life are lost, and this is the best that can be done, or perhaps another book can do better. Four stars, but barely.

I agree that Pagan Kennedy is an excellent storyteller, and her telling of William Sheppard's story is spellbinding. Contrary to what some reviewers think, however, there is much more primary material available to the researcher than Kennedy seems to have used. Unfortunately, Black Livingstone is marred by too many suppositions--maybe, probably, perhaps, could have, should have, etc.--and the author attributes attitudes both to Sheppard and his associates that cannot be substantiated from records. William Phipps's biography, William Sheppard: Congo's African American Livingstone, presents a much more balanced picture of this important man's life and service.

Stone was given a task that was impossible to do: being asked to reconstruct a life and a story in a way that would both please Vincent and be worth writing. Granted, Vincent's life was tragic, but is not a story worth repeating. It is not new tale: a troubled gay youth struggling to fit in, finding refuge in a gay metropolis, and ultimately dieing of AIDS.
What is much more interesting is Stone's story. What a remarkable situation to be in: Having to write the story of a former student who has since grown estranged; to see her very human reaction to Victor's sad story. Untimely it is much more compelling and thought provoking that the story given her.
Stone is an expert of narratives (as per her other book and work.) I think she could see the limits of Victor's tale; which would make for a very unremarkable and unoriginal work. Instead we see how she reacted, and we in turn can react likewise. Tragedy for Stone is not in the grand narrative, but in all the subsequent and supporting narratives.
In the tired genera of AIDS-memoir Stone has breathed new life into it. Vincent is surly pleased.

A large brown box appears on the doorstep of teacher, Elizabeth Stone's front door. Inside she would find the journals and inner workings of former student, former human being, former AIDS patient; Vincent.
This book was extremely slow going. I felt that it asked too may questions and sort of implied the story rather than to tell it. Yes I am aware that Miss. Stone only had the journals as a reference yet I still believe this work could have been executed in a way as to end up with a much more impressive piece of writing.
In reading "A Boy I Once Knew," I also came across a variety of typos and errors thus proving the type of effort that went into the book.
Stone also seemed to focus much more on her life than Vincent's, the one she meant to be preserved.
When I look at this book as a whole I can't help but wonder if Vincent was made into the person he wanted the world to know. But, at the same time, I don't know if we were properly "introduced".

What a tremendous letdown! I picked this up because I loved the thought of the ex-teacher revealing the life of a former student through his memoirs and her memories. Too bad that isn't really the book. Elizabeth Stone uses Vincent as an excuse to write her own autobiography- and believe me, her story makes you long to hear Vincent's all the more. Perhaps his diaries were very vague or his family reticent of having his life detailed - both understandable. But, given that, there isnlt really a worthwhile project here. I got so bored that I kept skipping pages looking to find Vincent's story and all I really kept finding was hers. Ugh! A vanity project all around.

Upon completing this book (and before reading the reviews of others on this site), I came out with many of the same feelings that they had: this book was NOT so much about the "Boy" but about the author. I'm glad to see that I wasn't the only one disappointed and misled by the book and its summary. I wanted to know more about the supposed title character...not about the author. The author left his diaries and notes to a total stranger so she could tell the world about him...about his battle with life...and death. And yet all she was concerned about was her own life. What a disappointment. I'm sure she gained something from reading his diaries, but we certainly didn't. And when she did mention him, she used quotes from his diaries that were quick notes like, "Went shopping. Met with friend." Nothing in detail. A true author who wanted to share Vincent with the world would have cut beyond his quick notes and written something with more depth, using his notes as a guide. Ms. Stone didn't seem to even "get" Vincent...or the gay lifestyle. So, after reading the book, I quickly resold it online. It wasn't a keeper for me. Sorry, Vincent...I hope someone else preserves memories of you...

A Boy I Once Knew is a bit of a miss-titled novel. Although the book is an interesting read, I was expecting a book about the title character and his life journey from the time he was a student to the time he died. Instead, the book focuses primarily on the author who draws parallels between what is happening in the Journals to what is happening in her own life. While sometimes interesting. In that sense it was disappointing, leaving me to wonder about the diaries and what I didn't learn. A more apt title for this book might have been, The Diaries I Received From A Student And How They Made Me Reflect On My Own Life.

This is one of the first examinations of the Summers presidency at Harvard. The book examines the results of Laurence Summers, former treasury secretary and brilliant economist, when he served as president of Harvard. Summers was known for daring to oppose that anti-Israel lobby at Harvard and divestment. He was known for his many verbal battles with such icons as Cornell West. He was also known for critiquing many of the political courses at Harvard that did not seek to educate but to indoctrinate. He was also criticized for accepting money for a sheikh connected to Islamism and allowing Harvard's name to be purchased by the United Arab Emirates, an apartheid state.

But for all his controversy he may have been the greatest president of Harvard in the last thirty years. This book is partially a critique and partially a discussion of the ins and outs of the controversies surrounding him. He was critiqued so much because he tried to rock the boat at Harvard and he dared to question whether it was still providing the best education. Although this book might be a little heavy handed in claiming that Harvard students are groomed to run the world, it is an interesting examination of the role of Summers at the prestigious University.

Seth J. Frantzman

This is an outstanding book. It covers the first three years of Larry Summers' Harvard presidency and really takes you inside the university. Harvard Rules treats the issues of higher education seriously, but it also conveys all the drama that goes on behind-the-scenes at Harvard. I particularly liked the way Bradley treated the people involved as characters, so that the book reads almost like a novel, which is not what you'd typically expect of a book about higher education. Like him or hate him, Larry Summers is a fascinating man, and this book provides grist for both sides of the mill. If you're interested in Harvard or higher education, this is a must read. But if you're interested in just a good read about ambition and power, I'd recommend Harvard Rules for that, too.

Disclaimer: I am not a fan of Larry Summers. I didn't care for him when I was an intern at Treasury, and as an alum I really don't care for him as president of Harvard. But even I think this book is unfair to Summers and goes too far in trying to villify the man.

Bradely has written a book that is very easy to read and draws almost all of the issues enveloping Harvard in easy to digest, black-and-white dramas between Summers (always in the black hat) and various members of the faculty and student body (always portrayed sympatetically). This book makes no pretence of being objective or looking any further than skin-deep at the controversies that surrounded Summers before the most recent blow-up over his comments on women in science. Several chapters end with essentially the same line: by doing X, Summers had further consolidated his rule over the university. If all of this is true (it's not), Summers would be the absolute dictator of Harvard Yard by now.

In fact, what has been written here is basically an expanded, book-edition copy of the Harvard Crimson from 2000 to the present. There is little new in the book that readers of Harvard's student newspaper don't already know other than a few re-interviews that Richard Bradley has done with various personalities involved in the recent events at Harvard.

What's lost here is that what is going on at Harvard is a microcosm of what's going on at many other American universities, and that much of it isn't new. As far back as I can remember (and I come from a family of academics), students and faculty alike have hated their university presidents, viewing them as uninterested in academics or out of touch with their student bodies. As at Harvard, with the decibel level of campus politics higher today than at any time since the 1960s, there is a lot of talking (or complaining, depending on one's perspective) going on and less respect for opposing viewpoints. Harvard is hardly unique in this respect.

Bradely castigates Summers for his handling of several episodes with faculty (most noteably the Cornel West debacle) but misses the broader trend that acadmics as a whole have been getting into narrower and narrower specalties that prevent their work from being of much use to anyone. This doesn't mean that Summers was justified in how he treated West, who was (and is) a true educator, but it does deny this book some much-needed context.

Similarly, Bradley's comments on Summers' stress on achievement by students misses that the same line was toed by the genteel Neil Rudenstine, who once told the Crimson that 'students don't come to Harvard to have fun' when asked why the university maintains an academic schedule that places fall term finals immediately after winter break. This was a particularly poor-timed comment after a rash of student suicides on campus and reports that Harvard's student suicide rate was twice the national average.

Overall, only the most die-hard Summers haters will find anything valuable in Harvard Rules. Everyone else interested in the state of campus would be better of reading the Crimson from time to time.

I bought Harvard Rules because my daughter is in high school and thinking of applying there, and after President Summers' comments about women and science, I wasn't so sure that was a good idea. Now, I'm even less sure. Harvard Rules is a fascinating investigation of what the author refers to as the world's most powerful university, and I think he makes a pretty good case for that. Bradley traces the story of how Larry Summers got chosen as president and what his mandate was to change the university. But he shows how Summers was a more difficult character than anyone had expected, and the resulting controversy repeatedly impeded his attempt to bend Harvard to his will. I never realized all the behind-the-scenes politicking that goes on at Harvard-fighting over money, promotions, prestige. This is a great story of the way that one of the most influential institutions in the entire world *really* works-and sometimes doesn't. Anyone whose kid is thinking about Harvard-or anyone thinking of applying there-should read this book.

Answer: the author Richard Bradley, not Harvard president Lawrence Summers.
Reason. The cause of the fear is that West might accuse Bradley of being a "racist" and ruin his career. If you are one of the Harvard faculty who hate Summers, you are probably afraid of West too. Some of you may have witnessed Bradley's fear and trembling on C-SPAN 2 when he discussed this book in the presence of West. He acted like a hostage in Iraq.
Truth. The truth is that Summers had the guts to stand up to West and Henry Gates. He rejected their racial fantacies because they could not cite any credible supporting evidence. He rejected the politicizing of a great university. He reaffirmed academic freedom. Of course, Bradley did not intend to make Summers look good. But the facts speak for themselves. Read the book in a bookstore, but don't buy it and enrich an author who is afraid of Cornel West.

We used this book for a women's book club study. It was very interesting and yet startling information. well written and a good read for anyone.

The book is excellent and appears to be new and arrived promptly

First Yale, then a little Peace Corps work in the jungles of America, and back to school. She left Compton in 1995 and has been in graduate school ever since. This emphasis on "White" troubles me. I doubt that the TFA teachers' problems stem from their being white. The biggest gap I ever witnessed between a teacher and her students was between a haughty middle-class black woman and her ill-behaved charges. She wasn't a guilt-ridden white, full of caring, but a proud black woman who was righteously appalled that the ghetto kids were being enabled by a slack administration looking to make excuses for the lazy kids. The White Ivy League snots who work in the ghetto were never in the school; they were visitors, giving teaching a shot. Why in the world would parents send their kids to Yale to see them become teachers? You can get a teaching credential at the local state college. No. TFA is designed to add sainthood to one's resume, so one will forever be described not only as sexy, rich and smart, but also as caring, compassionate and, above all else, not racist. This is the only reason mom and dad, after paying $40,000 per year for four years, would tolerate seeing their child waste two or three years fooling around with blacks and browns in America's urban jungles. M & D can dine out with stories from their son or daughter's acts of heroism for years and years. Ms Sentilles doesn't let a day go by, I'm sure, that she doesn't tell someone about her work in Compton, a town amusingly described as poor (think Biafra) when in fact the houses there, on palm tree-lined streets, sell for $400,000. The kids come to school with their pockets filled with pickles, potato chips, and candy because they won't eat the "cafeteria food" which they consider too "nasty" for their delicate palates. Each and every one a Zsa Zsa Gabor, the kids have never done a chore in their lives. Their parents demand to see a counselor of their child's race, insisting that one of another race would be prejudiced. Hence, the "understaffed" schools, according to Ms Sentilles, in fact, have entire offices filled with bi-lingual aides, counselors, vice-principals, coordinators, and translators. The kids are trained in this system of victim-hood and privilege, so they stay home in droves on rainy days so as not to get wet, demand to see their counselor when told to turn off their phones, and walk out of the classroom when refused. I worked in LAUSD for over ten years. The sad tale of desperate kids trying to make do in under-funded schools is an insult to the California tax-payers who are taxed to death to pay for well-staffed schools, with huge federal bonus funds which are squandered on text book orders made at mid-year and end-of-year due to damage and waste. Where I taught, kids would throw so much food away, on to the floor, mind you, that staff used snow shovels to scoop up the waste. This on a daily basis. Feeling sorry for these lower-middle-class "poor" is itself an industry, one which the author exploits, despite her sincerity and integrity.

I enjoyed this book. The author is very realistic and authentic in her discussions. I found it to be very thought-provoking.

This is a beginning teacher in the "Teach for America" program that starts her career in the Compton, CA area better known as the Watts area in LA. Since I have been a teacher for 36 years and live in LA, I relate to this book and her many disappointments and joys. Read it--you'll love it, especially if you are or have been a teacher.