Sharon Olds Books

I HAPPEN TO LOVE THE LOG CABIN BLOCK. THIS BOOK PROVIDED NUMEROUS DIFFERENT WAYS TO MAKE A LOG CABIN. IT'S AN ENJOYABLE BOOK AND A WELCOME ADDITION TO MY COLLECTION.

I am making a quilt with this method because the process doesn't demand perfection. If you want to use scraps from your stash and relax while you stitch this is definitely worth your time. Interesting enough for any level of quilter. What a great method to use for your next quilt!

This is not poetry! It is the rantings of a woman obsessed with herself and her anguish. I don't care.

Her verse is sexually explicit and offensive, in particular the poem titled "Sunday Night" in which she recounts the improper, what could even be considered the criminal behavior of her father towards the waitresses at the restaurants her family would frequent. What is worse, when this poem was written and published, her father was deceased, and unable to answer to these statements. I wonder if these behaviors actually took place, and, it not, why would the poet sully the name of her dead father? Also, what impact did this poem have on her mother? Perhaps Ms. Olds can write a poem to address these issues.

I cannot recommend this dreadful "poetry" to anyone.

Sincerely,

Catherine Ross

Sharon Olds does not disappoint. This is my new favorite book!

I'm a guy, 62 years old, day job
as a herder-of-diesel mechanics
in a small shipyard. Voracious appetite
for poetry for the most recent few
years of my life.

Along now comes "The Unswept Room."

The cover art is worth the price
of the book. Inside is a voyage
that defines travel at it's apex.

I'm captured from the beginning with
Olds' fluidity, warmth, and, excuse the use
of a well-worn word in re: poetry,
her clarity.

It's not easy to penetrate the soul
of a man used for years to the
bending of wrenches.
The body of work in this book
set me up for just such a piercing.
Then early this morning, I got to
"April, New Hampshire."
Brought the salty fluid to bathe
my eyes, but none fell out.
A few pages on, "The Learner"
nailed me to wall.

I thought "The Red Queen" had taught
me more than one gender should know
about the other, from a scientific
line of sight.
Ms. Olds has taken this salty old codger
staightaway into her soul, her feminine soul.
I will be forever grateful.

Ladies--You may have kindred candles lit for you.
Gentlemen--You may learn from the light
of those candles.

Lee

I applaud Sharon Olds for not bowing to the literati's mandate that all poetry must rhyme, be a sonnet, a villanelle, pantoum. This is free verse at its finest. It may not subscribe to a "type" but it is lyrical and poetic just the same. Poetry is evolving and many of today's writers are moving away from the strict rhyme and meter. The poetry in The Unswept Room is some of Olds' finest work. After the brilliant and harrowing poetry about her abuse as a child, this volume finds a more settled Olds starting a new chapter in her life. Bravo.

Despite some readership's lack of comprehension for the genuis that is Sharon Olds, I am a believer in her as art and artist. I've seen her read (at Oklahoma State University) and was held in awe by her delivery and the new poems she read to the audience. I respect her as a poet, a woman, an artist, an honest voice to depict real-life horror. Poetry is not an artifact for a reader to condemn (or praise too highly). Just observe, open yourself to the experience, and be contently uncomfortably (or uncomfortably content) in the reactions churning within yourself.

An insightful invitation to the "second half of life" (which is always there, before, during, and after "mid-life"). With the help of a "guiding myth" (Castor & Pollux), Johnson and Ruhl engage the reader in an illuminating quest for personal wholeness through Story, Inner Work, Active Imagination and Dreams. Helpful exercises are included along the way (I see a workbook edition coming), and an Unlived Life Inventory is also provided as a brief tool for assessing personal dynamics.

Highly recommended!

From John Howard Prin, author of Secret Keeping: Overcoming Hidden Habits and Addictions

I heartily recommend this book for everyone who yearns to live their dream. The authors have packed much wisdom into 200+ pages, all in a highly readable style. Their insights opened up many mysteries of the unconscious for me and showed healthy ways to experience freedom and fulfillment...to drink life to the last drop.

What I learned was: No matter what path in life we choose, other paths must go "unchosen." Some of those unchosen paths are deeply connected to who we really are and want to be, but priorities during our growing-up years such as college, career, marriage, and raising a family often trump them. As we build our lives, certain key choices naturally go excluded.

When an early gift for music gets put aside in adolescence, for example, it can lurk in the shadows for decades -- calling for our attention and demanding a stronger presence in our lives. Gifts and talents like these, long "unlived," become more insistent as we reach mid-life and beg for expression and full appreciation. Whenever possible, we should get out of our comfort zone and "just do it," rather than waiting until it's too late. As the popularity of the movie The Bucket List attests, this message resonates strongly among millions of people.

But whenever our limits or circumstances make it impossible, there is still good news -- there is another way, an inner way. The authors explain how using techniques such as "active imagination" can fulfill one's potential and lead to lasting satisfaction, rather than our having to wallow in neurotic suffering. Simply put, living symbolically -- and many useful passages demonstrate how -- is the avenue to satisfying our hunger for the unlived life "without upending the life you have worked so hard to build."

Thankfully, LIVING YOUR UNLIVED LIFE shows us ways to live out these tensions in healthy ways and to experience the fulfillment of a well-rounded life that we all long for.

Because this book is written from a New Age / Eastern spiritual perspective, it conflicts with my Christian beliefs and worldview. I borrowed it from a libary because of its very appealing title. If you're into New Age and Eastern spiritually, you might enjoy this book. I encourage you to read 5-star reviews. It's a zero-star book for me, but I gave it 3 stars since I can't evaluate it from a New Age point-of-view.

The guidance I sought in reading this book was unrealized. It has many good thoughts such as, "bringing the calmness and focus of being into doing activities is a supreme achievement.""In the second half of life it is not so much what you do that matters; it is the level of consciousness that you bring to your doing." Its many examples are based on Jungian theory and practices. If you have the background, the reading might be more enjoyable.

This short book tells the story of Daniel being thrown into the Lions' pit by his "friend" Darius (King of Persia). Ann Welty's illustrations are very cute. While children will be glad that Daniel survives the ordeal and that Darius changes the law so that no one has to pray to him as a deity, some children might wonder why Darius throws the "bad men" who had conspired against Daniel into the lion pit at the end of the story. Forgiveness is obviously mentioned, but is not held up in all cases.

This is a good addition to the many state and national quilt histories available. It is well illustrated in color and black and white, and the quilts shown include all types. Each quilt has information about style, fabrics, maker etc (where known). It is well laid out and I enjoyed reading it. Well worth getting.

This handy book includes information and handy tips on making an older home livable and lovely in a relatively inexpensive way. Although I would like the book to give more attention to "Restoration" which includes keeping as much of the historic character of the home as possible, the book is still useful for an owner of an older home. The tips and techniques are also applicable to many maintenance needs in a newer home.

This is a must read for any student or teacher of the book of Genesis. Genesis is viewed from the perspective of the important matriarchs of the faith. Practical applications are easy for the reader to make.

Spaces are missing between sentances, sometimes appearing in the middle of words. Footnotes appear in the middle of sentances, and titles or chapter heading are placed ramdomly throughout the text. The formatting problems are indicative that quality is not an issue for this publisher (MobileReference.)

Being new to the whole "Conspiracy theory" possibility regarding 9/11, I thought I would disspell some of the myths regarding 9/11 by reading this book. I guess I was wrong for attempting to do so. First, and probably most blatant is that WTC7 isn't even mentioned in the book. Yeah, you heard right, the only steel framed structure in the history of the world to come down exclusively by "fire and debris falling from WTC1" wasn't even mentioned, which makes you think...why? Secondly, the hi-jackers of the flights are named with full knowledge that BBC and ABC both had articles on their websites showing 6 out of these 19 men alive. Thirdly and finally, it is assumed that a plane hit the Pentagon, however there is no video or other positive identification images available to the public to confirm such an act took place as described. 5 frames were released from a security cam in 2006. All I have to say is that if that is conclusive that a plane hit the Pentagon, then Americans are as dumb as everyone else says we are. I could go on and on with other examples, but I thought I would keep it brief.

2004's "The 9/11 Commission Report" is the product of an extensive and exhaustive bipartisan investigation into the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. It captures the facts, timelines, and backstory as it was known to that point in time, and does so in a remarkably readable fashion. It is a tremendous unclassified resource on both the events of 9/11 and the failure of the U.S. Government to detect and defeat an unprecented terrorist attack on the U.S. Homeland.

The book is divided into a series of chapters, detailing the events of 9/11 before backtracking to discuss at length the looming threat of militant Muslim terrorism as exemplified by al-Qaeda. The report discusses the evolution of U.S. counterterrorism policy in response to the building threat from al-Qaeda, and why it was ineffective in defeating the "Planes Plot." Finally, the report offers recommendations on how to do better next time.

Inevitably, the 9/11 Commission Report is now a little dated. Our better acquaintance with al-Qaeda, based on years of intelligence work and combat in Afghanistan, Iraq, and other locations, has filled in some of our missing knowledge on that organization, as have al-Qaeda's own media releases. The recommendations for fixes to the workings and interactions of the intelligence and law enforcement communities have been implemented in whole or part. Institutional inertia and the competing requirements of supporting the ongoing global war on terrorism have detracted from what the Commission may have envisioned as an endstate for the overall counterterrorism community.

Perhaps also inevitably, the intensely partisan nature of the political debate over the prosecution of the global war on terrorism has kept controversial the events of 9/11. "The 9/11 Commission Report" is highly recommended as a necessary addition to that debate, and as a tremendous tool for future historians.

As David R. Griffin said this was meant to be a thorough report, but now seeing it is a 568 page 'book' that starts with..

"TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 2001, dawned temperate and nearly cloudless in the eastern United States..."

and going through the Table of Contents that reads like a university assignment done the night before, I don't need to read it to know it is a blatant coverup.

I mean that opening sentence they are kidding right? They have got to be kidding - "The night was sultry"

If this was indeed a serious investigation it would have started on September 12th, been given an unlimited budget and access to people (under oath) & information (uncensored), and produced a ~20,000 page report covering in minute detail what went wrong and why, and what is changing to ensure it never happens again. Not a coffee table book for a bit of bed-time reading. Geez even Lewinksy got a budget of $40 million dollars to determine if she blew the president. This investigation of the most monumental and devastating attack on the heart of America which finally started 441 days afterwards was originally budgeted a paltry $3 million dollars.

I don't need to read this 'book' to remind me of this quote by Bill Hicks..

"Go back to bed, America, your government has figured out how it all transpired. Go back to bed America, your government is in control. Here, here's American Gladiators. Watch this, shut up, go back to bed America, here is American Gladiators, here is 56 channels of it! Watch these pituitary retards bang their ____ing skulls together and congratulate you on the living in the land of freedom. Here you go America - you are free to do what we tell you! You are free to do what we tell you!"

Philip Zelikow often defends illegality in the quest of empire, so its no surprise that Philip Zelikow's 911 Commission report, which he authored, is a mythological masterpiece, a complete web of lies, based upon lies, with virtually all citations in the footnotes being nothing more than bare allegations made in top secret "interviews". I suppose that "interview" means "waterboarding", and as allah knows, you can get anybody to say anything when they think you're drowning them.

When I read the "9/11 Commission Report", I did something few people did. Every time I saw a footnote, I went to the back and read the footnote to see if it supported the facts claimed in the text. Sometimes the footnote was peripherally related - it was "sorta" relevant, but many times the footnote simply did not support the key "fact" being claimed in the text. This was done in many ways. One way it is done is by making a factual claim in the text, along with other statements irrelevant to the main fact, and when you look at the footnotes, the factual claims aren't referenced at all, instead the footnote relates only the irrelevant text. The second way Zelikow lies in his footnotes is by making one claim in the sentence or paragraph, and then the footnote says something COMPLETELY DIFFERENT. For example, on page 86 - Zelikow (trying to revise history and ignore things like, well, the Iran Contra scandal) makes the statement that "The CIA's number one customer is the president of the United States, who also has the authority to direct it to conduct covert operations." It cites footnote 64. When you turn to page 477 and read footnote 64, the cite is to United States Code Section 413, WHICH IS ABOUT CONGRESSIONAL OVERSIGHT TO FORCE THE PRESIDENT TO REVEAL ILLEGAL ACTIVITY. Whaa? It's a bald faced lie to claim Section 413 stands for presidential authority to conduct covert ops.

And on and on and on. Zelikow fills the footnotes with unverifiable references and irrelevant references, I suppose to make it "look scholarly". It's almost as if he had Ann Coulter making his footnotes. "Facts" in text are supported by footnotes which are anything but "facts", such as popular books (usually right wing) written after 9/11, top-secret "interviews" which can't be cross-checked, citations to non-public (uh, do I mean secret?) documents, or cites to documents that the average person cannot find without a lot of work. For example, my handwritten notes regarding the footnotes on page 477 of the 9/11 Commission Report shows that of the "facts" alleged on page 86: 9 are to "official reports"; 9 are to "pop literature"; 25 are from secret "interviews"; 5 are cites to "laws or statutes" (and I've already shown how Section 413 was falsely attributed); 5 are to "executive orders" (not law, in my opinion, but presidential "decrees" from King George), and only 3 were from "testimony" - which I suppose means sworn testimony, under penalty of perjury (but that might not be true - don't forget that King George and Dick Cheney refused to give sworn testimony and instead were interviewed together by the commission behind closed doors, and nobody from the commission was allowed to take notes or record the interview). That means that only 6 percent of the co-called "facts" referenced on page 477 were based on sworn testimony, and almost all would be inadmissible in court since it violates the "best evidence" rule. Perhaps a court would allow more in - but the point is made - the "facts" in the 9/11 Commission report are thinly supported - the book is a sham.

Philip Zelikow, as the director of the 9/11 Commission (or gatekeeper) was the actual author of almost all of the 9/11 Report. He is more likely a perp than a unbiased party, since, he was a security advisor to Condi Rice regarding Al Queada and as such, should have been INVESTIGATED for his failures, not put in charge of the investigation. Other oddities abound. Zelikow is a student and expert on "mythology" (his thesis in college was on creating public myths). Zelikow was an administration insider whose area of expertise is the creation and maintenance of "public myths" thought to be true, even if not actually true. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_D._Zelikow
We all know that he controlled what the Commission did and did not analyze, then limited the scope of the Commission's inquiry so that the overwhelming majority of questions about 9/11 remained unasked (see http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Philip_D._Zelikow
and http://911blogger.com/node/3418 ). Zelikow is arguably the single most responsible person in covering up the truth about 9/11. Zelikow is believed to be the principal author of the final drafts, and its his horribly crappy fiction that makes it "read like a thriller". Yah Zelikow, It can't be ignored: your fiction is abysmal, "it was a dark and stormy night" kind of crap. But that's what's so disturbing - somebody is putting a fictitious spin on what should be a "REPORT" - so it becomes a "STORY" - actually, the 9/11 Commission Report is more than a story - it's an attempt at modern myth building. From the spooky scary Islam guys to the bizarre physics lessons on tower collapse to the huge section which tells us "what to do in the future" (which should be called the "Project for a New Century Lite"), the entire book is crafted with the end in sight: the glorious heroic saga of a sleeping giant savagly blind sided, and the NYPD and FDNY heros who died so you and I can be free.

Now don't get me wrong - I don't know what happened on 9/11, but you won't find anything in this book but a bizarre fantasy-land story - which sounds a lot like a report a cop writes when he's trying to cover his tracks...

Zelikow, as a virtual a member of Bush's cabinet, was horribly conflicted and can't be trusted. Not only was he talking to Karl Rove throughout the Commission investigation, but he was also giving talks about catastrophic terrorism BEFORE the 9/11 attacks. Zelikow also wrote, in "Foreign Affairs", pub. Nov-Dec 1998, an article called "Catastrophic Terrorism: Imagining the Transformative Event" - One "Transformative event" he discussed therein was the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, which he went on to "imagine" what would have happened had it succeeded, which sounds suspiciously like what actually did happen. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that kind of premeditation typically seen as an important clue which prosecutors use to identify criminals? And this guy is the key man writing the 9/11 report? And people wonder why so many Americans believe in the 9/11 truth movement.
See, as well:
http://free71.wordpress.com/2007/10/09/self-inflicted-wound-911-attacks-and-zelikow/
And later, despite blockbuster sales for the 9/11 report, Zelikow later told the Washington Post he was alarmed by the concurrent spread of "conspiracy theories" about the attacks, which he described as pathogens which would destroy his carefully crafted myth:
"Our worry is when things become infectious, as happened with the [John F. Kennedy] assassination," Zelikow says. "Then this stuff can be deeply corrosive to public understanding. You can get where the bacteria can sicken the larger body." (1)
To "Dr." Zelikow, the truth is bacteria. And if you read the 9/11 Commission report, and then do some research, you'll see that the "bacteria" are winning. The "truthers" make some very good points regarding lies about time lines, and the bizarre fact that the ones who supposedly screwed up on 9/11 (if you believe the Report) all got promoted. Something very odd here.

The fruit from this poisonous tree has spread far. The "War on Terror," er, I mean on Afghanistan, oh, I meant Iraq...or is it now Iran? Pentagon black ops budgets and 3.1 trillion missing, Space commands move to encircle the world with killer satellites, the Patriot Act gutting the constitution, contracts awarded to Halliburton to build detention campss, surveillance society and the Telecom Scandal, SPP and Nafta, Cafta, etc. It all answers the question about who would have done it, and what they had to gain. It's empire boys and girls. Corporatist empire. That's who benefitted from 9/11 by billions and billions of dollars. My guess? Al quaeda is a false front enemy created by the CIA to fill the "global enemy gap" created after the Berlin wall fell down. A nameless, faceless, endless global boogy man army. And you kids fell for it.

Sharon Olds, The Dead and the Living (Knopf, 1984)

Sometimes I wonder why I keep trying Sharon Olds books. I generally know what I'm going to get, and it's quite often political screed broken into short lines to resemble poetry:

"You are speaking of Chile,
of the woman who was arrested
with her husband and their five-year-old son.
You tell how the guards tortured the woman, the man, the child,
in front of each other,
'as they like to do.'"
("Things That Are Worse Than Death")

I fail to see what's poetic about it. If you took out the line breaks and read it as prose, there would be no difference whatsoever. Worse, in this volume, Olds also turns the same lack of poetic effect to the confessional poem:

"My bad grandfather wouldn't feed us.
He turned the lights out when we tried to read.
He sat alone in the invisible room
in front of the hearth, and drank."
("The Eye")

To offer a more concrete criticism here, why on earth was the word "bad" not excised in the first line? Did she not think it was obvious? (This may seem a minor criticism to you; rest assured most poets will, when faced with a more difficult decision than this one, agonize over such a thing for days, if not weeks.)

Every once in a while, though, this book does offer up a flash that makes me remember why, in fact, I do keep trying Sharon Olds books: because when she's on her game, the woman can really write. It is unfortunate that she's not often on her game; she lets the message get in the way of the medium on a frequent basis. But there's always just enough of the great writing to balance out the awful writing, and thus I remain trapped in this indecision as to whether I should read yet another Sharon Olds book. This one hasn't pushed me one way or the other. ** ½

If you are reading this you have probably already read Sharon Olds, and liked her enough to go back and look at some of her earlier works, but are fighting a tinge of reservation. Olds can be admired for the sheer raw guts she puts into her poems, the brutal way she expresses her internalized truths. Her honesty is alarming and alluring. But there can be a pariah quality to her, as well. I want to say she has a touch of Madonna in her ethos. At times she can seem to be sneering. This would be insulting, except her writing is so good we want to forgive her, and do - mostly. I find it frustrating when this tone creeps in, as it does here in one or two places. Another disquieting aspect of her writing is the inclusion of some very intimate aspects of her children at various ages and phases. I appreciate her words for their beauty but wonder if her children resent so much exposure. Fortunately, most of the poems in this book are full of clear, blunt prose that revoke the layers of artificiality that can come to accompany our memories of ourselves and the more painful aspects of our personal histories. I find her poems refreshing for this quality (even though thank God I don't have her history). So, although not all poems in this book avoid a self-aggrandizing, mock horror edge, and a few may upset tender sensibilities about what information we need to know about her children in order to understand her as a mother/writer, I enjoyed this book and would even recommend it to readers who have already formed some apprehension toward her work.

I would give this book 0 stars if that were listed on your chart.

Based on this book, titled THE LIVING AND THE DEAD I believe
that Sharon Olds is a very much in need of professional help.

I have read other poetry of hers, as well, and have the same
opinion of it. Frankly, I don't see why Knopf published it.
Maybe they need help too.

Do not recommend this book to anyone.

Sharon Olds needs to stop writing poetry and instead she needs to go see a therapist; at least the therapist will get paid to hear her whine.

Due to Sharon Olds' ambiguous subjects, it is difficult to know if she is talking about a child or a lover. I was assigned this book in college, and my classmates and I jokingly referred to it as "kiddie porn." Half of the class thought she was sensually admiring her lover's genitals, while the other half insisted she was lovingly watching her children grow. I am not sure if she intentionally created a vague subject, but I felt dirty after reading this book.

I am sure this book is excellent for antiquarian/rare book lovers, but I like popular authors with books 20-30 years old too, and those seem to be lacking in this guide a bit. Unless you are a professional book dealer, you will not fetch these prices on the internet, it is flooded with booksellers and the worth of a fine book seems to be waning. But all-in-all it is a good guide to go by when looking up older hardbacks.

When I purchased Huxford's Old Book Value Guide, I imagined that the books that were covered might be older than those written by Len Deighton and Marian Zimmer Bradley. There's lots of stuff from 1970 on, but coverage of genuinely old books is very sparse. The title of this guide is extremely misleading, but if late 20th Century books are your area of interest, you might find this useful. I didn't.

This book does list values of 25,000 books as it claims, but it is incomplete in some very frustrating ways that have to do with how it was put together. The authors apparently contacted a number of book dealers and collected their 'inventories' into a database. These were then consolidated into the listing(s) of this book.

But what that means is that you find an extremely unsystematic selection of titles. You may find a $500 title that someone has been trying to sell for years right above a run-of-the-mill used-bookstore title selling for $15. You could find an author's second book listed, but not the first or third. As a lookup/reference tool is is hardly useful.

I once thought this book would be a nice supplement to the other collecting books that focus on more high-end titles... something to take along to yard sales and the like to see if the $0.25 book was 'worth' $50 or $0.50. Well, even with 25,000 titles you can imagine that many more books are not listed here. Far too often I would not find a listing but COULD NOT KNOW if the book was valuable or not... its non-existence in this book just means one of the selected sellers did not have it in stock. I also kept finding entries in the $25/$30 range - right at the point where it might be a collectable underlisted by that one store or just their overpriced junk. With only a single such listing to consider, I just couldn't know.

The overlarge physical size of the book also seemed unwieldy to me. Combined with the sense of slap-together technique and a look at the number of other "Huxfords" listings, I frankly feel that it is just an attempt to grab a piece of the growing 'collectibles' market.

This guide is for the in-between books. It is for books that are not so old that they would be very hard to find. It contains 25,000 listings of old books with current values. It also lists a directory of over 200 dealers and collectors who are willing to buy the types of old books listed in the guide.

Here are a few examples:

John F Kennedy, Profiles In Courage, 1956 1st ed. F/NF $150.00
Rachel Carson, Silent Spring, 1962 1st ed. F/NF $150.00
Woody Guthrie, Bound For Glory, 1943 1st ed. G/dj $65.00

If you know your books fairly well to begin with, then this book will be at times, helpful. If you are looking for a way to bone up on collectibles, you may just be discouraged. A lot of very noteworthy books are left out, which leaves the reader to wonder if a little favoritism may be going on with the Author. Overall, I still had to rate a solid 4 for good effort in organizing a generally helpful refference guide to the new and seasoned book hound. For the money, it's a go.