Bloomsbury Group Books

I especially appreciated the authors in depth reflexions on disability and body image, both as a child and an adult, especially for women (in her case) but for all of us.

This is a very special and unusual work. Emily's description of growing up with a deformed leg, and all that entailed is honest and difficult at times to read. Nonetheless, there is no self pity, just a straigtforward and detailed description of what it was like emotionally, physcially and spiritually. There is a lot of pain in this book but it is really a coming of age story as well. The writing is wonderful. It is very personal and yet informative especially about the efforts to obtain a prosthiesis that allowed Emily to function as normally as possible and the advancements made in the field over a 20 year period. Finally, the unwavering love and sacrifice of her parents was portrayed simply and gratefully. I read it twice and the second time was better!

I love to read memoirs, especially "little guy" memoirs. Celebrity memoirs are okay, especially if the celebrity is a writer, but time after time I'm drawn to books written by ordinary people. I find it easy to imagine myself in their lives. So it was small wonder that I gravitated to POSTER CHILD with its cover picture of a pert red-headed girl posing with her training bike. It's warm out. She's wearing shorts. Her artificial right leg looks like it's made of plastic; a bulb in its knee joint lets her pedal.

Emily Rapp, the author and the poster child, turned out to be a remarkable writer. She told me her story in such detail, including emotional detail, that I was swept into her anguish of being a child and a young woman who had a portion of her leg amputated when four. I had no idea, really, when I picked up this book what living with an artificial leg would be like. But soon I felt I was alongside her as she went through dozens of operations to replace her artificial leg as she outgrew it.

Listen to how clearly Rapp writes. "For my first fitting, I stood barefoot on the dirty floor of the changing room while the prosthetist took measurements of my stump. The stink of the healing wound was finally gone; the limb was clean. Now that the left foot had been removed, or "disarticulated"--the sharp sound of the word matching the rough nature of the action itself--I had my natural heel at the end of the short leg."

But no wonder Rapp writes well. A Fulbright Scholarship recipient educated at Harvard, she is a professor in the M.F.A. program at Antioch University Los Angeles.

I highly recommend this book, primarily for the skill with which Rapp leads us through the first thirty years of her life, showing us what it was like to live with her "grievous, irrevocable flaw." Unflinchingly honest and sometime darkly humorous, POSTER CHILD is written without sentiment. I watched her struggle to keep up with her fashionable friends, her agony about making love to a man (should she leave her prosthesis on? off?), her final, tenuous, gift of acceptance.

An elegant writer, an amazing book.

Marilyn Coffey is an award-winning writer of poetry and a widely published author of prose. Read her work at Amazon.com: GREAT PLAINS PATCHWORK, MARCELLA, or KANSAS QUARTERLY Vol. 15 No. 2.

One of the best autobiographies I've read. It's heartwrenching, but with no self-pity. It's also funny and dry with great prose and turn of phrase. Outstanding!

Rapp's beautiful description takes you through the crowded streets of Korea, the romantic cafes of Dublin, the dingy offices of doctor after doctor as she tries to get a leg that fits, all the way to the brutally honest mirror in her bathroom. Or is it yours? Her story is frank and engaging. Her struggle one that each one of us can identify with at some point in our lives: the struggle to be "normal."
Poster Child is one of those books that makes you question your own values and assumptions. Poster Child is one of those books that will stay with you forever.

This family memory of overcoming sickness recounts the experiences of the author, who decided to undergo radical surgery in an effort to prevent the cancer diagnosis and death which had plagued women of her family for decades. Their terrible legacy and suffering caused the author to make a painful decision which would change her life. Staying Alive is revealing and engrossing.

Beautifully written book about the struggles of a family with a history of cancer. It was informative, heartwarming and at the same time heartbreaking to read about the three sisters and how they struggled and lost their fight against Cancer. The book told how much courage Janet's Mother (Regina) and her two sisters Fannie and Mary had in their battle. I learned how much medical procedures have advanced since the depression-era. It is also a compelling story of how Janet Reibstein (the author) took a pro-active role in beating the cancer for herself. I would highly recommend this book to anyone facing this challenge and their families as well. It also describes how it affects the whole family and how they cope with all of these emotions.

Once upon a time there were three beautiful sisters: that's how fairy stories ae supposed to begin. And that is how in the real world the story of life in America did begin, for the daughters of one Jewish-American family, Mary, Fannie and Regina. But there was a secret darkening the future that awaited these sisters, a secret that had followed them from Europe and from the past. It is the gradual unfolding of this secret, that Janet Reibstein, the daughter of Regina, tracks as finally it comes to play out in her own generation too.

Looking back with the intensity of a child's vision, she recreates a world, so that we too relish its fabrics, its colours and textures. She makes the pleasure in clothes and dress that the sisters shared live again for us to share. And she also invites us to share her own journey within that family, as one by one her aunts and even her own mother arre diagnosed with the same illness, breast cancer. But instead of a story of doom, Staying Alive is a story of survival, of proactive, intelligent struggle.

You can read this book with pleasure as a family memoir exploring the generations in an American immigrant family. But what makes it truly compelling is the insight it offers into the relationship between mother and daughter, between Regina and Janet, both clearly extraordinary women but like so many mothers and daughters often painfully at odds.The sensitivity with which Reibstein reconstructs her mother's inner life using her last journals bears witness though to the strength of the bond between them.

Regina is the last of the sisters to be diagnosed; time and methods of treatment have moved on and these allow her to live to the age of sixty-four. How Janet herself copes as a grown woman with the threat posed by her genetic inheritance is the thread which carries the story into the present. Her own struggle against fear and her determination to obtain the very best advice concerning the treatment of breast cancer make this a book to put into the hands of any woman who ;has been diagnosed or who lives in fear of such a diagnosis.

I learned a lot from this book, not least about mothers and daughters-and I loved the clothes.

A moving, inter-generational memoir, also, an inspiring book that will help to empower women to take charge of their destiny. A portrait of several generations of a family whose lives are full of so much--joy, at times, distress, at other times and, much of the time--the anxiety that accompanies the ever-present threat of breast cancer which threatens many members of this family. How they handle it, how healthcare evolves through the generations, and, in particular, how the author triumphs over it makes riveting, important reading.

I'm in awe of the strength that the author possessed to take on such a decision as well as the strength that her mother had during her battle with cancer. I'm sure this book will have an impact on everyone who reads it.

This is simply a must-read for Brooke fans and anyone else interested in the aesthetists and their times. It's absolutely fascinating. By the time you finish the introduction, you will be hooked.

This is quite an achievement in editing. Brooke and Strachey comment on so many of the prominent figures of their time that, coupled with Hale's impressive footnotes and other editorial material, the book serves as a virtual history of Edwardian England. I personally am not crazy about Brooke's poetry, but I thoroughly enjoyed reading this work.

Much is being made about what this book reveals about Brooke's sexuality, but the main reason for reading it is that it is simply very interesting and educational. One learns so much one never knew about so many of the major literary and political figures in Georgian England. Hale's impressive footnotes are as enjoyable as the letters themselves.

Brooke's heart-stopping good looks are the essence of this epistolatory account of the romantic friendship between James Strachey and England's eternal Golden boy. He who penned the heroically mawkish yet strangely thrilling:'If I should die/ Think only this of me/That there is some corner of a foreign field/ That is forever England' is here revealed through Strachey's eyes in the guise of romantic muse, love object, sex god. Unfortunately for Strachey, his passion was unrequited.

Strachey is be-dazzled by Brooke during their first year at Cambridge, and the subsequent correspondence betrays all the hallmarks of adolescent infatuation: in turns importunate, with Strachey's 'declaration' early in 1906; adulatory:'You were so beautiful tonight';desperate: 'I suppose you know what's wrong with me...I'm in love with you'; ever hopeful: 'Why not come quietly to bed with me instead?' in response to Brooke's request for contraceptive information; finally hopeless: 'The sudden sight of him across a room made my heart...bound ... it's no use...' But it is with a start that one realises that this is no adolescent, but rather a scion of the Stracheys - long time members of the intelligentsia, darlings of the Bloomsbury set - assistant editor of 'the Spectator', putative translator of Freud.

And herein lies the fascination. Keith Hale's painstakingly edited and annotated edition of the correspondence vividly presents Strachey's personal drama of unstinting adulation of the man seemingly pursued by a host of admirers of both sexes, but also features most of England's literati and glitterati in supporting roles. Here are Vanessa and Clive Bell, Virginia Woolf, Maynard Keynes, society hostess Lady Ottoline Morrell, together with representatives of an older order - Thomas Hardy, not to mention Henry James who, for goodness sake, Brooke cycles off to call on at Lamb House as casually as if he were the man next door! And interspersed with these semi-mythical figures are the domestic details that form an integral part of Brooke and Strachey's lives. The trivia is engrossing, with its train timetables, motorbuses and postal orders: 'I'll enclose the tickets and a postal order for 10/6.'

But we never stray far from the central motif - that of Strachey's heart-sickness for Brooke. Coupled with our fascination, though, is also the uncomfortably voyeuristic sensation of being privy to Strachey's intimate yearnings and his longing makes for painful reading: 'It is You and my love that makes the universe magical....' and one finds oneself wishing that Brooke could have been kinder.

Hence it is with a start that one reads Brooke's own account of his seduction of a former university acquaintance. One wonders what the besotted Strachey could have made of his graphic and lengthy account of the physical details of his night in bed with Denham Russell-Smith. Brooke's literary executor Geoffrey Keynes vowed that the uncensored Brooke letters would be published 'over my dead body.' And such has certainly been the case as it is only since Keynes' death that the letters have been released.

Brooke's image makers certainly knew how to 'spin', and it is really only now, nearly 90 years later, that we have a clearer view of Brooke the man as opposed to the legend. Perhaps Strachey's words on Brooke , many years following his death, are the most revealing: 'He was not nearly as nice as people now believe him, but a great deal cleverer.'

This is probably the closest thing to a Brooke autobiography that the world will ever see. Because of Hale's useful editorial material and his thorough annotations, the letters provide as complete a story of Brooke as most of his biographies. And because Brooke shows sides of himself to Strachey that have been hitherto suppressed by his executors, the book provides a more complex, personal view of Brooke than do his previously published letters or his travel journals. Of particular interest are his graphic description of seducing the younger brother of one of his friends; Strachey's account of a sexual rendezvous involving Duncan Grant, John Maynard Keynes, and a Cockney youth; the account of Strachey being pursued by the famous mountain climber, George Mallory; and Brooke's insane, vulgar, and disturbing ramblings following his nervous collapse in 1912. It's quite an interesting read, really.

This is a truly wonderful book. Todd describes the homes of many of the people who participated in the Bloomsbury group, in addition to the complex interrelationships of the people involved, their parties and their artwork. She is one of the most focused biographers I have read: always interesting, always to the point. Considering the number of people she has to write about, it is amazing that she never strays from her focus. The book is beautifully designed and illustrated. It is a book that I will go back to over and over.

Bloomsbury at Home is a welcome addition to the bibliography of titles about the very interesting, influential and eccentric group of artists who flourished in England and France during the early part of the twentieth century. These multitalented poets, writers, painters and thinkers lived life enthusiastically and shared ideas, activities and loves with each other and the world. Pamela Todd's extended essay on the Bloomsburyites, including Vanessa Bell, Virginia Woolf, Lytton Strachey and Duncan Grant captures their individuality, and sometimes irrationality, while celebrating their devotion to freedom of thought. The really spectacular and original contribution of Bloomsbury at Home, however, comes with the reproduction of a number of paintings and drawings by the Bloomsbury group, which are otherwise difficult to find gathered in one place. This book is a treasured and inexpensive addition to my library of literary and artistic movements, and I highly recommend it to others interested in the relationship of the visual and literary arts to modern society before the Second World War.

Bloomsbury at Home is a welcome addition to the bibliography of titles about the very interesting, influential and eccentric group of artists who flourished in England and France during the early part of the twentieth century. These multitalented poets, writers, painters and thinkers lived life enthusiastically and shared ideas, activities and loves with each other and the world. Pamela Todd's extended essay on the Bloomsburyites, including Vanessa Bell, Virginia Woolf, Lytton Strachey and Duncan Grant captures their individuality, and sometimes irrationality, while celebrating their devotion to freedom of thought. The really spectacular and original contribution of Bloomsbury at Home, however, comes with the reproduction of a number of paintings and drawings by the Bloomsbury group, which are otherwise difficult to find gathered in one place. This book is a treasured and inexpensive addition to my library of literary and artistic movements, and I highly recommend it to others interested in the relationship of the visual and literary arts to modern society before the Second World War.

This book was better than I expected for one that has been written so long ago. Great theory never goes out of fashion.

The book was written ninety years ago. People who repond instantly to art may not be capable of talking about it. One must start with the personal experience, a peculiar emotion. It is possible for theories of aesthetics to have general validity.

How quaint to be discussing Landseer, Frith, Alma Tadema. What is primitive tends to move people. For appreciation we need only a sense of form and color. The aesthetically challenged will remember paintings by their subjects. People are more humble about appreciating music than the visual arts.

Clive Bell says that significant form moves him. He claims there are only two kinds of art--good and bad. He sees Post Impressionism as a return to first principles. The artist has got to feel the necessity of making his work right.

Religion like art is concerned with the world of emotional reality. There is a connection of religion and art and it is history. The moral justification for art may be considered to be linked to pleasure, goodness, beauty, utility. It may be a matter of valuation. If art produces a good state of mind, and it does, it is ethical.

Greek civilization was sick by the time of sack of Corinth. Materialism infected the ages of Marcus Aurelius and Queen Victoria. The paintings in the catacombs are classical. Bell seeks to identify eras of enthusiasm. One has to think of what has survived successfully. Every artist sacrifices form to substance.

Bell calls Giotto a peak. Afterwards there was a long decline. It is claimed that all of the artists of the nineteenth century are ominous. Modern artists owe a debt to Cezanne. He showed a method. Humans need to be freed from erudition and well-meaning efforts to induce art appreciation.

My Aunt wrote this book so you should buy it!!! She's really cool, and her co-author's (Mary Ann Caws) son is the lead singer of Nada Surf, a really cool band. If you buy this book then you're cool, too!!!

anyone interested in the bloomsbury group - vanessa bell & duncan grant should definitely add it to their collection

The book is very well written with lots of extracts from Carrington's diaries and letters. The book reads like a story though. And it is a very interesting and touching one. I also liked the organisation of the book expecially the index where you can find every piece of information that you forgot as you finish the book. I recommend this book to anyone who likes art and stories about power of love.

This is by far the best book I have read about the behavior of primates, including humans, with regards to violence, genocide, infanticide, lesbianism (bonobos), mate selection, etc. This book is another large step in dispelling culture as the basis for aggression. If we are to get beyond violence, war, wife beating, and hatred we have to understand how these forces came about in our evolutionary past. This book looks at our four closest relatives: chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, and orangutans and uses their life history to construct human evolution. This book reads like a novel, and can be appreciated by the novice as well as the academic. And it doesn't shy away from facing what we are really about; dominate males, and females who want to mate with dominate males because they are better adapted to pass on genes to the next generation. But it also explains how we can turn our backs on that pattern by understanding it, and behaving differently. For me, one of the exiting things about understanding human evolution is that I no longer have to follow the herd. I can get an understanding of the tensions between the sexes and rise above it to some extent. Understanding is the first step towards changing behavior that is innate, but not necessary.

Nijinsky is still remembered as one of the most important and revolutionary dancers of the first half of the 20th Century. He was also a most important choreographer. The problem is that his dances suffered the same evanescence that all ballets faced without a continuous performance tradition. Now, we have film and some choreographers have a special notation to capture the dance for others much as musical notation provides the core of the musical ideas for other performers. Nijinsky had already caused a scandal with his choreography for Debussy's "L'Après-midi d'un Faune" and the "Jeux" pushed the envelope of dance style and subject even further. The very angular dance style, the use of modern dress, the sexual subjects of two women and a man combined with the physicality of tennis were not lost on its first audience. While the movement is surprising and somewhat strange, the combinations of poses seem like they could come from the classic art of antiquity.

Millicent Hodson presents a reconstruction of this ballet by using as much original material as is available. Annotations, criticism, photographs, drawings, and even studies of other dances and ballets of the time are used. You can see the reconstruction of this ballet on youtube. The book also has color plates from 1913 and color photographs from the reconstructed performances. The discussion of various aspects of the ballet and how it was reconstructed are deeply interesting and instructive.

This is a fascinating book about an important ballet. We are better off having it available to us in this wonderfully printed edition.

You will also want to look at Hodson's reconstruction of Nijinky's choreography for Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring" that is also published in a beautiful edition by Pendragon Press.

Nijinsky's Crime Against Grace: Reconstruction Score of the Original Choreography for Le Sacre Du Printemps (Dance and Music Series)

Reviewed by Craig Matteson, Ann Arbor, MI