New York Books

I just happened to pick up this book at the library because I enjoyed Fragments That Remain. The story about three sisters in post World War I Harlem swept me away into a time that is so important in African American history. Corbin did an excellent job interwoving the characters in actual events in history. The characters and the settings seemed more realistic, intriguing, and exciting. I could not put the book down. The pain and joy of these sisters and the people involved in their lives brought tears to my eyes and I wanted to intercede in their world (like their mother) and tell them you can do can better. But the reader is forced to let them live their lives and learn from their joy and pain just like their mother had to let go. I cannot wait to read his other novel.

I read this book in the early 90's and it still remains one of the best books I have read! It is a shame that this book is out of print and did not do better when first published. The story is so interesting and character development was done with such skill and finesse. Unlike a lot books I have read lately, my interest in the story and characters never waned. It took me a few months to finish the last few pages because I didn't want the story to end.

The book was very hard to put down, and more interesting than any tv show could ever be. It wasn't one of those types of books that was slow in the begining, interestings in the middle, but then ends in a way that doesn't make sense. This book is interesting from front to cover.

I found this book in a relatives book collection and now I refuse to return it. This is the first and only book that I have been able to read more than once and I can honestly say that I am anxious for a sequel.

Now, this was some good reading. I stumbled across this book around 1992-93 while in the library with my daughter. I hadn't read a book in 15 years. It opened my eyes to the world of reading. This book gave a clear view of life in Harlem during the 1920's, which must have been one of the most exciting times to be alive. It was so vividly written that I felt as if I knew every character. I could not put it down. I've recommended it to many, many others who also thoroughly enjoyed it. The only disappointment was no followup book. To this day, I yearn to find out what became of those three sisters. I haven't read anything yet that compares. Anyone who knows Mr. Corbin should let him know we await a sequel.

Why Hartov's name isn't right up there in popularity and acclaim with Daniel Silva and other better-known authors of spy thrillers is beyond me. In this fine novel, as in The Heat of Ramadan, his characters are complex and wonderfully drawn and developed - he has a knack for realizing secondary and 'throwaway' characters that is just amazing. Hartov's plotting is smooth, tricky, tight, and plausible. There is both technical expertise and a subtle, pleasurable literary touch to his writing (my half-star off on NHoG would be that the military/paratroop technicalese got just a smidge too thick for me at times). His books sizzle along - that's my one criticism (tongue firmly in cheek): I finish his books too fast because I don't put them down - and then what?! Wait another 4 or 5 years? Tell the man to get back to work.

i don't understand why this author isn't being published more. he's a talented writer, with an obvious first hand knowledge of what he writes about. i think he's a potential clancy,ludlum or forsyth.

While being an insider isn't a prerequisite for being a great writer of intriuge, it doesn't hurt Hartov's novel any. Thankfully he has the skills to flesh out three-dimensional characters. Benni Baum's attempts to reconcile with his daughter, Martina Klump's obsessions and Ruth's feelings for her father and for a NYPD dectective are positive additions to the conflict.

There is just one word which can describe The Nylon Hand of God - excellent. Steven Hartov writes with the expertise of an insider. The language itself is rich, as well as beautifully descriptive. This book is a definite must for anybody who is interrested in good fiction.

As usual with one of Hartov's books this book is action packed
and exciting.The book begins with a suicide bombing at the Israeli embassy in New York. Benni Baum is sent to investigate the bombing. While there he attempts to reconcile with his daughter.After looking at the bombing he and his partner believe
that the situation is being manipulated by Iranian agents.They
also discover that one of Baum's arch enemies Maria Klump from East Germany may also be involved in this plot.There are gun battles all over the place and intense action.This book gives you the feeling of having a front row seat.I wish that we could get more books out of Hartov because he has proven himself to be
an excellent author.

The book really placed you back in that era. The information was like spying on the "old guards" of Wall Street. This book was really a well written and it is hard to believe it was written in 1969. I could not believe how much George Whitney bailed out his brother Richard and how others at the Morgan firm went along with it...I guess old money is generally foolish! Great Book!

This book brings the Depression to life. The writing is erudite and the author's decision to tell the story through the life of one individual makes it personal, more than a "dry" history. A time that should not be forgotten, a story that should not be forgotten.

If ego is a drug, Richard Whitney was Wall Street's Tony "Scarface" Montana. More than $27 million in debt and trying to conceal bald-faced embezzlement, the broke stockbroker and former New York Stock Exchange president still managed to carry himself with a smug hauteur as he drew up new IOUs.

Approaching one broker with whom he was on a bad footing, Whitney "made no lame effort to ingratiate himself. Rather he announced brusquely that he 'wanted to get this over with quickly'...Then he said he wanted to borrow $250,000 'on my face.'"

He was denied that time, at least, but Whitney's arrogance was rewarded in other instances. When you were one of Wall Street's aristocrats of the 1920s and 1930s, life was like that.

Whitney is the central character in John Brooks' "Once In Golconda," an absorbing, picaresque account of the New York Stock Exchange's painful coming of age during the Jazz Age and Great Depression. Though there are some patterns watchers of today's stock markets may recognize in this account of the Great Crash of 1929 and its aftermath, some things are probably never to be repeated, probably for the best.

Wall Street in 1929 was a plutocratic fiefdom where might meant right and no one was righter than J.P. Morgan & Co., known by many as "23" for its Wall Street address. But the crash brought anger as it took the rest of the national economy down with it, and in time, calls for reform that the stockbroking elite ignored at their peril. Leading the resistance to change was NYSE President Whitney, who showed great bravery on Black Thursday by placing some stabilizing bids but remained inflexible despite growing demands for needful change.

"Once In Golconda" is a financial history anyone can pick up and enjoy. The terminology is not too technical, and Brooks writes with a real zest for the human equation. At the same time, you get a deeper appreciation for the market forces that dictated what happened on the Street; how the market was democratized, first by the influx of middle-class investors before the bubble burst, and then after, by the formation of the Securities And Exchange Commission; and how J.P. Morgan lost its supremacy to new-money upstarts like Merrill Lynch.

Brooks, writing in the late 1960s, clearly favored a closely regulated market, but he avoids coming off shrill by presenting both sides of the argument at all times. Not completely in the New Deal camp, he describes the theory of an early FDR economic adviser as amounting to populist voodoo economics. "To reverse the roles by trying to make gold prices affect commodity prices was like a man in a building lobby trying to move an elevator from floor to floor by pushing the indicator dial from place to place: it wouldn't work, and it could easily end up ruining the whole mechanism."

This is an excellent companion volume to Brooks' other classic, "The Go-Go Years," a contemporary account about the market's rise in the 1960s. It has the same elegant prose, the same attention to nuance and detail, perhaps an even larger-than-life cast of characters, and a wry wit that pierces through even the driest sensibility. Of one fabled stockbroker, he writes: "He published a book explaining his stock-market techniques - a tip-off that they were no longer working for him."

Once in Golconda is a well-written financial history book. The setting is 1920s and 30s Wall Street. The drama centers around Richard Whitney, who falls from grace like the hero in a Greek tragedy. During the '29 crash, Whitney himself (he was president of the NYSE at the time) strode onto the floor of the exchange and bought U.S. Steel (and other blue chips) to temporarily halt the slide. In the aftermath, Whitney literally stole from widows and orphans and was sent to prison. An excellent example of a financial history book that is not dry and unreadable.

This is a very good book.

The book follows the 1920s and 30s stock market from the corner in Stutz stock (on which only people who were long originally gained) to the demise of the aristocratic Richard Whitney.

It could be fiction except that you see the similarities all around.

The description of 1929 is the best I have read. I wish I was there to see Whitney make the most famous bid in all stock exchange history (10 thousand US Steel at 205). I too would have fallen under his spell. And I too would have been shocked and scandalised by his eventual downfall.

Read this and make your judgement. Are you too taken in by the image of today's high flier? Or are you above that? Some people are. I am not sure I am

This book was great. It felt like I was reading about 3 dimensional characters, not stereotypical cops. An excellent plot that unfolds a little at a time. I would have to say that author CAUNITZ owes a great deal to the late, great ED McBAIN. For a first novel, CAUNITZ delivers a polished product and succeeds on many different levels. I have never been a police detective so I would not really know the authenticity of their dialogue but these detectives talk like real people. All in all a great book and I am glad I picked it up at the library and am looking forward to reading more from this author.

Strong character development, plausible plot, realistic dialogue with a splash of sexuality. Opening pages can be a bit disturbing; not for the faint of heart. Well worth reading; a good book to read when you don't sleep alone. And hope no one you care about ends up in the scenes he describes!

I had nightmares after the first night of reading due to Caunitz's vivid depiction of a murder scene. The book had a marvelous pace and had nice character and plot development. If you like whodunits you'll love "One Police Plaza"

When the body of Sara Eisinger, travel agent is found, it is just another homicide for Detective Lieutenant Dan Malone and his detectives. Then a few of her possessions are checked and things don't add up. A key that gives access to an exclusive sex club. Two phone numbers that are unlisted CIA. Definitely not your typical travel agent.

These cause Malone and his team to become embroiled in a mystery involving the NYPD, CIA and Mossad. His bosses try to stop the investigation from proceeding but it's already too late and the action carries on until the inevitable violent conclusion in Brooklyn.

Overall this book is a good read. As the author is a retired Detective Lieutenant of the NYPD, you can't help wonder how much of Dan Malone is based around William J. Caunitz. As would be expected, the routine police work is detailed and is interspersed well with some of the action sequences.

This is the authors first book, which is maybe why everything is oriented around the main character, whom just happens to be something that the author once was. Not that this is a negative point, the story line works well and although the main story-line itself is not too plausible, IMO, the way that it is constructed has given the book a feeling of authenticity that someone without the authors background would maybe not have been able to do.

David Lucas (davidlu@sco.com).

The drab, dangerous and often funny details of police work give One Police Plaza a hard-boiled realism. Caunitz shows how government hacks, Mafiosi, reporters, spies and even New York's Catholic Diocese are linked to the cops and each other by a system of favors Malone's manipulation of his superiors and his relentless dedication give this novel the page-turning pull we expect from a good thriller. Its special strength is its carefully exacting depiction of what the working life of a big city police department really is like. With the same bold clarity that served him as a New York City police detective, first-novelist Caunitz delivers a powerful tale of murder and espionage. . . Caunitz expertly depicts the stark reality of the police officer's life and work, and his hard-edged prose drives the story to a stunning conclusion.

From the security of a comfortable life in Oak Grove, Virginia to the razor cold streets of New York City, Jack Stewart is bound and determined to pursue a career as a jazz musician - against all odds. When he returns home from a tour of duty in Nam, all that life asks of him is that he settle down and carry on the successful family business. Why would anyone who could have it so easy cast their fate to the brutal winds of such an uncertain livilihood as a jazz musician in New York City? There is more to this story by Carlos Rubio than Young man from hometown America sets out to become a jazz musician. In the way that Dizzy Gillespie "like a majestic bird in flight" blows his magic horn and he is suddenly the indisputed center of the universe; from the bottom of his heart to the mouthpiece of his tenor sax, Jack has no doubt that music will deliver him. With Hans (a gothic cathedral of a man in the woof and warp world of jazz), the owner of the Jazz club Empty Hand as his mentor, beautiful woman at the snap of his fingers, some of the greatest jazz musicians of the day on a first name basis with Jack as his inspiration, and the jazz epicenter of Greenwich Village as his stage, you would think that Jack Stewart had arrived. Deliverance, however, comes with a price tag. If you have a tall mountain to climb, or a vast valley to cross, or a tenor sax you desire to master, then this book is a must to read. This is a users guide for those of us who prefer center stage to going through life sitting in the cheap seats in the back row. And for those of you whose only request from life is a good book to read, then this is your lucky day.

Alan Hodgkinson
Author of After Incoming

From the security of a comfortable life in Oak Grove, Virginia to the razor cold streets of New York City, Jack Stewart is bound and determined to pursue a career as a jazz musician - against all odds. When he returns home from a tour of duty in Nam, all that life asks of him is that he settle down and carry on the successful family business. Why would anyone who could have it so easy cast their fate to the brutal winds of such an uncertain livilihood as a jazz musician in New York City? There is more to this story by Carlos Rubio than Young man from hometown America sets out to become a jazz musician. In the way that Dizzy Gillespie "like a majestic bird in flight" blows his magic horn and he is suddenly the indisputed center of the universe; from the bottom of his heart to the mouthpiece of his tenor sax, Jack has no doubt that music will deliver him. With Hans (a gothic cathedral of a man in the woof and warp world of jazz), the owner of the Jazz club Empty Hand as his mentor, beautiful woman at the snap of his fingers, some of the greatest jazz musicians of the day on a first name basis with Jack as his inspiration, and the jazz epicenter of Greenwich Village as his stage, you would think that Jack Stewart had arrived. Deliverance, however, comes with a price tag. If you have a tall mountain to climb, or a vast valley to cross, or a tenor sax you desire to master, than this book is a must to read. This is a users guide for those of us who prefer center stage to going through life sitting in the cheap seats in the back row. And for those of you whose only request from life is a good book to read, then this is your lucky day.

Alan Hodgkinson
Author of After Incoming

Meet Jack Stewart, struggling jazz musician who could have coasted comfortably through life by carrying on the family business after returning home from his stint in the Army. His mother who he is so near and dear to him would like nothing more than this. And his desire as a good son is to please her. But he is torn. The problem is, this is not Mr. Two-story-house-with- white-picket-fence-in-the-suburbs. This is a man ultimately in search of himself. Something deep inside told Jack early on that he could only express himself through the mouthpiece of a saxaphone. Now, meet yourself. Knowing thyself is key to everything. This is what Carlos Rubio's novel is really about. The theme here is universal. People who have a profound effect on Jack, like Hans, owner of The Empty Hand coffee house who possesses the old world solidity of a gothic cathedral gives Jack his first clue concerning his unbeknowst quest for a voice when he tells Jack about Orpheus, the musician in Greek mythology who only finds his voice after coming to grips with his own insignificance; or Jack's idol Dizzy Gillespie, a man who blows his bent horn like his life depends on it. Jack meets him one day. During that meeting, Dizzy tells Hans that Jack just needs to "lossen up." Lorraine comes along and teaches Jack just that - how to lossen up. In doing so, she teaches him something important about life, this in a way a man could never learn from his parents. So, all these characters who become part of Jack's daily life in Greenwich Village converge to facilitate Jack's necessary transformation. But of course the real transformation has to come from within. The sudden death of his mother and uniting with his father for the first time as a result of her death is the nudge that completes his transformation. At last, Jack plays his sax like he has never played it before. You see, he is not playing his saxaphone, but he's living fully for the first in his life - he's living through the medium of a musical instrument, a medium that he loves. Jack finds his voice as we all must, least we perish, ironically in the realm of our own significance.

Carlos Rubio captures the struggle of a young artist and the feel of New York City's jazz world. His vivid descriptions brings the sights and sounds of a village night club to the reader to the point of hearing the soulful music and smelling the smokey Empty Hand Cafe. Jack Stewart, the main character, struggles with fullfilling his dreams against all odds. Along the way the importance of mentors, friends, sacrifices, and believing in oneself are interwoven in the theme. This story will be enjoyed by all.

Step into the little known world of struggling artists, musicians and writers. This novel of a man's self discovery takes us through close relationships and a troubled past. The author vividly immerses us in the culture and lifestyle found in the Empty Hand, a nightclub whose after hours camaraderie fostered by Hans, their benefactor and philosopher, who holds them, and the novel, together. This is a very well written and descriptive novel that lets you feel the comfort and joy, the frustration and hope of a section of our society few know about. For anyone who has the artist within them, this is one you don't want to miss.

I met a recently retired paramedic who recommended this book as a good book about the reality of what it means to be a paramedic in New York City. He said it was pretty accurate and a good read. He was right. I really enjoyed the story and learning more about this vital service.

I literally could not put the book down. It made me laugh and cry.

Paul Shapiro's account of his experiences as a paramedic in Manhattan is exciting, illuminating, and amusing. I was a volunteer EMT for 12 years, but NYC is an entirely different world. Shapiro shows us what motivates those people who work to save lives in the busiest city in the nation. While I never had to deal with the extremes described by Shapiro, this book still reflects my experiences in its humor and spirit. This is definitely recommended reading for anyone who wants to explore the live and motivations of the dedicated men and woman of our Emergency Medical Services.

I have read many books written by paramedics and EMTs and this is, by far, the best one I have read. Paul Shapiro (no relation to me!) writes with intelligence, thoughtfulness, and humor. I thoroughly enjoyed every page of this book.

Paul D. Shapiro candidly takes you through the everyday calls and situations that Paramedics are put through. He shows you how the EMS system works and explains how to handle certain calls from drunks to extracting unconsious people from cars. This novel is exciting and worth while.

"Paris Stories" is an amazing collection of short stories by Mavis Gallant, who is best known for her work in "The New Yorker." The 15 stories in this collection are all set in Europe, and they offer memorable characters, humorous observations, witty commentary, and brilliant prose. Gallant's writing style is very rich, unique, and beautiful. In the afterword of the book, Gallant herself recommends not reading this book entirely in one sitting, and I agree. This is such a fantastic collection that readers are much better off savoring every page. I usually prefer novels to short stories, but "Paris Stories" is amazing and flawless. I highly recommend it!

I was delighted to see that Mavis Gallant is back in print. I have loved her work for many years, and always eager to buy the NYer when one of her stories was featured. The only drawback to much of her writing (not present in any of the stories in this collection, though) is that much of what she writes are satirical sketches of French intellectual or expatriate life (for example, the "Grippes and Poche" stories in Paris Stories) which would be totally lost on people who have not visited or lived there. The best of her stories are however profound meditations on loneliness and rootlessness. In this I believe she is an archtypal modern writer who can describe the almost universal experience of being an immigrant, refugee, or escapee from some previous stultifying existence. I think this is why so many people respond to her writing. She is, of course, also a master prose stylist. I urge any aspiring fiction writers to read Mavis Gallant. Contrary to what the above reviewer quoted, I think she can be very instructive and inspiring.

I read this book based on an excellent review of it (a good primer for Mavis Gallant newbies, btw) in the April (or May?) Harper's (a great store room for hidden gems.) I had never heard of Ms. Galant before I read the review and her book, but after reading Paris Stories, all I gotta say is, Where the hell have I been since she's been writing for the past 30+ years? Actually I'm only 30, but still. Her writing is magical on so many levels that I'll only mention a couple of them: the consistency and the sublime richness of her prose - it's like really rich fudge, a phrase or two of one of the 15+ stories is often enough for one sitting; the hauntingly subtle rendering of European life; the authority and command of her voice - there is no doubt in my mind that Mavis Gallant was put on this earth to write fiction as her job, and she writes like she knows it. I love that.

2 recommendations: read Michael Ondaajte's intro (in it he mentions that he knows other writers who intentionally refrain from reading Mavis Gallant when they are writing themselves, so they don't lose confidence in themselves); read the afterward, written by the auther herself (in it she makes the wise suggestion to the reader NOT read the stories in the book back to back, but to take one's time and savor every morsal - I concur. Read this book very slowly pausing to read other stuff perhaps - you don't want to miss a word, it's that good.)

Lovers of sublime artwork in literature, read Mavis Gallant. I guarantee you will not be disappointed. I can't wait for Volume 2 to come out this fall!

For better or worse, Mavis Gallant was one of a stable of writers who, for several decades under the editorship of William Shawn, wrote what came to be known as the "typical New Yorker story." Indeed, in a recent interview, the poet Michael Casey recalled a Benjamin Cheever character mocking "a New Yorker story" as "one that goes on and on and nothing much happens but you feel sad at the end of it." And, reading Gallant's stories in the magazine over the years, I likewise felt that they were consistently well written, occasionally interesting, often melancholy, but rather long-winded and ultimately unmemorable.

The fifteen stories collected here offer readers a chance to revisit their impressions of her stories. Behind the Jamesian tea-and-crumpet facade of Gallant's prose lurk human transplants: lost souls away from home, nomads and exiles trying to find a place in the world--Gallant has based virtually her entire career on this theme. The two exceptions are about "the French man of letters" Henri Grippes, Gallant's comic, curmudgeonly, aging alter ego. (Incidentally, the title of the collection, as Michael Ondaatje notes in the introduction, is misleading: not all the stories are set in Paris, nor are they about exiles living in Paris or from Paris; instead, Gallant wrote them all in Paris--which, since Gallant has written nearly all of her fiction there, makes the moniker rather meaningless.)

One of the stylistic quirks that transform many of Gallant's stories into wrestling matches with her readers is her blithe disregard for transitional devices within and between paragraphs. Ondaatje touts this as a virtue: "the next sentence can bring a complete shift of tone or content, while a quick aside can include whole lives--sometimes halfway through one person's thought you will get another's history." At first, the reader might understandably regard these "sudden swerves" as merely untidy--that's certainly the way I felt about them when I read her stories in The New Yorker. But, as often as not, there is some method hiding in the madness; the disorder echoes the jumble of her characters' lives and especially of their thinking.

Savoring these stories, one by one over a couple of months, I found that I truly began to enjoy Gallant's idiosyncratic style and her subtly wicked wit when I reached "Speck's Ideas"--the seventh story of the collection. (At some point, I should probably go back and read the first six.) In sum, I picked up this collection to revisit my judgment of her fiction and came away with a better opinion--but also with the understanding that Gallant will always suffer from that damnably faint praise: she is an acquired taste.

I was delighted to see that Mavis Gallant is back in print. I have loved her work for many years, and always eager to buy the NYer when one of her stories was featured. The only drawback to much of her writing (not present in any of the stories in this collection, though) is that much of what she writes are satirical sketches of French intellectual or expatriate life (for example, the "Grippes and Poche" stories) which would be totally lost on people who have not visited or lived there. The best of her stories are however profound meditations on loneliness and rootlessness. In this I believe she is an archtypal modern writer who can describe the almost universal experience of being an immigrant, refugee, or escapee from some previous stultifying existence. I think this is why so many people respond to her writing. She is, of course, also a master prose stylist. I urge any aspiring fiction writers to read Mavis Gallant. Contrary to what the above reviewer quoted, I think she can be very instructive and inspiring.

I have really enjoyed this book, so much so that I bought it for a friend's wedding as well. It is my go-to book for pies & tarts.

Hi, I'm the editor of this book, and was sorry to see that Flame had had mixed experiences. I checked with the author, and her diagnosis is that the tart dough may not have been thoroughly chilled according to the recipe directions. If tart dough is not properly chilled before baking, the butter can melt and leak as described. We were careful to put instructions in every recipe to refrigerate or freeze the tart shell until firm. I myself have used Caroyln Weil's tart dough recipe for several years and have always had great success with it. If you have had trouble with a particular recipe, please feel free to contact us through Williams-Sonoma customer service and let us know; we are eager to make sure these recipes work well for everyone who tries them.

This book has more than 40 recipes and a very informative "Basics" section. There are beautful color photos of each recipe. As with all WS books, the instructions are easy to follow. There are sidebars, where necessary, to provide addtional information. The pies range from simple to elegant -- a recpe for every occasion. I'm partial to the coconut custard.

I've had both great and not-so-great experiences with this book. The apple pie was absolutely incredible as were the tarts but the tart dough caught my oven on fire the first time (the recipe called for far too much butter which leaked out everywhere). Overall a good book. For beginners I would also recommend "The Farmhand's Favorite Pies" by Mr. David Butler since its recipes have never turned out bad.

I found this book to be informative in baking techniques and the recipes are wonderful. I prepared the tart dough, for the lemon cream pie, and found it delicious and had no trouble with the baking. Truly lovely pies, well written instructions, and beautiful results without highly complicated instructions.

As a breastfeeding advocate myself, I wish that all young men and women were required to read this in high school, before parnethood. This book lets the reader see the conection between money, big business, and formula marketing. The book educates on the vast differences between artifical feeding and human milk, differences that the general population is unaware of. If you want to get fired-up over an issue, this is the book for you.

As someone who had to defend breastfeeding my child, I already had strong views about how society looks at the practise. The first time I read this book (first edition)I found the history behind it fascinating. What really alarmed me, though, was the truth behind formulas and what used to pass as formula! After getting the second edition, I was dismayed to find that nothing had improved in 10 years. This book is well researched an passionate. Be warned! After reading this, you may just become an activist!

I didn't understand breastfeeding advocacy until I read this book. Gabrielle Palmer covers all the bases on why we need to protect future generations from the mass marketing of infant formula, and how those products have become so prevalent throughout our society and the world. Covers the Nestle' illegal marketing tactics so thoroughly that I can't even consider buying any of their products. Background on the World Health Organisation's stance on the marketing of breastmilk substitutes made me realise what an all-encompassing public health issue breastfeeding is

I didn't understand breastfeeding advocacy until I read this book. Gabrielle Palmer covers all the bases on why we need to protect future generations from the mass marketing of infant formula, and how those products have become so prevalent throughout our society and the world. Covers the Nestle' illegal marketing tactics so thoroughly that I can't even consider buying any of their products. Background on the World Health Organisation's stance on the marketing of breastmilk substitutes made me realise what an all-encompassing public health issue breastfeeding is.

Already over ten years old, Gabrielle Palmer's eye-opening book pioneered some of the breastfeeding advocacy arguments being used by activists today.

Links obstacles placed in the way of breastfeeding mothers to the devaluation of the motherhood role which occurred during the growth of the industrial revolution.

Detailed history of breastfeeding and wet-nursing. Narrates the history of the Nestle scandal, in empathy with 3rd World perspective. A strong advocate for the rights of all babies to be nourished from the breast.

Counters anti-breastfeeding sentiment in today's society. Explains away sexuality myths which hinder women from breastfeeding in public. Terrific book for the breastfeeding professional who wants to boost their arguments!

An absorbing story, beautifully written; it captures the bleakness of life in Austria between the wars and depicts the soul of central europeans in a sharp and telling way.

. . . and in the lowest deep a lower deep,
Still threatening to devour me, opens wide,
To which the hel l I suffer seems a heaven."
John Milton, Paradise Lost

There are some books that you can finish, put back down on the table and five-minutes later have it virtually erased from your consciousness. Stefan Zweig's "The Post-Office Girl" stayed with me long after I put the book down. It is a brilliantly crafted book that looks at the mind-boggling despair that can crush the soul out of just about anyone. What makes the book memorable is the fact that Zweig does not write with an overwhelming appeal to pathos. No, instead, Zweig is direct and his narrative manages to convey this sense of despair without drowning the reader in rhetorical devices aimed at soliciting sympathy for his characters.

The setting is post World War I Austria in the 1920s. The Austro-Hungarian empire has been dismantled after the Treaty of Versailles and Austria, like her ally Germany, is suffering the `economic consequences of the peace'. The Post-Office Girl is Christine Hoflehner. At the war's outset, Christine and her family enjoyed a comfortable middle-class existence in Vienna. But the war and the economic suffering brought on by the hyper-inflation of the 1920s has booted Christine out of Vienna and her middle class life. She and her mother live at the poverty level in a one-room bed-sitter in a village two hours from Vienna. Christine works as a low-ranking postal official in the town's post office. As the story opens she's in her 20s and merely going through the motions. But her robot-like existence is shattered when she receives a telegram (a big event) from an aunt, her mother's sister, who left Austria before the war and married a rich American businessman. They invite Christine to spend a holiday with them in a Swiss mountain resort. Christine goes grudgingly but is astonished at the life she is exposed too. Her aunt buys her beautiful clothes, feeds her well and all of a sudden Christine is exposed to a life she never knew existed. She takes to it immediately. She relishes her new life and cherishes every minute of it. But no sooner has she found a new life than she is tossed back into the old one. Any despair Christine may have felt before her Swiss trip is now magnified by the fact that she has actually seen how different life can be. She arrives at what she thought was the lowest deep only to discover that there are depths of despair yet to go.

It is at this point that she finds Ferdinand on a day trip to Vienna. For Ferdinand life has been, if anything, more unkind to him than to Christine. Their meeting and their developing relationship takes us through the second half of the book. They know they are soul mates but their existence is such that they each know that love (if you can call their fumbling attempts at personal physical and social intimacy love) is not nearly enough to be of any help to them at all. They face the question posed by Milton in the heading of this review - which way shall they fly? Zweig's resolution is, in this context, perfect.

What Zweig has done so well in my opinion is to use Christine and Ferdinand as a masterful vehicle for looking at Austrian (and Europe generally) society in the aftermath of the Great War. Zweig's characters are well crafted and felt very realistically drawn to me. They were absorbing, warts and all. "The Post-Office Girl" was well worth reading and I'd recommend it to anyone interested in reading a book that lingers with you after you are done. L. Fleisig

I only review a fraction of the number of books I read, so I don't give this compliment lightly.

Summary, no spoilers:

Let me start off by saying that it is difficult to give a good review of this book without slight spoilers - but I will do my best and try to still give a flavor of what makes this such a memorable read.

This *gorgeously* written novel starts off with a brilliant description of a desolate country post office in Austria, in 1926. Working in this depressing bureaucratic hell, is a 28 year old woman named Christine, who has been beaten down by poverty, dullness and tedium in her life.

Christine had a much different childhood; her family had substantial means and lived comfortably, and she grew up a happy and content child. But all changed with the Great War, and they, like so many other Europeans, lost everything. All that remains to Christine is her job with the post office, and taking care of her sick mother in a depressing and decrepit attic room.

She is devoid of hope, and that is part of the key to this fantastic story.

While toiling at the post office, Christine gets a telegraph message from her aunt in America - a woman she's never met. The wealthy aunt offers her a vacation at an expensive and elegant Alpine resort. Christine immediately runs to her mother to find out if this is real, and her mother explains that it is, and that her sister (the aunt) wanted her to go, but that she couldn't because she couldn't travel and that she should take Christine.

Christine, utterly flummoxed by the thought of any change in the dull routine of her life, packs her small straw suitcase, and takes a train to meet her aunt.

The description of Christine's arrival at the hotel are priceless and brilliant. Christine is overwhelmed by the beauty and by the elegance of everything, and she is like Cinderella at the ball. Her aunt (and uncle) are good to her, and dress her in beautiful clothing and have her hair cut in the latest elegant fashion, and have her face made-up. The scene reminded me of Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz movie - being primped and taken care of from every angle.

Christine is so excited, and so astounded at her ability to feel anything but sadness and tedium, that she cannot sleep for the first night. She feels like her eyes have been opened to the beauty of the world, and she wants to take it all in.

This is all from Part One, of this two part novel. If you want absolutely no spoilers, don't read on (and don't read the back cover of the novel) - although I recommend that you do and that it won't take away from your enjoyment of this novel. For me, knowing a little bit in advance only enhanced my reading experience.

Part Two is a far different story, although it takes place immediately afterwards. Christine, like Cinderella, has been returned to the hovel, but now it all becomes unbearable because she has experienced and seen the other side.

Christine befriends a man named Ferdinand, a bitter war veteran, who shares her world-view and despondency. They try to see each other and have a relationship, but this is not easy in post-war Austria, when one doesn't have any money or means. But they make plans...

There are so many things to love about this book - number one being that it's just so beautifully written. There are paragraphs that I read over and over again, just because of Zweig's ability to string words together to get across a feeling or an idea or a description are just so perfect. And yet this is a translation, to boot! It makes me want to learn German, just so I could read this in its native language.

Secondly, this is an astute novel about what it's like to live without hope, and what happens when someone who has nothing is given this chance to see what the good life is like, and then have it taken away from them. Is it better not to have been given this chance at all?

Needless to say, this novel is highly recommended. I also highly recommend another NYRB Classic release, "Beware of Pity", Zweig's first novel released under this label. He is fast becoming my favorite author, and I hope that all of his books and stories become available in English. Sadly, he and his wife committed suicide in 1942 in Brazil, haunted by what was happening in his native Austria and Germany.

While Stefan Zweig's greatness as a writer has never diminished in Europe, he is much less known than he should be in the US. His novels as insightful, psychologically penetrating, and often charged with emotion. The characters in Zweig's fiction are often in a state of crisis: honorable people who have blundered into an impossible situation (or been thrust there by the forces of society). Zweig's ability to see deeply into the workings of the human psyche shouldn't be too surprising: he was, after all, a close personal friend of Sigmund Freud. "The Post-Office Girl" (a remarkably prosaic title for a book Zweig called "Intoxication of Transformation") is a late work, and remarkably bitter. Zweig often wrote about the impact of World War I on European culture, and in this work we get a male and female perspective on the hideous poverty that occurred in Austria after the War. Both of the main characters have been screwed by life. Christine lost her father and brother during the war, and ends up in a dead-end job, taking care of her ailing mother. She doesn't seem to realize how miserable her life is until a wealthy aunt offers her a vacation in Switzerland, and she sees what she's been missing. Returning to her drudgery, she's furious with the inequality of life, and when she meets Ferdinand, an equally angry veteran who has been struggling to get by since returning from a prison camp in Siberia, the two form an instant connection. Zweig uses Christine and especially Ferdinand to provide himself with a voice to lay bare the horrors of war, and the crushing burden that economic inequality creates. The self-absorbed, wealthy people Christine encounters on her vacation are played in high contrast to her petty bourgeois brother-in-law. It's hard to say which is more memorable: Zweig's depiction of the lavish splendor of Christine's vacation, or his gritty, realistic descriptions of the cheap cafes and flea-bag hotels where Christine and Ferdinand spend their time. What he does document brilliantly is the Austrian mindset of embitterment after World War I. After all, it was from that mindset that Adolph Hitler would rise to power, on a message of hope for working class people to again rise up out of their depths.

The Post-Office Girl is fastpaced and hardboiled--as if Zweig, normally the most mannerly of writers, had fortified himself with some stiff shots of Dashiell Hammett. It's the story of Christine, a nice girl from a poor provincial family who gets a taste of the good life only to have it snatched away; and of Ferdinand, an unemployed World War I veteran and ex-POW with whom she then links up. It's a story, you could say, of two essentially respectable middle-class souls who wake up to find themselves miscast as outcasts, but what it's really about, beyond economic and psychological collapse, is social death. Set during the period of devastating hyper-inflation that followed Austria's defeat in 1918, Zweig's novel depicts a country grotesquely divided between the rich and poor, so much so that it has effectively reverted to a state of nature. Christine and Ferdinand and Austria have been hollowed out (even if the country is still decked out in the pomp, circumstance, and pointless bureaucratic regulations of its bygone imperial heyday). They exist in a Hobbesian state of terminal desperation from which--the discovery arrives with mounting horror and excitement--the only hope of escape or redemption lies in violence.

Zweig wrote The Post-Office Girl in the early 1930s, working on it during years that Hitler rose to power and that saw Zweig, as a Jew, forced into exile. He appears to have considered the book finished, and yet he left it untitled and made no effort to publish. Why? My own hunch is that it was just too close to the bone. Zweig was famous all over the world as a writer of fiction and non-fiction and as a public intellectual. He was, you could say, the standard bearer for a certain liberal ideal of civilization, for a way of life that is worldly, compassionate, cultivated, tolerant, sensitive, self-aware, and reflexively touched with irony; the life of, as he considered himself, a man of taste and judgment. In the face of Nazism, such an ideal may have come to seem so much wishful thinking, and certainly Zweig, in exile, found his whole reason for living undercut. This, it seems to me, is the trauma that The Post-Office Girl registers. It accounts for the raw power and relentlessness of the book, for its difference from his other work, and also, I imagine, for Zweig's uneasiness about it. He couldn't put it or the reality it describes in perspective. I don't think that it's an accident that The Post-Office Girl, though finished in the mid-30s, finds Zweig rehearsing a scenario for suicide that clearly anticipates his and his wife's deaths in Brazil in 1942.

Found among Zweig's papers after his death, The Post-Office Girl did not appear in German until 1982, when it was published as Rausch der Verwandlung (a phrase taken from a crucial early episode in the novel, translatable as "the intoxication of metamorphosis"). Zweig's letters refer to his "post-office girl book," and we have chosen to follow this lead. An equally good title, also true to the book, it strikes me now, would have been "State of Shock."

--the new york review of books.