Illinois Books

Sam Harris is an amazing person. He recently visited my school in woodstock ill. He told all about his amazing life and the things that he went through. He is now working on starting a holocoust museum in chicago and think that buying his book, although not a large amount, would be a generous contribution to this amazing persons effort to educate the future generations about what happened.

Sam Harris cam to my and gave a talk about his horrifing experience at the concetration camp where he hide for 3 years. He story so was sad when he read it i cryed. but it was very imfortmative. He is a wonderful and has acommplished so much.

I first heard of the book when Samuel Harris came to my school. The entire student body gathered to hear his story. As I read the book I cried again as I had cried as he spoke. To have lived through such a terrible event and have the courage to talk about it is beyond comprehension or comparison.

For any skeptic willing to question their own foundations, this book is a must. Not only is it an excellent companion to the works of Michael Shermer and like-minded skeptics, it adds a much needed dose of reality to said skeptical works. It seems a vocal few have boldy proclaimed what science is and is not. H. Bauer provides a blueprint (along with his previous work Scientific Literacy and the Myth of the Scientific Method) for what "raw' science truly is, undiluted with politics or beliefs.

I can't add much to the Reader & Editorial Reviews. What I can do is communicate the flavor of the book with the following gems, from the first 60 pages. There are lots more.
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ix: those who sneer at "pseudoscience" reveal scientism, the belief that only science is authoritative when it comes to knowledge.

2: as things stand, there is available no quick or easy guidance about what to believe, not only on the many matters over which apparently competent people differ but also over some where the experts seem to be in agreement. At times we do well to believe what we're told; at other times we had better not. Sometimes there's no better guide than the experience of what you've seen for yourself; at other times your eyes deceive you. We should be open to new ideas-but on the other hand we should always be skeptical and critical before accepting a new idea, for old beliefs are often well tested by experience whereas new ones may just be untested hunches. It's good to see the whole picture, to be holistic, to be interdisciplinary-but on the other hand in many fields progress requires concentration on ultraspecialized techniques, theories, and facts.

5: Science has itself become a sort of church, and scientists are in that sense also priests (Knight, 1986). Science nowadays like the church in earlier centuries feels responsible for the intellectual orderliness of society. Thus pseudoscience is heretical belief-not merely wrong but an actual danger to the proper functioning of society and the welfare of humankind. The passion that authority always vents against heresy is directed nowadays in the name of science against pseudoscience.

6-7: Confronted with what they do not yet properly understand, those who claim to speak for science are reluctant to admit ignorance, and therefore their answers often discount or evade.

7: much popular wisdom idealizes science. Perhaps the most common illusion is that science uses a "scientific method" that guarantees objectivity (Bauer 1992a; Bauer and Huyghe 1999).

7: My ulterior motive is not to disparage science but to suggest that serious anomalistics be allowed a measure of respect as an honest seeking of knowledge ....

14: the distinction between natural science and social science is clear enough for the present purpose: between, respectively, certain and merely probable consequences of a given set of circumstances. That's the essence of it, and for many purposes it is a world of difference.

16: The "skeptical" in Skeptical Inquirer and the "skeptics" in the names of many groups employing that label interprets skepticism in the sense of those ancient Greeks who actively disbelieved, the atheists, rather than in the nowadays more commonly understood sense of agnostics, people who suspend judgment, who maintain an attitude of doubt. [I've dubbed such persons "scoftics"--RK.] CSICOP and its "Skeptics" are doubtful only about unorthodox beliefs, which they judge in the light of contemporary scientific knowledge that they do believe.

18: in most cases the contrast [between serious and cranky anomalistics] is clear enough: it is between, on the one hand, the assertion that here are mysteries to be solved and, on the other, blandly dogmatic assertions of "truths" that contradict established scientific knowledge.

26: Mainstream disciplines behave as though the unknown unknown doesn't exist; perhaps just because it cannot be directly investigated.

27: Social science ... seems to assume that it can establish expertise only if, as in the natural sciences, it is able to command a body of understanding that the laity cannot share because it runs counter to common sense: "what the sociologists say about common sense is the self-serving ideology of a vested interest group seeking to establish and maintain a monopoly over `its' professional turf" (Pease 1981:266).

27-28: some anomalistic researchers are as competent as any in the mainstream of science ....

29: The media feature the accomplishments of the sciences; the "news value" of anomalistics lies in its absurdities.

29: Research in anomalistics suffers from lack of resources ....

30-31: Anomalistics lacks any such organized literature. ... Compendia of data are not often available, even when they would be highly desirable, as for instance comprehensive listings of reported sightings of Nessies.

33: There exists no comprehensive account of all the premature or false trails that science has taken. By and large the history of science has focused on the successes of science.

36: The jockeying for prominence in science is well disciplined ... In anomalistics, jockeying for position often is less a matter of seeking approval of peers or making contributions to the field than of attracting attention from the media. Anomalistics therefore makes news more through the charlatans, hoaxers, and absurdities that plague it than for its serious investigations.

36: eyewitness testimony proves little if anything in science-just in a few pockets like field biology. [!]

37: Personal experiences are not repeatable on demand .... if their facts were reproducible, cryptozoology would be zoology and parapsychology would be psychology.

38: organizational differences then amplify characteristics of the fields' practices. Thus much of the strength of science stems directly from the efficient, workmanlike, task-oriented procedures of the scientific community; and the weaknesses of anomalistics have much to do with the lack of such communally governed practices.

41: Within the various anomalistic fields one sometimes sees attempts at an appearance of solidarity in the face of the dismissiveness and contempt displayed by science, media, and "skeptics." The clearest instances of this are the typical refusal to discuss their differences publicly or to admit, as they privately believe, that some of their number are incompetent or worse. ... Of course this is misguided and self-defeating in the longer run, but it's typical of all guilds and groups.

41: Bigfoot enthusiasts and those who hunt dinosaurs in the Congo may respect one another when they stop to take notice, but they rarely communicate with one another and have little natural of instinctive affinity with one another. There is no general feeling of commonality between ufologists and cryptozoologists, or between either of those and parapsychologists.

47: "How could anyone believe that?" ... The underlying presumption is that everyone ought to have the same beliefs because we believe-or should believe-only things that are true.
Many people tend to believe whatever they're told-even by con-men. Others tend to believe the opposite of whatever they're told. Few indeed are skeptical and empirical in a disciplined fashion. The real mystery about belief is not how we come to believe something, but rather how some of us are able sometimes to change our minds under the force of evidence and logic rather than emotion.
The passion in many arguments ... [is] an inevitable corollary of a human wish for certainty.

48: "Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary proofs," is a common aphorism. But fundamentally the issue is, rather, whether to trust empirical evidence or contemporary scientific theory. The opposing sides usually fail to recognize how close this lies to the root of their polarization. ... In anomalistics, the true believers tend to pose as determinedly empirical .... The debunkers, on the other hand, stand on the existing theoretical paradigm; such things didn't or don't happen because they cannot. David Hume is constantly cited as to the possible occurrence of miracles .... But current scientific knowledge is not necessarily the last word.

49: It seems natural to reject reports of some happening when there's no plausible conceivable mechanism by which it could occur.... But ... are there not many things that we accept to happen even though we don't understand how they do, such as psychosomatic illness and the placebo effect?
The implacable demand for "mechanism" reveals a strict materialism. Those who insist on it are not really relying on science ...

50: even some purely material phenomena are indubitably real despite our inability to explain them. Cosmic rays are generated by a phenomenon whose energy is of a magnitude that baffles our ability to conceive of a mechanism. The homing instincts and communicating ability of insects are unquestioned, while our explanations for them are tentative at best. The ice ages did occur, but we don't understand how or why they came about. And so on.

In the past, some of the most excellent arguments proved to be false, as to why something just could not be so. [Listed are meteorites, drifting continents, and charged ions in water.] These all seem fine arguments. It's just that they were incorrect, as in many other cases of resistance by mainstream science to the startlingly new. ...

53: It takes much longer to explain why a point is erroneous than it took to assert the point. It can be very tiresome to answer in full detail what seems like a poorly based, incoherent case for something highly improbable. ... The frustrations of arguing with a crank have been described with feeling by some who have had or witnessed the experience (Russell 1956; Shaw 1944). ... Drawn into dispute, frustrated experts may become arrogantly dismissive ... and they lose debating points and public credibility.

55: Rarely if ever is anomalistics given credit for grains of truth. Velikovsky was and is said to be "wrong" .... One arguably less-than-competent laboratory is asserted to typify all of parapsychology, whereas one less-than-competent forensics laboratory is hardly taken to show that forensics is pseudoscience.

55: Rhetorical questions abound. ... "How could bones of Bigfoot not be found if they exist, with so many people finding footprints of them?" And so on and so forth. Once a given issue is settled one way or the other, answers to such questions will be evident enough; indeed, they are likely to appear obvious in hindsight. Before the issues are settled, however, the inability to provide conclusive answers proves nothing.

56-57: Debunkers typically seek to establish guilt by association. It's no easy task to discredit entirely the major anomalist claims by careful discussion of the evidence. It's much easier-and so it's done all the time-simply to include them all in the same list, as "pseudoscience." But this lumping also has disadvantages. ... [It] can backfire if even one of the unorthodox claims turns out to be valid, as some do. For decades there were those who decried as wasteful, or worse, the use of vitamin supplements, but they will (or should) have been mightily abashed when in 1998 the Institute of Medicine recommended such supplements even for people enjoying an apparently adequate diet.

Debunking loses credibility when it calls "paranormal" or "supernatural" the search for such entirely material albeit as-yet-uncaptured species as the giant sloth .... Debunkers often cite their concern for public rationality and scientific literacy; but by their lack of discrimination, and by their doom-saying and exaggerated assertions of the harm that supposedly flows from what they call pseudoscience, they fail to practice the rationality and scientific approach they preach.

57: pundits will insist that science is not characterized by always being right, or in any other particular result, but only in the process of using the scientific method. Yet when right results are obtained by people who flout the scientific method and other norms of science-as with high-temperature superconductors-their lapses are not criticized.

58: There exist no reliable, accredited repositories or museums of ufology or cryptozoology, so specimens or artifacts mentioned in the literature often cannot be retrieved for reexamination.

58-59: In anomalistics, where by definition the evidence is not utterly compelling, believers and debunkers are thereby free perpetually to reach opposing conclusions, to fit the evidence into their opposing stories. ... Concerning yeti or Bigfoot, and the fact that apemen are featured in folklore across the world, Bayanov has pointed out that ... "the existence of mythological hominoids is a necessary, though not sufficient condition, of the existence of real hominoids" (Bayanov, 1982). Their absence from folklore would even speak against the creature's existence, which is the opposite of the debunkers' usual argument.

To really grasp what is going on with Big Science and why there is such resistance to new ideas, you need a copy of Dr. Henry Bauer's Science or Pseudoscience: Magnetic Healing, Psychic Phenomena and Other Heterodoxies published this year by the University of Illinois Press. Henry H. Bauer, Dean Emeritus of Arts & Sciences, Professor Emeritus of Chemistry and Science Studies Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, is the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Scientific Exploration, and the author of several other books like The Enigma of Loch Ness: Making Sense of a Mystery and Scientific Literacy and the Myth of the Scientific Method, which we recommend almost monthly to our listener and guests on ....

The most original aspect of this book is the way that Dr. Bauer has of defining normal, revolutionary, premature, and "pseudo" science in terms of the three facets of data, method, and theory. He makes detailed comparisons of the actual working practices in natural science, social science, and denigrated science and reexamines notorious cases from this fresh perspective. Normal science doesn't try to do anything revolutionary in any of these three facets, according to Bauer. As he says, "Scientific "revolutions" (quantum mechanics, relativity) change only one of those at a time. Looking for novelty in two of the three simultaneously produces "premature" science: Mendel's theory of genetics, Wegener's theory of drifting continents - ignored or rejected by science for decades. Novelty in all three areas characterizes looking for Loch Ness Monsters or UFOs or studying psychic phenomena; the difficulties are enormous and the chances of success slight, but that doesn't make the quest useless or to be criticized."

Some of our favorite subjects that have been dismissed as "pseudo science" are reexamined as "scientific" with this perspective, and Bauer relates the search for the giant squid, the search for extraterrestrials, pre-Clovis people in the Americas, cold fusion, the idea that HIV causes AIDS, and much more.

Bauer is a humorous writer and acknowledges that his critics will probably not be able to keep from being nasty. He recommends that if the skeptics insist on being nasty, they should at least distinguish genuine knowledge-seekers from self-promoting confidence tricksters. As he points out, many cryptozoologists, parapsychologists, and ufologists are perfectly honest, genuine seekers of understanding (while some mainstream researchers are not very honest).

For an unusually unbiased, yet scientific, approach to some of the subjects that are "borderland" respectable - sometimes called pseudo-science, sometimes admitted into science, but generally still controversial ("how much don't we yet know about electromagnetism and living processes! About archaeoastronomy!") you must read this book.

In Seventh Day Adventism in Crisis, Laura Vance has produced a monograph that will surely be of interest to scholars who study religion, gender, and social change. Consistent with much current gender scholarship on the emergence of theologically conservative religions, Vance's study reveals how differently history reads when gender becomes a central analytical category for examining religious transformation. This volume aims to address several interrelated questions, including: How did a religious movement in which women initially wielded visionary leadership eventually come to deny women access to many of its most powerful institutional positions? How have large-scale social changes influenced current debates about "women's place" within contemporary Adventism? In fixing her attention on such issues, Vance produces a book that is not simply a historiographical account of shifting gender relations with Adventism - though a focus on that topic alone would have been quite an accomplishment. Rather, recognizing that the best historical research informs contemporary predicaments, Vance combines a backward-glancing eye attuned to Adventism's past with an insightful investigation of present-day gender relations within this religious denomination.

Seventh-Day Adventism in Crisis begins by recounting the historical origins of Adventism, a sectarian religion that emerged during the Second Great Awakening of the early 19th century. Special attention is paid to the apparently prophetic visions and writings of Ellen White, an early Adventist thought to have received direct revelation from God, detailing the divine mission of this nascent religious movement. Much of the first half of the book then proceeds to analyze the distinctive - and often paradoxical - facets of Adventist doctrine and practice. For example, Adventists are generally committed to the infallibility of the Bible; yet, at the same time, members of this religious group conceive of divine revelation as progressively unfolding into "present truth." Moreover, Adventism has long decried the excesses of "the world" (e.g., gambling, movie going, and various dietary indulgences) even as it has implored its adherents to affiliate with unbelievers for the purpose of evangelism. The Adventist challenge of finding one's place "in but not of the world" is very similar to that faced by other theologically conservative religions. Yet, perhaps the greatest Adventist contradiction entails the eventual erosion of women's leadership authority within a religious denomination whose core doctrine was initially defined - or, better, divined --- by a female prophet. In rendering her portrait of Adventism, past and present, Vance avoids homogenizing this diverse and changing religious tradition. Her careful analytical approach reveals how internal cleavages among Adventists themselves emerged historically and continue to surface in light of this religion's conceptualization of an evolving "present truth." Consequently, the first half of Vance's book evenhandedly combines rich idiographic accounts of particular events in Adventist history (e.g., chaps. 1 and 4) with broader analyses of this religion's theological presuppositions and political organization (e.g., chaps. 2 and 3).

Part 2 of this volume focuses on Adventist responses to a series of recent social changes - shifting definitions of gender and sexuality, the recent rise of women's labor force participation, and controversies over women's ordination to the ministry in many Protestant churches. Because Vance has detailed the particularities of this religious subculture so well in the book's first section, she moves deftly through Adventist responses to these various issues - aided, where appropriate, by back references to section one. For example, Vance examines contemporary Adventist support for gender equity in the workplace with an eye on the post-1870 writings by Ellen White, who defended the payment of equitable wages to female employees and became a champion of women's public-sphere participation in Social Gospel movements. Moreover, current Adventist controversies over women's ordination are understood in light of the rich cultural tradition of Adventism. This multilayered tradition contains strands of early Adventist egalitarianism interwoven with more recent accommodations to secularized visions of gender difference. This reading of structural change and ideological diversity within Adventism effectively challenges those who would equate religious conviction - and especially theological conservatism - with an unreflective preservation of the status quo.

Vance has collected and mined a vast array of data to conduct this study. She draws from archival sources, secondary historical treatments, and Adventist pastoral texts. She has also gathered primary data using participant-observation, in-depth interview, and survey techniques. Given the conceptual breadth and methodological triangulation evidenced in this volume, some readers might charge that Vance simply attempts to cover too much ground in one monograph. I do not share that criticism. Although it is easy to envision other works--for example, a more ethnographically focused monograph-that could effectively build on the material in the present volume, this book draws together coherent and compelling narratives from these various data sources. As a result, Seventh-Day Adventism in Crisis provides a holistic analysis of a religious tradition that has undergone great change since its emergence and continues to redefine itself as we enter the next millennium.

Social science Professor Laura Vance tells the amazing story how Seventh-day Adventism, which was founded by Ellen Harmon White, the most prolific woman writer and preacher of the nineteenth-century, moved in 100 years from an egalitarian social ethic to the almost total exclusion of women from its administration. Since White's death, Adventism has moved toward the mainstream of American religion, adopting the social conservatism as well as the theological positions of evangelicalism, and systematically excluding women from leadership positions. In contrast to the early Adventist pioneers, who favored various reform movements such as anti-slavery and women's health issues, American church bureaucrats have narrowed their social gaze and moved to the right in their implicit political stance. This trend, which actively favored public evangelism over social reform and suppressed women's participation in leadership, has since the late 1970's been challenged by new voices calling for the ordination of women to the gospel ministry and other leadership positions in the SDA church. In addition, the international growth of the membership of the SDA church, adding millions of members in countries where patriarchialism and traditional power structures favor men has helped keep women out of power. The answer, says Vance, is not for Adventist leaders to imagine they are fighting a battle against feminism or liberalism but to embrace once again the diversity and openness of its early history, an Edenic time when women and men sang and preached side-by-side, when the male leaders were not afraid of the visionary power of women but practiced a co-operative type of gender equality.

Vance's book comes as the fourth in a series of comprehensive non-denominational interpretations of Adventism which began in the 1980's with Ron Numbers and Jonathan Butler, "The Disappointed: Millerism and Millenarianism in the Nineteenth-Century" (Indiana University Press, 1989, Malcom Bull and Keith Lockhart's "Seeking a Sanctuary: Seventh-day Adventism and the American Dream" (Harper and Row, 1989) and Michael Pearson, Millenial Dreams and Moral Dilemmas: Seventh-day Adventists and Contemporary Ethics" (Cambridge Unversity Press, 1990). Vance's book, written largely from the perspective of gender issues, gathers from a hundred years of the "Adventist Review" and from more recent publications such as "Spectrum".

The style of Professor Vance's book, written after extensive field research in actual Adventist congregations and at Walla Walla College, will appeal to both social scientists studying the religious phenomenon of Adventism, and to SDA members, clergy and teachers who wish to view themselves in the words of an intelligent and sympathetic outsider. Teachers of American religious movements will find this book the best general introduction to Adventism for students who are also interested in women's issues, social science theory and religion. Highly recommended.

This fine piece of scholarship presents a systematic application of sociological models to a movement whose heart and soul is sectarian. In examining Seventh-day Adventism's history and development from its inception as a postmillennialist movement in the 1800s to its current status as a faith tradition with a distinctive identity, Vance (psychology/sociology, Georgia Southwestern State University) has crafted a remarkably readable book of religio-sociological research. Vance argues that Adventism's move from sectarianism to institutionalization has succeeded through the creation of physical structures which reinforce its unique identity while meeting temporal needs that allow for a more accommodating response to the world. This thesis is borne out by Vance's examination of family structure, theology, and the development of the movement. One area of unique identification for Adventists is that of gender roles, and it is here, she finds, that Adventism has the greatest opportunity to alter the boundaries of church hierarchy not only for itself but for the Christian community as a whole. Highly recommended.

The following review is from the January 2008 issues of Review in "Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries."
Martin's engaging book builds (as she makes clear) on the work of others who have examined the world of the soft-core erotic thriller. But this in-depth analysis of the practice and reception of these often-maligned films takes the discussion several steps further, examining this work from a feminist point of view. This results in a study that is both surprising and refreshing. Adroitly disposing of the artificial demarcation between high and low art--which, as Martin [Connecticut College] correctly argues, is the reason that many of the films discussed in this book have gone unexamined--the author gives trenchant readings of contemporary soft-core thrillers, films noir, and gothic films. In so doing she seeks to reclaim for females the pleasure of viewing these films, which have in most cases been specifically designed to appeal to stereotypical male fantasies. Illustrated with a solid selection of frame grabs, and offering carefully detailed deconstructions of numerous films in the genre, this groundbreaking work is similar in its ambition to Carol Clover's Men, Women and Chain Saws (CH, Sep'92, 30-0181). It offers a fresh view on a type of film often dismissed out of hand. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readers; all levels. - W.W. Dixon, University of Nebraska, Lincoln

Growing up, I loved Hitchcock films and film noir, an odd choice for a child who came of age with color television, Rambo and Reagan. Fast forward to post-college years later when I took a job at a video rental store to support a poorly stipend internship, where ninety percent of the store's revenue was from the sale and rental of adult films. Did Barbara Stanwyck and Tipi Hendren lead to this?

According to Nina K. Martin in Sexy Trills: Undressing the Erotic Thriller, they just might have (thanks for introducing me to the old flicks mom!). The erotic thriller is soft-core, direct to video pornography with elaborate sets and romanticized stories, generally aimed at women - as opposed to hard-core pornography, which, with its emphasis on penetration and myriad other sexual acts and little to no premise to get there, is usually aligned with male pleasure. Using a selection of film texts of the genre, Martin analyzes the effect of the erotic thriller on the construction of heterosexual female sexuality in contemporary American society. According to Martin, erotic thrillers have well-define formulaic patterns - including gothic and film noir borrowings - that define the genre. Within these various narrative texts, sexuality for the heterosexual female is safely explored with in the permitted boundaries and resolves itself around either true love (marriage) or punishment for digressions in personal and professional lives.

Taking an academic look at non-academic texts, Martin shows that the idea of "what women want" is more about what men tell women that women want. Nearly all media companies are owned by men, and almost all film directors are men, so in a mass media and consumer-driven world, contemporary culture is a homogenized template of what individuals are told to desire and need, and dictates come from Hollywood, Hitchcock, Cosmopolitan, Rachel Ray and women's pornography. And ultimately, as Martin points out, the erotic thriller reinforces women's subordinate place in society because women--even when in charge of their sexual expression--still have their sexual services purchased and made available for purchase, primarily for men. As a woman is sexually empowered in the films through fulfillment of personal desires, she is disempowered within the public sphere for her actions, thus reemphasizing the public/private split in society where power and authority are mutually exclusive to sexual expression and fulfillment (does anyone view Hillary Clinton as a sexualized woman?). Individual women's sexuality, Martin states, is inseparable from culture representations of individual women's sexuality and is not reconcilable with public life and power the way men's sexuality is. Jenna Jameson is for the bedroom only, Hillary has no sex life (wasn't that why there was Monica?), and Hitchcock's Tipi is punished for her sexual urges and desires by giant black birds.

Despite the academic prose and evocations of Freud and Foucault, Martin's critique of the erotic thriller is accessible to interested audiences looking at the text as film criticism, feminist criticism or both (for uninterested audiences there is a smattering of still frames from select films). Martin doesn't enter the feminist pornography debate because, as she states explicitly in her introduction, the book is primarily film criticism and secondarily feminist criticism. However, she is attuned to feminist concerns and feminisms. Through this numbered lens, the book becomes more interesting for its inability to judge pornography as either pro-woman or anti-woman. Instead, Martin cleanly analyzes how sex is marketed to heterosexual women by well-defined, status-quo affirmations of what is considered normalized (and non-threatening) sexuality and, therefore, doesn't detach her thesis from the effect of the Second and Third Waves. The empowerment of women, Martin tells us, is through a dictum and language that are not our own.

Luckily, a friend loaned me her advance copy of "Sexy Thrills." From its title to its last sentence, this book is fascinating, well written, witty, and just plain fun. More than simply a genre study of erotic thrillers, "Sexy Thrills" grapples with the big issues of women's sexuality and identity, as well as with the important debates within contemporary feminism.

Erotic thrillers are a form of soft-core pornography targeting a female audience. Unlike male-oriented porn, erotic thrillers address, as Martin says, "the sexual subjectivity of women and the social construction of gender." Initially these films are difficult to categorize, as they draw from a number of genres--film noir to soap operas, romances to pornography--but they share a number of key features, most revolving around "a gendered formula for visual arousal." In addition to examining the primary examples of this genre from its most famous, "Basic Instinct," through its most prolific practitioner, Zalman King, to its many multiple-part series, such as the "Body Chemistry" films, Martin delves deeply into their structure and cinematic character to analyze the filmic qualities that make these movies so attractive to women. Along the way she unpacks "sexual consumerism, feminized niche marketing, and a post-feminist focus on sexual exploration as the means to female empowerment."

"Sexy Thrills" is of value across the disciplines. Martin is a real star of that new generation of feminist scholars questioning received traditions and counter-productive intellectual dichotomies. And she does so in a remarkably fair minded and generous fashion, which I take as the sign of a truly sophisticated scholar. What Linda Williams did for hard-core, Martin accomplishes for soft-core pornography: making it intelligible and intriguing. "Sexy Thrills" is a highly original work of interdisciplinary scholarship, and beautifully written. I recommend this book to anyone interested in contemporary American culture.

The story of a family, a heritage, my heritage, I was unable to put this book down once I opened it. She writes so well, she is so fluid and masterful with her words, the story had to be told. It is simply the story of how a family got here, and yet it speaks volumes about a time which is little known and hardly written about.

I loved this book. I reccomend buying it. If you are a history professor use it as your text book. If you would be truly multi-cultural then learn this story.

May it bring as much joy to you as it did to me.

The story of a family, a heritage, my heritage, I was unable to put this book down once I opened it. She writes so well, she is so fluid and masterful with her words, the story had to be told. It is simply the story of how a family got here, and yet it speaks volumes about a time which is little known and hardly written about.

I loved this book. I reccomend buying it. If you are a history professor use it as your text book. If you would be truly multi-cultural then learn this story.

May it bring as much joy to you as it did to me.

This exquisite little book, The Soup Has Many Eyes, is a hybrid of history, mystery, proverb, and poetry. Most of all, it is a mother's memoir to her two sons, Josh and Jonny, as they embark upon their own journey in life - a journey that is both connected and disconnected with its heritage.

Perhaps a little too disconnected, or so the author, Joann Leonard, believes. In her narrative, Leonard attempts to fill in the spaces for her sons, to connect them to their past so that their present will have context. While much of the book narrates her family's struggles as they leave Russia amid the pogroms of the early 20th century to come to America, the "history" of the book serves as a backdrop for Leonard's musings about life and legacy. What do traditions mean? What do their voices say today? Can they serve her sons too, the children of a Jewish mother and a father who is the son of a Lutheran pastor? Leonard wonders (or laments?), "Did I tell them, did I tell them? Little things, forgotten. Big things, omitted. Things that, because I didn't know how to tell you, my hands and eyes tried to word." In The Soup Has Many Eyes, Leonard tells them.

And so much she tells them. Across time, Leonard spirits Gramma Chana back for an archetypical dialogue on her maternal doubts.

"`Gramma Chana, tell me,' I ask, `how do you know?'

`Know what, child?'

`What mothers are supposed to know?'

`Know? Achhh! What is there to know? You hoe your gratchkeh, the bread you knead until it feels just so, when comes the baby, you push. For this you need to know? Your heart, do you tell it to beat? Your breath, do you say "now in, now out"? So what's all this "know"?' . . . `Look at the men with their watery eyes, Joann. They squint at their books for so many years, they squint out all the color from their eyes. They clutch their foreheads with their hands ready to snatch the live thing inside that gnaws to get out. But always, there are more questions.'

`So what am I supposed to do, Gramma?'

`Do? Make the soup. That's what you do.'"

Ultimately, Joann's "answer" is that turgid alchemy of past and present that connects all the hope and fears of all generations going back to Eve.

"Josh and Jonny, do you ever remember us hugging you so hard and so long that you felt as if you couldn't breathe, as if it would never end? That's the hug of parents holding their child for all the parents in the world whose arms go empty. Parents whose children have been stolen from them by war, starvation, hatred, drugs, disease, despair. It is an embrace born out of guilt and gratitude that our child is here, though we are no more deserving. It is a fierce attempt to ring you with talisman and benediction."

Leonard's letter to her children is timeless because its taproot reaches down into the mystery of our dreams and memories. We live, love, work, and die to pass down our wisdom to our progeny. And why? Who can know? But The Soup Has Many Eyes describes the what and how if not the why and why not, and in Leonard's vivid images of her own history our collective consciousnesses meet.

An excellent book. Insightful. Instructive. Nostalgic. Atmospheric. It should be on required reading lists in college literature courses. Being an Italian-American made it especially enjoyable reading. It was not easy to find, but well worth the effort. It may not have that mass appeal that results in celebrity and riches for the author but that's part of the tantalizing charm of the book and what makes it so far superior to what's promoted on TV and bestseller's lists.

This book is a pleasant surprise. Skillfully done and consistently on target.

Holy Cards alone is justification for buying this book. That short story has been reprinted in Don't Tell Mama the Penguin collection of Italian American writing. Anyone who buys this book based on reading the reprint won't be disappointed.

A engaging and enthralling collection of stories. Mr. Ardizzone is a very gifted writer who combines all elements of life, be it realistic or magical, contemporary or traditional, and it is done in an enjoyable and immediate manner. He joins the ranks and stands proud with the gifted writers and poets who hail from and write of Chicago. My hat is off to this writer and this work.

What a delight to find this amazing classic back in print, in a reprint
edition with new comments by the authors. This will spare thousands
of food enthusiasts the perennial burden of scouring the used-book
market for copies of it. (I ordered several copies of the reprint at once
for gifts and to have on hand.) People who were following food
writing at the time will recall the stir created by the Hesses' book when
it first appeared in the late 1970s. The book is iconoclastic, even

subversive, in the same sense as Prometheus's gift of fire to mankind.

In this case the gift is not fire but perspective, or a sense of history.
Co-author John Hess was himself a senior and very experienced
food writer and editor, but he has a scholar's dislike of pretentious
misinformation being quoted around until it becomes conventional
wisdom. Karen Hess is a food historian noted elsewhere for her
work on the mysterious "Martha Washington" cookbook.
Their book addresses questions like: How did things like iceberg
lettuce and phony "gourmet" products displace centuries of fine
immigrant and indigenous cooking wisdom in the US? Who helped
to "sell" such changes, only to be celebrated later (Orwellian-style)
for contributions to US cooking? Moreover, it is remarkable to see
how many "innovations" in US cooking since about the time this book
was written consist actually of rediscovery of principles widely known
100 or 200 years ago, as the book documents in detail.

The casual reader should be forgiven for not having heard of all
of this in the general media. Journalism in the US about food (and not
only about food) is lately graced with legions of people blissfully
and confidently unconscious of anything that preceded their own words.
Such people will gush uncritically about food pundits like Craig
Claiborne (distinguished on the basis that the gushing writers
have heard of them) without any real research or perspective.

These writers would not do so if they read the Hesses' book.

From the Hesses', and other, evidence it seems that around the
1950s, "gourmet" became a convenience-food-industry euphemism for
"sucker" in the US. "That flabby midget called Cornish game hen was,
next to chocolate-covered ants, the gourmet racket's funniest joke on a
gullible public. It has no more taste of game than a wad of cotton," say
the Hesses. Such game hens are one of several gimmicks Craig
Claiborne is quoted pushing; canned beef gravy and instant whipped
potatoes are others. Claiborne receives especial attention here,
though James Beard, the Rombauers, Fannie Farmer, even JC Herself,
are not spared. Yet this criticism is constructive, at least for the reader,
with positive counterexamples.

It is an angry, or perhaps indignant, book but an informed one,
meticulous in its documentation of sources. The bibliography by itself is
valuable, sort of an annotated miniature of Katherine Bitting's epic 1939
"Gastronomic Bibliography" (also cited; that book is very expensive
on the used market; I know because I own one; even its 1980s reprint is
expensive and I am told, unlike the original, is printed on acid paper).

After reading this book for the first time in the early 1980s, it changed the way I thought about both choosing what to feast upon and how to prepare it. I always wondered why I hated vegetables as a child. Having read the book, I realized that my mother--loving though she may have been--had cooked vegetables to death by boiling everything until it was soft, tasteless and unappetizing. When I began learning to cook for myself, the beauty of this text came through for me. Now I appreciate vegetables because I prepare them simply and let the flavor come through. I recommend this book to anyone who is a "picky" eater (and even to those who are not). Once you know why you don't like a variety of foods, you may discover that it's not the food you learned detest, but the way Mama cooked it for you!

An impassioned, lively, fascinating look at the American table. The Hess' are knowledgeable, erudite and highly opinionated. Many disagree with their negative view of American eating habits, but it is hard to argue with them on the facts. Read it and think!

I was very lucky to have lived on Taylor Street in the Tri-Taylor neighborhood (Taylor and Claremont) from the time I was 2 months until I was 15. I bought this book primarily for my Uncle because he is Italian and was born and raised in the same neighborhood, so I thought it had historical value for him. Even though I am not Italian, the book was interesting, informative and very touching, especially the section "The other Taylor Street: Tri-Taylor". Growing up on Taylor Street you definitely gain an appreciation for the Italian culture and the people. I remember attending St. Callistus until the 1st grade and then still being involved with the St. Callistus activities while I attended Washington Irving. I used to enjoy the neighborhood eateries like Damenzo's, Joe's, Grandaddy's, Ferrara's, Polk and Western and even birthday parties at Lulu's. I even remember hanging out in Little Italy over time, day camp at Sheridan, Mario's Italian Lemonade, The Patio, Hawkeye's and much much more. Whether you are Italian or not, I would highly recommend buying this book as a gift for yourself, to family, or friends that have roots in Little Italy, or the Taylor Street area in Chicago because it gives you historical insight to the area we cherish and will always call home.

This was a great gift for my Italian mother. She cried when she opened it up for Christmas. She actually found pictures of some of her relatives in it. Very historical and a great gift for any Italian families from Chicago.

Fantastic book, brought back great memories of growing up in Little Italy, Taylor Street.

A genuine masterpiece! I have read all the greats out there: Charles Bukowski, James M. Cain, Chandler, Hammet, Hemingway, Orwell, Jim Thompson, Clarence Cooper, Jr., Iceberg Slim, John and Dan Fante, Donald Goines, Joseph Conrad, B. Traven, Jack London, Albert Camus, Knut Hamsun...and this guy, James Ross, with his one and only book is right up there at the very top of the heap with the best of the best. You won't find better writing anywhere...and it's not so much the story even, but what he does with it. Ross uses a deceptively easy-going, simple style that sort of sneaks up on your psyche and leaves a mark long after you have finished his tale. A remarkable work; a certified classic in my humble opinion. Highly recommend it to anyone who likes a solid read.

Raymond Chandler mentioned this novel (along with THIEVES LIKE US) in a letter in his collected letters, so I grabbed a copy, and I can only say that Chandler knew one when he saw one. This completely amoral tale of roadhouse denizens in the depression era South is wonderfully atmospheric and gets under your skin in an unforgettalbe way. Deadpan violence, stark atmoshpere, and characters worthy of a pulp Faulkner. Don't miss it if rural American noir is your genre.

"They Don't Dance Much" was rescued from obscurity by Southern Illinois University's Lost Fiction Series. Author James Ross' style is similar to James M. Cain; this book resonates like a film noir screenplay. Judging from the popularity of the recent film "L.A. Confidential" someone in Hollywood should take notice. But "They Don't Dance Much" is more than a cheap thrill. It's true literature. Those fans of excellent writing out there need to take a look at this book. They won't be disappointed.

I bought this book because I'm interested in learning more about the Las Vegas-mob connection. I've had my fill of books chronicling the New York mob scene. I must it's a heck of story and has much more to offer the reader than just what it reveals about the Las Vegas scene. Writer Cherie Rohn should be commended for her literary mastery in harnessing Slick's energy on the written page, and I highly recommend "Thief" for anyone thirsting for a good read. I look forward to more books by Cherie Rohn, a new literary talent on the true crime scene.
--Ron Chepesiuk, author, "Gangsters of Harlem" and "Drug Lords"

THIEF!, published by Barricade Books, is the gutsy true story of William `Slick' Hanner, an ex-con artist with mob ties, who grows up in "the toughest neighborhood in the world," 1940's Chicago , and makes his way into all kinds of trouble. From childhood pranks such as shoplifting for zoot suits, to getting entangled with the Lucchese Crime Family in Miami, where he almost becomes fish food. THIEF! takes you back to a bygone era where people could do things for kicks, rob casinos blind, and end up in the wrong places without becoming a "made guy." In fact, Slick was on the fringes of all the hottest scenes throughout the last half of the 20th century, whether it was working in Las Vegas as a Stardust dealer, serving as Jerry Lewis' bodyguard, driving a limo for the infamous Chicken Ranch in Nevada, or celebrating New Years in Havana the night Castro took over Cuba. You name it and Slick has lived it.

Cherie writes the book in a fast-paced tone, true to Slick's voice. If I didn't know her, she would be invisible; she writes that well. And we as writers know that is one of the toughest things to conquer when writing a biography; yet Cherie does this with ease. The book is a hard-hitting adrenaline rush with a lot of laughter. She can tell you a story in a sentence; she knows how to cut the fat. This is an epic with a lifetime of story and well worth the read.

Crime is a dark subject, but this is one colorful book about a thief you just gotta love. A Mafia insider with a good sense of humor and a bad attitude, Slick Hanner is now talking. His life is high-speed, often perilous and always entertaining. Much of the action is set in fascinating, Rat Pack era Las Vegas. Readers of true crime, organized crime, the Rat Pack days and biographies are sure to enjoy.

Rick Porrello
Author of Superthief - A Master Burglar, the Mafia and the Biggest Bank Heist in U.S. History
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