Washington Books

This is yet another twist on the Dr. Faust legend, and it follows other similar stories such as "The Devil and Tom Walker" and "The Devil and Daniel Webster." Having not read the Faust legend in its entirety, but having read the other two, I note that whereas Tom Walker failed, both Daniel Webster and Joe Hardy, the hero of this book, overcame Satan. There is a difference, however, in the reasons. Daniel Webster overcame the devli through his goodness, whereas Joe Hardy overcame Satan through his determination. There is a similarity here, because Joe Hardy remained true to his wife's love in overcoming the wiles of the beautiful Lola. Having watched "Damn Yankee," the movie taken from this book, just after reading the book, I saw two different twists to the same story, both applicable to the genre in which they were produced. Overall, a recommended reading either for the sports buff or the casual reader.

man it would take the devil for the yankees to loose the series. This is a great book that isn't to long to read and it is a very good story

This is a wonderful story, and one that I enjoyed for personal reasons - the main character Joe Hardy was inspired by my grandfather Joe Judge, who played first base for the Washington Senators from 1915 to 1932. The story is told in my book Damn Senators.

I first read this as a kid, and loved it then. It's a happy thought that, 50 years ago, the greatest desire a man could aspire to was to have his underdog baseball team beat the undeafeated Yankees, and was willing to sell his sould to the Devil for it. Today he'd probably want at least one oil-producing country.

Well written, entertaining and with some great twists, it still remains one of my favourites for moralistic humour, right up there with the various Don Camillo books. Really gives the flavour of baseball in the 1950's when there were fewer teams, stronger loyalties and better sportsmen.

The novel tells the story of Joe Boyd, a long-time fan of the Washington Senators who have the worst record in baseball. One night after an incredibly bad loss, Joe decides to take a walk around the neighborhood and runs into the mysterious Mr. Applegate. It turns out that Applegate has been keeping tabs on Joe and his Washington Senators and wants to offer Joe a proposition. How would he like to watch his beloved Senators to win the 1958 pennant? Not only watch, but even help the team by becoming their newest star player? Reluctantly, Joe agrees but has Applegate write an escape clause into the contract. Within a few days the old Joe Boyd is transfromed into the 21-year-old Joe Hardy and sets off on a whirlwind ride that moves the Senators up from 7th place to just within reach of the Yankees.

Along the way, Joe begins to realize just what he's given up and what the ramifications are of his joining the team. It's a heart-warming trip, both funny and sad, and delves into a passionate fan's view of the world of baseball. So many temptations to stick with the game, and even stronger feelings tying him to his old life. Until the gorgeous Lola steps into the picture to keep his mind off the old Joe. Author Douglass Wallop's story keeps you enrapt and rooting for Joe and the Senators until the very end, never quite sure just what the outcome is going to be. It's a unique, light-hearted twist on the tale of Faust with many great and wonderful characters.

I'm in the midst of planning my first backpacking trip in Washington State this fall. Of all the many trail guides that I've picked up over the past month, this is my favorite. Rick deeply cares about the country that he's describing, and isn't afraid to speak out on the issues that matter to me. Knowing how he feels makes it easier for me to judge his opinions about a given trail. I've seen other guides that don't get around to mentioning heavy ORV or horse traffic on the trails that they cover - that's not the case with Rick. His writing, as mentioned in another rating, remind me a lot of Manning's. It's excellent, as are the photos by Ira Spring.
Even if you don't plan to hike the Stevens Pass region, the book is still an excellent purchase because of the insightful comments regarding the Wild Sky movement. Keep 'em coming, Rick!

I love all the Spring hiking books - the 100 Classic hikes, the Alpines Lakes version, and so forth. This book, unlike the others, offers several lower altitude hikes that are accessible in April and May (depending on the winter's snowfall). I strongly recommend it if you're frustrated with looking for hikes for the "shoulder season." The book has the usual good commentary, though I prefer Harvey Manning to Rick McGuire, and good pictures.

My only complaint is the authors' recommendation in the forward that hikers not bring their dogs but instead strike out cross-country and off-trail if they wish to hike with a dog. The dog may not miss the views, but the people certainly will, and many hikers are not skilled / experienced enough to successfully and safely hike off-trail.

Most hiking guides are simply lists of trails with driving directions and trail descriptions. Anyone with a map can write one of those, and they're fine if you just want some exercise.
This book is interesting even if you're not looking for a trail. There is a lot of information about the natural (and political) history. The author clearly understands that you will have a richer experience if you hit the trail with some appreciation of what you'll see (and hopefully want to protect).
I liked the the invitation to try "off-trail" hiking. I really enjoyed the authors opinions on the Forest Service. I'm tired of guides that avoid controversy in the interest of sales. I was reminded of Harvey Manning.

With so many hiking guides out there that seem like recycled knockoffs of the old classics, it's good to see one written by someone who actually knows and cares about this area. Good to see that Mountaineers Books hiking guides still have a pro-environment point of view. The author clearly has opinions, and isn't afraid to state them. In the introduction section alone he manages to say more interesting things about the forests, fish and wildlife of the Cascades than you'll find in many entire books. And it's nice to finally have the whole of Hwy. 2 covered in just one book; hopefully they will manage to get it protected.

I liked this book a lot. It reminded me so much of some projects I have worked on in terms of the happenstance and there you are. Seaborg was a kind, sane and good person, and it really comes across in this book.

Such a contrast to so many today, and the politics have become so impenetrable these days. The UC system was nearly new then, it made me really feel how California was bubbling with new and great possibilities 70-50 years ago.

I wish I had met the man. I hope I can be somewhere near as good a man as he was.

This was a very interesting book. You got to learn about the guy who was first able to separate plutonium not just a small bit at a time but on an industrial scale at Hanford. The story got me interested in Lawerence and the cyclotron and how some of the newer elements were used like the one they use in smoke detectors. He was an interesting character who tried to work within the system. By the end of the story you can see his democratic leanings because none of the Republican seem to know what they were doing but aside from that it is an interesting story which made me want to know more about nuclear power. I never knew about all the peaceful uses they tried that were explained in this book. This book made me want to know more of what actually happened which is why I read the new Rickover book by Frances Ducan. In his book he mentions Seaborg several times. The book has it's funny parts like when he was chancellor of Berkley how the male students council came to him and ask him to turn one of the dorms into a brothel so the guys could stay on campus and still relief some stress. Seaborg wore a lot of hats and his story coinsides with the times that he lived. This is shown by how he felt about working on the bomb during World War II. At the time Germany had taken most of Europe and Japan was all over China and the Pacific and if he didn't do something to stop them, they would rule the world. It made it seem less of a moral choice than one of survival.

Adventures in the Atomic Age is a remarkably friendly book. It is Glenn Seaborg's autobiography (completed after his death by his son). He helped develop the atom bomb, won the Nobel Prize and had an element named after him and those are only a few of his many achievements. He also chaired the Atomic Energy Commission, was chancellor of the University of California at Berkeley and was a professor whenever there was a lull in his career. He worked to make science interesting and accessible to the public, especially to students. An idea of how well he succeeded is shown by the fact that this book actually makes the science of the atom bomb intelligible. This is a book that can be read on many levels. It can be simply a history of the atomic age for he was there at the very beginning. It can be a history of the changing political scene during his life. It can also be read simply as the history of a thoroughly decent person. Glenn Seaborg comes across as a nice guy, the sort of person you would want as a next door neighbor, and would definitely want as a teacher.

To have an element named for you while you are still alive is the rarest of honors and Adventures In The Atomic Age: From Watts To Washington by Glenn T. Seaborg is the story of a life worthy of that honor. Glenn T. Seaborg takes you on a trip through his life, starting with his boyhood in Michigan and his teen years in South Gate, California. Hard work gets Seaborg to UCLA and continued hard work gets him to UC Berkeley, the place where most of his academic life will take place. Seaborg was student, teacher, researcher, the Golden Bear's biggest fan, and chancellor. Seaborg quietly affected all of our lives as the head of the AEC, and, for the most part, we are better off for his rational leadership of that organization. He served on the committee that wrote the educational report 'A Nation At Risk' and served on the committee that recently reformed California's science curriculum. He is proof that a public education can be excellent and that you get out of your education what you put into it. The people who have heard of Professor Seaborg usually know him as one of the co-discoverers of the element plutonium, but this book should give anyone who reads it a wider view of a rich life. Glenn T. Seaborg is not the household name like J. Robert Oppenheimer or Edward Teller, but hopefully this excellent autobiography will be a step towards making this wonderful scientist and human being more widely known.

Eddie Fung's curiosity, sense of adventure, and generous spirit in helping others is inspiring!

He never let his small stature get in the way of anything he was determined to do, whether it was to enlist in the army, help the men on the ranches where he worked at during his teens, or (secretly) help get food and medicine for his fellow POW's during WWII.

I admire his way of sharing his adventurous life, which was often humorous: he didn't hesitate to recount the times he got in trouble or made himself look not-so-smart when he could have asked for help. I like his forthright manner! As he put it to his second wife: "What you see is what you get."

Fung's spirit shines throughout the book; it serves as reminder to me of the sacrifices made by servicemen such as himself, as well as my father, and members of their generation during WWII. Moreover, he describes how he helped his fellow POW's to survive in the most unimaginable circumstances by using his past experiences, however minor they may have seemed. Being frugal, helping his mom with household chores like making preparations for dinner, and working on the ranch provided useful skills he could share with the other prisoners.

His many adventures are nicely complemented with loving family background/memories of parents and siblings, and life, post-POW. A really enjoyable read!

Don't miss out!

"Another Little Big Man" might have been the immodest title of this too modest gentleman's autobiography. That memorable movie from 1970 told the life story of a diminutive guy who lived many different lives within the span of one and that could also describe Eddie Fung. Short on stature, big on life, that's Eddie. Born in San Francisco's Chinatown, he dropped out of high school and went to Texas at age 16 to become a cowboy just because he wanted to. There he discovered a now nearly vanished breed of everyday honest men and a challenging way of life that for him epitomized the American dream of freedom of spirit paid for by hard work. By 1940 as war raged in China and simmered in Europe he too joined the Texas National Guard just as many of the other ranch hands were doing. That one simple act put Eddie onto a path that took him through three and a half very tough years as the only Chinese American prisoner of war after his unit's capture by the Japanese Army early in 1942. You won't want to put it down once you begin Eddie's book but the beauty of it is that you can pick it up and open it nearly at random and be rewarded with simple truths as experienced by a complex man. For this we have Eddie's wife Dr. Judith Yung to thank for an excellent job of editing a number of multi-hour interview sessions. Judy is one of this nation's most well known and respected scholar/authors of the modern Chinese American experience. Be sure to read the Preface to learn how they met and married when Judy needed a WW II vet interview for a project she had begun. This memorable book has one little shortcoming, so to speak, that must be mentioned .... it comes to an end. This reader wanted Eddie's adventures to continue indefinitely. We do learn of his post war life including family and career, his eventual involvement with the Lost Battalion Association and its annual reunions, etc. so it is a well rounded effort. My wish came true recently when I discovered that YouTube offers a six part look at one of this special couple's book talks. Thank you sharing your life Eddie.

I met Eddie Fung in person last week and heard him discuss the book and his life. What a journey! He is a 10 an so is his book. There are many greatest generation stories that will never be told (my Dad's for example) so take advantage of reading this amazing story of survival from a good story teller.

Also, it is a reminder that many American minorities were in WWII who were staunch patriots, sacrificed much, and should not be overlooked.

this is a very touching story- somewhat like angela's ashes re experiences of a poor background. school dropout, becoming a cowboy then a searing 4 years as a pow -finally graduating from stanford university and moving on

Excellent collection of essays- some repetitive, all comprehensive, accompanied by extremely good illustrations and photographs.

Often scholarly volumes have excellent content but are poorly produced and edited while musem volumes are often well produced and edited but lack serious and contemporary scholarly material--they become catalogues of artifacts without real contextualizing material.

Ainu: Spirit of a Northern People manages to overcome both of these problems. As a scholarly volume it has excellent content (much of which has not been previously available to non-Japanese speakers) and is well-produced and beautifully laid out.

Aside from some small quibbles I have with some other articles seeming truncated for space concerns and others for not presenting enough information (notably the articles dealing with Ainu language/linguistics), I find little to find fault with. Even my concerns about some aspects of the volume are only a request for more, not a complaint with what is in the volume.

Overall this volume does a wonderful job of making contemporary Ainu research accessible to the lay reader while also presenting enough scholarly material to make it worth-while reading for those with a deeper interest in the Ainu. Even though the volume does not deal directly with the area of my research, the amount of knowledge it conveys has foced me to rethink aspects of my own work.

Despite the fact that I have lived in Japan for more than fifteen years, my visit to the Smithsonian's fabulous "Ainu: Spirit of a Northern People" exhibit last year provided my first meaningful look at this long overlooked or misunderstood part of East Asian cultural heritage. I ordered a softcover copy of the (at the time yet to be released) book right away and have since poured through it time and again. Written largely by anthropologists, as a layman I feared that it might well be too scientific to appreciate; happily such is not the case. The book is beautifully written, edited, and illustrated. Anyone with an interest in Japan's northern culture and/or the animist nature of the nation as a whole will find this book profoundly enlightening. I regret that a hardcover edition was not available sooner.

In addition to what the other readers have written I would also add that this book is truly a "must-have" for anyone having an interest either in the Ainu specifically, or native peoples such as the Aleuts, the Inuits, the Polynesians, the Moari, etc. This, in part, because anyone interested in the Ainu will be hard-pressed to find a great deal of books in print regarding this topic, in any case in English. Photographs or Ainu artifacts are perfect and highly details, and there are a great deal of reproductions of "Ainu-e", or paintings done by the Japanese when they were slowly but surely in the process of taking over what is today Hokkaido. These are invaluable because they are rich in detail and depict a way of life that no longer exists, much in the same way that Edward Curtis' photographs of the Native Indians in the US are. I would personally recommend the hard-cover version though more pricy is a much better book to own in one's collection.

For the afficionado of the political genre, there is no better book than this. Barry's access was not equally granted by all the players, but he was sufficiently "in the room" and privy to frank discussion that he places the reader in the Congress during the end of a Speaker's tenure. This episode really marks the rise of Newt Gingrich, the end of Democrat control of the U.S. House, and profound changes in America. The book doesn't explain how it all came about. It does, however, live up to its title by showing how ambition and power collide. In this instance, ambition won. That Gingrich eventually suffered an ignominous political end is one of the great ironies of recent American politics.

This book is incredible in depth of research, interviews with key players in the House of Representatives, a balanced approached, and analysis. It reveals more of the inner workings of the House of Representatives than any other single source. A must read for anyone who wants to understand how the House works, and at the same time how Speaker Jim Wright lost the speakership.

An amazing read of the rise of Newt Gingrich and the fall of Speaker Wright. If you want a behind the scenes look at leadership and power in the US House - you must read this book. It basically follows how Newt dogged Speaker Wright and pushed him out the door with questionable tactics. Ironic that as Speaker himself, Newt had a lot of trouble with a book deal. Cannot recommend more highly.

Barry, who wrote for The New York Times, The Washington Post, and other publications, was allowed unbelievable access to former Speaker of the House Jim Wright's private meetings, and also got cooperation from then-back bencher Gingrich and others of Wright's enemies. The result is an absolutely brilliant study of how power works in Washington, inside the Congress, between the Congress and the White House, the media. Well-written and provocative, this book will give you an understanding of Washington like nothing else I have ever read. Ever since it came out (in 1989), I have been waiting for Edmund Morris's Reagan biography to get the other side of the story. If only Morris had done what Barry did. But Morris failed. Barry didn't.

This book gives an insight into the private lives of the first families. We learn about their extended families, hobbies, illnesses, preparations for leaving the White House when their terms are completed, etc. The pictures are what really makes this book great. We see Lyndon Johnson in bed with his wife watching tv and we see the older George Bush in bed too (can you imagine Nixon or Clinton letting down his guard like this?). We see Gerald Ford in his bathrobe. If you always wanted to see such a sight, there is a photo of Eleanor Roosevelt in a bathing suit and a rare photo of Franklin in shorts with his polio ravaged legs exposed to the camera. We see painful personal moments such as the famous photo of Nixon hugging his daughter Julie when he made the decision to resign. In short this is, at times, a very rare personal and intimate glimpse into the lives of the first families. I enjoyed it and recommend it highly.

I have been fortunate enough to read Mr. Anthony's brilliant "First Ladies" mini-opuses, and highly looked forward to this epic on the lives of our First Families. I sat for three hours stright with an almost constant smile on my face as I ran through the pages. What an amazing acheivement Mr. Anthony has pulled together! I can only imagine the painstaking research needed to find out the tidbits sprinkled throughout. There is so much information in this novel that it almost boggles the mind at times and is a bit overwhelming. I wondered if everything was sinking in, when I saw Mr. Anthony speak at the Richard Nixon library on CSPAN one night recounting the tales found here. Every story he told was instantly recalled and sentences finished before explaining. The sheer knowledge that one can gain from reading this novel is tremendous. (Where else can you find a list of President's favorite movies? By Reagan selecting Rambo, it does nothing but prove what a complete and utter moron we had occupying the White House under his reign).....Point proven further....When listing President's favorite reading options, Mr Anthony lays out beautiful examples of this. President Clinton enjoys biographies of his predecessors, Eisenhower military biographies and TR, anything he could get his hands on. Reagan? Newspaper comics.....I shall leave my review at that.

This is a fascinating book. It is a wonderful compendium of trivia, probably not available in any other volume. It contains a wonderful assortment of pictures of First Families, some of which have never before been published. The book is well organized into chapters detailing various aspects of the Presidential families' lives and activities. for me, one of its prime attractions is that it does not include the politics or issues of the President's era.
At times, it is a little confusing, because the author skips from one family to another rather abruptly, so it requires a little getting used to in order to follow the narrative.
I would strongly recommend this book to anyone interested in the social and "human" aspects of the White House families.

I purchased this book yesterday and I can't put it down. It is filled with great pictures and stories of the forty-one famlies who lived in the White House. This is a great source of presidential trivia and provides a human element to the most famous family in America. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in American history and the lives of the presidents.

U.S. history, the government, and personae of American Presidents is a fascinating subject. While many scholarly work in the market have done in-depth investigation to profile American presidents, this title by David C Whitney and Robin Vaughn Whitney in its 9th edition from Reader's Digest is classically written and readily accessible to the general audience. Its objectivity and candor serves well as a gentle and educational introduction, an abridged version, on the development of American Presidents in relation to the unfolding drama of U.S. history.

The perennial best-seller, an enjoyable reading, excels in its elegance and clarity in comparison to many (auto)biographies of modern day C(orporate)EO/leadership titles.

We have been truly blessed with good men in the White House. Through the brilliant Constitution our founding fathers set up for our republic we emerged a country for all nations to envy. Through checks and balances we have created a system that works; it is at times not perfect, but there is none better.

Like any history book, "American Presidents" should not be used alone. It can not fulfill the task of evaluating the office of each of these men on its own. The author covers in detail each President's life growing up, offices held, as the executive and his achievements after the Oval Office. The vice president's, the cabinet, and historical sites are found at the end of the book. Photos are displaced throughout. One of the better books covering the Presidents.

I became increasingly interested in our Presidents, so I decide to research each one further, going as far as rating them. This is nothing new; there have been many such ratings done by scholars and intellectuals over the years. Of course I am neither. But I do find the ratings systems tend to focus on single merits and not the whole presidency. I have decided to do my own rating through these recourses:

"The American Presidents"-----Whitney
"A Patriot's History of the U.S."-----Schweikart and Allen
"The Oxford Companion to U.S. History"-----Boyer
"The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History"-----Woods
"Character"-----Wallace
"A Republic Not An Empire"-----Buchanan
and other misc. books

There is no way to fully list all of the positives and negatives of each Presidency. I have compiled a list of just a few of the important issues, then rated each according to the overall effect on the nation and the world. I admit bias cannot be removed totally. There will be some who will completely disagree with my system. You will find that I have lowered some who have been praised as great leaders and raised others that have been overlooked.

It can be hard to compare a Washington to a Bush, because these men lived at different times. The state of affairs and who they followed will have a major impact. I added W. Bush with reservation. His rating, along with the others are subject to change over time. In some cases I have added the same issue or attribute in both the pro and con column. Enjoy, take your time and feel free to comment:

After I copied and pasted I realized I could not fit the pros and cons on Amazon, so I deleted them. If any of you wish to have them you can write to me.


Rating President Held office Party
1 George Washington 1st 1789-97 Federalist

2 Thomas Jefferson 3rd 1801-09 Democrat-Republican(new)

3 Abraham Lincoln 16th 1861-65 Republican (first)

4 Calvin Coolidge 13th 1923-29 Republican

5 James Monroe 5th 1818-25 Democrat-Republican

6 Ronald Reagan 40th 1981-89 Republican

7 Grover Cleveland 22nd 1885-89 Democrat
24th 1893-97

8 James Madison 4th 1809-17 Democrat-Republican

9 John Adams 2nd 1797-1801 Federalist

10 Warren Harding 29th 1921-23 Republican

11 William McKinley 25th 1897-1901 Republican

12 Rutherford Hays 19th 1877-81 Republican

13 George W. Bush 43rd 2001- Republican

14 Dwight Eisenhower 34th 1953-61 Republican

15 Andrew Jackson 7th 1829-37 Democrat (first)

16 George H.W. Bush 41st 1989-93 Republican

17 Chester Arthur 21st 1881-85 Republican

18 Andrew Johnson 17th 1865-69 Unionist (only)

19 Franklin Pierce 14th 1853-57 Democrat

20 Gerald Ford 38th 1974-77 Republican

21 Richard Nixon 37th 1969-74 Republican

22 James Polk 11th 1845-49 Democrat

23 Martin Van Buren 8th 1837-41 Democrat (father of)

24 Harry Truman 33rd 1945-53 Democrat

25 John Kennedy 35th 1961-63 Democrat

26 Theodore Roosevelt 26th 1901-09 Republican

27 James Garfield 20th 1881 Republican

28 John Tyler 10th 1841-45 Whig

29 Benjamin Harrison 23rd 1889-93 Republican

30 John Quincy Adams 6th 1825-29 Coalition (mix)

31 James Buchanan 15th 1857-61 Democrat

32 Franklin Roosevelt 32nd 1933-45 Democrat

33 Herbert Hoover 31st 1929-33 Republican

34 Jimmy Carter 39th 1977-81 Democrat

35 Woodrow Wilson 28th 1913-21 Democrat

36 Lyndon Johnson 36th 1963-69 Democrat

37 Zachary Taylor 12th 1849-50 Whig

38 William Clinton 42nd 1993-2001 Democrat

39 William Harrison 9th 1841 whig (first)

40 Ulysses Grant 18th 1869-77 Republican

41 William Taft 27th 1909-13 Republican

42 Millard Fillmore 13th 1850-53 Whig (last)

This is an excellent book. It is great for people beginning to learn about American politics. It's a great source for quick handy reminders. It's a great gift. ( I bought seven copies for that reason). This would be a great book for teachers to have their high school students study.
While it is not possible to have one book completely cover all the Presidents, this single volumn outlines many important events.
There is an index in the back for quick searches.
Political views?
I have heard people claim this book is written with a Republican slant, and other claim it's written with a Democratic slant!
Using the above paragraph, one would have to think it was pretty fairly written.
I have went back to this book more often, during the election season, to brief my memory.

As a single volumn book; I repeat, this is an excellent book.

THIS IS A WONDERFUL OVERVIEW OF THE AMERICAN PRESIDENTS, AND QUITE ACCURATE. I HAVE READ BIOGRAPHIES OF MOST PRESIDENTS, VISITED MOST PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARIES, AND THOUGHT DAVID WHITNEY DID A GREAT JOB ON THIS SERIES.

I read this book in DC Jail in chapters my mother xeroxed and sent. I remembered it when she mentioned it at DC's National Shrine, where we were having breakfast. Now I am thinking of giving it to my 70-year-old, profoundly yet peacefully religious friend Bill MacKaye. In this book, Gotfryd rescues the humanity he saw brutalized and destroyed. I've read several Holocaust books and the horror is unspeakable, and it is in this book too, but Gotfryd recovers the crucified grace. It's a great gift to humanity and a life-changing read.

This is a great book. Its simple, precise style and its focus on detail of everyday life convey the horrors, which are mostly left out of the narrative but which hover above and beyond it, so that the effect is as unsettling as anything one is bound to read on the H. This book should be reissued so that it can reach many more readers.

Anton the Dove Fancier is a collection of autobiographical short stories about a teenage Jewish boy in Poland during World War II. The stories are so well linked together that the book reads like a novel. In it we discover the Nazi occupation and the death camps through the eyes of an adolescent, which gives this book a different slant compared to much Holocaust literature.

The author, Bernard Gotfryd, shows himself to be a keen observer of people, as well as of the small, humble details of everyday life. He has the gift of being able to illuminate those details, so that they take on a transcendant beauty. We see a world--one which others might find dull and ordinary--through the consciousness of a mind which is itself radiant. Thus, the stories do not only address the horrors of the nazi occupation and the camps; those horrors are set against a backdrop of everyday life and people, the memories of which are interspersed throughout the book. This gives it a chiaroscuro quality which I find to be rare in literature, and through the play of light and shadow the author creates an ambiguous, complex world. This ambiguity is another way in which the book differs from much Holocaust literature. Many of the characters themselves are ambiguous, and after reading about them we find ourselves asking, "Was he good, or bad?" The answer is yes.....

This book indirectly leads the reader to ponder the issues of suffering and healing. Despite the optimistic teachings of the growth psychology movement, there are wounds which are too traumatic to fully heal. Growth psychology would have us believe that without integration, and psychological "functionality," we cannot realize our full potential. It posits a future goal that we can attain through work on ourselves. However, Gotfryd shows us, through the power of his words, that we are most fully human when we can really open our eyes and see the world in its complexity and irrationality, as well as its simplicity and beauty, right now.

Why is Anton The Dove Fancier out of print? It is an extraordinary collection of true stories that ought not be buried away. This book illustrates that human behavior is, simultaneously, both the most fascinating and disturbing form of contemplation. Anton The Dove Fancier is well worth any effort it takes to track down. Buried treasure indeed - it is profound, intensely moving, raw in its simplicity. Humanity and its many layers are exposed without judgement. Quite a trick, and something afforded only to the calm, quiet truth tellers. Such as Bernard Gotfryd. Find this priceless gem... and hold on to it. Tight.

This is Susan Cheever at her eloquent, incisive, sweet-rhythmed best. She writes that her children are the center of her world. Lucky children. And lucky us to be the recipients of her loving, hilarious, honest report back to the outer reaches.

"Real me" is my favorite of all the chapters but all of them are fantastic!!! Cheever has shown us the funny side of parenting, this is not a "boring how-to-guide" but more sharing of cheever's experence, strenght and hope!!!! Moving, funny, witty and revealing!!!!

This book is warm, encouraging and very funny. She demonstates that having had a difficult childhood does not mean that one cannot be a terrific parent. I enjoyed the way she wrote aobut her children; so much respect, empathy and love.

This is not a "how-to" book or even a book of advice. It is more a memoir of parenting. If you are looking for parenting information, try one of Penelope Leach's or Terry Brazelton's excellent books.

"ON Christmas Eve we all go to church to watch the Christmas Pageant, a thrilling performance involving some real baby sheep and a live donkey who once bucked off the Virgin Mary in a fit of holy exaltation." I was unprepared when I picked up this book for how funny it would be. I also hadn't expected it to be so shrewd in its cultural appraisal. But it is--it's funny and startling, beautifully written. And so smart on the subject of raising children. I really loved it.