United States Books

Is there anyone out there who hasn't questioned their roots? Their faith? Their place in the world? Their own legacy?

Ariel Sabar has written one of the most interesting historical/biographical/spiritual books that I have read in a long time. He weaves historical content with the more personal memories of his father and his extended family and friends. I was fascinated by this tale of a man who, having scorned his father for so long, wakes up to find that he himself has become a father, and then moves on to try to connect himself and his son to their ancestry. This is a touching, humorous, soul-searching look at family, identity, place, and interconnectedness.

I was so taken in by the descriptions of Yona's childhood home and of his journey to new lands and new experiences with a family standing with one foot firmly in the past and another tentatively stepping into an uncertain future. I was also captivated by the history of Kurdish Iraq and the place that Jews held in that culture for so long. Sabar introduces a good deal of information about the history and linguistics of the region, and it was so moving to be able to read this and see how geography figures so prominently in anyone's culture by way of stories passed from one generation to another. It truly was like stepping back into another world.

Bravo for Arial Sabar and this fascinating book. I have raved about this book to so many people!

I did not want this book to end. I felt as though I was a member of the Sabar family travelling with them through their rich personal history.

In My Father's Paradise, Ariel Sabar tries to find himself by finding his past. He paints hauntingly beautiful images of his family's roots by creating a deeply personal and three dimensional Kurdistan. He shows it as it was and as it must have been for centuries. A region that was inevitably lost to history but that stood solid against the river of time.

He depicts the people and events that shaped this hardscrabble environment in a way that could only be done by a man who had been shaped by this place in the deepest and most personal ways.

As he moves on to describe the family's time in Israel, one can only ache with the family as one sees its dreams change. One cries when the family sheds tears and laughs when they triumph.

The book is a tale of redemption, of identity, of history, of a family and of a people. It is a story of community and of rugged individuality. It is a story of successes and failures and it is very much a story of a language. Aramaic. It is a story of how this language shaped empires and individuals. It shows how a language can sculpt an individual's soul and how one soul, the author's father, can save a language for his progeny and for the world.

I cannot recommend this book highly enough. With Kurdistan playing such an active role in shaping world affairs, one MUST read this book. One cannot grasp what is going on or what is at stake without understanding the personalities and the forces that have shaped the region, or the world views that have been held in that region. One can also gain an understanding of the early state of Israel and also hear the voice of an American immigrant.

I can guarantee one thing. You will never regret reading this book.

This is wonderfully realized and loving family story telling at its best; the book describes the lost world of the Northern Iraqi Kurdish Jews. Ariel Sabar, we learn, is the great-grandson of Ephraim the Dyer a Jewish mystic who lived in the Northern Iraqi-Kurdish town of Zhako. Zhako is where Ariel Sabar's father Yona was born and lived until the Jews of Iraq were expelled in a forced exodus to Israel in 1951.

Sabar lovingly reconstructs the lost world of the Aramaic speaking Jews of Zhako where his father was born and lived until the age of 12. We learn that Sabar's father Yona changed the original family name of Sabagha to Sabar in Israel, an indication of the disruption and trials caused by their exodus from the land the family's ancestors had inhabited for thousands of years. Yona's parents and grandparents struggled in the promised land of Israel where they were maligned as uneducated and illiterate Kurds.

The family history starts with thirteen-year-old Miryiam's marriage to Yona's father Rahamim Beh Sabagha. The couple's first child , the infant girl Rifka, was kidnapped by a tribal Muslim wet nurse and lost forever.

To illustrate the wonderful stories, consider the extraordinary experiences of Miryiam who escaped the clutches of an abusive stepmother by her child-marriage and conceived Yona after praying at the temple of the prophet Jonah (Yona's namesake) in Nineveh. The illiterate Miryiam emigrated to Israel with her family and eventually travelled to Yale where her son Yona was awarded a PHD in linguistics for work in her native tongue of neo-Aramaic. Many of Miryiam's experiences are both surreal and gripping, including seeing the movie Woodstock in the US with her son Uri and a Marilyn Monroe like encounter with New York City steam grates.

This is wonderfully enjoyable storytelling at its best; I loved the book and highly recommend it.

"My Father's Paradise" was a fascinating read. I wasn't sure exactly what I was getting into when I chose this book by its cover but the title was intriguing. In fact, the book is much more captivating than I expected.

Ariel Sabar's story begins like that of many children of immigrants, alienated from his father and caring not at all about his family's past until he became a father himself. Then suddenly he wanted to connect. In his quest to understand his father and himself he goes a little further than most, however. He "interviewed nearly one hundred relatives, family friends and acquaintances, scholars, and others... conducted research at libraries, special collections, and government archives... traveled to Iraq, Israel, and cities across the United States.... collected family letters, diaries, photographs and official documents." The result is a gripping story of a family told against the back drop of a part of recent history that I didn't know much about: the formation of the state of Israel and the exodus of 120,000 Jews from Iraq.

I've said before that I don't really like reading history and biography. They tend to be to dry, cluttered with facts and frequently lack a strong narrative that will pull me in and maintain my interest. I do, however like memoir and historical fiction and this is much more along those lines. Sabar writes that "while this book is by and large a work of nonfiction, it is not a formal history or biography. Nor is it journalism. ... A book on one's family is by its nature a subjective exercise. But I have tried in every instance to keep faith with the larger emotional truth of my family's saga."

The book also tells the story of a language, Aramaic. We know it as the language that Jesus spoke. It also was the language that continued to be spoken by the Jewish population of Kurdistan. After the family's emigration to Israel, Ariel Sabar's father, Yona, went on to become a scholar, a linguist and a crusader for the preservation of Neo-Aramaic, the language of his boyhood that he realized was hovering on the brink of extinction as the second generation of Kurdish Jews in Israel abandoned their native tongue in favor of Hebrew, the official language of Israel.

One of the funniest moments in the book is when his father is asked to do a voice over in Aramaic for The X-Files and must translate, as a little Beatles Easter egg, the lyric "I am a walrus". The puzzled scholar tries to explain that in mountainous landlocked Kurdistan there is no Aramaic word for walrus. He improvised with "I am a sea dog."

Almost as funny is the follow-up story in which the author, whose television gets bad reception, checks into a motel that allows him to pay by the hour and that has cable access to watch the episode of the X-Files in which his voice appeared. His wife meets him there, driving her own car. He wants to explain to the clerk, who must be suspicious at this clandestine rendezvous, when he checks out an hour later; but just can't.

Fabulous. Love all the pictures and the artists description of her process in creating her work.

Everyone else who has reviewed this book say is great. Maybe it is, but because I haven't received anything I guess the only thing that I could say is "don't buy anything here, you'll get nothing".

For anyone in art quilting or wanting to be, this book gives an in depth look into the thoughts and creations of Nancy Crow. The color in the book is excellent and there is an abundance of pictures. This is a "Must have" for anyone who loves color and fabric and original art.

Nancy Crow is the ultimate quilter's quilter. Her advice, thoughts and pictures of her work and projects are more than any quilter could hope for. This book will enhance any quilter's library.
It was one of the best b-day presents I've ever received.
Diane

Amazing book. great information, stories. Lots of pictures of striking quilts show-casing the progress of this wonderful artist. Also shows pictures of Nancy Crow's studio and timber frame barn - must be an amazing place to create. This book is a wonderful value and very inspiring to any artist regardless of preferred media.

A very deep map indeed, the second of Heat-Moon's three literary tours-de-force is the story of a county in Kansas. In his first excursion, the best-selling BLUE HIGHWAYS, the author reported on a ten thousand mile sojourn along the old Federal Highways (blue on most maps). PRAIRYERTH grew out of three years of hiking, conversation and archival research in Chase County, Kansas and the result is a living history of both the particular locale and the European invasion of the west. From Knute Rockne's death in a commercial plane crash to Sam Wood's murder to Native medicine, dream walking to newspaper accounts of life on the prairie, and fossils to legends to The Land Institute where Wes Jackson explores the looming demise of the liquid fuel era, this volume casts a wide net. Heat-Moon is clear eyed enough to see the facts and then see beyond the facts to the life between the lines of old courthouse documents and pioneer diaries. He is open to less tangible subtlety as well, admitting susceptibility to hunch, daydream or the message from another's Ouija board. He tells a tale of hawks, buffalo, cowboys and beef, notes the profound damage wrought on the American prairie by McBurger mania and the possibility of recovery in a place of vast flatness and endless wind and sky. He lunches with the dead in old cemeteries and stakes out to observe life in a dying town where nothing happens. There are midnight moonlight hikes and journalistic experiments, pertinent quotes by the truckload and poignant still lifes of moments of love and loss. Such a deep map makes for a long read, but well worth the effort as pieces click into place in later chapters and a pastiche emerges, a hologram in which you can walk between the hills and dip a cupful from a clear flowing spring.

In Blue Highways the inimitable William Least Heat Moon drove across the backroads of America. In River Horse this courageous, spiritually-venerable man floated in a barge across this nation's waterways. In Prairy Erth, he does his exploration mostly on foot. Confining himself to a microcosmic canvas, Least Heat Moon spends over 600-pages describing how he spent months delving into a single county in the heart of Kansas. Packed with maps of Chase County, its hills, waterways, roads and farmsteads, the author tells a sometimes dry but often rich story of one remote but improbably charming spot on planet earth. He meets many of the county's 3,000 residents, hears and tells of the folklore, the history, the textured layers to life in such a location. By the book's end an unknowingly begun spiritual journey reaches its conclusion, which is the way with all of William Least Heat Moon's writings. If you have the time to put into Prairy Erth, it is a compelling book that challenges the nature of individual outlook.

New to William Least Heat Moon, I wasn`t quite sure what to expect with Prairyerth. Having heard about the critical acclaim of Blue Highways, I thought a lesser known work would be the place to start. And I am glad I chose Praityerth.

With Prairyearth, William Least Heat Moon has dug down to the heart of a specific place, in this case, the Flint Hill country of Chase County, Kansas. Not unlike Thoreau`s Walden, Prairyerth is an exhaustive chronicle of one man`s journey to the bottom--historically, geologically and geographically speaking--of one particular and rather insignificant place in the American landscape. Prairyerth, like Walden, is impossible to lump into one clean-cut literary category. Neither pure history, nor pure geology, nor `storytelling` per say, it is rather a brilliant concoction of all three. It is, as the author pens it, a `deep map` of one tiny piece of the New World. And deep it is. Least Heat Moon delves into every square inch, every prehistoric layer of his subject. The result is a stirring and fascinating ride through the discovery, settling, exploitation and ultimate destruction of the American prairie. Half Native American himself, Least Heat Moon walks through the tall grass of the American Sea with much the same spirit of his ancestors. Here was not emptiness as thought the first Europeans, but rather a vast ocean of endless natural wealth. Home to the once vast bison herds, the tall-grassed hills of Chase County were once giant mountains of the Kansas range that were slowly worn down into the Flint Hills of today. Least Heat Moon follows the tracks of the Osage and the Kansa, `people of the wind,` who traversed this area long before Zebulon Pike and John Fremont made their tentative forays across the prairie towards more secure landscapes. The author vividly captures the reverence that the Osage and Kansa held for the `prairie.` Tracking down the stories of the few remaining pure-blood Kansa, Least Heat Moon paints a metaphor for what looms in the future for us, lest we ignore the lessons of the past. Not only does the author richly expose the layer of Native Americana within Chase County, but he does justice to the natural elements of the place as well. Some of the most fascinating parts of Prairyerth are the sections on two of the county`s most enduring denizens, the Osage Orange tree/bush and the Wood Rat, aka Pack/Trade Rat. Least Heat Moon has an ultra sharp eye for interesting detail and oddity and knows how to bring such things to life.

The structure of the work is as ambitious as it is groundbreaking. Every other chapter covers another quadrant of the county. Least Heat Moon spends most of his time analyzing the present inhabitants of the county, trying to distill the essence of `Kansasness.` He chats with the weathered old farmers and ranchers who`ve survived every tornado and flash flood over the last half-century and who entertain no thoughts on living anywhere else. Every voice in the county gets its chance. Feminist cattle ranchers give him the lowdown on castrating bulls, local high schoolers divulge their dreams and the regulars of the Emma Chase Cafe unload gossip unaware of who`s writing it all down. Kansasness, according to the author, is a baffling mix of progressive politics and constrictive convention. A place of often violent contrasts. Kansas was the first state born out of the fires of abolition, first to stimulate integration (Board of Education vs Topeka), yet the `n word` is still commonplace all over the county. The forefather of the county, Samuel Wood, was one of the most eloquent voices among the abolitionists, yet he stopped short of pushing for full integration. Kansas was a place where all people had freedom of opportunity (especially to better oneself economically), as long as everybody kept to his/her own. One of the first states to allow women`s suffrage, it was also one of the first to embrace Prohibition. It also kept its archaic and puritan sex laws on the books until the recent Supreme Court ruling overturned such laws.

In between his quadrant explorations of the county, Least Heat Moon has interspersed chapters comprised of nothing but various epigrams and short passages regarding the state. Coming from sources as disparate as Horace Greeley and Black Elk to graffiti found at the KU library, these chapters are some of the most entertaining and enriching of the book.

William Least Heat Moon is one of the greatest prose stylists I have ever encountered in modern American letters. His writing is rich with metaphor and digression, begging second and third readings of certain passages. While sometimes he expands profusely, Faulkner-like, for paragraphs, clarity is rarely forsaken. It just means reading carefully and slowly. Prairyerth is definitely a book that needs digesting. I took me almost six months to finally devour it up and when I did, I had the distinct feeling of having consumed something grand and very nutritious, albeit a bit heavy. In fact, those without persistent natures would best choose something else to read. Prairyerth is meat and potatoes and requires a lot of chewing. And perhaps that is where the work falls a tad short of its possible ancestor. Whereas one can open Thoreau`s Walden anywhere and revel in the beauty and wisdom (albeit often cryptic) found therein, Prairyerth is nothing if not taken in its entirety. Its just too dense, with too much stuff packed into its innards. In fact, a little editing could have helped the book. Some chapters are a bit superfluous and leaving them out would have only helped the work as a whole. Moreover, Least Heat Moon`s astute observations serve his examination of the natural world far better than they support his delving into the human realm. Somehow a lot of the `characters` of Chase County never fully come to life in Prairyerth. Rather, they seem two-dimensional and oddly trapped on the page. Yet, taken as a whole and for what it is, a grand archaeological and sociological dig through the layers of New World settlement, Prairyerth succeeds grandly. Never has one tiny and often ignored section of the American quilt come to life so vividly and richly as does Chase County, Kansas in Prairyerth. A place so seemingly devoid of life, is, in actuality, overflowing with the past, present and future. All you have to do is look,look carefully. The author himself says it best: `A traveler(who cannot even remotely detect the thousand-mile-an-hour spinning of the planet he rides through space at sixty-seven thousand miles an hour, to say nothing of its solar and galactic movements and its precession) writes in his notebook, ~nothing is happening~. Man muses, God guffaws.` Next time you feel that nothing has ever happened or is happening now or will happen where you`re at, pick up Prairyerth and be amazed.

If only every county in the United States had as passionate and articulate a chronicler as William Least Heat-Moon.

I came to "PrairyErth" after having read and loved "Blue Highways." This tome--though longer and less expansive, geographically--possesses many of the qualities I admired in Heat-Moon's earlier work: the narrative tone (there's none of that stuffy, impersonal, third-person prose one finds in some travelogues; the author is himself part of the story), the occasional dips into philosophy and history; the candid interviews with "locals"; and the intense search for meaning in the most ordinary of places.

I have never been to Chase County, Kansas, but after spending a month or so accompanying Heat-Moon through the pages of his book, I feel as though I have. The book is subtitled "a deep map," and that is indeed what the author provides here. Square mile by square mile, the reader is introduced to the prairie, its topography and history, its residents and its wildlife. Heat-Moon correctly understands that the essence of a place is often best captured through anecdote and observation. There is nothing sweeping or grand about his narrative, and that's what makes "PrairyErth" such a delight. It's a detailed, intimate read; one almost has the feeling of looking over the author's shoulder (and back through history) as he ambles and rambles about the quadrangles of Chase County.

If there's one criticism I would offer, it's that Heat-Moon sometimes lapses into needless digressions about himself and the challenges he faced while writing the book. It struck me as a bit self-absorbed--as did the occasional Faulknerian stream-of-conscious, punctuationless prose. These stylistic excesses add little to what is otherwise a magnificent and fascinating travelogue.

If you want to experience Kansas, with its excruitatingly boring places that slowly creep up on you and leave you blissfully satisfied and in awe of beauty; if you're willing to read long passages of flat text just to discover the beauty of burning fields; I highly recommend PrairyErth.

I grew up in Kansas, about 2 hours from Chase county and was always facinated by the hills, the people, and just the auroa that came from Strong City and Cottonwood falls. After reading "PrairyErth" I am even more mesmorized by the locale.

I have been out of the state for 2 years now, and long to go back. Many friends have complained about the long drives through Kansas, the flat scenery, and boring people. PrairyErth brings to life these flat lands and opens up new worlds of community and life.

For me, reading Moon's book was much like experiencing life in Kansas. I did find some of the chapters long, dry, and dull.. but, that's how some Kansas life is. Moon always concludes these sections with a gorgeous snapshot of the land. He shows us what it is like to be in relationship with the land just as we are in relationship with one another.

He concludes the book with a beautiful journey down the Kaw Trail.
"How do you know when the Prairy is in you?"
"When you see a tree as an eyesore."

This book reflects the life experience of a woman of color who has shattered many glass ceilings and has paved the way for others to follow. Bordas now beckons us to join her in building the inclusive and multicultural society. Her view of leadership is the missing link. For too long, leadership has been dominated by a white, male orientation. Hooray! Now women and people of color can embrace their ways of leading and understand the power of their community-centered and socially responsible styles.

Juana Bordas provides a fresh perspective on leadership by weaving the traditions of Latino, African American and Native American's together in her book. Her progressive, forward thinking views offer tools for leading a new generation of young people with an appetite for integration and inclusion. This book provides guidance for the historic times we're living.

I have two children who are growing up in Denver, Colorado which is a multicultural city. We have been fortunate that our last 3 mayors have been White, Black and Latino. Our city council became a majority female in the nineties. Salsa, Soul and Spirit challenges us to not just invite women and people of color to the table- but to make sure we embrace diversity and utilize the gifts and assets they bring. The book provides the leadership tools we need to change the way we operate so that the values, experiences and history of all people are included in the way we operate everyday. Authentic diversity can't just be business as usual with different faces and races around the table! What a great example this helps to set for our children.

If only the wisdom in this book could be transferred to the minds of the leaders of our planet. Anyone who wishes to increase understanding and harmony should read this book and become inspired enough to start making some changes in the ways we relate to each other.

"Salsa, Soul, and Spirit" describes eight aspects of leadership that are sorely lacking in too many business and government leaders today. This has a lot to do with the mess this country is in economically and in the court of world opinion. Drawing on interviews with Hispanic, Black and American Indian leaders eight guiding principles were identified that made those leaders worthy of their community's trust.
Additionally, many ideas are presented that operate from the heart to influence decisions. For example, leaders should think of the consequences of their actions and how they affect seven generations into the future. Keeping this seventh generation rule in mind influences a leader's choices over parks, paving over wetlands, huge salaries for executives as corporations fail, and selling our children into national debt.
As a Caucasian Executive Director of a non-profit in the Hispanic community I read this book to discover how to spend less time in the school of hard knocks. It fulfilled that quest, and more. It gave me a better sense of moral leadership that was not hinted of in the other highly recommended leadership books I had read. In fact, it made the amoral nature of the hot leadership book I was just reading painfully obvious. I didn't finish the other book.
While I did have to study several passages to discern differences between some points, the differences were there and worth differentiating. I have come away with a view of leadership that is more positive for those affected by my leadership and more satisfying at day's end. I recommend this book for anyone who wished to improve the lives of those they lead.

Edward C. Krug, Ph.D.
Executive Director
Northwest Coalition for Better Schools
Denver, Colorado

One of my students wrote the following review:
If you are a baseball fan you should read this book. This book is about a kid with a power. He can go back in time. He goes to 1919 to make the White Sox win the World Series by not letting Shoeless Joe Jackson take money. What will happen next?
It was so fun to read it! I couldn't stop reading this book. It is a long book but it is fun when you read it. There are more books that this author wrote about baseball.
-Brian

The book I am reviewing is Shoeless Joe & Me written by Dan Gutman. I think this book deserves five stars because Dan Gutman doesn't stretch the book and he does not rush it. This book is about a boy named Joe Stoshack who can travel through time with baseball cards. The problem in this story is that when Joe had lost a game because of a bad call, he complains to the sponsor of his team, Flip Valetini. He says that it wasn't fair, and Flip tells him about the Black Sox sandal and Joe Jackson. Now he wants to fix it. But the rest... you will have to figure out. I would recommend this book to anyone from 3rd to 5th grade that loves fantasy books.

Shoeless Joe was a fun book to read. It was about baseball. He was a good player but did not have power. I liked this book because it was about baseball. He was a player on the White Sox. The story was in Chicago where Shoeless Joe was a famous baseball player.
The kid in the book went back in time. The boy wanted to meet Shoeless Joe, so he went to the store to buy the card. Then he packed his tooth brush and clothes. Then he went to his room. Then he hugged the card and went back to the past. This was the most exciting part of the book.

Shoeless Joe and Me is one of my favorite books! The book is about a kid who can Time-Travel by using Baseball Cards. He tries to go back in time to stop the Black Sox Scandal. The Black Sox Scandal was when 8 players on the White Sox were tricked by gamblers into losing the 1919 World Series against the Cincinnati Reds on purpose.

Even if you don't like Baseball, I'm sure you will love this book. I loved it SO much that I couldn't take my face away from the book. I recommend this book to ANYONE, as long as they love a good book. It is part of a series, which include:

Honus and Me
Jackie and Me
Babe and Me
Mickey and Me
Abner and Me
Satch and Me

Haven't you ever wanted to go back in time to prevent something that happened to you? Shoeless Joe Jackson was one of the best baseball players in 1919. His career was destroyed by a gambling scandal. Joe Stoshack was a young boy and he heard about the famous player from a guy named Flip who worked at the baseball card shop he always went to. Flip told Joe that Jackson was not allowed to make the Hall of Fame because of the scandal he was in. Flip gave him Joe Jackson baseball card and the little boy thought to himself what it would be like to go back in time to see what the scandal was all about and even maybe prevent it from happening. He thought if it works in movies then it should work now. The next day Joe Stoshack found himself going back to the 1919's and found Joe Jackson at the stadium. He talked to Joe and asked him to leave the game before it started. He told Joe if he didn't something bad would happen. He told Joe he came back from the future and he knew that if the great Joe Jackson did anything to lose this game, he would never get all the rewards he deserved. He wanted to prevent the "Black Sox Scandal" from happening so Shoeless Joe Jackson could get into the Hall of Fame.
I would rate this book a 5, on a scale of 5, with 5 being the best. Grades 4th and up would love it and its great family story.

As a long time fan of Janis Ian, I was interested in her professional journey and the influences for her work. This book covers that and so much more. It happens that I knew Janis' father very well having worked with him for several years. The Openness that the author demonstrates is both courages and enlightening. I had no idea of the struggles that she has overcome. The writing is so personal and yet universal that I felt like she was telling her story directly to me. This is a great read.

Wow! What a great autobiography. Janis Ian describes her home life, her development as an artist and her rise to fame at a very, very young age which thrust her into very complicated world filled with expectation.
We are witness as Janis endures her family falling apart, a series of abusive relationships, industry and management dysfunction and fraud which, even after toiling for years and producing numerous albums, eventually left her bankrupt. Each period of her life is artfully written with brevity, reflection and humor and she gives a very interesting inside account of American music culture during the 1960's-70's. Janis is frank in addressing what has clearly been tragic, but the thread throughout is her tremendous faith and fighting spirit to preserve herself and her integrity as an artist. What an inspirational book to read in turbulent times. Janis, thanks for sharing.

I've followed Janis' work from my teens to the present. All these years and I had no knowledge what cards life had dealt her. She quite openly shares her marriage to a disturbed husband. The abuse she endured brought tears to my eyes, as I recalled my own abuse at the hands of an abusive husband. I believe this book would be helpful to others who have lived with spousal abuse.

People living with the threat of violence tend to believe they are alone. Reading this book will enhance their ability to say even the artists have endured abuse.

Janis discusses the shear horror she faced with the IRS. I could not have endured all that she went through.

I was ever so grateful that Pat entered her life. It is clearly a loving relationship which finally enabled her to have a stable home environment with a loving partner. Janis so deserves this life.

I saw Janis in Winters CA last weekend. She is still an amazing performer. Just to hear her sing her own songs was awesome. I bought this book and had her autograph it for me. It is a superb book. I knew it would be. I could have just listened to her talk at her concert. Her stories in between the songs were funny, sad, and perfect. This book is a must for any Janis Ian fan or anyone interested in folk/pop/jazz music of the 60's - 80's. I am so glad Janis is still performing after five decades. All I can say is THANK YOU JANIS!
Bruce

I've been a fan of Janis Ian since I was very small and as I've gotten older I've found so many new ways to appreciate her and be awed by her. This book overwhelmed me with new feelings of admiration. The life she's lead has been fascinating and the strength she did it with was inspirational. Every detail is told with a straight forward but entertaining tone, from the dizziest heights of her career to her surprising rank in an arcade game. I read it in three days, and I'm tempted to just start again. Recommended to anyone who's interested in folk/rock/pop music history, passionate living, and/or simply being stunned by the strength of the human spirit. This has been long awaited and didn't disappoint. I've read a lot of bios and auto-bios and it's refreshing to see someone so artistically able to tell their own story. I've loved her music for most of my life, looked up at her on stage still so bright and beautiful 25 years removed from the album covers in my Dad's collection, and been impressed by the leaps she's made in the independent music industry, philanthropy, and technology in the past ten years alone. But now I feel like everything I'd seen before was just the tip of an iceberg far larger and more brilliant than I ever could imagine. Thank you Janis Ian for sharing your life with us.

Very well written. My husband and I have both read this book. I have given two copies of this book as gifts and the recipients have also expressed their appreciation for the book. The two gift recipients, my husband and I are are musicians and have a deep appreciation for the depth of this story.

I heard about this book in the NAMI "Advocate" magazine. I was NOT disappointed a bit--this is a realistic portrayal of life as a supporter of an individual living with chronic and persistent mental illness. I've been a professional in mental health services for more than 12 years, and one of the most difficult realizations to come to is that you can't do it for someone else...you can't wish for it hard enough, run interference long enough, or care enough to "fix" what we as loved ones perceive as "problems." We must be careful of our value judgments. Nathaniel is a man to be admired because he never gave up. Mr. Lopez's involvement in his life gave him something we all need--a human connection--and both benefited in the long run.

The Soloist is a poignant journey into the harsh world of a brilliant and talented homeless musician whose story will pluck at your heartstrings.

Through the very compassionate and capable voice of Steve Lopez, the reader is led into a world of stunning surprises and shocking insights into the very real domain of mental illness and homelessness where doors are opened and scenes displayed with unrefined veracity.

This novel seems to beg to be read as a clever work of fiction...however it is far from fictional!

This is a true story of amazing strength and of the careful 'baby steps' required to navigate the delicate emotions that continually thunder inside the heads of the mentally ill... and to walk beside a man of enormous talent who is also afflicted with schizophrenia; living on the streets of Skid Row while creating beautiful music for all around him to hear.

Nathaniel Ayers once had a brilliant career ahead of him in the music world and was a stand-out student at Julliard.
Everything changed as his slow descent into mental illness evolved and one day he found himself on the outside desperately seeking the comfort of the euphonious chords that sweetly sooth the scattered thoughts of his present-day schizophrenia.

Nathaniel worships Beethoven as he pushes his shopping cart full of instruments and his survival cache through the streets and tunnels in the slums of downtown Los Angeles.

The chance meeting of Nataniel Ayers and Steve Lopez is what makes this startling story and the friendship that is formed fills the novel with charity, empathy and grace.

This novel will change how you look at the mentally ill and homeless around you forever....Mr. Lopez has helped to shine a bright and fresh light on the 'stigma' of what we call madness.

With true compassion, we see how delicate the path to well-being can be and learn the deeper meaning of "There but for the grace of God go I"

Thank you Mr. Lopez...you really DID make a difference!

A long title gives a good summary of what's inside. Lopez, a long time columnist for the LA Times, happens upon a homeless man playing a violin with only two strings, and is moved by the man's obvious talent. Thinking this man's story could be a good column, Lopez embarks on a journey to uncover the soloist's identity, and in the process, becomes a friend to Nathaniel Anthony Ayers, who once studied at the Cleveland Music Settlement and Juilliard, only to be derailed by the onset of schizophrenia in young adulthood.

Ayers' story is fascinating and heartbreaking - the desertion of his father, the alienation from the rest of his family as he rebels against hospitalization and the mind-numbing medications of the 1970s - but the love of music keeps Ayers alive and fighting to hold on to his patch of Skid Row. Lopez's articles spur an outpouring of gifts for Ayers - violins and a cello from generous donors, and offers for help from local mental health outfits; before long, Lopez is learning much from various psychiatrists and social workers about Nathaniel's disease and finding ways to cajole the soloist back into contact with the world.

It is a long process, and the book spans two years of encouraging steps forward and frustrating backsliding, but Lopez and the gifted musician from Cleveland both gain so much. For Lopez, especially, the relationship opens the door to greater insight and compassion for Ayers and for others like him. It's a touching story of an ongoing and complicated struggle, and one that sheds light on the shadowy world of the mentally ill.

Not so much in book form -- On second thought, I take that back, I think it could be a very compelling story, that's undoubtedly why they're making a movie out of it, right? -- BUT, personally I didn't find Mr. Lopez to be a very compelling writer.

I'm sure plenty other people have gone over all the odds and ends of the book, and I'm sure it's safe to say they did it better than I could do -- but the fact of the matter is(at least in my case), here is this very weighty subject matter and the writing feels as empty as a drum, Mr Lopez simply got lucky and stumbled upon a story that even if you are a second rate writer, you would most likely have success--seems it deserves better -- three stars, ah well...

I was hoping for a lot with a 5 star amzn rating but unfortunately I only got through half of the book because it failed to meet those expectations. I was hoping for a technical presentation of clandestine affairs. If the author was going to describe a particular stakeout and audio operation I was hoping it would be presented with maps, technical layouts, and diagrams of devices such that the detail would justify another book in this area. What I got was a shallow examination of multiple operations where little information was divulged and most of the drama centered around the departments lack of preparation and eventual overcoming of their technical shortfalls through private industry or industrious tech.
I was hoping to read a book about the technicalities of the operation not a book where i had to flip back and forth to the appendix to look up the abundant acronyms used and where I would go pages just reading about the cia's lack of preparation. occasional stories were interesting but would likely not be new to anyone versed in the subject.

I skimread this book, I admit it. Sections were so dry, I just couldn't deal with it. I needed a good mix of the technical and the real-world.

It broke my heart that so much time and effort was needed to get to a place where our Soviet informants could share info, only to be ruined by Hanssen.

Meantime, I roared at the stories of the agents desperately experimenting with inflatable sex-toy women as possible "doubles" for car passengers who had bailed from a car moments before.... and the stories of what was involved in trying to buy bulk numbers of inflatable person-shaped anythings for experimentation as body doubles. THAT tickled me enormously. The ultimate details of why this double was needed, the misery of what the real human would be doing in the meantime, grim grim stuff. James Bond movies have done us all a big disservice. The real spy world is anything but glamorous stuff.

I am in awe and forever grateful to those who stuck it out to get a few seconds of eavesdropped conversation, a page of forbidden blueprints. Thank you guys. I get what you did, what years you sacrified.

Oh, and, yeah, I will no longer be impressed by people who think it's clever and antidisestablishment to sneak over and hang out in Cuba as tourists, having read the detail of the Cuba prison system. Horrific stuff.

SPYCRAFT is the book, every lay person should read. This book shows that good intelligence work rather than being glamorous, can be a tedious and perilous occupation that involves pain-staking preparation. Intelligence means gathering necessary information for policy makers to make realistic and level-headed decisions. With provided intelligence, policy makers can take steps to prevent disasters from occurring or global conflict from taking place.

While reconnaissance satellites can show what physical movements are taken by nations and NGOs, HUMINT or human intelligence is needed by policy makers to decide if a bluff is being made or deterrence will be required. SPYCRAFT shows how the CIA has used innovation and daring in the gathering and transmitting of HUMINT. The innovation of inventing tools is used for gathering and transmitting of intelligence. The personal risk involved usually doesn't involve gun-play or some melodramatic heroism. Personal risk is about not getting caught and taking personal risk to protect a source or helping an exposed source from deadly reprisal.

Too often, the public sees the Central Intelligence Agency as later day Keystone Kops or Americanized versions of James Bond. Neither stereotype is accurate. SPYCRAFT demonstrates that the people who work at the CIA are everyday Americans who have decided to take up the cause of maintaining the peace by sustaining a professional intelligence organization.

I have known Bob Wallace since we were 3rd graders in neighboring communities in Lincoln and Ottawa Counties, Kansas. We competed against one another in team sports throughout our grade school and high school days and were teammates for several years of summer baseball for Home Oil Company, Barnard, Kansas. I had not seen Bob since 1962 or perhaps a few years later, but I kept track of him through one of his cousins who happens to be my brother-in-law. Clearly, Bob is an outstanding individual whose accomplishments (those he can discuss, let alone those known only to a select few with the highest of security clearances) are incredible. It is almost unbelievable to me that this tough farm boy, who used to pigeon-toe out to the mound from behind home plate in dusty sweat-soaked catcher's regalia to counsel me about my side-arm deliveries, went on to become one of our nation's top CIA officials.

I ordered a copy of Spycraft months before its release and read it with great interest. I learned more about clandestine service and specific case histories than I had ever anticipated. I guess it had not occurred to me that the techies didn't just do a quick orientation for the end user and go on to the next new thing. Also surprising was the candor with which Bob described the agonizing process of getting this book approved by the CIA. My having known Bob since early childhood permitted me to ascribe the highest credibility to this account of key events and inventions involving spies and spytechs.

I had the privilege of being Bob's guest at a presentation he made to a local fraternal organization a few days after Spycraft was released. He signed my copy of the book and bemusedly asked me my favorite part (was this a test to see if I had read it?) Near the end of his presentation, I think he set the stage for the next few chapters of a yet unwritten update someone may write in a decade or two. Bob responded to the last question of his Q & A, inquiring whether even more refined and amazing gadgets were currently being developed and used in the field. He could not answer except to say that the gadgets described in the book were developed up into the 90's and with the passage of a number of years one need only use imagination to extrapolate from then until now. My parting comment to Bob in an email after the luncheon was that I hoped we lived long enough for him to write and me to read his memoir. In the meantime, I am content to use my imagination to insert him into the book here and there when he quotes one of the old hands or an unnamed station chief--who knows; could be???

Having read and enjoyed Spycraft, I expected it to garner solid reviews. However, I am quite surprised to see that until now, it's received 100% five-star reviews. I've almost never seen a book reviewed this favorably and I've certainly read better books with more mixed reviews.

Don't get me wrong, Spycraft is a good book. It allows its reader behind a curtain into a world that is typically strictly off-limits. You get to experience the real-world existence of spies living and working secretly behind enemy lines. The book reveals a lot of the technology used by spies, focusing in on listening devices, cameras and communication devices. What stands out is the ingenuity and craftsmanship that goes into the creation of the devices upon which people stake their lives.

While the book is written about spy technology, what I found to be the most surprising from the book was the the amount of time and effort invested in some of the CIA's covert operations. Often times, years are spent establishing credible cover or doing piecemeal research about a target to avoid drawing attention. 100% of some peoples' living patterns are built around an operational necessity that takes up only the smallest percentage their time. It's truly amazing to read about the sacrifices made to achieve an intelligence payoff.

There is a problem, however, the book reads unexpectedly dull. I'm sure this is an outgrowth of the fact that real CIA operatives have to be consummate professionals and not suave, womanizing James Bond-types, but it takes away from the book. I am not implying in any way that anything should be fabricated or embellished to add to the excitement, but instead that the story is inherently exciting and that the writing should have reflected that more even if the author's demeanor is necessarily even-keeled.

A great book, but exciting stories get told in a seemingly Prozac-tamed manner. I recommend this one highly, but it could have been better still.

This is one of the best books I have read -certainly the best in the category of social history. Jay Stevens has researched his material meticulously and has delivered the narrative in a most enthralling manner. I found it hard to lay the book down. Whether, like me, you lived through the psychedelic experience of the sixties or you have but a passive interest, you will be amazed to learn of the full impact that the psychedelic culture has had on Western society, religion and philosophy -right through to the chemical hedonism of today.
This is truly a superb read!

I bought this on the recommendation of Dr. Stanley Krippner in a lecture on ayahuasca. It is absolutely the best book I have read on the history of the psychedelic movement during the past 100 years or so. Timothy Leary is not dead - he's only outside looking in. :-)

This should be required reading in American History. Who knew Canada had legal LSD centers? And the characters- Nin, Huxley, Kesey, Leary and Capt.Al Hubbard (??). Will we ever see their like again? Really a very sad story, and a fascinating one. Nice to see the Chief Boo Hoo, old Art Kleps in there as well. Sen. Kennedy: "Is your title really Chief Boo Hoo?" Art Kleps: "I'm afraid so, sir."

This is the definitive account of the 1960s psychedelic drug scene. Stevens does a great job of conveying the highs and lows of LSD and its proponents. His ability to relate endless facts while retaining a fast-paced narrative structure is amazing. I found this one of the most "addicting" books out there about the significance of drugs in American culture. Stevens reviews all the major personalities: Albert Hoffman, Timothy Leary, Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters, the Grateful Dead, Alan Watts, Jack Kerouac, Aldous Huxley, and more. If you're interested in this electric decade, the power of psychedelics to warp the mind, or any of the poet-prophets who were compelled to experiment with and sing the praises of acid then this book is sure to delight.

This was a very good book. You get lots of interesting stuff about Aldous Huxley, the famous beat writers, Owsley, Timothy Leary, Ken Kesey and the evolution of the so called counterculture as a whole.

The problems that I have with Storming Heaven is not for what was in it but what was left out. For one Stevens was WAY too easy on Timothy Leary. The author seemed almost like a school girl with a crush when he recounts his visit to Learys home for an interview for the book. He comes off more as a fan than he does an objective writer at times when he deals with Leary. Why wasn't it mentioned that it has come out that Leary was a government informant and information he gave led to the death of two members of the Weather Underground? Its also a known fact that Leary was surrounded by CIA assets and there is a lot of evidence that he was a government agent himself, and at the least he was feeding them information.

There is also a fleeting mention that wasn't elaborated on about Ken Kesey that he had LSD experiments done on him at Stanford by the guy that ended up in charge of the CIAs Mkultra mind control program. This really makes me wonder about Kesey. Its more or less accepted history that the first LSD to get out on the street level was what Kesey stole from the medicine chest at his job as a night shift janitor at a mental hospital and distributed it among his elitist friends. Kesey went from writing what was probably the best novel written during the 1960's to, while becoming a counterculture hero, never writing another thing worth reading again. Did doing too much LSD scramble his brains and ruin his creativity or was his creativity nullified by Mkultra programming? Its hard to say for sure but I have to wonder if Kesey was not under some sort of mind control or was being used by the CIA in one way or another. There are a lot of unanswered questions in my mind about Kesey.

They also fleetingly mention the Brotherhood of Eternal Love who were major LSD distributors and were known to be full of CIA people and had a close association with a Jewish man named Ron Starks who was a CIA spook that also happened to the biggest LSD dealer in the world. Starks was not even given the first mention in this book!

I mean with all these ivy league, Mkultra and CIA connections to the elites of the so called counterculture I have to seriously wonder how much of the hippy movement of the late 60's was an organic rebellion against what was (and still is) a very repressive society both socially and politically and how much of it was intentional social engineering that came from the highest levels of the power structure. Many people believe that the anti-war movement was flooded with drugs, in particular LSD, by federal agents. Its well known that the government tried to subvert and destroy the anti-war movement with the cointelpro program so why wouldn't they also use drugs to try to destroy it? While it can't be denied that LSD has enhanced many an artist, writer and musicians work can you honestly say that sitting around frying on acid all the time is going to do anything but disable political activists who in many cases were in a life and death struggle? Besides that the fact remains that many people became permanently damaged as result of doing acid.

All that said I would definitely recomend reading or of you can get it cheap, buying Storming Heaven. I could hardly put it down once I started reading it. I realize that this book was more geared toward looking into what psychelic drugs can do with the mind and its exponents history and theories on the subject than any conspiratorial maneuverings by the US government involving LSD but it just didn't go deep enough into the rabbit hole for my tastes.

I bought this book one week before I passed CA State Exam. I'm loving it! It gives all the nuts & bolts to a rookie for a quick & sound start in the business. This book is a must-have on the shelf for every new agent, period!

New or 'aged' agents will get many valuable tips from this book. It is just packed with useful information that a successfull real estate agent (Dirk) has learned over the years. Don't make the same mistakes. Learn from his experience and be a top producer.

This book is a must read for anyone considering a career in Real Estate as well as a refresher for experienced agents trying to get their business back on track. Dirk Zeller manages to distill a vast amount of experience down into a basic plan for success. (No magic bullets are promised: It involves honest work, but this book will help you manage your time better and allow you to concentrate on revenue producing activities.) For me personally, my biggest problems as an agent have been time management and spending too much time on non-revenue producing activities. These two areas of the book are worth the price alone. Highly recommended!

This is a very comprehensive book for beginners and experienced realtors. It seems to be losely based on the teachings of Mike Ferry by an experienced agent who actually did what he writes. I highly recommend it with one reservation: much of it is very similar to the book The Champion Real Estate Agent written by the same author. If you buy one of the books you don't really need to buy both.

This book does have some usful tips. However, the author is obviously a career salesman. He appears to have grown his career from real estate sales to selling his own products ( seminars, web sites, and sales coaching). He equates financial success by selling, to being a quality agent. His focus seems to be on the typical salesperson's perspective ie. ABC (always be closing), not matching the client to the property they want, like and can aford.