Newspapers Books

Using articles from the pages of Tombstone, Arizona's major newspaper, the Epitaph, and some pieces from a rival paper, author Martin paints a vivid picture of life in this booming mining "camp" as it is referred to. Besides plenty of bordellos and saloons to divert the hardworking miners, the affluent citizens of Tombstone enjoyed concerts, elaborate parties, and social events of various sorts. The exploits of some of the more colorful lawmen and outlaws (sometimes they were one and the same) of the Arizona territory were chronicled in the Epitaph's florid articles, and the much-recounted shootout at the OK corral is detailed (Epitaph writers went into almost clinical detail in describing gunshot wounds). The last part of the book covers a disastrous blaze in one of the mines that shut down mining and the town and then presents a series of exuberantly optimistic articles in which new investors and mining engineers restore mining activity by installing massive pumps to keep groundwater from invading the ore face. However, by 1908, the water had overwhelmed all efforts, and Tombstone camp ceased to produce ore once and for all. The book suffers some from the author's rather awkward writing, but the book is mostly taken directly from the pages of the Epitaph, and his selection of colorful and evocative prose by various Epitaph editors and reporters conveys the life and times of this vibrant community very well.

This book is certainly fun to read, but don't get the idea that it will give you a complete history of Tombstone. Those who want that will need to look elsewhere. This book is no more than what its title says it is, perhaps a little less. It is chock full of old Epitaph articles on the more colorful occurrences in Tombstone's history. It was a decidedly partisan newspaper, and regrettably, the reader doesn't get to see the opposing articles from "The Nugget", which was the Epitaph's nemesis during the Earp-Clanton days. The book also ends rather abruptly without any attempt at summation.

Nevertheless, for light reading this book is very entertaining. I recommend it on that basis.

While the information in here was of some value, I found that other books that I have on this subject are more indepth. The market info was no use because it was very outdated.

I really enjoyed this book and hope the author(s) come out with something else on related subjects in the future. As someone just starting out in the business, Lynn's observations are very indicative of my experiences, so far. The listing of top media markets around the country with addresses was very helpful.

This is a comprehensive book which covers every aspect of feature writing. It provides many examples along the way to highlight good and poor writing. It is obvious why this fantastic book is used by many Australian universities.

This book will tell you a lot of what you need to know about writing feature articles. But what I didn't know when I purchased it on Amazon was that it's geared toward the AUSTRALIAN market, which he refers to regularly in the book. Also, most of the examples of writing that he provides, the language and cultural references are of Australia, making it a bit harder to follow for a North American English speaker. If you are not interested in writing for the Australian market, you can be better served by another book. One thing that was missing was the lack of attention given to the distinct writing styles for newspapers and magazines. Considering the title is "how to research and write newspaper and magazine articles," one would imagine that the author would address the differences between the two.

"Confessions" is one of my absolute favorite books and I have read it multiple times. I get a tickle out of the people who hated the book. The complaints all seem to stem from the fact that there was not a single deep moment, or any kind of introspection, no one grew as a person and the vile main character recieved no real comeuppance.

That is the point! From the first chapter its clear we are dealing with someone who wouldn't know she'd recieved her comeuppance even if you explained it to her. She -in point of fact- was humilated by the end of the book, but she was far too self-involved and egotistical to see it as such. The books humor comes from the idea that Katya is completely devoid of introspection and empathy. This frees her from any guilt or shame she should have over her behavior. Katya is free to behave as badly and as meanly as she wants, which is great fun for this reader.

I love dark comedies where the good guys don't always win and the bad guys REVEL in their badness. If you like those kinds of stories, you will LOVE this book. If you are looking for redemption in a character the title refers to as "sociopathic", this book is not for you.

This may be one of the worst books I have read in years. I don't expect much from chick-lit -- it's a good way to pass an afternoon with no drain on the brain. This book was just insultingly stupid. Why the author (let alone the publisher) thought this drivel was worth killing trees is beyond me. If you want to read the boring diary of a self-centered egotistical whiner, this may be the book for you, everyone else take a pass!

This is one of my favorite books. It's hysterical. Katya Livingston is both the protagonist and the antagonist at once. If you like British humor you will especially enjoy it.

If you want to thrill vicariously to the wicked thoughts of a caricature shallow English career woman, this book has some good chuckles. Men are humiliated, women rivals are defeated, friends and family are exploited and cast aside, cute little animals are thoughtlessly murdered, and all business contacts are left to wallow in failure.

The trouble is the thing has no plot, none of the characters are remotely sympathetic or believable, and it's just too darned long. As a result, it's funny enough for the first few chapters, but there's a point where you realize it's just going to meander and repeat similar gags forever. Even if you like this sort of crass humor, you look to see how much longer you have to go and wonder if you should bother to finish it. Would have been great as a short story or novelette.

This is cheesy light reading and it doesn't try to pretend it's anything else. In my view that makes it even more likable. This is a comedic record of the life of a deeply flawed, fantasy-prone, sociopathic woman in the business world whose ambition and willingness to do anything, sell out any friend, rival or co-worker, flatter any boss or hatch any plot to get ahead is the darkly funny antidote to the increasingly silly misadventures of a certain diarist named Jones. Should I be ashamed to admit I read this because Kelly Ripa said it was her favorite book ever? Ha, I don't care, cause this little novel made me laugh!

Just finished (albeit an audio version -- long drive) version of The Golden Age by Gore Vidal. I've been meaning to read more Vidal (I still have Burr in my "to be read" pile) but other books just seem to get in the way.

Vidal can certainly tell a story and each "episode" is quite distinct, but it didn't seem to really tie together. I'm not sure if it was the abridgement of it, or if it was just its episodic nature. The blurring of fact and fiction are interesting, and one must go along with Vidal's political, and vaguely conspiratorial theories of 1941-1954 to enjoy the work. It is hard to believe that even FDR could be that Machiavellian. His view of the elections and preordained are too manipulative for my tastes, though. The portraits of FDR and Truman are more complete than not however ad do tie in well with a lot of the biographical information. I'd prefer less fiction and more history in my readings though.

Gore Vidal is a quintessentially American writer, intensely focused on our history, character and future. This last of the "Narratives of Empire" takes the saga begun with "Burr" right into the 21st century. "The Golden Age" starts in the pre-WWII period, as the fictional Caroline Sanford returns to Washington to be swept up in the machinations of FDR leading the country into WWII. A good chunk of the book makes the case that FDR "knew" that the Japanese were about to attack, and Vidal argues that he sacrificed American lives to get us into the war, with the ultimate goal of turning American into THE superpower. WWII comes and goes, and the narrative quickly moves on to the post-war period, the naive bungling of Harry Truman, and the creation of the Communist "bogey-man" to keep the American public committed to remaining armed and tolerating a peacetime draft. Vidal suggests that with the collapse of the Soviet Union, perhaps the new "bogey-men" are the Islamic terrorists.
Vidal has strong views, which readers may or may not agree with, but no matter--his semi-fictional renditions of American history are intelligent, amusing and well-written. I highly recommend ALL of the "Empire" series.

The era covered by the book is clearly sentimental to Vidal, hence the title "Golden Years." I guess it's a natural tendency of people to see their formative years as the good old days. Vidal reveres the enigmatic FDR as a political icon and pities the bucolic and inferior Harry Truman who is tapped to fill FDR's shoes. In Vidal's Myra Breckinridge, the movies from this era (late thirties to mid forties) are considered the only movies of any substance or merit. On a larger scale, FDR's administration represents the zenith of the American empire that is slowly destined to fade in the age of industrialization and military armament of the late twentieth century.

The theme of the book, as in other chronicles of the American empire, is that the real political struggle in the United States has been between a generally representative Congress against a small professional elite that is totally split off from the nation. The rich aristocracy has been pursuing its wealth through wars that they invent and justify and resonate for others to die in. In Golden Age, the main conspiracy promoted by Vidal is that America forced Japan's hand with tyrannical economic sanctions and restrictive oil embargos. With no other choice, Japan attacks Pearl Harbor and permits the wealthy ruling class of America to enter into another war and pile more millions on their already established hoards of money.

Despite the historical conspiracy and social criticisms, I found this book to be predominantly Vidal's heart-felt tribute to his beloved fictional narrators, the descendents of Charles Schermerhorn Schuyler. The book even provides a family tree. Caroline de Traxler Sanford lived an impossibly sumptuous life that started in the novel "Empire" and ends in the "Golden Age." The characters and era were special for Vidal, and this was their eulogy.

I must confess that I feel ambivalent about this book. I greatly admire the other volumes of the series, not only for their value as iconoclastic evocations of American history, but as novels in themselves with vibrant and fascinating characters. Vidal is, simply put, one of America's greatest living artists. His voice is unique and unmistakable. In other volumes, his personal views are hidden and cryptic, which is great fun as the reader is kept guessing. Alas, in this one, I found his views to be baldly plain and that the characters were used as vehicles to serve these ideas. This terribly weakens its value as a work of art. Instead, it often reads like one of his essays.

In my reading, Vidal is arguing that FDR saw WWII as the only way to stay in power, a life-saving decision as there was nothing else of intimate value in his life. To do so, he took a giant step in creating the "national security state," which upon his death in office an unwitting Truman completed. Now in my view, this is a simplistic reading of a bewilderingly complex period, a watershed if you will.

Nonetheless, Vidal succeeded in getting me to question my assumptions, and that I think is of the greatest value and the unique contribution that an historical novel can relate. That saved the reading experience for me, which was more wooden than Vidal's previous accomplishments. Perhaps it is Vidal's talent that got him to create this as a crucial moment in American foreign policy, in which our involvement in such places as Irak are under scrutiny and our ideals are distrusted by the very allies that are supposed to benefit from them. It is an age of the most profound disillusionment and Vidal is providing the art that reflects this period.

Finally, the swansong machinations of the Sanfords are wonderful to follow. Also, the fate of Clay - the JFK-like villain of "Washington, DC" - is also advanced. It is a fitting conclusion to one of the great cycles of novels of this age. There are, of course, many hilarious moments in which the manners of the ruling class are dissected and exposed for questioning. In his hands, their vanities are so human, and this is a good thing.

Warmly - and this time cerebrally - recommended.

I gave The Golden Age three stars primarily because the book had three tiresome flaws that kept it from achieving the excellence of his novel Lincoln.

The first weakness of this book is that Gore Vidal was far less subtle in controlling his own political philosophy in The Golden Age, possibly because the era in the novel was one in which Vidal lived, whereas in Lincoln, there was enough distance in time that Vidal was able to show more objectivity. For fans of Gore Vidal, of which I am one, his political philosophy is no secret. He believes that the Civil War allowed Lincoln to consolidate power into the presidency at the expense of the legislative branch. He thinks that we turned from the values of the republic and adopted the values of empire. During wartime, the power of the US President is heightened even further, thus becoming an incentive for a US President to declair war. He places both FDR and Truman into this category of expanding the power of the presidency through World War II and the Cold War. Vidal believes that the country has always been ruled by an wealthy elite group of citizens. As the technology of communication has evolved, this power seeking elite has learned how to control the media. The elite controlled first the printed press, then Hollywood in the 1930-1950s, and then television. Through mass media they shape the perceptions of the common American family. Vidal also believes that the Cold War and the search for Communism is also a strategy used by the powerful elite to evoke fear in the common family, thus keeping taxes high to pay wealthy defense and security contractors.

I actually also believe this to be true, however Gore Vidal is so heavy handed in The Golden Age that he ruins the novel by over emphasis of his political agenda. I wished for the subtle interpersonal power plays that he depicts so well in Lincoln.

My second concern is his treatment of the historical characters. The historic characters in the novel are far more lively and multi-dimension as compared to the fictious characters, but their motives and actions are grossly bent to accomodate Vidal's political agenda. FDR's critical conversations take place "off stage" so that we only see him mixing martinis and engaged in witty commentary with his wife, Eleanor. Vidal seems to strongly believe that FDR knew about the Japanese intention to bomb Pearl Harbor prior to the bombing. I certainly believe this to be false and Vidal does not really make a strong case here in this novel at all of convincing me. He never gets into the head of FDR because in the end Vidal doesn't really have the goods to back up his outrageous claim. There are hundreds of historic characters in the novel and toward the end when he has Dawn Powell, Virgil Thompson, and Paul Bowles all delivering witty cocktail chatter, I realized the novel had melted into name dropping.

My third concern is that there were far too many cardboard one dimensional fictitious characters who all sounded just alike in their witty, upperclass sarcasm and jaded pessimism. We never understand why there is so much animosity and friction among many of the fictitional characters, most of whom are related to each other. The fictitious characters caused the book to be over long and drawn out.

I wish Gore Vidal had really written a good book about the way FDR analyzed the role of the USA prior to and during World War II. This would have been great. In Lincoln he stuck to the facts and it produced a wonderful political novel. In The Golden Age, Vidal veers from the facts into his own agenda, and when he can't support that agenda with factual events, the novel becomes soggy.

P.D. Cacek's Canyons is a worthy addition to the volumes that have been written about everyone's favorite monster, the werewolf. Her research on the behavior of wolves is spot-on, and I completely bought her premise that a werewolf pack lives as one of Denver's oldest families.

I could have done with a little less gore, but really enjoyed the book anyway. Well worth a read.

I expected more from this book, but it ended up feeling like just another horror paperback (for which I paid a hardcover price). The tabloid headlines were cute for a while, but there wasn't much depth, and the twist at the end was both dark and disappointingly cliche. The book left me both depressed and uninterested in what would happen next. The convention of using italics and capitals to refer to gender/family relations when speaking from a werewolf's point of view was stylistically annoying and distracting, to boot. I'm generally a fan of werewolf books, and eager to go along with whatever the new spin on the mythology is, but this just wasn't fun.

I decided to give Canyons a chance after reading the back flap. It had an interesting premise, and I love horror books, especially with a romantic twist ....what completely grossed me out was all the incest. The main character, Lucius, not only has children with his mother, but has sex with his daughters as well. ..it literally made the bile rise in my throat.

There were so many things wrong with this book I find it difficult to even begin to list them. A previous reviewer complained that there wasn't enough character development. I'm not entirely sure I agree with that. I thought the characters were clear and unique, but they simply weren't likable. I kept waiting for that scene or the description that showed me why I should care about Cat or Lucius and it never came. I thought Cat was weak and stupid, and Lucius was insensitive and uncaring. Why should I care enough to read to the next page about these characters? (I foolishly kept reading assuming that eventually the characters would begin to grow or change and that seeing the transition in the characters would be interesting. Unfortunately, this never happened.) I also found a lot of inconsistencies in the writing. With fantasy and horror you have to suspend a certain amount of disbelief, but some logic must apply. One example of this was the absolute dismissal of any knowledge of forensic science. Another was during a murder scene, the werewolf tore the throat out of a victim but somehow the victim was able to live for several minutes afterwards. This allowed the author to increase the horror of the scene, but it just struck me as one of the many things in the book that was unrealistic. But I have to say what bothered me most was the gross out factor. Another reviewer mentioned the incest, which I agree was unpleasant, especially since it describes the hero/main character. And although there was a lot of blood and gore in this book, those were not the scenes that were most disturbing. What bothered me most were the descriptions of sexual assault against children that occurs at the end of the book. How I long for the day when all memory of this story is erased. Be sure that I will not buy another book by this author, and I recommend that other readers not waste their money or their time.

When I first began reading this book I found myself actually enjoying it and looking forward to what was going to happen further along in the story. The story starts out violently, with the gruesome murder of a young homeless drug addict by a pack of vicious werewolves. I felt like this beginning was powerful and really made you feel like you could expect anything in the storyline to come...and that certainly was true...in a BAD way. I would have really enjoyed this book had it not been for the incest backstory and the child molestations that do not seem to be that big of a deal when they are occuring (except to the shocked reader). I was disgusted, mortified and simply beyond uncomfortable when it was stated that our main character lycanthrope, Lucius, has children with his mother, and that he also has sex with his own daughters. I KNOW that actual wolves and animals in the wild do procreate with there relatives, but for characters with human emotions that can SPEAK-it's unnacceptable. I was sickened by the incest and at the point that it was mentioned I lost ALL interest in the characters and what would happen to them. Also, I am NOT interested in reading about young children being molested. This book was gruesome more so in the sexuality department then the gore. I didn't like it.

Ted Koppel is quite eloquent and has many interesting views but the audiobook (unabridged) lacks any deep and profound views or analysis. Nevertheless, well read and not boring. Good for long drives or plane flights, especially now that it is selling at a discount price.

Nightline anchor and legendary tele-journalist Ted Koppel set out on January 1, 1999 with an interesting idea. He would write one entry per day in a diary that would record the events in his own life and in the world around him.

Admirable.

Koppel's notes on the goings-on in 1999 seem oddly distant in this post-911 world of 2005. Was the last year of the century just passed really quite as innocent as it seems in this record of a journalist and his travels across the world? That was the biggest point of notice I came away with from this remarkable read: exactly how much our society and the greater world has altered in so small a time.

That said, it is still worthwhile to read through Koppel's thoughts on the happenings of that year and to gain perspective on all that went on in a top-ranking network journalist's life. In those twelve months, Koppel traveled to at least four continents, met with dozens of noteworthies, and also managed to fit in time at home, where he tells us of the joys of something small like a redecorating project after having spent so many of the previous weeks in and out of war zones, jets, vans, and studios. Koppel is never shy about giving his opinion and sometimes I admired his views, at other times he frankly ticked me off. That's probably someplace in his job description.

I've heard Ted Koppel is retiring soon, and I wonder if he intends to devote more time to writing once his days in front of the camera are done? If this book is any indication of what that output might be, then I hope so.

My first thought in his first couple entries was that he was trying a little to hard to be funny ala Dennis Miller or Jay Leno. However, then I realized that he wasn't, he was just blurting out his thoughts from each day (and almost every day).

I feel there was not much cohesion throughout the book. He spends a lot of time on the war in Kosovo, as that was a big event during that year. However, he puts in little tidbits about his growing up and his new house or something irrelevant. Even though it was meant to be his personal thoughts on various topics, I felt he should have organized the material a little bit.

On the good side, it was interesting hearing about the difficulties of being a reporter during the war, and getting some of that insider information. Similarly, it was interesting hearing his perspective from having been around for a while in the journalism business.

Overall, I made it through the whole book, but every once in a while while listening to it (Audio CD version), I would think, "Now why did he include that?" I feel this work could have been improved through some editting and some thoughtful exclusions or reorganization of the material.

Ted Koppel. That voice, the music, the graphics. I grew into television news with Ted-- though I called him Mr. Koppel in our private, if fictional, chats about world events. From that stage, I somehow expected a giant to emerge from the pages of "Off Camera", and that giant of a man should know all and tell all because, who could do it better? This is not that sort of book. It does not gossip; it does not lie. It is Mr. Koppel, though, and he's got a great deal to let us in on.

What works in this diarist's format is the jangling juxtapositions between waitng for the caller I.D. guy and musing over, "Oh, incidentally, Boris Yeltsin threatened NATO with nuclear war yesterday, if it doesn't stop bombing Yugoslavia. Everybody assumes he's kidding" (92). This sort of mingling of the mundane and the geopolitical reminds us that we cannot wholly escape either world-- it is as reckless to ignore the din of geopolitics as it is to ignore the phone bill. He's saying, "Hey! I, Mr. Big Shot Nightline Guy, have to deal with the daily dumb stuff. Why don't YOU try reading a newspaper?" And yes, he's a little testy on this. And no, he doesn't hold out much hope for what Americans have become. ....

"Off Camera" is the voice of Ted Koppel: wry, commanding, knowing. There are spurts of dark humor (the moments of a life stolen while exchanging 32 cent stamps), anger, wonderment, acceptance and love. It is the writing of a journalist and the musings of a man whose sorted out his own mortality. He's a Mr. Koppel who doesn't much like President Clinton either (he'd be dishonest to say otherwise and his reasoning is solid--even though I think he's wrong). In the end, it's Ted Koppel and there are lessons to be learned. Though not a great book, this is one worth owning.

...The dust cover should be a clue that this book is trivial. Here is Koppel, wearing a leather jacket and holding a stick. If that photo interests you, you will love this book. It is filled with self-indulgent information about Koppel and his grandchildren. It would have been a better book, perhaps, had Koppel chosen to write about the leather jacket and the stick.
Readers who are able to overlook Koppel's arrogance will find little insight into international events. First, these events are quite dated. Kosovo, Monica and Viagra are not fresh, riveting subjects. Secondly, Koppel doesn't have the time to give us thoughtful insight. He appears to be jotting down a few bedtime thoughts about his day. And so often his predictions and views of current events prove wrong.
What I came away with is the realization that much of our daily news stories are fleeting, insignificant events. ...

I love the newsies! I had to see the movie then and i wound up buying it i only borrowed the book but i am buying it now!!!!!

Newsies was a great book! It had a great story and great characters! It's a book I would read again and again. It's based on actual events and is so real. I felt like I was a newsie fighting with them.

OK, for all of you Newsies fans, which I am among, the movie is soooo much better! The book is much too simple. The movie had gorgeous actors and the book just can't show that. The movie was a lot better! I loved the movie, but the book just wasn't good. It's was OK, I guess, but even saying that is pushing it.

If your a totally Newsies fan then i would reccomened the book because it definitly is a good book but if you are looking for something that is like the movie then this is not it. Some of the characters are more developed in the book then in the movie and they leave out certain things. But if you are just looking for a good read i would definetly suggest this book.

I would recommend this only to the biggest Newsies fans, which happen to be any Internet Newsies fan I think...it's more like the original script than the finished product(Spot was originally written as a freckle faced, toad-y little guy). Of course, it *is* a junior novelization, so it's very childish and should take the average Newsies fan less than a day to skim through and read. I'm 19, and I do kind of enjoy reading through it every once and awhile. It has all the major plot points and scenes in it, and a few extras. One interesting thing is that the cover they chose is a blooper photo. Kid Blink's eye-patch in the photo is just above his eye, and both of his eyes are visible. Heck, it's worth it just to see that! Bottom line, any self-respecting Newsies fanatic should have a copy of this little gem *somewhere* in their home.

I really liked the first two Francine Prose novels I read - "Blue Angel" and Household Saints" - and awarded each four stars. Unfortunately, I found "Bigfoot Dreams" to be a horse of a different color. Here, the focus remains on one quite unfocused character - Vera Perl, a 37 year old single mom who writes fictitious articles about Bigfoot and miracle cures for a magazine that makes the "National Enquirer" look downright authoritative. One of the more mundane articles that Vera writes turns out to be too close to the truth, which causes a resultantly unemployed Vera to embark on a sort of inner journey involving (along the way) her daughter, ex-husband, college roomate, and a group of "cryptobiologists" (it sounds more interesting than it is). But here's the problem. The author either bores the reader with the day-to-day minutia of Vera's life (like making a meal or visiting her parents), or futilely describes some experience which is supposed to be life-changing or meaningful. Honestly, I didn't really get what Prose was trying to tell us about Vera, or how Vera was supposedly learning something about herself. In fact, by the end of the book, Vera hasn't really learned anything at all, and even seems to have gotten worse (for instance, she starts smoking again). The little coincidences that pepper the story add up to a bunch of nothing.

Since I intend to read three more Francine Prose novels (which I'll review on this site), I'm very much hoping that "Bigfoot Dreams" is the author's nadir. I just don't think Prose really had a clear concept of what she wanted to write about, or who her main character (Vera) was supposed to be.

I tried. I really, really tried. Bigfoot Dreams missed the mark, despite my attempts to enjoy myself. At first glance, the premise of this novel had lots of potential. A woman who makes up stories for a weekly tabloid finds herself in one heck of a predicament -- after five years on the job and no problems thus far, one of her stories turns out to be true. My imagination ran wild with me...what story was it? How strange would that be? What will happen to her? The author did elaborate on these questions, but my expectations far outweighed the results.

As for the writing itself, Francine Prose did a very good job. Much better than I could ever do, so immediately she gets two thumbs up. I believe the problem I had with Bigfoot Dreams was the story itself. It was a thinker-novel, not as cut-and-dried as one might think. And while sometimes this can be good, I was disappointed in this case. Bigfoot Dreams seemed like it would be a riot; in the end, I was bored to tears and wondering where all the fun went. A quirky subject deserves a quirky explanation, but there was too much psychological babble going on.

Best parts about this book: the main character, Vera's, job -- how fun it would be to sit around making up stories all day; Vera's friend, Louise -- I was far more interested in Louise's antics as a former member of a cult who wore all white and ate salad every day; and also Vera's on-again, off-again husband, Lowell -- an Arkansas hippie (need I say more?). Bigfoot Dreams had vast potential to be so funny, crazy, and imaginative, but Ms. Prose weighed it down with too much reality. I'll try again, though. Maybe Blue Angel will be more suited for me.

I picked up Bigfoot Dreams because I liked Prose's novel The Blue Angel. Blue Angel took a situation that seemed absolutely played out - aging professor in midlife throes has an affair with one of his female students - and made something astringent and revealing out of it.

Initially published in 1986, Bigfoot Dreams seems at first to be Ur-Chicklit. Consider the archetypes: our heroine, Vera, is a plucky single mom with an endearing but precocious ten year old daughter; Vera's parents are old lefties (Dad fought in the Spanish Civil War.); she has an off-again, on-again marriage to Lowell, A Good Man Who Just Can't Seem to Commit; her best friend is lovable but prone to crazy impulses; two delightful gay guys live next door; and she has the requisite quirky job, as a reporter for the type of tabloid that specializes in Elvis, Bigfoot and UFO sightings.

We follow Vera around New York City during a muggy summer of discontent. There's a lot of day to day life - some readers might think too much. We watch Vera chop vegetables, take the subway, empty the garbage, read the Sunday New York Times, sit through her daughter's ballet recital. In between, she engages in unfulfilling mating rituals with a coworker, gets in trouble at work over the bizarre coincidence of having a story she made up turn out to be true, worries about her parents and daughter, and pines for Lowell. Vera is a first wave feminist, at the point where the original proposition - we can have it all - is getting ground up in the day to day struggle, but no new synthesis has emerged.

Judging from the Amazon reader reviews, several reviewers found Vera a claustrophobic consciousness to travel in for a couple hundred pages. Part of the problem is the book's uneven tone. Sometimes it's hard to tell whether Prose is satirizing or sympathizing. The reader's left wondering which emotional card to put down.

But Bigfoot Dreams is not so easily dismissed. As in The Blue Angel, Prose is mining everyday life to extract fresh meaning from it. In Vera's personal struggles, and in her tabloid stories, there's a tension between the dense, gravitational pull of the day to day and the desire to transcend it. Vera's job at the tabloid brings her in contact with people who are desperate to believe the stories she makes up. The America her readers live in seems as sun-blasted and empty as anything Camus' Stranger experienced on his African beach. Vera's personal journey leads her to the place where she realizes that one of the reasons she's so good as a tabloid writer is because her aspirations aren't so different from those of her readers: she wants a life that's bigger and richer than the one she's ended up with. Vera's made up stories have a perverse integrity. She'd rather invent lies and know she's doing it than settle for truths that are half-baked, facile or destructive.

Out of the particularity of Vera's life emerges a general portrait of the urban feminist intellectual, caught between the old certitudes she grew up with and murky new truths seen, like Bigfoot, only in unsatisfactory glimpses. The struggle to pin down those truths is worthy of our respect, and, despite its meandering plot, so is Bigfoot Dreams.

Having once been a newspaper reporter, I simply had to read this book. Immediately, I was delighted by the story of a reporter who's hired to make stories up for a sleazy tabloid rag. Here's a smart and funny way of turning the usual newspaper story on its ear: instead of looking for truth, the heroine avoids truth at all costs.

Along the way, we meet some fabulous characters: her blossoming pre-teen daughter, her ne-er do well absent hubby, a crazy hippy pal, parents who live to criticize, a love-torn co-worker. It all works well, especially when the Vera the reporter invents a story that turns out to be true. (And don't you love the name? Vera, which means true.)

The only reason I give this book three stars instead of five, is that the story complely fizzles out at the end. Fired for telling the truth, Vera goes on a long journey to get her life together, tries to reconnect with her husband, and essentially learns nothing. Unfortuntately, ths is Prose's worst flaw. She simply does not want to end the story, and certainly not in a satisfying way. Only in BLUE ANGEL, does she come to a real, albeit depressing, conclusion.

But for the first two-thirds of this book, it's beautifully and observantly written.

If you like literary stories about jewish women in NY City going through crises of middle-age this book is for you. The tabloid stuff and cryptozoology stuff (Prose incorrectly uses the term cryptobiology) are poorly researched and mere window dressing. The meat of the book, if you want to call it that, consists of blow-by-blow metaphors describing the "heroine's" state of mind as she struggles to relate with her teen daughter, reconcile with her loser ex-husband, and quit smoking. The epiphany is baffling and more than a little unsatisfactory.

I use both THE NEW YORK TIMES ALMANAC and THE WORLD ALMANAC as references. The strengths of the former are its articles on world energy, the global economy and the global military situation. As a big fan of the movies, I find its lack of biographical data on celebrities and actors to be an annoying weakness.

When they are discussing the 2000 US population they mention the states with the largest hispanic population. They get the population columns mixed up. They claim California has a hispanic population of 33,871,648 and a total population of 10,966,648. That's impossible! They make the same mistake with other states they cover in that "article".

I'm a bit of an almanac afficionado, and the NYT Almanac -- in its organization, content and style -- beats the rest, hands down. More relevant facts, a logical layout, and even a readable typeface make this book an almanac lover's dream.

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NOTE:
This review is related only to year 2001 edition of the Almanac, not 2002 edition. I was pleased to find completely rewritten and generally fair section regarding World War II in the 2002 edition.(Note added on 03/06/2002.)
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I was looking through the Almanac today in a bookstore, and two things disappointed me a lot in its Most Important Historic Events Of The Second Millennium section.

For one thing, the only event mentioned for the year 1941 was bombing of Pearl Harbor. And what about undeclared war against Soviet Union, which Germany started on June 22, 1941? Soviet Union lost over 20 millions of people in the war. I guess publishers of the almanac do not view an event as important, if there is no corresponding Hollywood fairy tail?

Secondly, for the year 1945 almanac proudly states: "British and American troops liberated death camps in Dahau and elsewhere". And not even a word about crucial role that Soviet Union played in liberating Germany from Nazi.

Can you think of something more shameful, than stealing victory from millions and millions of people, who paid their lives for it?

I enjoy these types of almanacs a great deal but I was disappointed with the New York Times' offering. It uses information that doesn't seem as current as information in the "World Almanac" for instance. I also found it a bit disorganized.