Newspapers Books

I got this as a Christmas swap gift. The content is boring, so the writing style used to try to pep it up makes the book even more annoying. I couldn't read any more than the first several pages. Read a couple sample pages before buying this!

If you enjoy reading witty, amusing personal ads, then this is not it. Buy the London Review of Books Personal Ad collection one, its called They Call Me Naughty Lola or something similar, much funnier, relevant and interesting. I bought this book but wish I had read the reviews before doing so. Blah blah its an interesting look at history and how things have changed but not for a hundred pages of uninteresting drivel. Could barely start the book let alone finish it.

Online dating sites and [...] advertisements and TV shows like Blind Date or The Love Connection are really nothing new. Personal ads have been with us for nearly 300 years. In Man with Farm Seeks Woman with Tractor Laura Schaefer collects almost 200 examples of the genre, most dating to the 19th and early 20th centuries, and most having appeared originally in English and US publications. Schaefer divides the ads among eleven chapters by type--the self-deprecating or desperate, the poetic, the downright bizarre, and so on.

As with any collection of this sort, the majority of the texts selected for inclusion will probably fail to interest any given reader, and readers will differ in which of the ads included most appeal to them. But among the ho-hum here that didn't spark my interest are some true gems. For example: a 19-year-old GI writing in 1946 to ask for pen pals; the parents of a sickly 21-year-old looking to attach their daughter to some benevolent doctor; a 70-year-old, castle-owning German baron in the market for a very particular sort of 16- to 20-year-old girl; notice that a lisping, one-legged wife has run away with the parish priest; a man with a glass eye looking for a woman "who also has a glass eye or some other deformity not more severe." My own favorites in Schaefer's collection are those ads that offer a snapshot of real life, recording some small unremarkable moment long lost to memory. What can have transpired between these two on a London street, for example, to prompt such interest?

"A LADY WHO passed a Gentleman on Monday, the 17th of this month in Hart-street, Bloomsbury, about 3 o'clock in the afternoon, without speaking to him, is anxious for an opportunity of seeing him again, any time after the 7th of January."
-- December 25, 1810,
The Times (London)

More than a century later, more than an ocean away, another chance encounter was memorable to at least one of the parties concerned:

"LADY WHOSE CAR ticket was refused by conductor on S. Meridian car, Friday, June 20 at 7 a.m. wishes to communicate with gentleman who witnessed the refusal. DRexel 5056."
--June 26, 1924,
Indianapolis Star

In some cases one wants desperately to know how the advertisers fared in their quests.

The personals are surely a rich source of social history. Certainly they reflect their times, young widows and widowers apparently being thick on the ground in the 19th century, and the contracting of relationships hinging very often on the quantifiable resources one could muster--whether a yearly stipend or a tractor. It is also interesting to note that the dangers inherent in forming relationships by mail, electronic or traditional, are not new, and neither is the discussion over the desirability of doing so.

Schaefer's book is a quick read, and many of her selections are excellent. There are times when I would have liked her to provide additional context for her selections. Murders committed by men placing personal ads are alluded to on two occasions, for example, and one would like very much to know more about these cases. It would also be interesting--though I realize this isn't the book Schaefer set out to write--if the author had researched what is known of the subsequent history of at least some of the advertisers featured: that elderly, castle-wielding baron must have left his mark in the record books, for example. But Man with Farm Seeks Woman with Tractor is recommended as a quick and interesting read and as a window into what seems to be a rich vein of historical information.

Debra Hamel -- author of Trying Neaira: The True Story of a Courtesan's Scandalous Life in Ancient Greece (Yale University Press, 2003)

I read an article reviewing this book and was so excited to check it out. When I looked through the book I was dissapointed at how "light" it was in content. Deciding to give it a try I read the first 20 pages at least and found the book extremely boring - so boring in fact that I've given up. The "personal ads" are not very funny or entertaining, just basic and dry. I honestly don't even want to give it to someone else and will probably end up throwing it away. Don't waste your money.

I ordered this book on a whim and have since given to 5 people for Birthday, Valentine Days, Appreciation gifts etc. Its one of those fun books to have around and flip through. Visitors to my home always end up paging through it and readig out loud. It's also a stress free way of learning some history. What better way to catch on to the social and romantic mores of the time than reading a personal add written by vast array of people!? I recomend this book if your looking for a fun gift, or conversation starter.

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.

P-P Hartnett's novel CALL ME will live forever as a document of erotic emancipation, spreading the ecumenical spirit of impersonal and anonymous sex to all parts of Southern England, from Clerkenwell to Wapping. The hero is Liam, a photographer with a powerful sex urge and a deep melancholy who is trying desperately to get over the pull of his former boyfriend, Ray. Almost accidentally he begins to answer personal ads in the gay papers like TIME OUT. As an American reader, I didn't realize that the "small ads" must have some kind of sex connotation to them, the kind that "personal" evokes here in the USA (so this bok can be recommended for broadening one's vocabulary as well).

It's been three years since Ray, and soon Liam finds himself in bed with a strapping young boy called Jack. Sex rears its head and suddenly Liam realizes ehat a fool he's been all these years, wasting his time mourning a man who, perhaps, never really loved him any more than his nicely decorated apartment or collection of Pet Shop Boys CDs, no matter how gleamingly polished, did or do. He takes out his camera and begins to photograph Jack's sleeping head, shoulders, ass. You'd think he was happy but shortly afterwards, another day, the temptation to answer another ad seizes him. And then it begins, the endless addiction to sex in the papers.

Hartnett clearly has been intimate with a lot of men, and in addition Liam exhibits a keen interest in Dennis Nilsen, the gay serial killer whom some have compared to the USA's Jeffrey Dahmer (who apparently counted Nilsen as one of his role models). I'm not sure what's going on with this aspect of the novel, but whatever it's doing, it works. Those of you who love London for its seediness and for the availablity of every kind of man on its sex underground, will nod in recognition as you find yourselves portrayed in this book, as though in Huysmans' dark mirror. Hartnett has written other books, all of them to be recommended in one way or another, but this is the best of them yet.

Hartnett's tale of one gay man's adventures in the personal ads is quite dark and without catharsis. But it certainly is fun! Liam is getting over his lover's death and begins entertaining himself with answering personal ads. This progresses to placing elaborate personal ads just to see whom he'll attract. Through the hot sex and the wild stalker, Liam finds out a lot about himself as well as the nature of those answering personal ads. Hartnett has a great commentary on gay culture (the story is set in London, but it's pertinent to America as well). It's definitely a typically British story, so it might be difficult for some American audiences looking for fluffy, bright gay stories, but it's quite worth reading if for nothing else but the wonderfully sexy trysts.

Liam seeks sexual encounters through responses he receives from personal ads placed in many different papers and magazines. He takes on the persona of many identities as he meets up with like minded individuals. Liam comes across in a cold and calculating manner, indifferent to the feelings of other that he meets, uses and discards along the way. His one night stands are unfulfilling and it is never clear just what he really wants. At times it appears that perhaps sudden death at the hands of one of the respondents to his ads would be a fitting end. I suppose we all have at one time or another met up with individuals who are nothing more than users.

_Call Me_ is not a quick, lighthearted book to read, but it has depth and power. Liam's struggle is to grieve the loss of his lover without knowing how. The invention of Bike Boy and all his subsequent activities to me were painfully obvious attempts at keeping grief at bay: all of it seems designed to keep moving, keep talking, keep diverted, do anything except authentically mourn his loss.

I thought Hartnett wrote a strong, moving novel about struggling, confused people. I doubt it will ever be a movie of the week starring Brandy, but that's only one of its selling points.

There is so much that is upsetting about this novel that it is difficult to even reflect on it. Among the many problems is the supposition that the protagonist is using the classified ads as a way of dealing with his grief for his boyfriend. The author, whose writing talent is considerable, fails to ever fully enunciate how much Liam loved his boyfriend and how his death has left him bereft. His passing seems more like a literary devise to justify in some vaguely untouchable way his truely reprehensible behaviour towards the people he meets. And, although the characters he meets and the situations he describes are interesting, there are repeated and pointless references to the tragic acts of serial killer Dennis Nilson, a murderer who never used classified ads as part of his hunting method. Add to this the many and dull passages about an electronic keyboard and it's technical advantages and the result is a novel that appears offensive and capricious and does nothing at all to support or refute the reality of people who are lonely, grieving or simply looking for love or sex. The hero in this novel simply sneers and loses any credence with the reader.

Lisa Shaw explores lots of ways to develop information products, no matter where your starting point. She's been out there way before many other authors who have since jumped on the self-publishing bandwagon.

Have you ever dreamed of starting your own home-based publishing business? Have you been hesitant to put your plans into action? This book contains all the necessary ideas and strategies you will need to successfully launch and grow your business. Lisa Shaw, a home-based publisher, reveals to her readers everything they need to know to successfully start and run a home-based publishing business.

I have read and re-read the book so many times, the cover has gotten frayed. The genius of the book is that it is based in sound business practices and could theoretically be applied to any business. Whether you want to earn your living creating newsletters and brochures, zines and postcards with this excellent book at your side you can experience the satisfaction of building your own home-based publishing business.

As Lisa Shaw's livelihood (designing and distributing greeting cards for companion animals) is near and dear to my heart, it truly pains me that I have to pan her book, "How to Make Money Publishing from Home." However, I feel as though I'd be remiss if I were to review the many other self-publishing books I've read and skip over this guide.

Before deciding to self-publish my first eBook, I ransacked my local libraries and checked out every volume I could find on self-publishing in general, and electronic publishing in particular. Ms. Shaw's book was the first to arrive, and I digested it in one night - in one sitting, actually. "Digested" is perhaps too strong of a word, though - there's so little substance in "How to Make Money..." that there wasn't anything for me to digest at all. It's so general a guide that the author manages to say very little about a whole lot.

In under 200 pages, she briefly discusses self-publishing booklets, books, greeting cards, magazines, newsletters, newspapers, software, `zines, ezines, and websites; writing, following, and revising business plans; tax and zoning issues; accounting and finances; the necessary self-publishing technology, including computers, scanners, printers, phone lines, fax machines, networking, and software; day-to-day business operations; and marketing and publicity. Thus, no one subject is afforded more than a few pages. From the wide variety of topics covered, it may appear as though Ms. Shaw offers a wealth of information in her guide. Yet, the opposite is actually true: she tries to cover so many facets of self-publishing that she doesn't adequately address any of the topics she raises. Any one of the aforementioned subjects deserves its own guide: each is so complex and complicated that only an entire book could do it justice. Indeed, if you were to perform a keyword search for any of these terms on Amazon, its search engine would return dozens of results.

My advice is this: If you're interested in self-publishing, don't try to save money and buy just one "how-to" guide (such as this one) to answer all your questions - you'd be cheating yourself as opposed to protecting your wallet. Rather, consult at least one book on traditional publishing, another about self- (or electronic) publishing, a third on marketing, yet another on taxes and finances for small businesses, and so on. "How to Make Money Publishing from Home" is so basic that it should be called "Remedial Self-Publishing" or, better yet, "Self-Publishing for Sixth Graders." There's almost no useful information in here - you're much better off spending your money (and time) elsewhere. Heck, you can even Google "self-publishing" and find more meaningful resources (and largely for free, to boot)!

Finally (and perhaps I'm just nit-picking now), the author began by introducing the different forms of self-published material (booklets, books, greeting cards, magazines, etc.), offering a short summary of each. This left me with the distinct and distasteful impression that this book was aimed at those who want to publish their own work just so that they can make wads of money without leaving the house (which rarely happens, despite the anomalies you read about in the "author profiles"). After all, if you're self-publishing for self-gratification, because you have knowledge that you want to share with others, or just for the love of the written word, shouldn't you already have some idea of what you're going to publish? In any case, this really put me off - anyone consulting a self-publishing book should already know what books, booklets, and magazines are, otherwise they don't really belong in the publishing business. Unless they're still in the sixth grade, in which case their ignorance is forgiven!


Kelly Garbato

Author & ePublisher, "13 Lucky Steps to Writing a Research Paper"
Peedee Publishing / Hot Dog!, LLC

Lisa Shaw's advice on the economics of starting a home-based publishing business is something of a conundrum. First, she claims startup capital and money for living expenses can be unnecessary luxuries that sap motivation. "In fact," she says, "I had no money in my early publishing ventures, so I had to rely solely on my creativity and my intractable faith in my own abilities." Later, she recommends this reality check to help assess the level of risk you're comfortable assuming: "How would you react if you or a family member had to spend a week in the hospital and you didn't have health insurance because you needed the money to pay the mortgage?"

She goes on to take a superficial look at a number of self-publishing enterprises (including booklets, books, greeting cards, magazines, newsletters, newspapers, software and e-zines); considering ease of startup, initial investment, time commitment required and other factors.

Each chapter contains a brief profile of someone who's been successful in each line of home-based publishing, but little detail is given. The profiles tell what each entrepreneur did, but offer only limited information on how they did it, since names and contact information for the resources they used are kept secret. Despite citing the growth of the Internet as one of the key factors making home-based publishing viable, there's scarce information on how to utilize the World Wide Web as a marketing tool for your efforts. And in a chapter dealing with computer hardware and software titled "Technologically Speaking" - a chapter one would expect would be brimming with detail based on the book's topic - Shaw's best advice is, "do your own research...."

The final chapter begins, "You now have the knowledge and the tools necessary to start your own home-based publishing business."

Not unless you're prepared to do a lot of supplemental reading.

Unless you're looking for a very brief introduction to home-based publishing, there's no "how-to" in How to Make Money Publishing from Home.

Shaw's book is drive-by writing, without the research.

Publishing is part of the daily routine at my 13-year-old, home-based marketing and public relations firm. So, I was wondering what innovative things Lisa Shaw would be able to teach me in her book HOW TO MAKE MONEY PUBLISHING FROM HOME. Well, trust me--this "old dog" learned PLENTY of new tricks! Of course, there was the usual, basic stuff: reasons to begin a home-based business, financial assessments, skills needed and exactly what to expect from your new venture. But then I learned about: new niches I could fill within my company; some areas of publishing I'd NEVER want to try based on Ms. Shaw's descriptions (which saved me time); and Zines ... never had heard of them! There were a few things I wish the author HAD included, and perhaps they can be in a revised edition: a) contract examples for independent contractors, b) confidentiality statements for use with clients and c) since the book is about publishing, more updated information on copyright laws. Her Resource List included many of the titles I have relied on over the years, and which should be "must reads" for budding entrepreneurs. And, I'd like to add two titles to her list: 1)GETTING BUSINESS TO COME TO YOU by Paul & Sarah Edwards and Laura Clampitt Douglas and 2) 101 HOME OFFICE SUCCESS SECRETS by Lisa Kanarek. It was apparent in the content of Ms. Shaw's book that she had "been there" and obviously "done that" (publishing from home) extremely well! Warning: Running a home-based business isn't for sissies! Do you homework and research BEFORE you begin to save you a lot of heartache later. And, oh yeah, GOOD LUCK!

This book proves what is perhaps the only important thing about Julius Streicher - his unimportance. Yes, he wrote anti-Semitic polemics and yes, some people did read them but the simple fact is that Dr. Streicher had absolutely no influence on Hitler nor the policies of the National Socialist government. In fact, he was such an irritant, that Hitler himself had him kicked out of office as Nuremberg Gauleiter in 1940. Aside from continuing to publish Der Sturmer, Dr. Streicher remained in relative obscurity and retirement until arrested by the allies in 1945.

After Germany's defeat, Streicher was charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity yet the prosecution at Nuremberg did not produce one witness to attest that official policy regarding the Jews could be traced back to either Der Sturmer or anything else Dr. Streicher wrote or advocated. Streicher had no position in the German government either before or during the war nor was he ever consulted nor were his views ever solicited whenever Hitler formulated policies.

European political thought was rife with anti-Semitism during the late 19th and early 20th centuries and Dr. Streicher's writings were certainly no different than many other writers and agitators of the time. Why was Streicher singled out for trial and execution? No one knows. The legal basis for his conviction and execution does not exist under any rule of law and can only be traced back to a desire for simple vengence against a man only the Allies took seriously.

About the only biography of Julius Streicher, the man who was hanged for exercising his freedom of speech - this was his only crime, whether you share his point of view or hate it and the man himself.

Originally founded in May 1925 as a platform to attack STREICHER's inner party rivals, the infamous weekly DER STÜRMER quickly became notorious. During the remaining years of the Weimar republic and throughout the twelve years of National Socialist rule (the last issue appeared in February 1945) DER STÜRMER was Germany's leading and most low-brow anti-Semitic newspaper. At the beginning, it was a local paper, but it quickly turned out to be successful nationwide. 25000 copies were sold at the time when HITLER came to power in 1933, but publication quickly rose and peaked at around 700000 in the late 1930ies. (During the war circulation figures went down dramatically due to paper shortages.) There were also thousands of elaborate display cases throughout Germany, each displaying the current issue.
Nine special editions (about topics like Jewish sex crimes, Jewish conspiracy, ritual murder, Jews in Czechoslowakia and Austria, and ritual murder) were published, with up to 2 million issues printed of each. The newspaper's appeal was also not limited to Germany:
"New outrages from the Stuermer were regularly denounced by the world press. But there were many who looked on Streicher's work more sympathetically. A single issue in 1935 contained replies to readers in Greece, Paraguay, Argentina, Brazil, England, Australia, and the United States. Photographs of foreign readers were printed regularly. In the United States, Nazi organisations mailed copies to those interested. Even those unable to read German could absorb much of Streicher's message by looking at the cartoons and photographs. Branch offices of the Stuermer were opened in Vienna, Prague, and Strasbourg once Nazi armies had marched in, and a Danish edition was attempted in 1941." (p. 172)
In addition to his editorship and his duties as Gauleiter of Franconia STREICHER also published illustrated anti-Semitic children books, a short lived anti-Semitic medical journal and even academic books.

The focus of the book under review is an analysis of the publication history and the content of the weekly, and not so much a biography of STREICHER, who by all accounts was a rather unpleasant man. Born on 12 February 1885 in a small village near Augsburg in Bavaria, Julius STREICHER was a school teacher by trade and a highly decorated veteran of world war 1. While he was politically active before the war in mainstream avenues, he embraced anti-Semitism by 1919. According to BYTWERK (p. 8) it is not exactly known why. (I wonder whether the numerous communist uprisings (Berlin, Munich, Hungary, among others) usually lead by Jews, would have had anything to do with it?)
Anyway, thus began his infamous political career, which led him to be editor of his newspaper and Gauleiter (local nazi party leader) of Franconia. He beat up political opponents with a whip, was sexually insatiable and embezzled funds that should have gone to Reich accounts.
Being an early party member, already involved in the 1923 Munich beer hall coup, and because of his loyalty and propagandistic efforts, HITLER long protected him, but could not help him in the long run.
The account of the intrigues that led to STREICHER's downfall as Gauleiter of Franconia following a party trial in February 1940 (he remained editior of his weekly) makes particular interesting reading. (STREICHER even ordered one of his accomplices to commit suicide! The man complied.)
BYTWERK has obviously put much effort in his book, analysing every aspect of the Stuermer newspaper, from the crude caricatures by cartoonist "Fips" (Philippe RUPPRECHT, who ironically originally worked for a Social Democrat newspaper) to various changes in the focus of reporting reflecting political changes and the infamous pillory column, introduced in 1933. Fanatical readers often sent in letters denouncing
Germans who e.g. did their shopping in Jewish shops, dated Jews or made business deals with them, accompanyied with addresses and pictures. (Occassionally whole photo essays were provided).
I have some issues with the book despite the interesting subject (there are very few books about STREICHER available). Firstly, there are some translation issues. For instance the names of two fringe groups STREICHER briefly belonged to following the ban of the Nazi party after the failed coup are not provided in English. (I am native speaker of German, but the book was written for an English speaking audience in the first place.) Secondly, there are some misleading explanations. Of the first radical party STREICHER joined, the German Socialist Party, author BYTWERK writes, "it was despite its name a right-wing group holding many of the traditional values that Streicher supported" (p. 9), while a more accurate description would be a folkish socialist political party. The American church that reprinted the ritual murder special edition in 1976 is indeed "an anti-Semitic organisation", but it is apparently also a Christian Identity group.
Thirdly and more importantly the book tends very much toward political correctness and the usual German bashing, the afterword with author BYTWERK speaking out against GOLDHAGEN's view regarding German eliminatory anti-Semitism notwithstanding.
Without wanting to play devil's advocate it is evident to me that author BYTWERK did not devote much space for arguments in STREICHER's favour at the Nurmberg military tribunal (e.g. that many of his anti-Jewish attacks in his newspaper were in response to foreign threats of annihilation of Germany etc.)
The book is profusely illustrated and also has three sample Stuermer articles (one of them incomplete) and two tales from the children book THE POISONOUS MUSHROOM.
Recommended for anyone interested in analysis of propaganda, but be aware of the shortcomings.

Many people are familiar with the fact that Julius Streicher was one of the Nazis executed as a result of the Nuremberg trials. Most aren't clear on what Streicher's crimes were, however. In this book Randall Bytwerk reveals what it was that Streicher did to deserve having his neck snapped like a twig on the gallows in 1946.

Julius Streicher was one of Hitler's earliest comrades during the Nazi rise to power in the 1920's and 1930's. Streicher helped Hitler gain a foothold in Nuremberg, which helped the Nazi regime consolidate its hold on Germany. Streicher's main role, however, was as a sort of common man's Joseph Goebbels. Streicher was a teacher by trade, and a fairly effective one at that. He had the rare ability to motivate his students by instilling his enthusiasm for any subject into the minds of his pupils. Streicher used this ability later in his duties for the Nazi party. Streicher published the notorious anti-Jewish newspaper Der Sturmer, which pumped out the most strident and hateful propaganda on the "Jewish Problem" for over twenty years. Bytwerk examines how effective Der Sturmer was on the common German, and how the newspaper went about reducing Jews to the status of non-humans. When this status was reached, the result led to the concentration camps and mass murder.

Included in the book are many reproductions from Der Sturmer, most of which are cartoons that present Jews as animals or as evil, deformed creatures bent on the destruction of Germany. Many cartoons attempt to show Jews as a threat to German women or girls, thereby appealing directly to German manhood and nobility. Bytwerk convincingly argues that these cartoons and articles were quite effective in conditioning the German people into a state in which they regarded the Jews as pure evil. As propaganda, Der Sturmer was a masterpiece. Bytwerk points out that while it convinced Germans that Jews were evil, its most important accomplishment was that it created an atmosphere of indifference. Most Germans didn't run out and attack Jews after reading this stuff. What they did do was not stand up when laws began to appear that stripped Jews of their rights. In other words, Der Sturmer convinced most Germans to do nothing to help Jews.

One of the best parts of the book is when Bytwerk examines the history of German anti-Semitic thought. The Nazis were building their particular programs on a foundation that had been created by other authors in the past. This foundation allowed Streicher's propaganda to work much faster and accomplish more in a shorter time. The dislike and distrust were already in place. All Streicher did was to bring it up to date and articulate it in a way that was easy for the common German to understand. Since Der Sturmer was so effective, I disagree with Bytwerk when he states that Streicher was not a bright man. Streicher may have not been a brilliant party organizer, but he certainly accomplished what he set out to do. With all that Streicher got accomplished, and the way he did it, I'd say he was a genius at propaganda, and one who rivaled Joseph Goebbels, who Bytwerk seems to think was Streicher's intellectual "better".

This book is a worthy read, although it is out of print and might be somewhat difficult to find on a local level. Try Amazon.com's search service. Wherever you look, try and pick up a copy. It will be well worth the time.

I should start by saying the title of Randall Bytwerk's book, JULIUS STREICHER, is a bit misleading. STREICHER is not strictly speaking a biography; only about fifty of its 200 pages are devoted to the life of the man who from 1923 - 1945 was Hitler's chief anti-Semitic propagandist, agitator and "Jew-baiter." The rest of the work is essentially an examination of his newspaper, DER STUERMER, and the various methods it used to stir up anti-Jewish bias in Germany. One might call the book a study of how Streicher and the STUERMER (Stormer or Attacker) laid the emotional (if not the ideological) foundations for what happened to Europe's Jews during World War II.

Streicher is more or less a forgotten figure now, but he played a fairly crucial role in the struggle of the Nazi Party to attain power in Germany, and long after he himself had fallen from the Party's graces, he continued to enjoy Hitler's personal protection. A coarse, depraved, bullying man with a hair-trigger temper and a pugnacious attitude, Striecher had precisely the sort of characteristics which would endear him to Hitler: he was of common birth, a Bavarian, had won the Iron Cross in WWI, and held militant socialist, nationalist and anti-Jewish opinions, which he was more than ready to defend with his fists. Hitler respected Streicher for his courage and energy, and frequently told his confidants that DER STUERMER was the only news publication in Germany he read from cover to cover. He was not alone. Simon Weisenthal contended: "The SS who murdered our families had DER STUERMER in their field packs." His execution at Nuremberg was largely due to this fact, and it remains a controversial act: was Streicher truly guilty of anything except big-mouthed bigotry, or was he murdered (as many contend Rosenberg was) simply for what he thought and wrote?

A good way to address this question is by asking, What sort of paper was the STORMER? The most common description by Western historians is "a vile anti-Semitic rag", one which combined salacious gossip, detailed conspiracy theory, and quasi-pornography in an attempt to produce an emotional, rather than intellectual, reaction in the reader. If Alfred Rosenberg was the intellectual pillar of anti-Semitism in the Third Reich, Streicher was its vulgar streetcorner shill. THE STORMER is a nasty, villainous piece of work, and it is Bytwerk's thesis (just as it was the Allies contention at Nuremberg in 1946) that the STORMER was responsible for creating an atmosphere of hatred which made things like Krystalnacht and the Einsatzgruppen possible. Bytwerk uses many examples to show that while many Germans found the STORMER to be disgusting nonsense or at least in incredibly bad taste, its cumulative effect was to benumb the German populace to their fate. If it did not necessarily produce hatred, it certainly produced indifference ("Machts nicht," as the Germans say).

As a book, STREICHER is a bit of a mixed bag. The biography of Streicher himself is entertaining but fairly superficial - it left me hungry for more. The examination of the STURMER's message and methodology is very interesting, and Bytwerk has some penetrating insights as to the nature of propaganda. The main flaw in the work is his examination of anti-Semitism - not because it is factually inaccurate but because it is too partisan. When tackling radical ideology, a historian has three courses open to him: sympathy, neutrality or antipathy. Sympathy is always to be avoided, but many historians seem to think that objectivity amounts to the same thing. Afraid of appearing pro-Nazi, they spend too much time attacking its ethos and not enough time trying to explain the more legitimate sources of its appeal. No less a man than George Orwell has said that in order to fight fascism, it is necessary to understand that it contains some good as well as much evil; and any honest study of German anti-Semitism must start by recognizing that (whatever its origin) German Jews did have a disproportionate representation in import-export business, the diamond trade, banking, the legal profession, the medical profession, publishing, music, entertainment, and teaching (particularly at the university level), among other vocations. This applies to involvement in communist politics as well. This was bound to cause resentment and breed conspiracy theories, and it would hardly be "anti-Semitic" to admit this before entertaining a discussion of why the STORMER found such fertile soil. But when Bytwerk mentions these sort of things, he usually is quoting them as statistics taken from the STORMER, which leaves the reader with the assumption that they must be false. He is willing to expose the innumerable instances where Streicher lied, exaggerated, took statements out of context, or used logical fallacies to support his arguments, but he seems unwilling to grant that the conditions which led to such a surplus of anti-Jewish feeling in Germany were sometimes rooted in everyday reality, and not merely a product of Streicher's strident and incessant Jew-baiting. Obviously, it's ticklish to discuss these things, lest the historian be accused of validating the Nazi ethos that "the Jew was our misfortune", but I think anyone intelligent enough to read a history book of this nature can tell the difference between an explanation of bigotry and an apologia for it.

Having said that, I maintain that STREICHER is a solid and important work by a diligent historian who perhaps attempted a bit too much for just 200 pages (this could be two books; a bio on Streicher and an analysis of his paper) but does not come off any worse for the attempt. I would recommend it to any collection of history on the Third Reich.

Hmm... interesting. Diane Keaton's dark side is something I hope we get to see more of. With this fascinating book, HEAVEN, UNSTRUNG HEROES, even her TWIN PEAKS episode... she's clearly, not only a gifted actress, but an intelligent director with a strong creative voice. I only hope she gets a project worthy of her talents, instead of more pop fodder. :-) But for now, I'll relish this powerful, insightful collection.

This should have been an interesting idea for a book, a bit of nostalgic tabloid froth. Instead I was disappointed to find it is just a collection of less than mediocre images from the photo morgue of the LA Herald Express. I don't think the publishers realised the essence of down market newspapers are the headlines and photos, the story would be written to fill the remaining space. To separate the headline from the photo really doesn't work, so each page photo in the book should have shown a small tear-out from the paper with the punchy headline and the photo. To have one without the other produces a very dull book, which is probably why I was able to buy a copy at a really low remainder price.

There are very few photos in the book that warrant a second look taken as they were for each day's paper and not history. Many of them have small amounts of retouching which is a bit odd as the image quality was of no interest to the readers, some have retouching that is just plain amateurish, a woman's tears on page fifty-six and a building aflame on pages 130-131. A few show the picture cropping marks and the paint used for cut-outs.

All the photos show the ordinary folk of Los Angeles in moments of anguish, no celebrities, politicians or momentous events, the Herald left all that stuff to the more professionally produced dailies. Comparing these photos with the ones from the New York tabloid Daily News ('New York Exposed' ISBN 0810943050 or 'New York Noir' ISBN 0847821722) shows just how parochial, ordinary and dull the Herald's output was but the title of the book is, after all, local news!

Having read NY Noir I waited for this one with bated breath. I could have unbated by breath, I was mightily disappointed. The photos were average at best, some were even white-outs. I can't imagine why those would even be included. The captions/ descriptions were placed on the page before each set of pictures and I found it very bothersome to have to flip back and forth.If only the subject matter had been a bit more compelling...oh I don't know why, but the book just did not move me. It took me about 15 minutes to read the entire book. If you are really interested in true crime/photography, any book by Weege or New York Noir are two I highly recommend. Save your money on this one and look at it in the library.

Diane Keaton. Local News: Tabloid Pictures From the "Los Angeles Herald Express" 1936-1961. D.A.P.: dist. by Art Publishers Inc. 1999. 144p. photogs. ISBN 1-891024-13-2. PHOTOG

The "L.A. Herald Express" was a tabloid rag started by Citizen Hearst in 1931, which miraculously managed to line the bottoms of bird cages for 30 years until merging with the L.A. Examiner. The paper thrived on grab-you-by-the-throat headlines, sensationalistic stories, and photos of everything from tear-jerker shots of lost dogs, to gruesome crime scenes of headless and handless corpses, to fires, crossdressers, and school kids practicing air-raid drills in hopes that hiding under their desks would protect them from being turned into raisins in the event of a nuclear exchange with the Commies. These 92 duotones selected by editor Keaton (yes, it's THAT Diane Keaton) hearken back to the days of whiskey-breathed news hacks and cigar-champing shutterbugs leering out from behind weathered Speed Graphics with no. 2 press bulbs and lightsaber flashes. Mostly kitschy now, they nonetheless have value in showing how editors enhanced the emotional kick of a still photo by retouching the prints with drawn-in tears, etc. Press photography is gaining acceptance as an art form, so this volume should be of interest. Good fun at a good price. Recommended.

I realize that anyone who writes a book about editing is practically drawing a bull's-eye on his or her back. (Yes, I know some people disapprove of "his or her" as a way to avoid pronoun disagreement; deal with it.) That said, I don't think it's unreasonable to expect that "a cold-eyed genius of a managing editor" would have his name spelled Carr Van Anda instead of "Carl." Not as bad as misspelling, say, "Webster." Or "AP." But honestly.

Sorry, but I just did not find this helpful either for its headline advice or its copy-editing insight. Nothing new."When Words Collide" is much more useful.

This book is better than most of the books out there, but that isn't saying a whole lot. Virtues: 1) The book isn't too dogmatic. It recognizes that different copy desks have different policies. The most important style rule of all is that, "If your boss has a rule that's different from the AP rule, your boss is right." 2) Ellis talks a fair amount about the politics of editing. 3) Many of the revised examples are better than the originals. My experience with other copy editing books is that the edited versions tend to be as bad as the originals. Gripe: The book just isn't detailed enough to answer the questions you actually have when it's you against encroaching barbarism. The book is better than books like the Strunk and White book that focus solely on what literate people already know, but it doesn't, for example, discuss the word "like" the way I just used like. Yes, Winston cigarettes should taste good, *as* good cigarettes should, but is it really OK in semi-formal English to write "books like the Strunk and White book," or do I have to write "such as" in place of like? Another example is the hyphens in compound modifiers. Why does the Wall Street Journal hyphenate "real estate" and AP not hyphenate it, even though AP is the one promoting the use of hyphens in compound modifiers? What do you do about those horrible companies that capitalize their entire names, or insist on starting their names with strange symbols? I guess the lack of detail isn't really Ellis's fault. She's only one person and can only do so much. The problem is that doing a guide that answers all the questions needs to be a team effort. In theory, of course, the AP style book is supposed to be the bible, but the version available to the public is miserably incomplete. In a perfect world, the AP style committee would get together with all the other major style organizations, hire some top editors, linguists, etc., and come up with a really good style and usage encyclopedia. But, of course, they're all up against that encroaching barbarism problem, so I guess this is never going to happen.

First: I bow to the professional opinions of earlier reviewers, copy-editors all, I suspect. They found fault (of course; it's what their profession does) with Dr. Ellis' book. I didn't. As a magazine journalist who has frequently struggled to tell a story well, I found her book useful, intelligent, and surprisingly entertaining. Her advice on how to pick a "hot quote" or how to end a hard news story are worth the price of admission.

I was really quite surprised at this bio of Katharine Graham, owner of The Washington Post (and Madison Council member of the Library of Congress).

I did not realize just how filthy rich this woman was. I found the story of her family (as well as the Jewish heritage) quite fascinating. I did not know, for instance, that her father was responsible for the way stocks are now weighted. That he was able to come up with a scientific (or qualifiable) means to rate stocks was truly revolutionary.

It was due to this wealth that Katharine was introduced to the high and mighty at an early age. Being born self-confident and rich always gives people an edge. I was impressed with her education in that, unlike many rich people, she actually tried to make a difference while at school.

What is most disturbing is the background on how intelligence agencies completely took over the print media. That individuals like Phil Graham and Ben Bradlee were intelligence agents and believed the press should advance government positions shows just how depraved these individuals really were. Not one of them bothered to read or understand the Constitution and the need for a free press.

After Graham died (a tad convenient, don't you think?), Katharine became one of the worst suck-ups to the government. As on page 249, Ward Just was reporting on how badly the Vietnam War was going. Can't have that, you know. Bradlee and Katharine replaced his defeatist reporting with uber-hawk, hack scribbler, and future Library of Congress Director of Communications (brought in by CIA Billington) Peter Braestrup. His take on the Tet Offensive, The Big Story, is always good for a laugh.

There is, because of this, much speculation regarding who did Nixon in. Was it a CIA plot? Katharine's relations with the CIA went beyond Phil Graham and Bradlee. Even Bob Woodward was a former intelligence officer. After reading this book you do wonder why these CIA types can't be satisfied with writing their reports from Langley.

This book can be a bit weak on sources, but it certainly does give a good overview of just what this woman was really all about.

This book relies on innuendo and loose causality to "prove" itself. Most of the sordid material relates to Ben Bradlee and Phil Graham, not to Katharine herself. One of the worst conspiracy theories ever constructed. Not edifying in any way. Read Katharine Graham's autobiography "Personal History," instead of this [garbage].

I have read this book and find it to be both entertaiining and informative.It works on the both the level of biography and media criitique. What Davis has done is to record the history of the Graham family fortune along with the liberal ideological adornments that almost makes the familiy and Katharine Graham somewhat sympathic personages. Almost is good choice with respect to this bunch. Because, as the author does so well in outlining the byzsantine grap for political influence of the Post and its owner, we become aware that the Graham liberalism follows the same path as described by J.S. Mill and smowhat more. Classic liberalism seeks power just as the conservative money class does but with a singular difference that ,it is the message not the methods that makes the difference between the two. The classic liberal, and Graham was cetainly cut from that cloth, wants to promote the cut of fairness, individual rights and the rule of law. In other words the liberal wants everyone to feel equal and that the game of capitalism is a fair game. Thus we have the Washington Post , guardian of fairness, publishing the Pentagon Papers, exposing America's shameful war. Or so goes the myth. But Davis puts the lie to this myth and exposes the CIA links and other covert operative connections in the Post. She exposes the CIA connection with Ben Bradlee, editor of the Post. As we now know, the media in America is far from free( and this applies so much so to the money class who own the media) but as Davis shows the media is infiltrated by government operatives ( especially at the national level) . So as anyone who reads this book will see the media and press must be taken with a grain of doubt.

The most cited author on Middle East media has issued another classic, Arab Mass Media, an update of his 1985 Arab Press, the favorite for half a generation of Middle East media scholars.

Latter-day Rugh critics of now less-timely Arab Press will be pleased that the former UAE and Yemen ambassador has re-tooled the previous work to reflect the modern dynamic realities of mass media in the Middle East, especially transnational television, which was not around when the author wrote his first, authoritative study of Arab media.

While broadcasters might wince at all the attention Rugh gives the elitist print media in his latest effort, he does so with a reason: to provide a context if not a contrast to the 21st Century's boom in transnational broadcasting in the Middle East.

Rugh is well known for his seminal taxonomies of Arab media, which many scholars feel add components to a needed unified theory of Arab mass media-some still yearn for a better model of the Arab Press that encompasses all of Rugh's macro-media definitions yet adds a concise and cogent sociological element that would set Arab media apart from media in the rest of the world.

The author's well-known media functions and structures have been modified since his earlier work. He groups each of the 22 Arab countries of the Middle East into his list of functions. Some of his definitions are comfortably familiar, such as his discussion of mobilization, loyalist and diverse press types. But he has added another category, the transitional press, into which Egypt, Jordan, Tunisia and Algeria are grouped. Scholars fond of citing this aspect of Rugh's work need to study this 2004 effort-which is a completely different publication and not a new edition, in a technical sense¾to bring themselves up to date.
Perhaps the most interesting additions is a look at the off-shore pan-Arab print media phenomenon (the so-called "Cyprus Press"), and his review of pan-Arab television since the 1990's, which he maintains is both reflective and expansive; and which acts competitively internationally, while adhering to domestic uniformity.

As with his previous publication, Arab Mass Media is a must-have for any academic, personal and professional library but especially for media scholars and anyone who cares or writes about Middle East Media.
--TBS Journal

I read the first four chapters of this book and threw it away. It's a waste of time and money. William Rugh knows zilch about the mass media and his readings on media theory seem to not have gone beyond a couple of books, the most recent of them published in 1974. Don't be fooled by his former job as U.S. ambassador to Yemen and U.A.E. It just gives a fake illusion of credibility and allows him to speak with authority about the "Arab media," as if he has spent his life systematically studying the media in Arabic World, which incidentally includes 300+ million people of diverse political, cultural, social, religious, educational and economic backgrounds. But it seems Rugh didn't learn that fact from his long years in two of the smallest countries in the Arabic world. So, he doesn't hesitate to speak of Arab culture, Arab mind, Arab values and a whole panoply of baseless and uncorroborated generalizations about the "Arab media." To be fair, he does point out to the "variations between Arab countries," but that doesn't stop him from making sweeping statements like "while the American journalist seems to have a passion for factual details and statistics, the Arab journalist by contrast seems to give more attention to the correct words, phrasing, and grammar..." What a useless, silly, bordering on racist statement. Not just that; the book is not based on any systematic research. After claiming that the book will focus on Arab news and commentary, he tells us that since there are no content analysis studies of "Arab media," his generalizations will be "based primarily on the conclusions of qualified observers." To make it worse, those observers don't seem to exceed a handful of journalists with no formal training in media research! In addition, the book is rampant with grammatical, dictation and factual errors. Even the tables and statistics (obtained from credible resources like the UNESCO) are full of mistakes and copied incorrectly. Citations and notes are also inadequate and unprofessional. Instead of making blatant, stereotypical and useless generalizations and relying on simplistic conceptions of the media and the Arabic-speaking countries, Rugh should've focused on the countries he really knows and had lived in and on topics within his field of expertise.