Atlantic Monthly Books

This is a fascinating book and Sullivan recounts, in vivid detail, the rise and fall of the Billionaire Boys Club. Everything from the description of social dynamics at the Harvard School (which hold true today) to the financial dealings of the BBC to the astonishing and shocking trials makes it a pleasure to read. It is truly a remarkable story, and it is narrated superbly by Sullivan. A must-read for anyone who wants to understand the 1980s or Los Angeles, or has a passing interest in one of the most enthralling trials in modern California history.

My only regret is that there's not an updated version to tell us what became of Joe Hunt, Dean Karny, Jim Pittman, Ben Dosti and the other characters in the BBC.

Before reading The Price of Experience, I had seen television documentaries/docu-dramas and read a primer on the topic. But if you don't know anything at all about the BBC and Joe Hunt, or you want to know a lot more, this book is all you'll ever need to read...ever!!! Sullivan goes into such great detail on every individual involved, including murdered scammers Ron Levin and Headiah Eslamenia, that the reader feels like he now knows each of them personally and could talk about them at great length with anyone. Buy this book because if you don't, you'll merely waste gas driving to the library to borrow it again and again. A modern true crime masterpiece! Both an engrossing narritive and an exhaustive reference book on the Billionaire Boys Club case all at the same time. An off the charts winner. You won't be sorry.

An absolute masterpiece. Unbelievably researched and beautifully written. It's a shame this book never caught the public eye, obviously because the BBC was such a dated subject at the time of publication. There is not a single tome in my entire collection that has brought me as much pleasure and insight. Far more than a mere true crime book, this epic is a stunning cultural history of Los Angeles. In fact, stating that "The Price of Experience" is merely a true crime book is like saying THE GODFATHER is merely a gangster film. Almost everyone I know that has read it agrees it is the finest non-fiction book ever written.

How this book has failed to be recognized as a masterpiece is beyond me. The Price of Experience is an astounding accomplishment. The only other true crime books that can even bear comparison to it are In Cold Blood and the first half of The Executioner's Song. In fact, it denigrates The Price of Experience to classify it as simply a true crime book. Sullivan's rendition of Los Angeles in the 1980s provides the most vivid and memorable images of both the time and the place that I have ever found on the printed page. And his portrait of Joe Hunt is the the most compelling and insightful depiction of evil as a series of decisions--a process--that I can recall in contemporary literature. The characters ALL are exquisitely drawn and Ron Levin ranks among the most amusing miscreants ever captured in print. The Price of Experience deserves to remain in print for years to come and to appear on college syllabuses across the country.

This is one of the great overlooked books of the 90's. It was overlooked, I believe, because of its length and the timing of its release: over a decade after its subjects, Joe Hunt and the Billionaire Boys Club, were in the media spotlight. What a shame because it a flat out masterpiece. As far as true crime books go this is a landmark and the top of the heap. Not only is it incredibly researched and hard to put down, but it is an amazing cultural history of Los Angeles and its reflection of America during the Reagan era. Out of the hundreds of books I have read concerning Los Angeles and American society and culture in general, none depicts so well out obsession with power, money, and image as Sullivan's book does. A hundred years from now I hope it will be read in American Studies, History, and English classes in universities along with such thematically similar books as The Great Gatsby, Sister Carrie, Davis' City of Quartz, Ellroy's LA Quartet and such films as The Godfather, Goodfellas, Chinatown, Mean Streets, LA Confidential, and American Beauty. Let's hope it stays in print. Read this classic.

in this turn pager muki betser reveals the secretive world of isrel's elite special operation units. told with great credability and a cocky attitude muki guides the reader through israel's wars , terrorist attacks and fight for survival. revealing not only succeses but also failures and tragedy.

As good as Marciko's Rough Warrior. True account no holds barred combat stories. Get it!

Muki Betser tells an intense account of his experiences as one of Israel's greatest commandos. Awesome book highly recommended. I read it in one day - couldn't put it down. Covers his experience in Shaked, Tsanchanim, and Sayeret Matkal - bascially starting from 1967. Despite the fact that his political views are outdated, (i wonder if he still thinks the same) this is a man who gave his entire life for the state of Israel.

I read this one a while ago, but recent events brought it back into the forefront of the mind. I remember that this was a really good book and gave me a perspective of the Israeli military that I never saw before. I knew they were very good, but I had no idea.
I just hope that we don't have to resort to the level of security that they have in Israel or Northern Ireland. Also, this book makes me want to read other books about the Israeli military.

I have never read a book that was more addicting than the SECRET SOLDIER. I have read it 4 times and I am still amazed at what the IDF can do. The missions that are described within this book will blow your mind from Entebbe to Prime Minister Ehud Barak running through the streets if Beirut in a dress and firing an Uzi. THIS BOOK IS FAR AND WAY THE BEST BOOK I HAVE EVER READ!

I was given this book for my birthday by a girl I had a crush on in the fourth or fifth grade. I hadn't read the first one, but I enjoyed this one just the same. It's interesting to think about it now and knowing that this was written in the 50s when space flight and sci-fi were only just beginning. The theme of marooned aliens and space-ship building teenagers and stowaway professor types has been copied many times since, and still this ranks with the best "family" sci-fis while also predating them. The nastalgic writing style is condusive to building rapport with child-like thought processes, and it helps that many people read this in their youth and are called back to it in adulthood. Read it to your child today and hopefully when they are adults, they'll be able to reach that state again while reading it with their children! I'll be ordering the first one soon to read to my kid!

J. Lyon Layden
The Other Side of Yore

My son and I don't get the chance to read together as often as we did when he was younger. He is now 9 and likes to read on his own, and I have younger ones to tend to also. But when we do read together, it is really special and this one was a favorite. It is the second in the series (first is Journey to the Mushroom Planet, I think). We loved them both. Very creative and some suspense. Long descriptions and some more complex words make it ideal for a parent to read aloud, unless the child is older and a truly avid reader. We will try the third book, though we've heard the first two are the best. Definitely read the first two.

The book Stowaway to the Mushroom Planet is a great book. Some characters are Chuck and David the original space travelers from the first mushroom planet book. Chuck and David live fairly close to each other. They live pretty close to Cap'n Tom's beach. About the problem in the story, when David, Chuck, and Mr. Theo Bass blast off from Earth they hear something like a soft voice. Lucky for them (not really) a curious professor Horatio Q. Peabody stows away in their space ship but they can't really turn around so they take him along. A while after they've been on the misty green planet of Basidium (the mushroom planet), Horatio enters a sacred place on Basidium without permission. Thanks to that the ancient ones nearly take out Chuck, David, Mr. Theo and a few other people. In the end after they've left Basidium and have gotten back home, Horatio can't remember pretty much anything due to a drink he took on Basidium. Mainly, Horatio's upset and he steals Chuck and David's space ship, but something weird happens while he is in space. I'm not going to give away what happened but, Horatio crash lands about a month later in the ocean not knowing anything about Basidium. Then Chuck and David go help Horatio out of the ocean and walk him up the beach.

Two very smart boys who like to study the solar system,Chuck and David,invite a man who likes everything for himself over to give a lecture to their space society.The man's name was Horatio.At the lecture Horatio over-hears David,Chuck,and Theo,a Mushroom man from the Mushroom Planet, talking about the space ship and when they are taking off.Horatio asks to stay the night so he can see what they were planning to do.He sneaks aboard the ship without anyone noticing him.Theo,David and Chuck find Horatio in the back of the space ship when they were half way to The Mushroom Planet,Basidium. When they reach,they begin to speak in Basidiumite language. They didnt remember how to speak english.Horatio takes notes about Basidium so he can prove his dicovery on earth. Horatio steals jewels from the Basidiumites to bring back proof.He did this so he can be famous on earth.Because the Basidiumites didn't want there land to be exposed the king,Ta gave Horatio The Drink Of Forgetfulness.Horatio goes back to earth and doesnt remember basidiumite language so his notes were useless.

This book follows the wonderful story set down by Cameron in her first book of the series. As a science teacher, I am still captivated by the wonderful work and research that went into the book in light of the volume of space knowledge known at that time. A wonderful flight to worlds unseen where you can relax with well developed characters and charming guests as well. A book that will grab you by your imagination and never let go! Well worth the read, well worth a reasonable price to own the series. A book I look forward to reading again.
I would love to see the entire series reprinted in paperback in order to have extra copies of it.

Bob Cowser takes a real life hard nosed look at what it means to sacrifice. I relived my youth with his visions and ideals on the gridiron and I felt his conflict with having a family and going through the monotony of work and life getting in the way. People tend to get caught up in a whirlwind and forget who they are. This book looks at that inner turmoil of change and wonder. "The Professor" finds a way to blend the worlds of blue collar society and academia which is hard just to think about. This is done with quotes before chapters and personal synopsis of living with commitments and desire.
Overall, a great read that is hard to put down.

~Angelo Markantonakis

I picked up this book with much intrigue, as I myself am a football junkie. This well-written, first-person account of joining a semi-pro football team is not only inspiring, but entertaining as well. Cowser (the "Professoer", as his teammates refer to him) describes his lifelong dream of playing football after his high school and college years, and how the idea to play in the nation's most storied semi-pro team was met with much resistance. As a husband, father, professor, and now semi-pro football player, Cowser learns to balance all the duties accompanied by each role, and at times, barely by the skin of his teeth. A great book not only for people who are interested in football, but for those who long to re-live a childhood dream. Well worth a read!

The one thing that Jonathan A. Gottschall, who reviewed Dream Season, and I agree on is that Cowser did point out the many different aspects of sociology of those that play the game of football. Even though Cowser was a professor, it did not stop him from wanting to fulfill his dream. Cowser brings to life the brutality and violence of the game. In the chapter "Building the Beast," Bob Cowser even went as far as to describe his own fears on the field and what others thought of him. The one idea that helps me understand a guy and his sport is truly pointed out in Bob Cowser's book. Men will do about anything to complete a dream or continue a dream. The men that Cowser talks about can be viewed as those that he looked up to and hoped to gain their respect in the game.
His relationship with his wife is not talked about much. He talks briefly how she did have a way to fit into the community because she runs a well establish business. Whenever he talked about his wife, he shows a respect for her and her opinion. In the chapter "In Another Country," where he writes, "I knew many guys on the team had this issue with wives and girlfriends. Many had worked out elaborate systems whereby they'd earn this game-day time off. `me time' I had over heard Jamee Call term it...... Sadly Candace and I hadn't come to any such arrangement - she actually preferred I not take on any home improvement projects. `Better to cut a check than cut off a finger'." Cowser writes about how much he spent in getting his gear for the practice and that his wife only made a statement of how the extras that he got were excessive and unnecessary. I believe at this point that his wife may have regretted agreeing for him to pursue his dream. She may have hoped that he would have ended in a few weeks or a few months. She viewed him as the clean cut man she married and one who didn't like to get dirty.
I can't see how Jonathan A. Gottschall states, "Cowser writes fearlessly, displaying his envy-his sheer pathetic envy-of football paying men. But we don't blame Cowser for his envy because we feel it too." Cowser is a man who pursued a higher education than those who did not have the chance or opportunity. I would say that a few of the men on the team would have showed envy towards him. I felt this was shown by the pet name they game him, "profess" or "professor." The one thing that was not mentioned and I believed should have been talked about is the obsession that Cowser had for the game. We see this in his spending and getting everything he needs and more. He talks about the past and his relationship with the game.
The story that emanates from this book can be enjoyed by those who are truly into the sport of football. The obsession Bob Cowser has for the game can be depicted in my own life. Obsession can be overrated. But if one does not have an obsession, how can one obtain a dream?

For anyone who played the game and had it end way too early, or for anyone who ever had a crazy idea but was hesitant to act upon it, this is your book.

Great writing, great stories, and great action. Cowser has a gift for storytelling and this book goes beyond the game played by men trying to re-capture their glories. It's about people doing what makes them happy and doing it to their best potential. Isn't that what life is all about anyway?

There is a lot to recommend in this book, which chronicles the stint of a creative writing professor (with soft "poet hands"), playing the manliest of positions (defensive and offensive line), in the manliest of games, for the nation's oldest semi-professional football team. Cowser writes with welcome simplicity and gripping forward momentum. I sat down with the book at 5:30 PM and hardly lifted my nose until, at 9:30 PM, I had read it straight through. It is not only the kind of book you CAN read in four hours, it is the kind that you WILL read in four hours-it keeps you turning pages.

The book is one part sociology of football in a small, economically downtrodden northern town. It is a sociology of working class men-prison guards, fry cooks, soldiers, and used car salesman-who take on the real physical risks of smashing into other big, fast men. They do this for a host of different reasons-for fun, for the test, for local fame (I found myself almost idolizing the local folk hero running back Al Countryman--what a name!)-but none of them do it for the money, because there is none.

The book is also one part self-exploration. Few men who have ever been seriously invested in playing sports will fail to hear echoes of their own fears, regrets and deeply secret wishes about what might have been. Cowser writes fearlessly, displaying his envy-his sheer pathetic envy-of football playing men. But we don't blame Cowser for his envy because we feel it too. And there's a difference between Cowser and us-he had the courage (and the bench pressing ability) to do something about it.

Finally, for all of Cowser's riveting descriptions of the controlled savagery of football violence, Dream Season is above everything else a love poem-a poem to small town life, to the men he played with, to the wife who put up with him, and most of all to the game of football itself.

I had to read this book for a US History class and I was very impressed by the book. At no time was I bored with the book. It's actually very captivating and informative. If you really want a short book that is full of information and does not get boring read this book.

This is a good little book about Auschwitz. It is extremely thin and easy to read (128 pages). If you just want to know a little bit about Auschwitz and are not inclined to read one of the heavy books on the subject then this may be a good alternative. I found it easy to read and did not lack any of the intensity found in the bigger volumes on the subject. It is very detailed. It is also a great book to introduce yourself on the operations of the death camps. This book may spark your interest and you may want to read further on the subject. I finished it in only a few hours. Nice and easy reading.

Most of the previous accounts of Auschwitz that I've read have been personal accounts, most recently Rudolph Vrba's Escape from Auschwitz. While these personal accounts are quite powerful and serve to put a human face on a tragedy of almost inconceivable scope, they are only slivers of the big picture. This book provides a broad overview of the history of Auschwitz, compiled from eyewitness accounts, transcripts of war crimes trials, and the memoirs of Rudolf Hoess and other Nazi's involved in the camp. While it lacks the emotional impact of a more personal account, this book helps shed some light on the scope of the horrors of Auschwitz and Birkeneau and the holocaust in general. By itself, it is an important overview, but if read together with the stories of individual survivors, it provides context for understanding the personal accounts.

This is an excellent historical primer on the initiation, conduct, discovery, and destruction of the Auschwitz extermination camp (albeit with a couple of factual and critical thinking errors that need not be delved into here) as well as the disputes after World War II regarding the preservation, administration, and ideation of the camp.

The author discusses in an even-handed, almost dispassionate, manner not only the tragic events that occurred at the camp itself but (1) the association of certain German companies, namely, chemical giant I.G. Farben, with slave labor by camp inmates, (2) the failure of the West to do anything even though it was suspected as early as 1942, and duly reported in London newspapers, that 1 million people had already died in the camp (although this apparently turned out to be an exaggeration), and (3) the failure of the Allies, primarily the U.S., to bomb the railways from Hungary to Auschwitz in the closing months of the war when about 300,000 Hungarian Jews were transported (under the stewardship of Adolf Eichmann) to Auschwitz for immediate termination. (The reason the Allies repeatedly gave for not intervening was that the concentration camps were of no military importance and military assets could not be diverted from the war effort. Although, if memory serves me correctly, the complete and utter lack of a military objective did not stop Patton from diverting his troops to rescue his son-in-law from a German prisoner of war camp.)

As for whether the German people (that is, the public in general) knew about what was going on, the author gives no definitive answer. Certainly anyone involved with the use of slave labor cannot claim ignorance of their mistreatment. Nor, obviously, could anyone who worked in these camps feign lack of knowledge. On the other hand, the author correctly points out that the Final Solution itself, i.e., the ongoing decimation and eventual extermination of the Jewish population in Europe, especially as it was put into place at Auschwitz, was in effect a State secret and disclosure of it was punishable by death.

For anyone who wants to learn about and try to understand Auschwitz and what happened there, this book may be the best place to start. As for any final answers on the Final Solution, that may not be possible. As concentration camp survivor Elie Wiesel aptly put it, the more he read, studied, and learned about the Final Solution, the less and less he understood it.

"The Kingdom of Auschwitz" is an extract from Otto Friedrich's larger, sadly out-of-print "The End of the World: A History." In that book Friedrich examined several earth-shaking events in world history including the Black Death in Europe, the 1905 Russian revolution, and the fall of Rome. The book's climax is this long essay on Auschwitz (with an epilogue speculating on the effects of possible nuclear war circa 1982.)

Friedrich was a very talented journalist with a rich appreciation of history and a hypnotically readable prose style. Here he synthesizes the best available literature about the death camp to produce what is probably the best short history of that black hole at the heart of Western civilization. This is a good place to start if you are just beginning to read about the Holocaust. Expert readers will have their sense of the horror of the place renewed. Friedrich writes that Auschwitz does not disprove God: "Two men arguing about the existence of God is like two worker ants debating the existence of Mozart." A small masterpiece.

I was introduced to Weigl's Song of Napalm in college. I've always been what you might call "poetry challenged", but Weigl's work hit me like a fist in the mouth. I'm a Vietnam vet and it was the first poetry I'd read that seemed like it was being written for me, and only me. I understood every line, every turn of phrase and nuance. I remember reading the book with tears in my eyes. Weigl was gracious enough to allow me permission to use Elegy at the end of my novel, Flowers of the Dinh Ba Forest and I was honored to use it. But my favorite poem in the collection is the title poem. I just finished reading it, and once again it brought tears to my eyes. It always will. Give this book to someone you love.

Here is a poet with something truly meaningful to say, and he keeps saying it despite some people's objections that it's time to put "the past" behind. Weigl knows better. This collection of poetry has not lost its urgency and immediacy throughout the years. "The past" is very much alive in Iraq today. Weigl's distinctive voice takes us through the Vietnam War ordeal (and the daily reality after the return to the U.S.) from an American soldier's point of view. It is written with terrifying precision. As a poet, Weigl never leads the reader or tries to impress with overly dramatic images. He does not have to - the combination of his first-hand experience in Vietnam and the superb quality of his verse creates a vivid, lasting impact. It is impossible to remain untouched and indifferent after reading " still I close my eyes and see the girl / running from her village, napalm / stuck to her dress like jelly, / her hands reaching for the no one / who waits in waves of heat before her" (Song of Napalm, p. 33). The theme of innocent children affected by the war repeats in other poems, incl. "The Last Lie" (p. 18) where a Vietnamese girl reacts with disarming happiness and gratitude after being hit in the head with a can of C rations by an American soldier: "I could still see her when she rose, / waving one hand across her swollen, bleeding head, / wildly swinging her other hand / at the children who mobbed her, / who tried to take her food.... She laughed / as if she thought it were a joke / and the guy with me laughed / and fingered the edge of another can / like it was the seam of a baseball / until his rage ripped / again into the faces of children / who called to us for food." Weigl's speaker often describes dramatic events in an understated language - the result is gripping, meaningful poetry. We come face to face with a soldier dealing with a constant death threat in a foreign country, yet defying the possibility with everything he has ("Here is how you walk at night: slowly lift / one leg, clear the sides with your arms, clear the back, / front, put the leg down, like swimming" / "Mines," p. 43). Weigl's poems also address another important topic - the (often poor) treatment of war veterans in the society for whom they risked their lives, e.g. "I pumped gasoline from five to midnight / for minimum wage / because I had a family and the war / made me stupid, and only dead enough / to clean windshields. / When you clean the windshields of others / you see your own face / reflected in the glass" ("Mercy," p. 45). The collection includes mostly narrative and prose poems, each of them more than worth close, repeated reading. Weigl is definitely a poet whose work should be widely read and never forgotten.

Bruce Weigl is my second-favorite Vietnam poet next to Will Ehrhart. I hate to put it that way, but I hope Weigl is not offended and takes it as a compliment.

Song of Napalm has some previous poetry, but that is okay.

"Mercy" speaks to me as a Vietnam veteran. When I got back from Vietnam I was actually refused a part-time job stripping shingles from a roof. The only job I got--and I had to argue for that one--at the time was pumping gas. At least I went to college and got a master's, but I do feel sorry for those who never had a chance. That is why I also ask for mercy, but never saw it coming my way.

"Song for the Lost Private" is another highly personal poem (what else is poetry). Those who never lost a friend over there can never understand our level of frustration. Weigl certainly gives you a good idea, though with "you didn't show/so I drank myself into a filthy room with a bar girl/who had terrible scars."

"On the Anniversary of her Grace" is an outstanding poem regarding the connection (or disconnection) with our time in Vietnam and how it intrudes on life today. "Inside me the war had eaten a hole. I could not touch anyone. The wind blew through me to the green place/where they still fell in their blood." Speaking of attempts to love again, he ends the poem with "but I could not open my arms to her/that first night of forgiveness." And, like just who are we going to forgive, also crosses my mind?

"Elegy," appropriately, is the final poem in this slim book, which needs to be savored in small doses. "Into the black understanding they marched/until the angels came/calling their names/until they rose, one by one from the blood." It ends with "Some of them died. Some of them were not allowed to." I can't think of a more proper way to end a book on Vietnam.

If you were in country, get and read this man's poetry

I read this and sent it straight to my father, a veteran of the insanity in Viet Nam. Weigl takes you there and makes you feel the stench, the stickiness, and the fear. War sucks.

The story is about black and white folks in their respective communities (and sometimes with eachother) in post civil war Arkansas. Initially I had a hard time keeping the various characters apart, and I had to make myself continue reading at times. The big event that connects everything and everyone is a tornado that kills some and whisps away others. The most intriguing character, perhaps, is the red-headed preacher's wife who is found dangling in a tree by her famous over-metaphorized hair. The black speech is at times interesting, although it feels somewhat artificial and too "constructed".

Overall, it has the all-too-common feel of a white woman's rendition of black folk's culture and a very PC and feminine one at that (somewhat similar to the much more popular "The Secret Life of Bees" by Sue Monk Kidd). It amounts to subcutaneous chick lit - pleasant at times, but ultimately forgettable.

Myra McLarey is a storyteller of rare quality. Her debut novel WATER FROM THE WELL paints a mural of time and place, spanning almost a hundred years in southwest Arkansas. Like the red night that opens the first story, the book is filled with images that color symbolizes - passion, violence and blood.

McLarey chose the novel's title from an old spiritual in which Jesus gave a woman living water and not water from the well. But like the woman receiving living water, McLarey's novel will send the reader away singing.

Lyrical and Haunting, McLarey's insight into all walks of life creates a book as rich in flavor as the South itself. McLarey explores the spiritual realities of a wide-spectrum of characters in a deeply touching and respectful way.

In Water from the Well Myra McLarey reveals the soul and spirit of a racially divided community in Arkansas early 1900's. Through the stories of its inhabitants she explores the various ways in which religion, race, legend, community and personal relationships act to both keep the races apart-and at the same time binds them together. She shows how the character, soul and spirit of a place can transcend the various forces at work to shape it. In the end one realizes that the story is in fact not really about anyplace in Arkansas but a place we all "know"--that mystical, ideal, imaginary place called home.

McLarey's style and craftsmanship is very reminiscent of that of Barbara Kingslover. It's a pity her work is not nearly so well known or recognized.

Water from the Well ranks as one of the two or three best books I've read in the last decade. I highly recommend it.

In Water from the Well, six short stories coil together, nestled in the spiral of a century of Southern history. On one level these could be the stories of any small town: the bit characters are universal-gossip mongers who know (or think they know) just about everything about each other. But on another level, these characters are uniquely Arkansan and their struggles pinned in place and time to the three generations who inherited the chaos and eventual resettling of the post-slavery era.

"Red Sky at Night," is the story of a baseball game between the white men of Sugars Springs and the black men of Bethel. This story, set in 1905 serves as an introduction both to the characters and the tensions of the novel. "Red Sky at Dawn" is set a year later, and introduces the element of chaos in the form of a tornado that hits the town without warning. "Ransom Passing" explores the personal history of one ex-slave and then moves forward in time to his grandson's life. "Baby, Leaving," and "The Choosing of Little Jewel" demonstrate gender tensions among families of both races. Finally, "The Salvation of Cora Emery McRae" highlights religion's role in the South.

Although the language is unmistakably Arkansan, Myra McLarey's voice is more fluid than the traditional women writers of the south. Think Alice Hoffman rather than Eudora Welty or Flannery O'Connor. While the depth of the characters and the vividly-painted context make this book a worthwhile read, it is the lyrical prose which makes it unforgettable.

The Women's Decameron takes Boccaccio's idea of storytelling in a time of plague, and shifts it to the Soviet Union. Ten women share their experiences. The quality of their stories is uneven, but the composite picture is fascinating. Some of the tales are rude and raunchy: Albina (3.4), working as a call-girl, returns with an American businessman before her KGB minders have had time to vacate his hotel room, and the spies' experience gives a painful new meaning to the phrase "Reds under the bed". These women have to struggle to get by, but their actions sometimes rise to a level of everyday heroism. A few examples: a woman goes back to her drunken, violent husband when he gets cancer, leaving the much nicer man with whom she had hoped to set up house (9.1). A mother dies in prison camp for killing her violent husband with an axe - although in fact it was her son who struck the blow (9.2). A prison camp guard risks his career to let a woman prisoner have one hour's freedom in the countryside (9.6). Well worth reading, this book testifies to the power of Boccaccio's original storytelling formula in his Decameron (set in 1348). The Women's Decameron takes its place beside other modern versions such as Christopher White's The Gay Decameron (1998), and the forthcoming Jane Smiley novel, Ten Days in the Hills (announced for February 2007).

A modern feminine version of Boccaccio's Work.
The author is a very brave challenger.
Her version is a bunch of highly imaginative and very witty tales of 10 women in a hospital.
The tales cover through the clever choice of very diferent characters (engineer, secretary, stewardess, tramp...) all spectra of the woman psyche and of the man/woman relations : first love, assault and rape, seduction and abandonment, unfaithfulness and jealousy, revenge, happiness, generosity, sex encounters ...

They are brilliantly written with a wide range of moods and styles: sensual, vulgar, loving, cruel, sentimental, rude, affectionate, cynical, ironical ..
Every tale is a little pearl by itself and had enough substance to be developed into a novel or a short story.
The jokes are marvellous. To give a few:
How is a woman well clad? When she gets dressed on credit, and undresses for cash.
Don't push that much or are you perhaps a communist?
Communism is the power of the Soviet and the alcoholisation of the country.

The advantage of this book is that you don't have to read it in one go.
It is a tour-de-force. Not to be missed.

This novel is, in fact, as advertised: a modern-day women's Decameron, using this format to make a number of pointed comments about the state of Soviet society as it went into decline. The structure makes the book easy to pick up and put down. There is a deeper continuity within the work as well, as the stories the women tell from day to day, and their reactions to one another, provide nuance to each individual character.

How to categorize this book? Should Voznesenskaya be considered a Soviet writer, or a Russian one? She left what was then the Soviet Union in 1980, and this volume was published in 1985. The author therefore falls into that odd category of writers who are in exile, and further and further from the wellspring of her inspiration. The status of the author doesn't make her work less legitimate, simply harder to place in context.

Verdict: worth reading, but problematic.

This book explores the lives of ten women in the Soviet Union as they share their stories with each other. The stories are at once universal and very specific to that time in history. Each women's personality is beautifully developed as she tells her story.

I read this book in translation from the Russian a few years ago and have been trying to get a hold of my own copy ever since. It is based on the classical Italian "Decameron" but a modern-day Soviet version. In this book, which is fictional, but nonetheless blatantly based on real stories, ten Russian women go into hospital to give birth. Complications arise when a contagious disease begins to spread in the hospital, and so the women are isolated for ten days. During these ten days, in order to while away the boredom of complete quarrantine, they take it in turns to tell stories: a new subject every day. Every day, for ten days, each of the mothers-to-be in the ward tells a short story about something she has experienced. The subjects range from money, to sex, to rape, to secrets, and are a shocking testament to how women were treated in Soviet Russia, and the conditions they had to deal with. You will laugh and you will cry bitterly for them. I just wish this book was back in print - if you are listening, Boston Atlantic Monthly Press, please do something about this!!!!

While I enjoyed reading this book, I was continually confused by it. I am one of a few Americans who lived in Burma for several years during the same time period. I found many of the author's descriptions compelling, yet rather sensationalistic. Was she telling a fictional story or a factual one about the tribes and political causes of Burma? Unfortunately, I came away disappointed by this confusion. However, for a reader who has has spent little or no time in Burma, the book would definitely be an exciting read.

Edith Mirante's travel goals are pretty much similar to mine - see and report honestly, ignore travel hype, live as the locals, learn about political constraints, try to be sensitive to my gigantic country's effect on people in places where there are few American eyes. Are the people I meet in danger? Are they happy? Are they above the level of survival? Are they threatened by officials? For the reader who routinely asks such questions, Edith Mirante is the ideal travel guide. She rewrites the definition of "intrepid." She goes where no Americans are allowed, walking for days on blisters to visit Karen tribespeople, traveling clandestinely in hill country for the chance to meet a famous druglord and understand how the "Myanmar" army thugs have forced hill tribes to grow opium in place of crops. She braves Thai jail in order to push the envelope, sensing the most profound truths may lie just beyond those travel restrictions. They often do. Everywhere she manages to go, she tells us whom she sees, and what she hears. Everything Edith does stems from relationships. Edith brings gifts to her hosts. She is polite. She is properly outraged when she discovers mistreatment of the people she visits. And most of all, she goes the extra distance to return and hold her own American government responsible for mishandling the regional situation to the point of destruction. Most of us will never be able to travel to the places Edith takes us. If we did, there would be still fewer of us who could understand what we found when we got there. Since I read this book a year ago I have been surprised by how often I hear news items about Burma. What I hear often echoes the book. There are the accounts of farmers enslaved by the Burmese government to dig a pipeline for an American oil company - the farmers are now suing the oil company for enslavement in American court. Two young Karen brothers have had their pictures on the cover of a large-circulation American magazine for their desperate attempts to win back their lands and safety from the "Myanmar" army, which demands the complete destruction of all hill tribes. A much-beloved Burmese leader remains under house arrest. And, of course, American citizens are regularly requested to boycott American firms doing business with the brutal Burmese government. Burma may be half a world from the West. But it is no longer sufficient for westerners to rely on ignorance. It may be argued that increased worldwide communication allows us to be compassionate in new ways. We cannot all go to Burma to find out what is happening there. That is why a book like this is so valuable. Edith Mirante has already been there. She has done some of the preliminary footwork for the rest of us.

It took we a while to warm up to Ms. Mirante. As the story unfolds, one has cause to suspect a liberal, bleeding-heart hand wringer. But, this isn't any emotive flutterer afraid to mar her pedicure. This is a jungle-tramping, malaria-be-damned, human rights activist commando.

In the late '80's, Mirante traveled to Thailand to enhance her art career. She soon became aware of the human rights abuses perpertrated in Burma at the hands of the Tatmadaw, the Burmese government army under the control of socialist despot, Ne Win. Putting her art aside, she quickly adopts the cause of the Burmese hill tribes subject to brutal repression and in fear of cultural obliteration. Mirante courageously risks life and limb as she illegally moves among the Burmese tribes recording their stories for disbursal to the outside world. Undaunted, intrepid, unfailingly committed, Mirante catalogs the abuses of Ne Win, offers hope and assistance to the refugees, and battles valiantly to make their story known.

Though she casts some political aspersions stateside that she fails to adequately defend, Mirante manages to write this story without recourse to the shrill and idle finger pointing one might typically uncover in such a book. In fact, any doubts of this woman's admirable pragmatism are shattered when she admits to loathing the song, "We are the World". One is left thinking that she finds the song a piece of overwrought theater blissfully (and, perhaps, all too conveniently) ignorant of life in the human rights trenches.

Edith T. Mirante is a remarkable woman deserving the esteem of every lover of liberty. She writes a good book and fights a good fight and, for that, I say more power to her.

I read Burmese Looking Glass about one year ago, after I had visited the Thai-Burmese border refugeee camps. I wish I had read it beforehand! This is an immensely informative narrative covering many aspects of the complicated and tragic situation in Burma, from underground pro-Democracy activists to drug lords to jungle warfare and women warriors. Its somewhere between political intrugue, war journalism, and travelogue. Much of what she reports is consistent with what I have learned from Burmese students in exile and pro-democray activists in the US and Thailand. I admire her chutzpah and honesty in painting this portrait of a horrendous and confusing situation as well as of herself. I found it totally readable, exciting, and inspiring.

Edith Mirante's travel goals are pretty much similar to mine - see and report honestly, ignore travel hype, live as the locals, learn about political constraints, try to be sensitive to my gigantic country's effect on people in places where there are few American eyes. Are the people I meet in danger? Are they happy? Are they above the level of survival? Are they threatened by officials? For the reader who routinely asks such questions, Edith Mirante is the ideal travel guide. She rewrites the definition of "intrepid." She goes where no Americans are allowed, walking for days on blisters to visit Karen tribespeople, traveling clandestinely in hill country for the chance to meet a famous druglord and understand how the "Myanmar" army thugs have forced hill tribes to grow opium in place of crops. She braves Thai jail in order to push the envelope, sensing the most profound truths may lie just beyond those travel restrictions. They often do. Everywhere she manages to go, she tells us whom she sees, and what she hears. Everything Edith does stems from relationships. Edith brings gifts to her hosts. She is polite. She is properly outraged when she discovers mistreatment of the people she visits. And most of all, she goes the extra distance to return and hold her own American government responsible for mishandling the regional situation to the point of destruction. Most of us will never be able to travel to the places Edith takes us. If we did, there would be still fewer of us who could understand what we found when we got there. Since I read this book a year ago I have been surprised by how often I hear news items about Burma. What I hear often echoes the book. There are the accounts of farmers enslaved by the Burmese government to dig a pipeline for an American oil company - the farmers are now suing the oil company for enslavement in American court. Two young Karen brothers have had their pictures on the cover of a large-circulation American magazine for their desperate attempts to win back their lands and safety from the "Myanmar" army, which demands the complete destruction of all hill tribes. A much-beloved Burmese leader remains under house arrest. And, of course, American citizens are regularly requested to boycott American firms doing business with the brutal Burmese government. Burma may be half a world from the West. But it is no longer sufficient for westerners to rely on ignorance. It may be argued that increased worldwide communication allows us to be compassionate in new ways. We cannot all go to Burma to find out what is happening there. That is why a book like this is so valuable. Edith Mirante has already been there. She has done some of the preliminary footwork for the rest of us.

brand new book for a great price

a most excellent book
my husband is enjoying

"The Everlasting Stream" is a tale about male relationships, about self discovery and about hunting that does justice to all three subjects. While many books use one story as a vessel to carry another, this develops all three stories simultaneously and completely.

Author Walt Harrington portrays himself as a snobby Washington Post reporter who finds himself tramping around Kentucky fields, shooting rabbits with his father-in-law's hunting buddies to prove he is not above them.

Through the Thanksgiving hunts, Harrington comes to respect the men. He comes to understand himself and to wonder how he so misplaced himself. He grows up with his son and reconsiders his relationship with his late father. Through it all, he thinks deeply about the experience of hunting, turning inside out his initial revulsion to it. In the end, the hunts lead him to make a profound change in his life.

Harrington finds answers, real-life answers, and not the clear-cut, no-regrets answers of cardboard stories.

As Harrington re-evaluates his life, male friendships and hunting, you will, too. It's a journey worth taking, and Harrington is an engaging guide.

The Everlasting Stream, by Walt Harrington, is a hunting book that isn't a book about hunting. I had read a brief review about this book being a good addition to the pro-hunting literature. Well, it was, in a sense. Harrington is a fine writer, and most pro-hunting books tend to focus on the charismatic megafauna like deer and elk. Harrington's focus is on the common and ordinary, the prolific cottontail. No trophy hunting here; this is all about hunting for meat.

What does Harrington say in defense of hunting?

"Animals bleed. Live with it" (p. 146).

"It doesn't matter to a rabbit what kills him - fever, flukes, worms, weather, hawks, or me. The rabbit is dead" (p. 184).

"Killing an animal doesn't deaden the human conscience; it enlivens it" (p. 184).

"Hunting isn't golf or tennis, which demand only technical mastery. Hunting isn't merely an exercise in male bonding, as so many believe. Hunting has moral gravitas" (p. 185).

"It is people who enjoy the fruits of the kill without feeling the ominous responsibility of the killing who are morally delinquent" (p. 186).

"I'm not supposed to hunt without guilt. I'm supposed to hunt despite the guilt" (p. 187).

"Long ago, a woman at my table said to me, 'I can't believe you killed those little bunnies.' I now know what I should have said in response. 'I can't believe you ate those little bunnies without killing one'" (p. 189).


Harrington isn't perfect. He confesses a time when "I fire, and the rabbit tumbles, heels over head. When I reach down, the rabbit suddenly kicks his hind legs violently and drubs my hand twice before I can pull away... I use the butt of my gun like a deadfall and club the rabbit's head. After I do, his left eye dangles from its socket. I take out my knife that I will give to Matt at Christmas, slice the eye free, and put the rabbit in my bag" (p. 214).

I certainly hope he removed the shells from his shotgun before using it as a club. And although Harrington did not appear to be apologetic for his act, there is a line between killing an animal and torturing it. It is this line that society scrutinizes. He hints at its existence with his "It doesn't matter to a rabbit what kills him..." comment; however, it does matter to society, and I would say it should matter to the hunter as well.

With this said, this book is much, much more than a book about hunting. Harrington explores issues of manhood (and boyhood), parenting, memories, and livelihoods. He discusses race relations (Harrington's hunting buddies are black while he is white), politics, friends, and folklore. He reflects on his passions, and eventually makes some drastic, life-altering decisions.

All in 217 pages. The subtitle says it all: The Everlasting Stream: A True Story of Rabbits, Guns, Friendship, and Family.

Harrington's father repeatedly said to him, "Everything's beautiful if you look at it right." I'd say this IS the theme of the book.

If you are not a hunter, keep reading through the hunting scenes. Harrington keeps springing new topics and ideas upon the reader.

There is something here for everyone.

A thoughtful, beautifully written, almost poetic meditation on hunting, tradition, friendship, nature and human nature. It is ostensibly about rabbit hunting, but that is not where this book's meaning lies nor where the heart of its story is. Its story and meaning lie with the people, and Harrington writes in a voice so personal that you feel you know him and his family and friends. This is not a book for the PETA crowd, or for those who call rabbits "bunnies." If you've ever hunted, or if you understand the true nature of Nature, you'll enjoy The Everlasting Stream. (Note: This review has been written by a woman who, although she does not hunt, has shot the occasional rabbit when its depredations in her garden have become intolerable and the Hav-a-Hart trap proved ineffectual.)

Having married an African-American woman, journalist Walt Harrington found himself expected to maintain the family traditions by going rabbit hunting with his father-in-law, and his friends, every Thanksgiving. At first, Walt looked down on these course, back-country men as throwbacks to an earlier, more primitive way of life. With time, though, he came to realize that these men shared a different, stronger bond than he had ever known. Unconsciously, they showed him what being a man could be all about, and he learned many lessons as he (and later him and his son) hunted rabbits in the hills of Kentucky.

This book came as quite a surprise to me. I tripped across it by accident, and am quite glad that I did. It's written in a stream-of-consciousness style, which allows the author to skip forward and backward through time, showing his development throughout. Indeed, if you are interested in men's books (such as those by Robert Bly), then I highly recommend that you get this one. It is a fascinating look at life and being a man.