New York Books

The Crane is a nice, interesting story. Behind the story is is the parable of what happens when war comes. It is a great lesson in life and a great classic

A wise and well illustrated (by the author) childrens book, that is well known in Europe, and sadly overlooked in the US. Like "The Little Prince", this book has a charm and quality that transends age. It is about a man and a crane. It is about work,life,...the big questions the big answers. Good stuff. Sadly out of print.

'The Crane' is one of the most beatifully written childrens stories of this century. It is a parable that carries many important questions about who we are and how we live. As a teacher of English, I have found this book a remarkable resource and one that really allows for differentiation of learning with children around 11-12. It is a funny, sad and very touching story and I emplore somebody to reprint it, so that more people can access this wonderfull book. Why it isn't more widely known I do not understand.

I read this every summer at my grandma's. I never quite understood it, and I didn't quite like it but I did keep coming back to it. It's something of a fairy tale and something of a philosophical tale. If I had to describe it now I would call it hauntingly beautiful.

Reiner Zimnik, a former carpenter, was 26 and student at the Munich Art Academy when he wrote and designed this book in 1956. The illustrations, simple black and white sketches, stayed with me all my life. The most powerful one covers two pages with a few black strokes of sky, a fallen over little shoe, a dazed bird und the scribble: "Da war das Land traurig, und die Erde weinte." (The country was sad. And the earth wept.) As an adult I might say that it's a fable about the Second World War - what was there before and what came after. As child I experienced no other book that would speak to me with such immediatness. Though it wasn't that widespread in Germany I would still say that it's our best children's book till today.

Frank McCourt must've penned a primer for those who write autobiographies profiling their rise out of quintessential Irish childhood to become successful teachers, pub owners or actors in the Big Apple. If not, we'll develop a one, having slogged through a few Irish experience autobiographies in the past few years. CROSSING HIGHBRIDGE, a soulful reflection penned by Maureen Waters, fits the bill. The first of her family not born in Ireland, Ms. Waters left a secure Irish Catholic Bronx neighborhood to become professor of English at Queens' College. In HIGHBRIDGE Waters revisits her old neighborhood and youth in an attempt to exorcise a few demons and make sense of tragic loss.

Speaking of school, name a primordial recollection that separates Catholic childhood experiences from those of the less fortunate. Stumped? Parochial school--does anything compare? I recall nuns swooping like hawks about the classroom slapping the ten-thumbed hands of boys while praising the girls, all who had mastered the fine motor skill control requisite to master the Palmer method of penmanship And priests, remember their surprise visits? They dashed about classrooms rooting out the heathens who failed to memorize today's catechism. Waters pens a charming reunion visit to that school we loved, where Sister Immaculata, or Sister Alvera, or Sister Whoever, ruled the roost with an iron claw, er, fist.

Waters infuses a recognizable dose of Irish Catholic guilt. To wit: "You want to be a teacher? Are you daft Maureen? The proper thing, young lady, is to save yourself, marry a decent man and have a dozen children!" Or the refrain heard by many a young Irish lad, "Pat, the family hasn't ordained a priest in two generations. Your mother and I want you to consider the seminary." Familial guilt threads its way through CROSSING HIGHBRIDGE.

No growing-up-Irish spiel should lack a smattering of old-country angst, and it doesn't hurt to parade a skeleton or two out of the family closet in the offing. Forced by her father to work the family farm at an age when she should've been in school, Water's Mayo-born mother exuded the lifelong melancholy of lost opportunity; melancholy she wore on her shirtsleeve. According to Waters, an aunt told her that her maternal grandfather beat the six daughters, including Maureen's mother, Agnes. Also prone to unleashing impressive levels of violence, maternal grandpa Ruane was once hush-hushed off to a mental institution. Further, Water's father, Daniel, witnessed his share of perverse Black and Tan justice and senseless political murder while caught in the flame of Ireland's republican fire of the 1920s. Waters also lost an uncle in a failed attack on a Sligo military garrison during the Free State revolution. There's more--but perhaps these are skeletons better left in the closet.

Which leads us to the subject of humor rampant in Irish tragicomedy. CROSSING HIGHBRIDGE is bound with all the Irish charm and storytelling one would expect---but not the leprechaun-like humor. Waters might've survived unscathed an abusive marriage, the lofty expectations of the Church, the vagaries of a difficult mother, and a professional career bound by the shackles of sexism, but the loss of a son in a tragic accident stopped her in her tracks. Waters wrote CROSSING HIGHBRIDGE, she offers, as a step to recovery and to pay homage to those who had gone before her. Writing with the passion of someone who needs to unlock the past in order to make sense of the present, she keeps an optimistic eye on the future. CROSSING HIGHBRIDGE is a worthwhile read.

Along with her title of Professor of English, Maureen Waters' résumé includes, Director of Irish Studies at Queens College in New York.

I was able to identify with nearly everything Miss Waters wrote about her Irish Catholic upbringing in Highbridge, because I too came from the same place, and I knew her sister Agnes many, many years ago. However, if I had not had the privilege of knowing Maureen and her literary family, I would still have been able to appreciate the writer's gift of style where she combined gracefully, history, philosophy, religion along with the socioeconomic conditions of the 1940's and 1950's growing up in Highbridge.

This profoundly moving memoir of growing up Irish/Catholic/female in the midcentury Bronx began with the author's need to understand the loss of her son to accidental death by drugs and alcohol. As she puts it, "the drive to piece together cause and effect was a belief that I had far more power than I actually did for good or ill." She sifts the past out of psychological necessity, desperate, guilty, and finds ordinary treasure: in human characters - her father, an immigrant from Sligo, her mother from Mayo, a feisty and lovable little sister, Agnes, and, above all, in her beautiful and enigmatic lost child of the flaming red hair, Brian Patrick - and also in their brave and lonely human places (Highbridge on Hudson, Long Island). She looks back for clues to her loss from the perspective of a divorced single mother trying to juggle children and hold her own in academe (she's now a professor of English). Memory sifted through the prism of such luminous prose and honest emotion offers a gentle and moving consolation to this reader. The story of the author's Catholic journey, from insider - the parish was Sacred Heart - to outsider is told with devastating brevity. I'll never forget the final image of women's exclusion. It rings so true. The abyss is present in Waters' world, but to me this is a book of hope

This beautiful memoir of growing up Irish-Catholic-female in the Bronx at midcentury began with the author's tragic loss of one of her sons to an accidental death from drugs and alcohol. In order to survive herself, she must understand: "The drive to piece together cause and effect was a belief that I had far more power than I actually did for good or ill." The bereaved mother, who is also a professor of English, sifts her past for answers. She uncovers the treasure of human characters (her father, Daniel Waters, an immigrant from Sligo, her mother from Mayo; her rebel little sister, Agnes) in their brave and lonely human settlement (Highbridge on the Hudson). She looks back on the cost of parenting alone as a divorced young mother and trying to hold her own in academe. The consolation that memory - and Waters' luminous prose - makes for her and for this reader is profoundly moving. The story of her Catholic journey, in particular, the movement from insider - the parish was Sacred Heart - to outsider, is especially strong: she tells it with a devastating brevity and one final image that I'll never forget. It rings so true. This is a courageous book about loss in which you come to see that what remains is, after all, a matter of life understood and hope.

I could relate to nearly everything that Miss Waters wrote about in Crossing Highbridge, because I came from that Irish Catholic enclave, I knew the Waters family long ago, and I went to Sacred Heart with Maureen's sister, Agnes.

Maureen Waters is a gifted writer who combines history, philosophy, religion, and the socio-econimic conditions in a working class environment in the 1940's and 1950's, with utter grace, and at the same time, the reader can experience some strong emotions of saddness and joy.

Helen Levitt's name is less well known than some of her images of New York street life. Perhaps that is the way she would wish it since she seems to have never sought fame. The book is as reticient as she and there is little commentary, but in truth little is necessary though I would love to know more about her and her work. This is a beautifully printed, organized and designed book and it was a pleasure to spend hours looking at the photographs. Often it was difficult to turn the page because each image is so compelling and resonates on many different levels. In a way, they are the perfect street images; they have the look of a snapshot but are so much more than that. Though they are all of New York they have a universal quality and speak about the truth of people's lives in a profound way. I admired the formal qualities of the photographs but what resonates most is the deep humanity of what she does, what she sees and records. It sometimes seems to me that photographers, in their quest for a good images,treats subjects with a level of distain and distance that is uncomfortable and ultimately manipulative. Crosstown is nothing like that and even when the photos are funny, and several are, they are funny in a very human way. There is nothing saccharine or trite in her work either and she has a great gift of photographing children without slipping into cuteness. I am a photographer and I treasure this book. I would certainly recommend it to others interested in photography, but I thinks its' appeal extends to anyone interested in the human condition and how we relate to one another.

Helen Levitt is not one of those New Yorkers who look neither to the left or right as they travel the streets of the city. This is a book about life. The neighborhoods she shoots are generally poor ones, yet we see people that are involved; people who are actively engaged in life even when they seem to be doing nothing. Her subjects -often children- play, they love, they communicate, they are lost in thought, and occasionally are sleeping.

A fine sense of humor permeates many of the scenes. Some subjects are caught in contorted, puzzling positions. We see the incongruous position of objects: an old 33rpm record in the street; a pair of shoes sitting by themselves on a sidewalk; three chickens wandering around a decrepit room -where did they come from? A mother's head is buried in the bottom of a baby buggy while the tyke yelps with joy. A dog is caught in the act of mistaking his owner's leg for a fire hydrant while she talks to a friend.

In general HL catches the warm side of humanity. Only a couple of pictures look like they were taken from a file of Jacob Riis (a 19th century photographer of New York tenement life). There was one particularly sad shot of a woman and her three children sitting on their front steps. They are obviously impoverished. The two youngest children seem quite content, but the mother seems weighed down with her life, and in the teen-age daughter we see the beginning of lost hopes.

This book is a must for anyone interested in street photography. It will take you a long time to get through this book as each photograph will hold your attention for some time.

This book has a number of unique photographs. Ms Levitt with many of these wonderful pictures,leaves you wondering what happened before or just after the picture was taken.
You can I believe see some connection to the style of Cartier Bresson with whom I understand she spent some time working.
I recommend the book.

If you admire the warmth and humanity of Helen Levitt's endearing photographs of New Yorkers, don't miss this book. The selection of photographs is superb and the printing and binding quality are first rate. This book could go out of print soon, from which time its value will grow quickly.

This is my latest favorite photography book. I have a large collection that includes many with Manhattan as subject. The images captured by Levitt are stunning and the binding of the book itself is wonderful.

I came of age as a homo in Boston circa 1987-1991.

Cyclizen is the best account of the political, sexual, and social fulcrum for 20 something gays in New York at that time. Sex and empowerment were in the air and Provenzano captures both in this novel. A great read that includes generous helpings of the events and flavor of the time and believable accounts of the romantic and erotic adventures of Kent a complex but likeable protagonist and narrator. Provenzano also pulls off a novel that has substance and graphic sexual encounters. Highly recommended.

"Cyclizen" is something of a sequel to "Monkey Suits" and continues on the theme of a rather ordinary guy who was swept into AIDS activism. Kent is a peripheral member of ACT-UP, but a more worldly person than the protagonist of "Monkey Suits". The book deals directly and sensitively with the difficulties of sexual relationships between gay men, especially where their HIV statuses differ. It also deals with effort to come to terms with the kind of relationships that a gay man may seek, although this is never fully resolved, much as many men never really figure this out (or they choose a sort of freedom that isn't entirely freeing, as is the case here). Kent seems to enjoy the jailhouse hookups as much as any other aspect of activism and the book captures the varied motives that brought people into ACT-UP and kept them involved. As such, it will disappoint those who want an elegy on a past era of engaged activism.

"Cyclizen" has gotten far less press than "Monkey Suits" or "PINS", which seems odd to me. Structurally, it is a much better written book than Provenzano's two previous efforts. He uses a straight forward first person narrative and builds that character more fully than the poorly developed Lee of "Monkey Suits". It seemed apparent that Lee was underdeveloped as a way for readers to impose some of themselves on the character and let the story build around him--unfortunately, it just seemed like weak character development to me. The "Wall Street" subplot of "Cyclizen" is the most poorly developed aspect of the story, although it helps provide a narrative that comes to a less rushed and neatly tied ending than "PINS" or "Monkey Suits". Given its brief length, this is more of a novella than a novel and this form may be better for Provenzano, who seemed to treat his other two books like short stories in terms of resolving their plots.

Overall, the book is an enjoyable read. It realistically captures the middle period of AIDS activism and provides a perspective on gay men's relationships. It continues Provenzano's exploration of characters who aren't quite the usual gay lit guys, which is one reason why I look forward to what ever he does next.

Written in a seat-of-the-pants tenor, "Cyclizen" evokes the mood and tone of the times in which it is set. In a basic, sort of scruffy narrative, he tells a very sweet story in the context of a time when a movement was gaining its footing and becoming a "community."

The backdrop of activism, the journey through the edges of Gordon Gekko's Wall Street, the exploration of feelings captured, recaptured, sought after and lost all come together in a narrative that is compellingly evocative; especially if you were around, during those times...

There are some powerful moments, articulated throughout the book; and the end was, to me, quite moving. It won't be moving, though, if you go right to the last pages; you must READ THE BOOK!

So buy it. Read it. Keep Provenzano fed.

While Cyclizen is the third novel by Jim Provenzano, it's the first novel of his I've read. Written in a first-person narrative (a writing style I enjoy immensely), it's set in New York City in 1992. Gay activism, such as ACT UP and Queer Nation, were at their peak and the start of the "greed is good" Wall Street days.

Kent, the protagonist, becomes a bike messenger, and with that he recounts his adventures -- sex, friendships, and even gets wrapped up in the "greed is good" Wall Street of the day. One of aspects of first-person writing, fiction or non-fiction, is the writer can fully explain what's really going through the character's mind. I know what Kent is thinking about more fully when he is by himself or interacting with the other players in his life.

Cyclizen is mean to be an entertaining read without hitting the reader over the head with a specific point (or issue). Kent's passion about his activism is apparent, but it is his own, not meant to "teach a lesson" to the audience.

I would highly recommend this to anyone looking for an example of gay fiction that isn't heavy or moralistic, but simply a good novel!

Cyclizen is another stylistic departure for one of my favorite gay fiction writers.



While it's a far veer away from "Pins" (there aren't any teenagers or wrestles), it seems a good follow-up to "Monkey Suits," which had its flaws, but focused on the same time and setting. This seems to be the downtown version.



"Cyclizen" is much more personal; a first-person telling leaves you wondering less about the main character, who provides a lot of personal details, and more about the wider world of activism and bike messengering he inhabits. New York itself becomes a character.



I got a lot of poetic passages, some sexually explicit yet written with a motivation, a why, why his hot ex-boyfriend activist clone dumped him, and why Kent is hesitant to connect fully with Ness, who could be his true love. All of this is told with a wry combination of humor and bluntness.



His affair with Sheets, the closeted marketing guy with a scheme, embodies the 80s corporate gay white guy. It's interesting to get his naive perspective to counter Kent's almost cynical tone about his years spent in ACT UP.



This was a breeze to read, with action, politically charged sex, and a bit of old mythological stuff woven in, too. I look forward to reading it again on a hot beach.

Resonating like some soundless bell, I could feel the heartache, the joy, the anguish, and the longing of the novel's characters!

"Dardedel" is opening your heart to another heart - fully, without reserve. Dardedel "unchains us from the burdens of our isolation and loneliness. By uniting our soul with another soul our deepest thoughts and feelings are set free without the shame of judgment or the fear of betrayal". I was unprepared for what a true Dardedel really feels like. But I felt a thirst to Dardedel with someone for the first time in life! How wonderful!

This loving, inspired work of art is a "magical mystery tour". It is lyrical, musical, and profoundly reverent and relevant. It is a testimony of our hunger for knowing, understanding, loving, living insightful and mindful lives. This connection, this dardedel, among the novel's characters, and between author and reader, is a communion - the sacred sharing of private, important, sincere thoughts and feelings. The extraordinary experience unfolds line after line, page after page - as consciousness and conscience heightens!

The `magic' is Parvin's incredible imagination and creativity! Pirooz, the protagonist, a professor intent on suicide, meets the cacti-reincarnations of the great Persian Sufi poet-philosophers Rumi and Hafez in the heart of the Sonora desert in Arizona. Temporarily dissuaded from suicide by Rumi and Hafez, Pirooz returns to the equally inhospitable desert of New York City crowded with equally thorny people! During the return flight home, he dreams of God complaining about His own creation, mankind, as He dardedels with Pirooz. Pirooz's candid response is to ask God why everything God creates turns out to be a lemon. God's answer is best read for yourself.

Hafez appears in New York City as a taxi driver to both learn about modernity and to make sure Pirooz does not commit suicide. He is followed by Rumi, whose mission is to look after Hafez and Pirooz. Rumi is also curious about modernity, but critical of it.

In the interim, the sparkling Mitra falls in love with Hafez, and he with her. She carries a covenant of past and future unknown even to her. The `poem of poems', a mythical bird, is a brilliant portrayal of the `mysteries' that abound when art and science converge and reveal, in their union, their true spirit - not only in the book but also in life.

Lastly is the hopeful poignancy when Pirooz writes "I am a Sufi atom, listen to my dardedel ... love has many hearts, truth many ears, beauty many eyes, and the human fate is not beyond the human reach". He touches the quintessential in the human spirit.

This book is a priceless classic whose time has come.

Dardedel displays an unquenchable thirst within man for love, perfection and humanity. The enchanting Mitra, the embodiment of everlasting love and light, enlightens a musical craving for love within man. Professor Manoucher Parvin has written a palatable, seductive tale that definitely leaves the reader begging for more. The wisdom of Hafiz and Rumi speaks directly to the heart of philosophy, social theory, and education; it demonstrates a bridge of understanding between the relationship of man to himself (Professor Pirooz) as well as the one between two cultures which are in desperate need of mutual empathy.

Epilogue

Ascendance: The Possibility of You and Me

There is no illuminating nova.
There is no cleansing rainstorm.
There is no music lifting the spirit.
There is no prayer seducing a miracle.
There is only the possibility of me understanding you.
There is only the possibility of you understanding me.
There is only the possibility of one soul caressing another.
There is only dardedel.

"DARDEDEL"-Epilogue

By reincarnating two legendary Persian poets Rumi and
Hafez in New York Dardedel connects East and West,Past and Present and
integrates science, art and spirituality in a brilliant fashion. Dardedel is
very humorous and insightful.

Dardedel, a novel in verse, is a masterpiece that one would read again and again. It sparkles with the wisdom and spirituality of the East and the science and rationality of the West. Its love story between the dazzling and brilliant Mitra and the legendary poet rebel Hafez will become a classic of the 21st Century. The other characters in the novel are the poet Rumi, Professor Pirooz, New York and God.

"Dardedel" is a glorious read -- nourished with whimsy, irony, compelling plot twists and passion. I commend this lovely work of verse to everyone from students of classical Middle Eastern literature to lovers of contemporary fiction. There is something for everyone in Manoucher Parvin's prose.

To read this book reveals not only plenty of interesting and quite often surprising information on fashions past and current but its text and pictures are highly complementary. In addition a lot of the provided information gives insight into social structures of the centuries referred to - and once more it is proven that fashion is one of the quickest instruments to testify social and historical changes to the world.

Harold Koda's Extreme Beauty surveys concepts of fashion and beauty. Koda considers the evolving, changing strategies of beauty around the world, focussing on different body parts and how they are accented and displayed through varying uses of clothing and cultural perception. Black and white and color photos of unusual fashion choices and styles make for some eye-opening insights.

This is a beautiful book illustrating the different ways cultures reform the body and for what reasons. It is just like actually visiting an exhibit at a major museum. But this you get to take home and enjoy over and over. The photos are plentiful, full color, large and professional. The text is not overly scholarly, but informative and intelligent. It does leave me wanting to delve deeper into the subject intellectually.

Sentient humans with brains as well as bodies have always been fascinated by the way we adorn ourselves and why. Once we can get past the cultural anthropology of fashion, and the fads that make it a billion-dollar world industry, we can dig down to discover the roots of historical and current adorned beauty, and EXTREME BEAUTY does this . . . beautifully.
It is pleasing--in an era in which physical beauty and adornment typified by fashion have been roundly rejected by most of the jeans-wearing public--to find a book that lets beauty out and helps us exercise our sense of mystery and wonder, based in no small part on human sexuality and attraction. Harold Koda (curator of the Costume Institute at New York's Met) has mounted a show and created a book with marvelous insights and passion, and the illustrations are wondrous--consider, as a case in point, Thiery Mugler's 'Chimere,' with its savage eroticism.
One could quibble with Koda's arbitrary division of the body into 'neck and shoulders,' 'chest,' 'waist,' 'hips' and 'feet,'
and his exclusion of the fascinating face/head/hair perplex, and the hands, with their magical touch and allure. But this book and its illustrations will become a benchmark by which human adornment is judged, and is a keeper of power and importance.

Extreme Beauty is a wonderful book that celebrates the Metropolitan's equally brilliant exhibit about fashion and it's different preoccupations with the body. The exhibit was magnificent, and the book truly honors the tone and feeling of it, while being extremely informative in it's own right. The book is divided into different chapters such as neck and shoulders, waist, chest, etc. Each chapter features photos of the garments displayed in the original exhibit, as well as additional historical drawings and photographs of the various fashions and cultural trends that have celebrated the parts of the body. And, as promised in the title, the book explores the cultural foundations of bodily transformation and mutilation(?) through everything from extreme corsetry, [..] footwear and peircing to the tribal women who use metal rings to actually elongate their vertebrae. Harold Koda's insightful and meticulously researched commentary is just the icing on the cake. This is a must for any fashion library, but also of great interest to non-fashionistas.

Well written and amazing to read. Author captured the moment and took you there. Book was flooded with facts.

I would highly recommend this book, it is not only for the history buffs.
If you do enjoy history, you will love the author's details.

I very good book that gives the reader an interesting twist on what was believed to be gospel. The author's research is convincing.

An awesome book....definitely a different view .... a must read for anyone seeking to truely understand Benedict Arnold's story.

Who would have thought that what was assumed by the average student of American history to be an open and shut case against Benedict Arnold could be brought into question. And, furthermore, to do so with such detailed facts woven into a rather gripping novel format. Mr. WIlczak has laid out a compelling case that Arnold was not a traitor but a collaborator with George Washington to ultimately fool the British. This book could be the basis of an excellent movie.

This book expresses a thoroughly researched, fresh approach to one of history's most infamous legends. When I began to read the book I felt my feelings regarding Benedict Arnold could not be swayed. The author, however, through meticulous use of timeline, documented fact, and letters of many of the involved, opened my eyes to the possibility that Arnold may have been the protaganist in a great scheme to free the colonies and help create the United States. I highly recommend this book to anyone who seeks the truth instead of the commonly handed down history stories we have been fed since childhood. AAAAA+++++

Juan Gonzalez was the first journalist to grasp the impact of the environmental disaster of 9/11. His article on October 26, 2001 said what some of us already sensed: Contrary to the 'good news' being sold like sugarcoated poison by government officials who wanted Wall Street back up and running, the air was dense with astronomical levels of asbestos, lead, dioxin, mercury and hundreds of unpronouncable contaminants including some that had never previously existed.

Fallout is in this tradition of groundbreaking journalism.

Unfortunately Gonzalez is so ahead of the pack that when I showed his article to my son and exhusband, whom I was trying to convince that our son should not remain at Stuyvesant High School, four blocks north of the World Trade Center, they dismissed it as a red herring.

Fallout is a compelling account of this environmental disaster which may ultimately claim more lives than the attacks themselves.

Jenna Orkin
World Trade Center Environmental Organization

Finally someone has the guts to print the truth about the toxic air at Ground Zero. For those of us who were there and who are experiencing the medical consequences of having been exposed to these toxic chemicals, Gonzalez's book explains in understandable language why we are sick and what we are likely to experience in the future. Americans need to know the truth, especially the thousands of men and women from around the country who volunteered their time at Ground Zero and are likely to suffer the medical consequences of having done so, either now or in the future. Fallout is a must read for all Americans.

This is an extremely disturbing book. Perhaps because along with the well-documented facts concerning the unprecedented toxic environmental fallout from 9/11, it is the shocking realization that it's not just the NYC and federal goverment cover-up of this story -- it is the citizens themselves collectively turning away from the horrible reality of this disaster.

The national media has not pursued the obvious leads -- the common sense questions -- but Mr. Gonzales has. And the logical conclusion of this story, in the not-too-distant future, is a public health nightmare that will have the media self-righteously condeming Giuliani and Whitman in hindsight as bearing responsibility for perhaps thousands more deaths.

The story from 9/11 that the media immediately created was of the heroes and victims. We remember them, and try to forget the horror of the collapsing towers. But if we are a truely a courageous nation, we will look clearly and not turn away from the terrible reality that ground zero represents. That is what I think this book is really about -- there are facts and consequences of 9/11 that have not yet been dealt with. And closing our eyes and wishing them away simply won't work.

Americans are being deceived. In this stunning piece of investigative reporting which should be awarded a Pulitzer Prize, Juan Gonzalez reveals the horrible truths about the environmental impacts of the 9-11 disaster. Asbestos abounded. The many heroes who helped to clean and console may face excruciating deaths thanks to suppressed and inaccurate information.

Our sacred institutions are rotten. Every American citizen should read this brief but incendiary work which speaks truth to power unflinchingly. If we do not quickly institute major changes which make our leaders and representatives truly responsible for telling the truth to the American public, however unpleasant, we may be facing the end of American democracy as we have known it and believed in it.

Where are the Thomas Paines and Thomas Jeffersons of the twenty-first century? We desperately need your voices and leadership!

I live 5 blocks north of Ground Zero and have attended hearings and forums and read hundreds of articles, studies memos and reports about the post 9/11 environmental issues in Lower Manhattan. But my jaw dropped when I read Juan Gonzalez' book - here are the missing pieces, the things I'd heard but was never able to find in print - and lots of insider information that only someone as dedicated to this story as he was could have. It is a clear, readable summary of the case against the EPA, OSHA, NYC DEP - and, de facto, an indictment of all those newspapers whose reportage consistently minimized the issue. Not since the Vietnam War has there been so much media "disinformation."

If you live or work in lower Manhattan and/or have any interest in the true story of how our government knowingly and intentionally jepordized the lives and health of the rescue workers, residents and workers downtown after 9/11 while ensuring that their own health was well protected, this book is a "must read."

Juan Gonzalez is to be commended for his courage in bucking his editors to continue to cover this story.

I have read lots of Joanna Hurwitz's books and i must say this is one of her best. Haddasa [Dossi for short] has nobody but her sister Ruthi and her friend Mimy. Dossi 's parents have passed out and so has her sister . Dossi and Ruthi live in a crowded tenament with just one room too do everything : Eat , Sleap , Sit , Stand ....... Ruthi works in a sewing factory. The tenament smells of sweat and OF COURES They dont have a single toy. When Ruthi signs Dossi up for a Fresh Air Fund ,Dossi objects . But when Dossi starts to like , even befriend the family she is staying with ..............

Dossi is a poor girl who lives in the city.Her parents and younger sister,Velvel have passed away.Dossi's sister,Ruthi is the one who will take care of them.She works in the factory.When Ruthi signs Dossi up to be sent to the country,on a Fresh Air Fund vacation,Dossi is terrified and surprised.Soon,the day had come to go to the country.Dossi packed her bags and brought along a library book which was a new one.She and her friend,Mimi, didn't tell the librarian that Dossi was taking it away.Dossi prommises Ruthi that she will send a postcard to her as soon as she reaches her destination.In the country,she meets the gentile Meade family.Nell and Emma are around Dossi's age.Mr. Meade and Mrs. Meade also have two sons,Timothy and Edward.Nell chats nineteen to a dozen.Emma doesn't.There are a lot of things that Dossi hasn't seen.Like fireflies,cows,two yolks in one egg and many other things.She learns about a man named Snowflake Bentley.He is mad about snowflakes.Snowflake Bentley also takes photos of snowflakes not people.Dossi likes Nell but she wants to befriend Emma too.But Emma treats her like if she is not there.Will Dossi be able to befriend Emma before her holiday in the country ends?

Haddassah (Dossi for short) is a Jewish girl lives in a cramped apartment in New York City. Her sister (Ruthi) signs her up for a Fresh Air Fund which sends poor children too the country for 2 weeks in the summer. Dossi leaves excited and yet afraid to go on vacation with a family she doesn't know in Vermont for 2 weeks. She is stunned by things in the country and doesn't even know what fireflies are. This is one fault that I found with the book, she seems to know NOTHING of the country, now I can believe she's never milked a cow, but some of the things she had never seen are unbelievable. Anyway during the book she sprouts friendship and learns new things of her trip. She meets new people and learns what the lovely countryside is like. This is a really fast paced book, you should be able to finish it within an hour or so, but nonetheless it is worth reading.

This is a good story about a girl who spends a few weeks with a family that is very different from her own. Dossi learns other people have alot to offer her and she has alot to offer in a friendship,too. Hurwitz is a wonderful author; she makes the characters and situation come alive.

This was a great book. It is about Dossi, a poor Jewish orphan from New York City who is able to spend two weeks in August of 1910 in the Vermont countryside through the Fresh Air Fund. Dossi learns about country life from her hosts' two daughters, and Dossi in turn teaches them about city life. I highly reccomend this book.

It is simply one of the most inspiring and novel books ever written about film production: Jean-Pierre Geuens' FILM PRODUCTION THEORY. This is not a "how to" book, it is a book that raises strategic questions about what we perceive as standard filmmaking practices and accepted aesthetic (professional) norms. What Geuens sets out to do is to open the potential filmmaker's mind to alternate ways of "skinning the cat" or alternate approaches to filmmaking from various significant aspects: screenwriting, composition, staging, sound, editing and even direction. The book is literally a testament to the benefits (and the pain) of thinking differently- of going against the grain and standing your ground. Geuens reveals the real reason anyone should go to film school and it is not to make a delightful reel of your work that imitates hollywood production values and conceits... He reminds us that what we love about certain filmmakers was born from those particular individual's unwillingness to conform- to challenged the pre-existing notions; so therefore this book inspires you to challenge, to explore, to take risks and more importantly to appreciate the risks and challenges taken by others. It is the kind of book that could be read simultaneously with any "standard" required film production book. Geuens repeats the rules and then reveals to you how others have broken the rules and still made provocative,groundbreaking and classic work. For graduate students, Geuens puts various thinkers (Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Derrida, Nietzche and Bazin) to great use and allows their thoughts to be easily understood in the context of film production. For the practicing (struggling) filmmaker, Geuens renews your faith in the differences between your work and "hollywood", your work and the conventional, the unique experiences of your soul and the "system". The lignt that permeates Geuens work is that he forces you to decide whether you are trying to really make films or trying," to use filmmaking to secure the easy life." (pg. 256) All in all this was a compelling, throughly engaging and necessary read for anyone interested in film, films studies, film production and film criticism.

I picked up this book thinking it would be a dry treatise about lighting and camera direction etc. But having not attended film school I thought it'd be good information to lay under my practical film Production experience.

...and it certainly opened my eyes.

This is a book for filmmakers, film critics, and those with a deep interest in film.

It does NOT tell you HOW to make a movie. It provides food for thought about the major production decisions that the Producer and/or Director considers when making a motion picture.

It is an extremely "thinky" book. Moored in the French New Wave, American Zoetrope and to a lesser extent Spanish and Italian cinema. It praises experimentation and asks the reader to consider the effect of everything that they will put into the film. Likewise, the author derides "Hollywood" for sacrificing the potential of the motion picture as art form in order to accumulate as much money as can be made. While this feeling is prevelant throughout the text, it is refreshingly not overbearing.

The book reads like a series of lectures about film theory on such topics as Film School, Writing, Directing, Framing, Lighting, Sound and Editing. In this format it is digestible in small chunks and allows the reader to process what they have read before taking on the next topic.

As an Independent Producer, I found the points in this book to be worthy of consideration as I develop, plan, shoot, and finish my projects. I don't agree with everything he says, but he says it in such a way as to help me understand the impact of my decisions (e.g. to shoot on location vs. on a soundstage). I could easily see myself skimming through this text before any project to help me frame my approach. This is as much a testament to its depth and density as it is to its worth.

It is a new century, a new reality... Hail the new art form! one that will only 100 years of life awaits to be fully and beautifully exploited by new kinds of filmmakers, artists, philosophers, dreamers and siners!

This is the one book you need to read to fully understand the capabilities of Cinema as a true art form, not an obscene business.

Thank you Mr. Geuens, blessings to your creatively anarchic mind.

BUY THIS BOOK!!!

First I thought what could this book tell me what I didn't know already. But then I realized this is not just about filmmaking, this book is about you and me and what we call life. It's a story of looking behind the curtain and seeing the wizzard but not giving up your dream. Deeply inspiring and ultimatly insightful, this is the one text everybody who cares about movies should read. I read this book in a day and I hope Mr. Geuens will continue to write. So fasten your seatbelt and be prepared to see your preconceived ignorance shatter into a thousand little pieces and out of it will rise a new outlook on life and the movies.

Film Production Theory is an exciting and important book. Most importantly, the book outlines what is at stake aesthetically and philosophically in what appear to be merely technical considerations that enter into the making of film. Unlike many other works that focus upon the finished product, or, upon the personalities behind the product, Geuen's book focuses upon the techniques of cinema, with an eye to clarify what are the assumptions about the nature of cinema that are implicit in those techniques. For example, with respect to screenwriting Geuens points out that the standardized approach to screenwriting, in which dialogue is the most prominent feature and camera movement and angles are for the most part deliberately left out, implies that film is about story first and image second and also implies a less than fully collaborative relationship between writers and directors. Of course some writers and directors do collaborate very effectively -- but in doing so they are going against a trend that is implicit in the mainstream traditions of filmmaking, traditions that make it difficult for filmmakers to, say, let images and settings be the impetus for a creative and improvisational approach to telling stories. In addition to screenwriting, Geuens gives very helpful and detailed analyses of the nature of film school, the techniques of directing and lighting and cinematography and sound and editing. In all this, he is not simply aiming to criticize the way films usually get made, or the techniques that get applied to filmmaking, but primarily to show that such techniques pretend to be the best and only professional way to do things when in fact there have been remarkable films made differently and with far different results. In fact, the first few chapters of the book are attempts to understand why and how the "Hollywood system" came to be what it has become, what impact it has had culturally, and along the way to consider and highlight paths that were never or rarely taken. Sometimes Geuens can get a bit heavy handed and he is certainly not without his own strong views, but the book as a whole works to open up and clarify and illuminate the process of filmmaking. He is extremely well read in philosophy and critical theory and film theory, and draws upon ideas from people like Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty and Deleuze and many others, but never simply in the form of obscure name dropping. His references to such thinkers almost never fail to be both extremely helpful on the nature of film and quite clear in its summary of the often obscure thoughts of difficulty philosophers. The book is both an exceptional guide for the aspiring filmmaker and a powerful complement to works of film theory that focus on the product rather than the process. I consider the book the most important book on film I have read in a very long time, and can't recommend it highly enough.