Bertha Books

Autism Undiagnosed, by Big Bertha Evans, is a wonderful story of courage and the misunderstandings that take place as a result of an undiagnosed disease. Brian's story is heartwarming, and Big Bertha's telling of his ongoing tale is wonderful. Reading this book will make you want to give Brian and Bertha the biggest hug imaginable, and my best wishes go out to this wonderful man who has made it despite terrible odds. I place this book in my top ten to read, and would recommend it for anyone!

In reading " Autism Undiagnosed," By Big Bertha Evans has opened my eyes and I'm sure thousands of other people's eyes to children with Autism. Just like her first book: " Joy And Sorrows of Living With Adult Autism," She brings forth the heart break of a child with Autism and the struggles he goes through and his mis-diagnosis. In reading her story about Brian your heart aches for him and yet as the story progresses from childhood to teenager to adult you find yourself rooting for him and in the end a special love comes from your heart for Brian, he's one special person. Big Bertha Evans has a hit, I give her five ***** stars for a story that's important to everyone wether you have a relative or a child with Autism, these are very special children and adults, it's a must read book.....

Joe Baraba
Santa Fe, NM

AUTISM UNDIAGNOSED
By Big Berthan Evans

(Review by Loretta A. Murphy-Birster, MSN, CSN, RN)

The clinical spectrum of autism is a broad one that has grown significantly in definition, diagnosis and detection over the past twenty years. Once thought to be a disease of childhood, the disorder is now being diagnosed and treated in not only children but adults. Brian Evans is one of those adults. In Autism Undiagnosed, his wife, Big Bertha Evans, helps Brian tell his story. From infancy to college, Autism Undiagnosed follows Brian's footsteps forward as he blazed his trail toward adulthood and independence.

Imagine knowing you were different from other people but not being able to understand why or what to do about it. Autistic individuals lack empathy. They do not have the ability to communicate with others as effectively or efficiently as those without the disorder. Autism is not a disease of intellect but of communication, socialization, and comprehension. Big Bertha's unique ability to look at her husband's life through her own eyes gives the reader an inside view of the autistic mind and how it works. The book is an invaluable resource to parents attempting to understand their child's autism, teachers struggling on how to successfully integrate and teach these special needs children in their classrooms, and health care professionals faced with the challenges of compassionately caring for persons with autistic symptoms.

Life is not a textbook. Individuals with autism do not all look, act, or respond in the same way. Brian Evans is a handsome young man who is an accomplished singer and attended college. His photographs do not hint at the disorder that has caused him so much pain and suffering. Yet the disability linked to the behaviors that are part of his autistic complex very definitely exist. Knowing what an autistic individual is experiencing helps others understand the behaviors that accompany the thoughts and feelings. This is a valuable key towards insight.

Cookie cutter approaches to any illness or disorder sometimes causes the caregiver - whether parent, teacher, or clinician - to resort to one or two approaches when dealing with the diverse spectrum of symptoms, behaviors, and findings associated with autism. Each autistic individual requires unique and individualized interventions. Autism Undiagnosed will help those in a position to educate and teach better understand how to make a difference in the life of autistic persons by first understanding how autism causes them to think, feel and respond to their world.

Autism Undiagnosed is Big Bertha Evans' second book on autism. Her homespun and candid style makes for an easy and enjoyable alternative to journal articles and psychology texts on the subject. This book is a recommended read for those in the education and healthcare fields. Students in these professional studies will benefit from exposure to Brian's story. The book will be a useful resource to offer parents who may have limited knowledge or unrealistic ideas about their child's autism diagnosis and what it will mean to their academic, social, and adult life.

Autism Undiagnosed is the story of the author's husband Brian, his childhood and growing up with autism that was not diagnosed. There were so many terrible things he had to suffer because of his autism, when people did not understand what was wrong with him. Adults as well as children mistreated Brian instead of offering compassion and trying to help him. Your heart will be touched as you realize how different this childhood could have been with a proper diagnosis and greater understanding of how to treat an autistic child. This book will help you to better understand autism and hopefully make each of us more thoughtful about how we treat those who are "different" as we gain a little insight into this disorder.
Connie Arnold, author of Beautiful Moments of Joy and Peace
[...]

In "Autism Undiagnosed," the author has done a wonderful job of providing a chronicle of the childhood and early adulthood of her husband, who has autism. I was shocked at all of the things he endured as a child, simply because he went undiagnosed until he was an adult. Bertha has shown us the struggles that Brian's mother faced in trying to gain assistance for her child, and she has even provided diary excerpts that Brian's mother wrote during some of the most difficult times in his childhood. I learned so much more about autism by reading this book, and I encourage others to read it as well, whether you know someone with autism or not. I applaud Bertha and her husband for being willing to share their lives so openly to the public so that others can learn about autism and understand it better. They are both very wonderful people, and I believe you will be blessed by reading their book. Alissa Dunn - author of The Unclaimed Christmas Gift

"The Complete American Jewish Cookbook" includes a mix of traditional Ashkenazic dishes and mid-20th-century American comfort food. There are many cookbooks that will provide updated versions of traditional foods and kosher versions of contemporary favorites. But how many of them also serve as good, basic references, covering everything from applesauce (multiple versions) to zucchini? My personal favorites include banana bread and baked macaroni and cheese. The Passover section is invaluable, and the chicken soup is sheer perfection!

My friend's Mom gave me her book that she got in 1950. Even with the front cover missing I return to this book time and time again. I love the thousands of recipes to choose from. The best part is rarely is there a recipe that has more than 6-10 ingredients. Easy to read - simple to follow - great pictures. I've purchased a used hard cover version that I saving for my daughter. This cookbook brings the memory of my mother and grandmother back to life!

I have approximately 20 cookbooks on my shelf, but when push comes to shove, this is my best source for almost anything I am looking for. I have been using it for 40 years, and am now looking to buy a "new" one, having gone through 2 already...as I said, I really use this book!

I have had this book for about 48 years, in fact the original one has pages falling out. I had to buy another (with soft cover) about 15 years ago because the first one is very fragile. I bought this book for my daughter when she got married in 1980 and also for my youngest daughter when she married in 1983. Now my grandaughter, age 18, is starting college and wants the book, too. I understand it is out of print, and in that case, I will have to give her the soft cover one. This book is a basic cookbook which covers every situation, and it is especially good for new cooks because it explains very well. You don't even have to be kosher to use it, but it doesn't hurt. New jewish cookbooks come and go, but this is the one you really need and is a keeper!

I completely agree with the other reviewers here. Lover is, in its own way, as hard as James Joyce, Gertrude Stein, or William Faulkner, and the style is highly original rather than an imitation of any of them. It takes two or three reads to even begin to get what the novel is doing, but the payoff is so high. When I teach difficult novels, I often tell my students that the only thing I require of them is readers is that they not give up and refuse to finish the book. This one, I must say, even challenged graduate students to stay with it, but they were so happy they did. The novel should be up there with the best of not only lesbian fiction, but modernist/postmodernist narrative, and taught in a variety of university literature courses. And any non-academic who loves the English language will have a ball with it.

How is it possible that not one person who have bought this title has been moved to write a review about this book?! If you have tried to read it and "couldn't get into it", DON"T GIVE UP! Please give it another try! Lover is, at first, a difficult read. That is one of the reasons why I like the introduction by the author...she tells you why she wrote it that way and how to go about reading it. Once you slip into the style, you will find a wonderful, funny, and at times, horribly real story full of wisdom, wit, pain, and humor. I have read this book several times, and have it underlined and dog-eared, with notes scribbled in the margins. I constantly return to it for words of wisdom, favorite quotes, or a laugh or two.

Recently at a Gay and Lesbian coffeehouse, I read a brief excerpt from _Lover_ to a group of predominantly Lesbian friends. Afterward, several of them approached me, grinning from ear to ear and asking, "What was that funny, terrific book you read?"

Good question. To call Bertha Harris's _Lover_ a "novel" doesn't quite do it justice. The nonlinear narrative, fluid identities, and general postmodern sensibility guarantee that plot and character, those two mainstays of novelistic form, will quickly fall by the wayside.

So what is _Lover_? Bertha Harris calls this book a "tap-dance," a "pleasure dome," and an act of seduction. I would add, more trivially, that it's a Lesbian-centered family history, focusing on the relations of a matrix of women characters. That doesn't do justice to the book either, but it comes closer.

Ultimately, _Lover_ can best be described as a dazzling literary performance, designed to give pleasure to the reader. Some of the pleasure is embedded deep within the text, in the connections between seemingly unrelated vignettes; Harris provides a helpful guide to these connections in the "family tree" (actually more like tangled vines) that opens the novel.

But there's a great deal of surface pleasure, too, and it's no less intense or profound. _Lover_ can be enjoyed in the moment for its droll wit, its crystalline prose, and most of all, its (largely) unabashed expression of sexual desire. It's no accident that Bertha Harris co-authored _The Joy of Lesbian Sex_.

So why isn't _Lover_ better known? There are several reasons, most of them connected to the strange politics of the publishing (and reviewing) world. _Lover_ was originally published in paperback, at a time when paperback fiction was deemed inherently unworthy of a mainstream book review; and it was an explicitly Lesbian novel, at a time when Lesbian fiction was even more marginalized from the literary mainstream than it is now.

Only a few people, mostly Lesbian separatists, gave _Lover_ much notice when it was first published (and the publicity campaign, or relative lack thereof, probably didn't help). And when Daughters Inc., the novel's original publishers, went bankrupt, _Lover_ disappeared completely from view--until NYU press revived the work in 1993, complete with a new (and, for me, indispensable) preface by Harris herself.

Harris's controversial story of the rise and fall of Daughters Inc.--and of her own career as a Lesbian writer--provides an "overture" to the book, stating specific themes of the work and giving a specific personal, political and psychological context for the action to come. With this new preface, _Lover_ stands out as a masterpiece of 20th-century literature.

In all likelihood, your public library doesn't have a copy of _Lover_. That's all the more reason to buy a copy of your own.

This novel contains: thousands of tears, a great love story, two young lovers, two cities at war, sarcasm in the hopes of a better destiny in the myth of a new born, a miracle, irony and passion. Cuca Canals first novel transports you into a world of fantasy and dreams nobody expects. Everybody should read it.

I've had the chance to read this wolderfull book full of magic and tenderness. I would recomend it to anyone wishing to spend a good time reading something beautiful and inocent. I would also recomend her next two titles: La hescritora and LA chica que lloraba lágrimas de oro. Both of them are also beautifull. I have all of them signed by the author and keep them as a treasure.

This book is worthwhile for much more valuable information than its title may suggest. It's an excellent survey of the second American etching revival, which took place in printmaking during the early Twentieth Century. Well documented, easy to read, and chock full of fascinating information about the remarkable etching advocate Jaques, it also tells a great deal about the activities of a host of other printmakers. The volume's four appendices, copious notes, extensive bibliography, and index make this book a reference well worth the price to scholars of American printmaking history.

This is the first full-length study, and likely to remain the definitive one, of the Chicago Society of Etchers, incorporated in l9l0 under its chief architect, Bertha E. Jaques (l863-l94l). Together they played a profound role in developing popular American artistic taste in the first half of the 20th century, both by inspiring other societies and by making the best prints available to a broad and receptive public. In its 47-year life the CSE would exhibit at least 40,000 prints across America, whose impact has been unevaluated and uninvestigated until Patterson's study.

Most interesting and admirable is the analysis of the CSE's unwavering resistance to modernism, despite expectable criticism and the formation of a rival, alternative group, the Chicago No-Jury Society of Artists. Supporters of the CSE could always rely on the Society to produce traditional, academic, and representational works--would that more artistic groups were unwilling to cave in to the ephemeral, the anarchic, and the chaotic in all areas of American life. This stance produced friction with the Chicago Art Institute, and its break with that facility in the early '30's was a serious setback, although the CSE continued to function as late as l956.

Two striking features of this work are the ninety-two black and white and eight color illustrations of beautifully reproduced etchings and prints, and the straightforward, expository prose of the text which integrates the history of the Society in the social and economic settings of the World War, the Twenties, and the Depression Era. The final chapter is devoted specifically to Bertha Evelyn Jaques, a talented artist in her own right, who was an inspiration to thousands.

The Appendices are invaluable, with complete lists of Presentation Prints of the CSE, Exhibiting Members, and the Years and Cities where their work appeared. The notes and bibliography will be the starting point for any researcher or devotee of the subject, reflecting the wide-ranging and exhaustive work which went into compiling this remarkable volume. A more complete review may be found in Bibliophilos, VIII, No. 2 (Summer 2003), l24-l26.

If you're looking for an inspiring and uplifting book then "Bertha Size Your Life" by Jane Carroll is a book for you!

It's a delightful story about you and me;encouraging us to listen to our inner-voices to follow our dreams and live our best life now. If you have a difficult time with negative thoughts that may defeat your purpose in life, Bertha helps you conquer that too!

I give it 5 stars, a MUST read!
Leslie Freude

Santa Clarita, CA

If I used one word to describe this book it would be, F-U-N. But then again, there's another; "revelations." And yet another; "perspective." My list goes on and on. I enjoyed this read so much that I finished in two days.

Jane Carroll opens her story with the "Empty Nest" blues as her last child leaves via the altar, but she quickly turns the theme around into a wonderful adventure of enlightenment, encouragement, and self-love. One that helps the reader in sorting out the past, the present, and the next fifty years. She shows us how to really live. That's life...with a capital "L."

As the story begins, she's jogging in the park and meets a woman named Bertha. After friendly exchanges, the two decide the role of room-mates fits them well. As soon as Bertha moves in, life changes and might I say, all for the better. It truly gives new meaning to the phrase, "When the student is ready, ..." Bertha's lifestyle is all about taking time to smell the roses, literally on some days. She's offers how life is meant to be embraced, cherish, lived in the "now," and how drifting is not an option. There's no room for "woe is me" in this book.

Each day (and Chapter) begins with a new adventure, and a flashy new wardrobe, I might add, by the simple question being asked, "Bertha, what are you doing?" I quickly learned that once these lines were read, Bertha would emerge; sometimes climbing on her soapbox and delivering "aha" moments, and other times using life-altering analogies coated with wisdom that couldn't be denied, no matter how far one's head is buried in the sand.

While each Bertha-sized adventure was fun, this book gives the reader much more than chuckles. In the end, you fully understand. It's like Bertha says, nothing is more important than feeling good about me, and it's okay to ask for help when you need it. Bertha helps you to connect with your inner child AND spirit, once again. She teaches us that letting go of some impossible situations, or people, is okay, and that fitting everyone into your life is not mandatory. Even complete acceptance of some situations can be a form of letting go. Another lesson; it's okay to distance yourself from concerns to gain a better perspective, even if this involves taking a day off work, wearing a silly hat and hitting the beach. Entitlement; it's a good thing.

Just who is this Bertha? She's you, me, and every other woman you've known who needs to "listen" to her own voice and make the world be quiet.

Her mantra? Be as nice to yourself as you are to others.

In my opinion, a great place to start would be by reading, Bertha-size Your Life!

Sgt. Sellers has a bone to pick with Donald Lam even before the case begins. It seems an armored car robbery netted a robber $100,000, but Sellers only recovered $50,000 of it. The crook claims Sellers took the rest of it. His clues led him to a woman who had the address of Cool and Lam in her purse. Donald had never heard of her before, and tells Sellers that - but while in conference the woman in question shows up.

Meeting her in secret, he learns she wants him to track down $60,000 she claims her ex-boy-friend was going to settle with her on. It's a case Donald doesn't like, but agrees to take.

Donald finds $50,000 without much trouble, and even figures out a way to ship it back to his office without detection, but then finds himself in the middle of a murder case - and worse still, the $50,000 disappeared somewhere along the way. It takes all of his skill to figure out the clues while still being detained by the police - and held under "protective custody" in a hotel room.

Kept Women Can't Quit, by A A Fair (Erle Stanley Gardner)

The 'Foreword' is dedicated to Preston G. Smith, Warden at the Federal Correctional Institution at Terminal Island California, and has some advice and wisdom on rehabilitating convicts. Gardner says a vindictive punishment is bad because it doesn't rehabilitate prison inmates and leads them to continue the mental attitude that put them in jail. Warden Preston G. Smith tried to provide the fundamentals, vocational and academic training, counseling, etc. Has anything changed over the last fifty years?

The opening chapter tells of a stealth theft from an armored car that was only discovered when the money went missing after the driver and guard stopped for coffee and doughnuts. The "Cool & Lam" agency gets a visit from Detective Sergeant Sellers because their name and number was found on a piece of paper in a suspect's possession - the alleged girlfriend of a criminal found with half the loot. The police think this money was ordered by a big bookmaker. This girlfriend, Hazel Downer, visits Donald Lam to find her missing husband, and the money she inherited. Coincidentally, this money matches the amount missing in the robbery! [Note how the author builds a complicated case while lightly touching on various human errors.] Chapter 2 gives a quick introduction to the public relations racket and its use in merchandising. Donald Lam follows the clues he discovers. A duplicate trunk is shipped to San Francisco, and Lam follows. Lam meets Hazel and goes for a ride. Their meeting is interrupted by Sergeant Sellers. How will Donald Lam get out of this mess?

Gardner used this pen-name to provide another outlet for his creative talents. This story demonstrates Gardner's skill as a writer of detective stories. Using a continuing series about a fictional person creates a brand and a market for this type of novel. Examples are A. Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie, Ian Fleming, Patricia Cornwell, and others.

Highly reccomended reading. Very interesting and personalized study of spanish gypsies. This book was written in the nineteen fifties. A world unknown to most people is brought to fruition by two extremely talented writers. The only wish I had was an update to this book which would fill in the timespan of the last fifty years.

Heart felt and analytical account of vanishing breed of cave dwellers. Book was written during late fifties and captures a unique time and culture of a treasured society.

I love a book that catches your interest on the first page and this one does! Bertha Sutliff writes in a manor that makes you feel as though you are living the book as it unfolds. I couldn't wait to get back to it when I had to lay it down. Not only does the story hold your interest, but the descriptive way it's written makes you feel your at home in the mountains of Arkansas back in that time period. Bravo Mrs. Sutliff! Excellent read.

I absolutely loved this book! It was easy reading and I couldn't
put it down. Ms. Sutliff makes her characters come to life.
I felt I knew them and what it was like to live in the hills of
Arkansas in the early 1900's. I would like to read more stories
about Beaver and Keziah. I hope there is a sequel.

In the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Congress mandated the desegregation of all public schools receiving Federal aid. Mississippi tried to "comply" with the law by a "Freedom of Choice" program which allowed students over a certain age and parents to designate the schools they wished to attend. While, perhaps, facially appealing, the "Freedom of Choice" program served as a means to intimidate blacks from attempting to register in what were at the time all-white schools. Those with the courage to do so faced danger to their livelihood, property, and persons. The "Freedom of Choice" program ultimately was invalidated through litigation.

Constance Curry's inspiring book "Silver Rights" (1995) tells the story of a family of black sharecroppers in the heart of the Mississippi Delta, Mae Bertha and Matthew Carter and seven of their thirteen children (all their children then of school age). The Carter's took the "Freedom of Choice" program at its word. In 1965, the seven children enrolled in the primary and secondary schools of Drew, Mississippi, a small town with a then-deserved reputation for violence and lawlessness. Ms. Curry worked as a field representative for the American Friends Service Committee from 1965-1975. She got to know the Carter family well and was instrumental in providing the assistance necessary to get them through their difficult times.

The book includes excellent pictures of life in the Mississippi Delta, for both white and black people, in the early to mid-twentieth century. The book shows a feel for the place, for sharecropping life on the farms and for life in the dusty towns, for the blues culture of the Delta, and for its history. The book offers substantial discussion of the notorious Emmett Till case and of other lynchings and of early attempts to organize civil rights activities in the Delta. Ms. Curry eloquently evokes the spirit of the Delta at the opening of her story:

"In trying to describe the Mississippi Delta, I seem to find only superlatives -- the flattest land, the blackest dirt, the hottest summers, the nicest people, the poorest people. In defining the delta's past and even its present, I am aware of these extremes and also of its incongruities: the violence and the peacefulness, the beauty and the ugliness, the stillness and the tension. It is a place complex almost beyond comprehension." (p. xxi)

In telling her story, Ms. Curry lets her protagonists do most of the talking. The opening chapters set the stage and explain the Carter's ambitions for an education, and an end to the hardships of sharecropping, for their children. The second section of the book explores the backround of Mae Bertha Carter and her mother Luvenia's early life as the wife of a Delta sharecropper. The book discusses throughout the experiences of the Carter family as they faced violence and shootings in the early stages following their enrollment in the formerly white schools. Throughout their period in the public schools the children endured harassment, name-calling and ostracism. The Carter family was forced off the plantation and Matthew Carter lost his job. The book shows the courage and perseverance of the family and the aid offered by the AFSC and other organizations.

The book includes interviews with each of the thirteen Carter children and discussions of the family members fared after their graduation from the public schools. There are some moving scenes when Ms. Curry reestablished contact with the Carter family in 1988, thirteen years after her work with the AFSC came to an end. Mae Bertha Carter remains determined and forceful and has received honors from institutions within the State of Mississippi that would have been unthinkable in the 1960s.

This book tells an important story of the silver rights movement. It is a work of both history and memory and describes beautifully the changes wrought with time.

Silver Right is a moving and telling story of my family struggle to achieve equality in America. This book does a very good job of relating the feeling, fear and turmoil that I felt during those four long years of being the only black family at an all white school in the Mississippi Delta in the sixites. Silver Rights goes beyond the actions of people during that time. It looks at the cilvil right movement on a personal level. This book will make you laugh, and it will also make your cry