Long Books

This book is by and about two guys from the UK who retraced the route of the original Long March. I had seen some stuff about the project in the news, but I really got turned on to this book when I heard one of the two give a lecture at the Bookworm. I was also a member of the studio audience when he appeared as a guest on UP CLOSE (for those of you who don't live in Beijing, UP CLOSE is a local TV show on the 24 hour English channel).

My main interest was to see if this book could help to clear up some areas of conflict and fill in some gaps in the history of this much heralded event in the history of New China. The recent book by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday has focused attention on the Long March, because they seem to feel that the Long March has been blown out of proportion for propaganda purposes.

So my primary interest is history rather than geography or sociology. But in reading this book, I did learn a fair bit about the geography of this area, and also gained some insight into current Chinese culture. For example, the writers mentioned several cases where a newspaper would call them and ask for an interview. They were not able to accommodate every request, so they had no choice but to turn down some of them. But they noticed, to their amusement, that the article appeared anyway, with completely fabricated information. Retelling this story brings to mind the story Ronald Reagan used to tell about when he was a sports announcer for an Iowa radio station during the depression, and he made up the end of a baseball game because the teletype connection had been interrupted for some reason, and he didn't want to lose his audience. So I do not imply that this problem is limited to China. But hearing the story and others like it does support the growing consensus that it would be good to see a little more openness in the Chinese media.

Regarding the march itself, there is a lot of controversy about just what took place. Jung Chang gives the impression that the Long March was an "easy ride" for Mao, and pictures him riding in a litter in a grand tour through the mountains. That picture really does not jibe with history. But her contention that the route of the march was influenced by political factors that went beyond the best way to get where they were going has given me some pause. That, I have to admit, does sound like something Mao would do. But if you want to write history with integrity, you can't just say something that you think would be typical of a given historical figure, without providing the historical evidence that it actually happened the way you would like to surmise. This is one of the main reasons I recommend this book. It was written by two guys, one of whom has a PhD in history, who actually retraced every step of the trail. And they did it at a time when several people who had either been on the march or remembered it vividly were living along the route of the march.

But there is another side benefit of this book. These guys talked to a lot of country people along the way, who gave them a colorful picture of how the laobaixing in the countryside see their country and the world. For example, they saw many large character signs proclaiming the importance of the "Three Represents (Jiang Zemin's contribution to the legacy of Mao Zedong thought)." They asked people along the way about the importance of these proclamations. Everybody they talked to insisted that the "Three Represents" were very important, but no one could tell them what the three represents actually were. Finally, one young girl said she thought she knew. She said the Three Represents were Mao Zedong, Deng Xiao-ping, and Jiang Zemin.

Andy McEwen (one of the authors) showed a bunch of slides at the bookworm one night. He asked us to guess which one was censored from the Chinese edition of their presentation. No one could guess. But when he told us, it made perfect sense. It was a picture of some coal miners, very noticeable by their black faces, and by the fact that they were quite young.

I could go on, but I think I have made the point that this is a multi-faceted book that will definitely add to your understanding of China. It is really two stories in one. It gives insight into the Long March, but it is also a very intimate story of two foreigners who hiked through the countryside of China. As such, it would have value even without the historical significance of the route they chose. Five stars for a job well done.

The "original" Long March was an epic movement of Mao's communist troops escaping from the Kuomintang in southern China to a "soviet" enclave in the north via the fringes of Tibetan highlands. It is possibly the best-known "heroic" event in the history of Chinese communism, having become almost "mythical" in its status/importance by today.

The authors are two journalists who have decided to try and compare the myth with the reality by retracing the Long March. Despite burocratic hurdles and the dearth of resources, they succeed to do so, meeting surviving eye-witnesses, and possibly even Mao's "long-lost daughter" along the way. They blend the story of their own march with the existing reports of the historic one all along, for one proving that the Long March did indeed happen in the first place.
This is fascinating enough for the history buff, but even if you aren't one, the book still holds plenty of interest.
Following a route through the rural backwaters of China no one else has done for decades, the march takes authors through extremely varied corners of this giant country, letting them provide fascinating insights into the mix of modernization and backwardness that is the China of today. From booming cities to minority villages steeped in dire poverty, from warm traditional welcome to hostile suspicion, they experience and expose it all, made all the more insightful by their excellent command of the Chinese language.

One of the very best "travelogues" I have ever read about any country, this book can only be most highly recommended.

Lytle's fictional account should be read as a companion piece to Bertram Wyatt-Brown's Southern Honor: Ethics and Behavior in the Old South (Oxford). Wyatt-Brown's thesis is that honor functioned as the most important, though often too quickly overlooked, social mechanism in the Antebellum South, ensuring that every facet of society behaved within the confines of a stringent, mutually agreed upon code of conduct. Reaction--either positive or negative--to a person's behavior was thus both internal to the person and reflected by society as a whole. The degree of a person's acceptance by society was a mirror that reflected his or her own sense of self-worth, which was directly related to the degree to which he or she conformed to universally accepted societal behavioral norms. Deviating from these norms resulted in social castigation--essentially assuring overall ostracism due to loss of honor. The only two means of recourse was (1) to challenge society's appraisal, frequently in a violent manner; or (2) to leave town, or even the state ("Gone to Texas," was the general term for this, which is literally what Lytle's fictional family attempted to do in Long Night, until that planned backfired and they resorted to violence to avenge the their lost honor).

Strangely, Wyatt-Brown completely ignores Lytle's Long Night in illustrating his point about how honor operated in the Old South and often lead to bloody ends, although he relies on countless other fictional works. Nonetheless, both works greatly inform each another, rendering much greater understanding of the period and the place, and the motivations of those living in them.


Lytle goes far in dramatising how, at the outbreak of the War, Southerners were required to temporariy set aside personal honor for regional honor, and how one man's refusal to do so led to tragic inner turmoil and loss of self-identity.

This the the first novel by the great critic a much neglected-novelist, Andrew Lytle. The story is narrated by an older uncle to his nephew during one long night as he tells the story of his Alabama family around the period of the Civil War. Like Cold Mountain, Lytle's research and knowledge of the customs, speech, and lifestyle of his characters is perfect. Though this was his first novel, you'll see Lytle was already a master of fiction. When you're finished read "The Fathers" the Civil War novel by Lytle's friend poet, Alan Tate.

This book is worth its weight in gold. The reason for life and how to obtain God-Realization is before your eyes.

Very simple reading and speak truth to all who read/hear.

This book is so much more than a manual on self-realization. It is a manual for living. In clear, concise language the Shivapuri Baba relates very practical advice for putting your day-to-day affairs in order, thereby creating the leisure to focus your energy on your spiritual endeavors with your free time. I highly recommend this book to everyone seeking to create a balanced structure for their daily life, a structure which will serve as a strong edifice upon which to build the temple of their spirituality.
One note to buyers: The book I purchased has 8 blank pages where there should be text. It looks like a publishing error. Before purchasing, I recommend contacting the seller to check if their copy has the same problem.

The story of a boy named Thad who was captured by indians and became an indian chief's son.

Author lives in Canda..survived plane crash, lived--- underground----WW-II & eluded capture by Nazis

Jules Trehan has been on the run for three years in which she has been unable to stay in one place for very long. Having made a mistake in her youth and joined an operation that the government is after was a very bad decision on Jules' part, and now she is unable to break away from the tentacles that hold her to the organization she is trying so hard to get away from. Injured in an explosion cause by the men after her, she winds up in a Colorado hospital and comes face-to-face with the only man she has ever loved - Manuel Ramirez. Knowing without a doubt that his life will be forfeit if he's seen with her, she does her best to get rid of him. Little does she know that Manuel has more than just his good looks to back him - he has the power of the CIA.

Manuel Ramirez has been searching for Jules for three long years. As soon as he would get a lead, it would go cold and he would have to start over again. When he finally corners her in the hospital after the explosion that killed two innocent people, Manuel decides enough is enough. Jules is going to come clean about her life and she IS going to let him help her, because above all things, Manuel loves her and wants to be the man that she can turn to. Easier said done when he finds out exactly how desperate and dark her secrets are.

Long Road Home is unlike any Sharon Long book I have ever read. Full of turmoil and suspense, I almost gave up on Jules being able to have a life away from the bad choices she made years ago. Her love for Manuel was apparent to me, as was his love for her. I found myself totally immersed in the story and unable to put it down. Once again, Sharon Long gives me another reason to keep reading her stories. Long Road Home was simply magnificent.

Talia
reviewed for Joyfully Reviewed

Jules Trehan is on the run from those who have blackmailed her into doing things she despises herself for. But she did what she had to do in order to protect her loved ones. Now her childhood friend and the man she loves more than anyone else has found her and is determined to protect her, at any cost. His life, however, is not a price Jules is willing to pay.

Manny has used every resource at his disposal to search for Jules since she disappeared three years ago. Now that he's found her, he is determined to never let her go again. But Jules' secrets threaten everything they might have together, including their very lives.

Sharon Long's newest release, Long Road Home, sees a change of genre for her. Fans of this author's work are used to seeing historicals with a slight paranormal twist to them, but will be delighted with her new contemporary suspense romance! Ms. Long flexes her writing muscles and pens a tale certain to find a place in readers' list of favorite stories, as it did my own.

This is really Jules' story, and my heart broke for her as I saw the life she was forced to lead for the last three years, felt her loneliness and fear, and saw her hopes and dreams dashed time and again. But in spite of everything she has been through, and the things she was forced to do, her motivations remain pure throughout the story.

Manny is the kind of man any woman would be more than happy to be with. He remains steadfastly loyal to the woman he loves, whom he has called friend for a lifetime, in spite of what he discovers she has been doing for the last three years. In fact, even while she was separated from him, her love for Manny has been an anchor during the long dark years she has suffered.

The plot of Long Road Home is fraught with more twists and bumps than the Titan roller coaster at Six Flags over Texas! Sharon Long deftly lays clues throughout the story that give readers a fair shot at deducing who the villains are without giving it away too soon.

No matter what pen name this author uses, no matter what genre she tackles, she always delivers a wonderfully written story guaranteed to captivate the reader until the very last page. I highly recommend Long Road Home!

Wow -- what a book. Ever since I first heard him read I've admired it. These poems are traditional in the best sense: They welcome the reader in, give specific image and voice to struggles and pains that are universal, and the language is incredibly sonorous. The title poem alone is worth the price of admission. An overwhelmingly sad book, there are nonetheless moments of humor that glimmer through -- check out "The Wave" for a pretty hilarious skewering of academic venom.

Eric Trethewey's poems are colorful and rich. His word-choice shows readers that he is well-read and it makes for very interesting poems. He conveys a very good "sense of setting" and makes the reader feel comfortable with the voice of the poem. People who like to read good poetry will love the poems of Eric Trethewey's book.

Upon first reading this work of art by Bruce Tuckman, i was vacationing at a friend's lake house. The book was recomended to me to read so i began reading. The book did not leave my hands after that until I was done with it. It contains the same descriptiveness as the book, Once A Runner, by John L. Parker. This book ranks up at the top with the rest of them.

I read (and reread) this book before my first Boston Marathon. The action was so real I couldn't tell if this was fact...or fiction! Did Brad Townes win??? or did Bill Rogers win?? As I ran the route from Hopkinton to Boston, the scenes were vividly replayed in my mind. It was like I had been here before! This book is MUST reading for anyone attempting to qualify for Boston..."Long Road to Boston" convinced me that if Brad Townes could overcome his demons and handicaps, then surely I could train hard enough to join the runners at Boston...and I DID!! This book accompanied me to Boston!

Wow, this author has a sense of humour that is quite dry and witty. Reminds me of childhood realities!

Jack Walker is a kid with a healthy wariness about most things. Blessed with unusual powers of observation, Walker proceeds cautiously, and sometimes clumsily, through childhood, worrying about what might happen next. Often, his fears are justfied. As a kid, he's sent to a hell hole of a summer camp. As a teen, he's violated by a quick-draw enema artist of a school nurse. Jack survives it all, and comes through his often hilarious adventures a little wiser, and less innocent. It all makes for a wonderful read, a coming-of-age tale that unfolds as naturally and unhurriedly as a Saturday afternoon baseball game. Heller, a copy editor at the Washington Post, writes with the sensibility of a novelist and the precision of a veteran journalist. He has a gift for dead-on descriptions and small insights that evoke memories of what growing up was really like.

The Long Shadow kept me company as I rode for 3 1/2 days on the Alaska ferry from Juneau, AK to Bellingham, WA. I loved it! It is rich with descriptions that helped me picture the places and experiences of the characters while the plot kept me interested at every turn. But it was the last couple pages from the end that brought me to tears, literally. Amazed and delighted, I highly recommend this book.

Some books are meant to be savored, and Loretta Proctor's The Long Shadow is definitely one of them! As rich in imagery as it is, history, this author's amazing command of the English language, combined with a beautifully poetic writing style make this novel a pleasure to read. I will definitely be looking for more titles by Ms. Proctor!

Although this excellent book came out in 1989, it remains highly relevant, for it takes an historian's view to place current events in their larger context, to successfully interpret the long shadow of the past--antique cultures steeped in political volatility--and show its effect on the present.

A case in point: In April 1981 a semi-official Egyptian weekly pronounced Ibn Taymiya, the renowned Syrian theologian who lived from 1268 to 1328, the most harmful influence on Egypt's youth. A few months later, Ibn Taymiya became the basis for the actions of 3 of Anwar Sadat's 4 assassins, who had read him extensively.

Pipes divided the book into 5 sections, each including 4 or 5 articles. He groups them somewhat loosely and the articles run the gamut.

Islam and Public Life first discusses fundamentalist views of America and Russia, also touching on how the secular, traditional and reform branches of Islam relate to public life. It next examines religious similarities between Judaism and Islam--both of which stress correct action, compared with Christianity's focus on faith. Pipes shows the far-reaching extent of Muslim anti-Semitism, which stemmed from a patronizing view of other religions that became virulently anti-Jewish in the 20th century--and found welcome among Western Protestants, human rights activists, reporters, academic committees and even liberals seeking a "respectable forum in which to vent their own views about Jews." Pipes also covers the Muslims of Central Asia--which border Taliban Afghanistan's fundamentalist hotbed.

A section on the Persian Gulf attributes the origins of the Iraq-Iran war not to religious differences, but to economic and geographic factors--including the Shatt al-'Arab River and its vast water resources. Pipes also discusses the dangers that oil wealth poses to Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Libya. The oil windfall made these desert sheikdoms dependent on a continued oil boom, unless new sources of income could be found. So far, none have emerged. Pipes praised Kuwait in 1986 when its government refused to buckle under US pressure to release imprisoned terrorists, and later toured the oil state as the guest of Minister of Information, Sheik Nasir. He found the Bedouin descendants' grand hospitality and intellect reflective of the Arabian Nights. Next, he considered the Saudi Arabian kingdom formed by Wahhabi leader Abd al-Aziz, dissecting various histories, including Peter Mansfield's The New Arabians, funded by the Bechtel Corporation.

Pipes' prescient take on the Arab-Israeli conflict also still holds value. The conflict is fueled, he believes, not by Israel but by the conflicting claims of Palestinian separatists, Arab nationalists and the Jordanian and Syrian governments, among others, over Palestine and its boundaries. The latters' perpetual incapacity to unify stems from irreconcilable goals. An Arab government's sponsorship of the PLO grows, he wrote, proportionate to its distance from Israel. Pipes considered no Arab nation eager to end the conflict. By implication, he believed that nothing Israel could do unilaterally would improve the conflict's complexion. Were the PLO, fundamentalists or Syria to inherit the Arab claim, he predicted that the conflict would last longer--which is precisely what happened with Arafat's violent rejection of Oslo in 2000. Pan-Arabism spawned the PLO, prompting Saudi Arabia to give Arafat's organization $250 million a year by the late 1970s, and other oil states, smaller sums. But this funding dictated that PLO behavior would reflect weighted-Arab demands for Israel's destruction, more than Palestinian needs. Meanwhile, the PLO dictatorship brutalizes its own people, as evidenced during its reign of terror in Southern Lebanon from 1975 through 1982.

Another real gem is the section on terrorism. Pipes provides background for suicide terrorism, which is not rooted so much in Islam as in state-sponsorship. The first major instance of suicide terror was the 1981 destruction of the Iraqi embassy in Beirut, which killed 27 and wounded over 100. The phenomenon picked up political steam with the 1982 murder of Lebanon's Bashir Jumayyil and went international with the 1983 bombing of the US embassy in Beirut, which killed 63. Later the same year, a truck bomb killed 241 US servicemen, also in Lebanon. State sponsorship, he shows, was behind most suicidal actions. Many suicides were recruited via blackmail or under other duress. The way to combat it, he wrote, is to punish states that sponsor this violence.

And finally, for the finale, we learn pointedly what is wrong with media coverage of the Middle East. "Put simply, American journalists are interested in only two topics in the Middle East: Israel and the United States. Whatever takes place that is related to these countries is amplified...;whatever does not is ignored." From 1972 to 1980, for example, ABC, CBS and NBC devoted an average of 98.4 minutes annually to Israel, only 54.7 minutes to Egypt, 42.4 minutes to the PLO, 25.7 minutes to Syria, 18.4 minutes to Lebanon, 12.7 minutes to Saudi Arabia, 8.5 to Jordan and 7.2 to Iraq. But the US and the Middle East won an average of 153 minutes of coverage annually. "Israel is imagined to be more powerful than it really is because it is watched so closely," Pipes writes. Similarly, attention given to Palestinian refugees far is out of proportion to their suffering, which in any case is caused by their own leaders' refusal to accept peace. During the same era far greater numbers of Vietnamese, Cambodian, Afghan, Somali and other refugees , whose ranks now include some 2 million Sudanese, suffered far worse tribulations, which shamefully got far less press attention. Being overexposed, Pipes rightly concludes, means that Israel is "held to impossible moral standards." Israel is measured "not in relation to [its enemies] or other states, but in relation to abstract ideals."

Pipes offers 10 times the wisdom of many other volumes, despite the book's age. Alyssa A. Lappen

This book came out fifteen years ago, but it is still worth reading now. One benefit is that we can be sure it hasn't been influenced by more recent events!

Pipes points out that he writes as an historian, placing events in their larger historical context. And that there are two main factors that make this perspective worthwhile. First, there is the feeling that things today are going poorly, which leads to a fascination with the past. Second is the unsettled politics which make recent events hard to explain unless one can put them in a larger context.

There's an essay about the risks of supporting fundamentalist Muslims against communism, something we all should have taken more seriously. There's an article comparing Jewish and Muslim life, and pointing out that in both religions, people are becoming less observant of traditions, and that as a result, there has been more emphasis on faith in both religions, making them both a little more like Christianity in that respect. There's another fine essay about the roots of Muslim antisemitism and Western receptivity to it. And some interesting material about the Muslims of Central Asia (my ancestors!) as part of the then Soviet Empire. We also get to read about the origins of the Iraq-Iran war.

We discover how oil-rich Saudi Arabia and Kuwait treat foreign workers (mostly Muslim Arabs themselves). And there is a (pre-invasion) analysis of Kuwait in particular: it has become very rich from its oil. What will it do with all that wealth? Anything useful?

We all know that many Arabs want to get rid of Israel. Pipes asks what they want to replace it by. A bigger Syria? A bigger Jordan? A Pan-Arab nation? A local Arab tyrant? A fundamentalist state? A nation of local residents? And he asks why Arafat was always so unsuccessful militarily. Most folks who keep losing battles either start winning or get replaced. Why was Arafat so successful at getting support even though he never accomplished anything of value to anyone in the region? Pipes explains that Arafat's support came from Arab states, not from local Arabs.

There's an article on suicide terrorism, "the new scourge," which also ought to have been taken more seriously fifteen years ago.

An excellent essay deals with the way President Carter mishandled the Iran hostage situation. Objectively, Carter did a terrible job here, allowing American foreign policy to be determined "on the interests of a handful of individuals." Pipes predicted that this could set a precedent for more American helplessness when confronted by terrorists.

Three of the more interesting articles deal with the United States and the Middle East. The author points out that the debate between American pro-Israeli and anti-Israeli camps crosses party lines. One can be liberal or conservative and support either side. The pro-Israeli side sees the Arab conflict with Israel as a symptom of Arab instability. It recommends Arab reform and says that were Israel to vanish, all the Arab problems would remain. The anti-Israeli side sees the Arab conflict with Israel as a cause of Arab instability. It blames Israel for all the problems between the Arabs and the West and recommends doing something about Israel. It says that were Israel to vanish, we'd all live in peace together, our problems gone. Pipes explains that the fact that people on both sides are taking similar positions gives the United States a unique opportunity to help resolve the conflict. And he then gets into the question of the extent to which American Presidents determine our Middle East policy (it's to a significant extent). And how our record in that region isn't too good: we've come up with a big bunch of plans for resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict and none have gotten off the ground (by the way, in the ensuing fifteen years, we've come up with many more plans and we're no closer).

Perhaps the most interesting essay is near the end of the book, on the media and the Middle East. As Pipes shows, the media do not merely report the news here, they create a fair amount of it. And he quite properly says that the preoccupation on Israel and on Arafat certainly gave us all a very narrow and misleading view of the region. It made Israel appear far more important than it is in real life. And I think it made Arafat appear to be something like the most important person who ever lived. While one can make a hero out of anyone (consider Horst Wessel), it isn't always useful to do so.

Yes, this book is still worth reading, in spite of all the wild happenings and misadventures that have gone on in the region in the past fifteen years.